Yesterday June 8 was another Munich

[ugarte]

The Security Council of the world community of nations essentially bowed to Bush by putting its fig leaf of approval on the invasion and occupation of a sovereign country. Although some may argue nuances of language, the chimp has got to be smirking today.

The target will now shift to Iran, and although armed resistance in Iraq will continue, Bush will be more emboldened than ever by the lessons in all of this: that, at the end of the day, other nations can be bought off and that power trumps all.

A dark shameful day.

[LittleApple81]

1. Yup..on C-Span this morning Kenneth Adelman (Defense Policy Board)

was already badmouthing France, Germany, Russia and anybody else who is not sending their young to be killed in Iraq.
They are puffing their chests again. Wolfowitz, apparently, said they will have over 100,000 Iraqis in their "new army". Even if this is not true, they WILL SAY it is and then feel free to attack something else.
One thing they did not take into account is that THE KURDS are really pissed about the new government...they will have troubles there.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Agreed

There is no sovereignty being turned over in Iraq. The colonial power has imposed a puppet regime on its colony that will do its bidding with an empty resolution stating it is free to do otherwise. Does anybody believe that when the interim "government" of Iraq begins actually assert its power over Iraq's security or starts using Iraq's resources for the benefit of the Iraqi people that the US ambassador will find some pretext to threaten the leaders?

If the UN wants to pass a worthwhile resolution, it would call for a complete US withdrawal from Iraq, assert the sovereignty of the Iraq and the right of the Iraqi people to govern their own land, state that the US invasion and occupation is contrary to international law and convene an international tribunal in order to prosecute those responsible for war crimes.

[ugarte]

3. Just face it: we live in a unipolar world

and there really is no counterweight to the U.S.

All the more urgent to dump Bush.

[I thought so.]

4. WRONG!

The army is exhausted. The UN is a political org. Why are you surprised? UN resolutions are nonsense. I can think of at least 100 that have been violated because of the US veto. We have our parasite.

No more military adventures are possible now. No more wars are possible. The USA has borrowed 7 trillion,the annual interest on that is 178 billion. We are BROKE!

[ugarte]

6. I am not surprised. Disgusted is the word

True, for both political reasons and the ones you mention, Bush will be constrained from invading anyone else for a while. But don't doubt that he means what he says regarding the Axis of Evil.

Flush with confidence, he'll soon be beating Iran over the head with the threat of UN sanctions.

[htuttle]

5. Blair, Chirac proclaim 'Peace in Our Time'

"Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."

[DivinBreuvage]

7. I'd like to see the rest of the world take a more active stance too

But a lot of people here will accuse us of a "blame the rape victim" mentality, judging from the response to Lech Walesa's recent criticism of France and Germany for not doing enough the first time around.

It seems to me there are a number of players on the stage: Europe, Russia, China, and a potential bloc of Arabic or Islamic nations. Given the current straits the US finds itself in economically, politically, and militarily, if it really came to a showdown I believe that an alliance of any two of the above players could wield enough economic and political power to openly oppose the United States, at least so long as none of the remaining players actively allied itself with the US.

Even from a military standpoint the US might find itself outmatched, at least in terms of being able to project its power overseas. The situation could be similar to WWII, in which the German Wehrmacht, perhaps the most competent war machine of all time (and I include the modern US army in that comparison) proved unable, for all its training and technological sophistication, to overcome its overextension and lack of resources (including oil, a similar vulnerability for us) and its opponents' mass production of simple but sturdy equipment and vast reservoirs of manpower.

The rest of the world does not need to be strong enough to invade the United States. It simply needs to be strong enough to keep the US in the Western hemisphere, and I think it can muster that strength if it really wants to.

For the time being, however, I think our potential rivals are content to pursue a safer and more lucrative strategy: putting up token resistance to wring concessions and payoffs while humiliating the Bush administration, then giving in before they cross the line of provocation. Neoconservatism is doing the dirty work for them, making our country poorer and weaker by the day. In short, they are letting Bush pay them for the privilege of buying enough rope to hang America.