"Soon enough, however, old reflexes and tones cropped up here and there on the left, both abroad and at home\ufffdsmugness, acrimony, even schadenfreude, accompanied by the notion that the attacks were, well, not a just dessert, exactly, but\ufffddamnable yet understandable payback\ufffdrooted in America's own crimes of commission and omission\ufffdreaping what empire had sown."

Fuck, and I thought >I< wrote long sentences.

Okay, does anyone disagree that our foreign policy could, in many cases, be described as "support whomever will fight our enemies"?

Given that, isn't it understandable that some people will want to strike back at us?

Eventually, someone is going to find a way to do so. Just as they did then.

"After all, was not America essentially the oil-greedy, Islam-disrespecting oppressor of Iraq, Sudan, Palestine?"

Strike everything after "oil-greedy". If we didn't fund those regimes and play in their politics, they wouldn't be able to strike at us. And the only reason we do that is because they have the oil we want. Cut that and they will never be a threat again.

"And soon, without pausing to consider why the vast majority of Americans might feel bellicose as well as sorrowful, some on the left were dismissing the idea that the United States had any legitimate recourse to the use of force in self-defense\ufffdor indeed any legitimate claim to the status of victim."

Victim?
Doesn't that require a victimizer?
And that is Afghanistan?

No, Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban (was controlled). They weren't the cause of our problems. They just gave ObL a place to call "home".

We've declared that ObL is the person responsible.
We haven't gotten him yet.

"A reasoned, vigorous examination of U.S. policies, including collusion in the Israeli occupation, sanctions against Iraq, and support of corrupt regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, is badly needed."

But there is nothing in some of these policies and actions that would cause someone to hate us enough to kill himself striking back at us?

"So is critical scrutiny of the administration's actions in Afghanistan and American unilateralism on many fronts."

Ummmm, I'm starting to sense a drift from the original target.

So, the US has done some bad things in the past. Some very bad things. To people in that part of the world.

But it isn't logical to see that some of those people would hate us enough to kill themselves striking back at us?

Someone doesn't understand human nature.

"But in the wake of September 11 there erupted something more primal and reflexive than criticism: a kind of left-wing fundamentalism, a negative faith in America the ugly."

Not that I've seen.

But, now you have people who can name the ruling regime in Afghanistan (and locate Afghanistan on a map) that couldn't do that earlier in 2001. It's called 'awareness'.

"In this cartoon view of the world, there is nothing worse than American power\ufffdnot the woman-enslaving Taliban, not an unrepentant Al Qaeda committed to killing civilians as they please\ufffdand America is nothing but a self-seeking bully."

No examples, no support, no argument.

"It does not face genuine dilemmas."
Of course it did. But it has not always chosen the best route. Many times it has chosen the path of the bully.

"It never has legitimate reason to do what it does."
'Legitimate' is an interesting word to use in this context. Is it 'legitimate' to fund murderers if they're killing women, children, nuns and your political opponents?

"Of the perils of American ignorance, of our fantasy life of pure and unappreciated goodness, much can be said."

Yes, like who in the US believes that our actions have always been "pure" and "good"?

"The failures of intelligence that made September 11 possible include not only security oversights, but a vast combination of stupefaction and arrogance\ufffdnot least the all-or-nothing thinking that armed the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan in order to fight our own jihad against Soviet Communism\ufffdand a willful ignorance that not so long ago permitted half the citizens of a flabby, self-satisfied democracy to vote for a man unembarrassed by his lack of acquaintanceship with the world."

Again, that's one long sentence. Essentially, our intelligence efforts were guided by idiots who didn't think we could be hurt by these people.

Which does kind of point out the flaws in our relationships with them.

"But myopia in the name of the weak is no more defensible than myopia in the name of the strong."

'Defensible'? Well, someone who is weak is less able to cause problems due to his myopia than someone who is strong.

"Like jingoists who consider any effort to understand terrorists immoral, on the grounds that to understand is to endorse, these hard-liners disdain complexity."

I've seen that many times. Even in these forums.

"They see no American motives except oil-soaked power lust, but look on the bright side of societies that cultivate fundamentalist ignorance."

Ummmm, not quite. Or, not that I am aware of. I recall reports that we were trying to work out oil deals with the Taliban prior to the attack. Which means we were going to give money to "societies that cultivate fundamentalist ignorance".

Money == support
yes/no?

"They point out that the actions of various mass murderers (the Khmer Rouge, bin Laden) must be "contextualized," yet refuse to consider any context or reason for the actions of Americans."

Possibly. But that is just as useless as trying to claim that the US is always right.

Understanding comes when you look at how ALL the participants acted and why.

"If we are to understand Islamic fundamentalism, must we not also trouble ourselves to understand America, this freedom-loving, brutal, tolerant, shortsighted, selfish, generous, trigger-happy, dumb, glorious, fat-headed powerhouse?"

Adjective count:
Islam get 1
The US gets 11

Understanding?

"Not a bad place to start might be the patriotic fervor that arose after the attacks."

Simple. That always happens. Having a defined enemy brings people together.

Didn't you go over this in your "dysfunctional" article before?

"What's offensive about affirming that you belong to a people, that your fate is bound up with theirs?"

Depends upon the people, eh?

What if you affirm that you're a Klansman?

"Should it be surprising that suffering close-up is felt more urgently, more deeply, than suffering at a distance?"

Nope. Completely understood.

"After disaster comes a desire to reassemble the shards of a broken community, withstand the loss, strike back at the enemy."

Completely understood.

"The attack stirs, in other words, patriotism\ufffdlove of one's people, pride in their endurance, and a desire to keep them from being hurt anymore."

Completely understood.

...
skipping a lot
...

"No government anywhere has the right to neglect the safety of its own citizens\ufffdnot least against an enemy that swears it will strike again."

That is debatable. But, assuming it is true, what about the responsibility of determining what is the BEST method of preventing future attacks?

"Yet some who instantly, and rightly, understand that Palestinians may burn to avenge their compatriots killed by American weapons assume that Americans have only interests (at least the elites do) and gullibilities (which are the best the masses are capable of)."

Possibly. These would be termed "idiots". Why waste time discussing them?

Rather, look at the REPEATED suicide bombers that Palestine sends into Israel.

Is Israel safer because of their actions?

" Keyword Search Advanced Search

home / magazine / January/February 2002 / Blaming America First

Blaming America First Why are some on the left, who rightly demand sympathy for victims around the world, so quick to dismiss American suffering?
by Todd Gitlin January/February 2002




As shock and solidarity overflowed on September 11, it seemed for a moment that political differences had melted in the inferno of Lower Manhattan. Plain human sympathy abounded amid a common sense of grief and emergency. Soon enough, however, old reflexes and tones cropped up here and there on the left, both abroad and at home\ufffdsmugness, acrimony, even schadenfreude, accompanied by the notion that the attacks were, well, not a just dessert, exactly, but\ufffddamnable yet understandable payback\ufffdrooted in America's own crimes of commission and omission\ufffdreaping what empire had sown. After all, was not America essentially the oil-greedy, Islam-disrespecting oppressor of Iraq, Sudan, Palestine? Were not the ghosts of the Shah's Iran, of Vietnam, and of the Cold War Afghan jihad rattling their bones? Intermittently grandiose talk from Washington about a righteous "crusade" against "evil" helped inflame the rhetoric of critics who feared\ufffdlegitimately\ufffdthat a deepening war in Afghanistan would pile human catastrophe upon human catastrophe. And soon, without pausing to consider why the vast majority of Americans might feel bellicose as well as sorrowful, some on the left were dismissing the idea that the United States had any legitimate recourse to the use of force in self-defense\ufffdor indeed any legitimate claim to the status of victim.

I am not speaking of the ardent, and often expressed, hope that September 11's crimes against humanity might eventually elicit from America a greater respect for the whole of assaulted humanity. A reasoned, vigorous examination of U.S. policies, including collusion in the Israeli occupation, sanctions against Iraq, and support of corrupt regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, is badly needed. So is critical scrutiny of the administration's actions in Afghanistan and American unilateralism on many fronts. But in the wake of September 11 there erupted something more primal and reflexive than criticism: a kind of left-wing fundamentalism, a negative faith in America the ugly.

In this cartoon view of the world, there is nothing worse than American power\ufffdnot the woman-enslaving Taliban, not an unrepentant Al Qaeda committed to killing civilians as they please\ufffdand America is nothing but a self-seeking bully. It does not face genuine dilemmas. It never has legitimate reason to do what it does. When its rulers' views command popularity, this can only be because the entire population has been brainwashed, or rendered moronic, or shares in its leaders' monstrous values.

Of the perils of American ignorance, of our fantasy life of pure and unappreciated goodness, much can be said. The failures of intelligence that made September 11 possible include not only security oversights, but a vast combination of stupefaction and arrogance\ufffdnot least the all-or-nothing thinking that armed the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan in order to fight our own jihad against Soviet Communism\ufffdand a willful ignorance that not so long ago permitted half the citizens of a flabby, self-satisfied democracy to vote for a man unembarrassed by his lack of acquaintanceship with the world.

But myopia in the name of the weak is no more defensible than myopia in the name of the strong. Like jingoists who consider any effort to understand terrorists immoral, on the grounds that to understand is to endorse, these hard-liners disdain complexity. They see no American motives except oil-soaked power lust, but look on the bright side of societies that cultivate fundamentalist ignorance. They point out that the actions of various mass murderers (the Khmer Rouge, bin Laden) must be "contextualized," yet refuse to consider any context or reason for the actions of Americans.

If we are to understand Islamic fundamentalism, must we not also trouble ourselves to understand America, this freedom-loving, brutal, tolerant, shortsighted, selfish, generous, trigger-happy, dumb, glorious, fat-headed powerhouse?


Not a bad place to start might be the patriotic fervor that arose after the attacks. What's offensive about affirming that you belong to a people, that your fate is bound up with theirs? Should it be surprising that suffering close-up is felt more urgently, more deeply, than suffering at a distance? After disaster comes a desire to reassemble the shards of a broken community, withstand the loss, strike back at the enemy. The attack stirs, in other words, patriotism\ufffdlove of one's people, pride in their endurance, and a desire to keep them from being hurt anymore. And then, too, the wound is inverted, transformed into a badge of honor. It is translated into protest ("We didn't deserve this") and indignation ("They can't do this to us"). Pride can fuel the quest for justice, the rage for punishment, or the pleasures of smugness. The dangers are obvious. But it should not be hard to understand that the American flag sprouted in the days after September 11, for many of us, as a badge of belonging, not a call to shed innocent blood.

This sequence is not a peculiarity of American arrogance, ignorance, and power. It is simply and ordinarily human. It operates as clearly, as humanly, among nonviolent Palestinians attacked by West Bank and Gaza settlers and their Israeli soldier-protectors as among Israelis suicide-bombed at a nightclub or a pizza joint. No government anywhere has the right to neglect the safety of its own citizens\ufffdnot least against an enemy that swears it will strike again. Yet some who instantly, and rightly, understand that Palestinians may burn to avenge their compatriots killed by American weapons assume that Americans have only interests (at least the elites do) and gullibilities (which are the best the masses are capable of).

In this purist insistence on reducing America and Americans to a wicked stereotype, we encounter a soft anti-Americanism that, whatever takes place in the world, wheels automatically to blame America first."

Again, why discuss idiots? What about when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan? Was the US to blame then?

No.

But the actions we took THEN are having reprocussions that we're feeling NOW.

"This is not the hard anti-Americanism of bin Laden, the terrorist logic under which, because the United States maintains military bases in the land of the prophet, innocents must be slaughtered and their own temples crushed. Totalitarians like bin Laden treat issues as fodder for the apocalyptic imagination. They want power and call it God. Were Saddam Hussein or the Palestinians to win all their demands, bin Laden would move on, in his next video, to his next issue."

Completely true.

And it would affect us how?

Not in the fucking least.

Except that the US has "interests" (oil) over there.

Oh, you didn't like it when people said that the US had "interests". But there they are.

Did the US care when Saddam gassed his own people? No.
Because they didn't control oil.

"Soft anti-Americans, by contrast, sincerely want U.S. policies to change\ufffdthough by their lights, such turnabouts are well-nigh unimaginable\ufffdbut they commit the grave moral error of viewing the mass murderer (if not the mass murder) as nothing more than an outgrowth of U.S. policy."

Again, why waste time discussing idiots?

Simply remove the need for their oil and you'll see EVERYTHING change. The mass murderers won't be able to kill anymore than they can walk to.

"They not only note but gloat that the United States built up Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan as a counterfoil to the Russians."

Yep. A choice was made and we are experiencing the effects of that choice. The reason we are still experiencing the effects is that we need the oil.

Decision.
Interests.
and the current situation.

"In this thinking, Al Qaeda is an effect, not a cause; a symptom, not a disease."

Wrong terms.

Human nature will always give rise to Al Qaeda type organizations. Even in our own country we have the KKK and Aryan Nations and so on.

By feeding them money and influence and weapons, we turn them from minor examples of humanities inhumanity to major, world-wide threats.

We don't create them, we feed them.

"The initiative, the power to cause, is always American."

Nope. Just the belief that we need to feed these in order to get their oil.

"But here moral reasoning runs off the rails."

:) I wouldn't apply the word "reasoning" to this article. It's more of a rant.

"Who can hold a symptom accountable?"

Those who's rights are violated by it. DUH!

"To the left-wing fundamentalist, the only interesting or important brutality is at least indirectly the United States' doing."

This is called "fanaticism". See "religion".

"Thus, sanctions against Iraq are denounced, but the cynical mass murderer Saddam Hussein, who permits his people to die, remains an afterthought."

That depends upon the sanctions and their effects.

Remember, look at effects, not jingos.

"Were America to vanish, so, presumably, would the miseries of Iraq and Egypt."

Well, it WOULD be a sign from Allah.

"In the United States, adherents of this kind of reflexive anti-Americanism are a minority (isolated, usually, on campuses and in coastal cities, in circles where reality checks are scarce), but they are vocal and quick to action."

Hmmm, doctors are also a minority. As are most other educated professionals.

Uneducated morons, however, are just about everywhere.

"Observing flags flying everywhere, they feel embattled and draw on their embattlement for moral credit, thus roping themselves into tight little circles of the pure and the saved."

Can I get an "amen" brothers!

Why did this suddenly drop into a religious discussion about non-religious beliefs?

Maybe because it is easier to demonize someone who follows some weird "religion"? I thought so.

"The United States represents a frozen imperialism that values only unbridled power in the service of untrammeled capital."

In many cases, yes.

"It is congenitally, genocidally, irremediably racist."

Ummm, no.

"Why complicate matters by facing up to America's self-contradictions, its on-again, off-again interest in extending rights, its clumsy egalitarianism coupled with ignorant arrogance?"

Simple. Because if you kill someone's mother in front of him and then send him some CARE packages, he's more likely to remember Mommy's death than that chocolaty goodness of the Snickers bar.

Fucking up REAL BAD is NOT made all better by "clumsy egalitarianism".

"America is seen as all of a piece, and it is hated because it is hateful\ufffdperiod."

Allow me to quote for you. ahem "The evil that men do lives after them but the
good is oft interred with their bones,...."

"One may quarrel with the means used to bring it low, but low is only what it deserves."

Nope. But we do need to realize that supporting murderers and rapists is NOT repaired by half-hearted gestures and late night pledge drives.

"So even as the smoke was still rising from the ground of Lower Manhattan, condemnations of mass murder made way in some quarters for a retreat to the old formula and the declaration that the "real question" was America's victims\ufffdas if there were not room in the heart for more than one set of victims."

They were victims.

Just as the children of the mothers and fathers that we've killed are victims.

But it is up to us to stop the cycle of victimization. We are the ones who are capable of making this the LAST generation of orphans and cripples due to OUR actions.

"And the seductions of closure were irresistible even to those dedicated, in other circumstances, to intellectual glasnost."

Nope. Working to end it takes MORE work than ordering another bombing run.

"Noam Chomsky bent facts to claim that Bill Clinton's misguided attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant in 1998 was worse by far than the massacres of September 11."

So Noam is an idiot.

"Edward Said, the exiled Palestinian author and critic, wrote of "a superpower almost constantly at war, or in some sort of conflict, all over the Islamic domains." As if the United States always picked the fight; as if U.S. support of the Oslo peace process, whatever its limitations, could be simply brushed aside; as if defending Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo\ufffdhowever dreadful some of the consequences\ufffdwere the equivalent of practicing gunboat diplomacy in Latin America or dropping megatons of bombs on Vietnam and Cambodia."

My, there are certainly a lot of examples of US involvement in conflicts in that statement. Ever wonder why it is so easy to find US involvement?

"From the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, who has admirably criticized her country's policies on nuclear weapons and development, came the queenly declaration that "American people ought to know that it is not them but their government's policies that are so hated.""

Well, the people are hated because they are visible, killable, representations of their government. So she's sort of incorrect.

"When Roy described bin Laden as "the American president's dark doppelganger" and claimed that "the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable," she was in the grip of a prejudice invulnerable to moral distinctions."

Actually, if you look at it from a high enough level, they are the same. Both are ordering their "troops" to attack the enemy. It's only when you get to details that they differentiate.

Well, details and effects.

"We must abstain from the fairy-tale pleasures of oversimplification."

Hasn't most of this article been oversimplification? That there is some unidentified union of anti-american americans?

"We must propose what is practical\ufffdthe stakes are too great for the luxury of any fundamentalism."

Even US fundamentalism? The belief that we know what is best and are best able to rule?

"We must forgo the luxury of assuming that we are not obligated to imagine ourselves in the seats of power."

Hmmmmm, well.............I guess not.

We must reject all Fundamentalisms EXCEPT for the belief that we will rule.

"Generals, it's said, are always planning to fight the last war."

Bad generals are doing that. Good generals are planning how to fight the NEXT war. Look up "Blitzkrieg" and World War II.

"But they're not alone in suffering from sentimentality, blindness, and mental laziness disguised as resolve."

True. Most of the population suffers from this.

"The one-eyed left helps no one when it mires itself in its own mirror-image myths."

True. If it were doing that. Or is that another oversimplification?

"Breaking habits is desperately hard, but those who evade the difficulties in their purist positions and refuse to face all the mess and danger of reality only guarantee their bitter inconsequence."

Exactly.

Which is why we must look at how our actions to "protect" our "interests" have resulted in the world we now live in.

And, once the flaws are found, we must strive to correct the situation and work to remove those flaws from our national character.

The first requirement is removing our dependancy upon their oil.

"And, in the attempt to combat jingoism, brandioch comes up with the most jingoistic notion possible. Up to us? Really?"

Yes. Really. Or did you manage to miss the entire preceeding portion of my post?

"There is thus neither restraint upon Israel, nor support of Israel in any material degree. How many dead, orphans, cripples, widows, and other undesirables would occur? --That's only the simplest, most obvious example."

So, the US is responsible for Israel? I'm not following your "logic" here.

Is the US responsible when a suicide bombs a bus in Israel?
yes/no?

Is the US responsible when Israeli soldiers shoot into a crowd of protesters?
yes/no?

"How many widows and orphans will the Iraqis generate when they invade Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, then turn their attention to Jordan?"

Is the US responsible for Iraq?
yes/no?

Is the US responsible for Kuwait?
yes/no?

Is the US responsible for Jordan?
yes/no?

Tell me this, WHERE DOES OUR RESPONSIBILITY END?

"Consider, for a moment, one of the images from Afghanistan: a woman, massing perhaps fifty kilos, completely enveloped in the burkha and thus highly hampered in her ability to move, being whipped by a well-fed, bushy-bearded, hundred-kilo man using a meter and a half of rebar. Will that sort of thing stop if the United States should disappear? Echo answers hollowly."

ARE WE RESPONSIBLE FOR AFGHANISTAN?
yes/no?

"Yes, we've done many things wrong. But "It's all our fault" is no less jingoistic than "We're the only ones who can help.""

Allow me to clarify something for you.

If YOU do something WRONG it is YOUR fault.

We've done MANY things wrong.

Those things are OUR fault.

Where did I lose you?

"Yes, the basis of the whole mess is oil -- more precisely, energy."

Ummm, no. Oil. More precisely, the oil they have.

"But, as pointed out elsewhere, the United States itself could do without Saudi oil entirely if (a) it had to and (b) our other oil suppliers didn't go away."

So, we maintain our foreign policy to maintain our supply of oil.

And you don't think that I've mentioned that in my post? Did you miss it?

"Shucks, we could provide most of our own energy needs if the need was acute; we don't, because we want to protect the environment and (say it softly) keep our own in reserve while we use up other people's."

Again, did you MISS that part of my previous post?

Our foreign policy has been to support ANYONE who will guarantee that the oil supply won't stop.

Not to support the "good" people.

Not to support the "right" people.

Not to support the "democratic" people.

We will support ANYONE who will sell us oil.

And that is the problem.

"So is it our oil interests we're defending?"

Hmmmm, didn't I make that clear enough? Is there some doubt as to what I believe?

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT IS OUR "INTEREST" IN THEIR OIL THAT IS THE MOTIVATION BEHIND OUR FOREIGN POLICY.

Is that clear enough for you?

"Or, just possibly, by some minuscule chance, could it be that part of what we're trying to protect is the ability of Europeans to sit in safe warm apartments as they compose their denunciatory screeds?"

Ummm, no.

Because we aren't buying the oil and then GIVING it to those Europeans. Are we?

We want the oil.
We WANT the oil.
WE want the oil.
We want the OIL.

Is there some way I can make this a little more clear to you?

"Is it at all possible that the same policies that allow mass settlement of New England -- which produces none of the energy it consumes to stay warm amidst the snowdrifts -- will inevitably permit Murican Dumth to produce SUVs?"

News flash, New England is ALREADY SETTLED.

And they're a part of the US.

And the US wants that oil!

Which forms the basis of our foreign policy.

Where am I losing you?

"That maintaining Noam Chomsky's health, happiness, and comfort -- not to mention his access to megawatts of transmitter power -- also leads directly to Ford Expeditions?"

Ummm, okay, you've lost me. What are you talking about?

"Yes, if we had a time machine and unlimited military/economic power, we'd love to go back and do it over, so that we didn't depend on inexpensive energy to keep our society running."

Oh, so SORRY! You MUST HAVE MISSED THE PART WHERE I WAS TALKING ABOUT WHAT WE SHOULD DO NOW!!!!

You see, we can end this cycle NOW and part of that REQUIRES that we lose our oil dependancy.

Keep your time machine fantasies to yourself, please?

"Let me know when the chronoscape does its trial runs, OK?"

Gotta love that. You retreat into fantasies instead of looking at ways that we can solve this problem NOW.

Again, can you at least TRY to keep a grip on reality?

Hint: Reality doesn't have time machines.

"In the meantime, when we duck and weave and, yes, hurt people to keep the oil flowing, you might at least try to keep in mind the remote possibility that part of what we've got in mind is Japanese retirees and European Greens, who are just as dependent on cheap energy as we are; perhaps more."

Okay, so your position is that......

The US is responsible for the oil consumption of Europe?
yes/no?

The US is responsible for the oil consumption of Japan?
yes/no?

Let me put it this way..........

Is there ANYONE in the world who is RESPONSIBLE for their own oil consumption?
Aside from the US who is responsible for its consumption AND EVERY OTHER PERSON'S ON THE PLANET.

"And lost in all of this rhetoric is something I consider rather basic."

Given your belief in time machines and the US's responsibility to keep Japanese retirees supplied with oil, I can't WAIT to see what this is.

"For half a century we have wanted one (1) thing from the Arabs: recognition of the existence of the State of Israel."

WTF?

So, we haven't been in it for the oil?
But we're responsible for everyone in the world's oil consumption.

We're in it so that Israel can be recognized by the Arabs?

Hmmmm, yes. This seems to fit right in with your time machines and ubiquitous US responsibility for world wide oil supplies.

"Every proposal, every agreement, every debate on the subject has drawn one, single, unitary response: "Kill the Jews and destroy their works!" "

Huh? So the deal that we were trying to strike with the Taliban over oil was actually a deal to kill Jews?

coo coo! coo coo!

"Kind of disappointing to those whose Pollyanaish approach to all things is to talk it out and compromise."

Let me help you out here. My post was the one that was immediately before your's.

You do know where my post was, right?

You did read it, right?

Read? Like in the words and stuff like that?

Now, tell me where "compromise" came from? I don't want to "compromise" with anyone. I want us off of their oil so we don't have to get involved in their petty border disputes.

And they ARE petty border disputes. Right up until we supply them with oil bux and weapons and international fame.

"We have talked and cajoled, we have employed "diplomacy" in all its myriad forms, we have bribed, we have tried to offer good examples, we have "respected cultural norms", and in general we have tried to offer Muslims -- and Arabs in particular -- a place in the complex web of trust relationships that is polyglot industrial society."

All in an effort to secure access to their oil.

And they know this.

Fuck EVERY ONE OF THEM KNOWS THIS.

That's why NONE OF IT WORKS.

We will do ANYTHING for ANYONE to keep the oil flowing.

So, the SOLUTION is to stop needing that oil.

"Their response has been to treat "trust" as an opportunity -- if it exists, you can betray it and kill a lot of people."

Because IT DOES NOT MATTER!!!

No matter WHAT they do, we will be back, begging for oil.

And they know that.

" It's hard to see how a further extension of Western values can accomplish anything in the face of that."

The ONLY "Western" value we've extended is OUR NEED FOR THEIR OIL.

Haven't I made that clear enough?

Is there someway I could phrase it that would make it clearer?

"But, if talking won't work, the other possibility is violence -- and we see that being rejected."

Okay, there are none so blind as those who will not see.

You've COMPLETELY skipped over the option of NOT NEEDING THEIR OIL.

Is that some form of mental block you have? A psychological issue?

"So where does "we are the only ones who can fix it" fit in that?"

Well, I don't know if this will get through your mental block. I'd love to see what this post looks like in your head. Are you asking yourself "why does he fill page after page with white lines?"

Let's see........................

"we are the only ones wo can fix it"...................

Could that have SOMETHING to do with us getting off of their oil?

Could it?

Might it?

Or do you see another white line there? Or is it incomprehensible gibberish?

Where did I lose you?

Is the US responsible for EVERY other country's oil needs?

Is the US responsible for the behaviour in another country?

Is the US responsible for Israel's acceptance?

and WHY do you suggest it is if it isn't?

and if it IS, why do YOU believe it is?

"Oil is a component of our foreign policy. It's even a large component. What I was trying to point out is that that doesn't necessarily mean that oil is a component of our foreign policy because we want the oil ourselves."

Like I said before, why are we responsible for Japan's oil supply?

Hmmmm?

"If you are saying oil is the only component, or even the only significant component, you are either a liar or too stupid to take seriously."

Really? Well, take out the oil and see how our foreign policy changes.

"What you haven't realized yet is that the people you're parrotting have very carefully simplified their arguments down to the point where people of limited intellect can apprehend them, and in the process have left out a lot of things that are germane to the case."

Okay, tell me what has been left out.

"Europe is a cold place."

Parts are, parts aren't.

"They need energy [oil] in order to stay warm, so their fingers don't cramp while they're writing their anti-American screeds. "

And that matters to us because.....................?

"Part of our foreign policy [up to now] has been based on the idea that that's actually a good idea -- that people should not only be free to express themselves [even if we don't like the expressions!] but also able to express themselves without, for instance, freezing. "

Are you serious about this? Our foreign policy is based around making sure some idiot in Trunklesburg has cheap oil?

And you think that >I< am the one that doesn't understand foreign policy?

"News flash: There are millions of people in New England. It gets COLD in New England."

You see, that's the part I don't understand. I can see us needing the oil.
-BUT-
I can't see us being responsible for OTHER COUNTRIES.

But you're going to skip over the MAJOR portion (not the title in both these posts) about WHY we are responsible for other countries' oil supplies and instead go on about New England.

Don't try that. Answer the question as to WHY we are responsible for Japan's oil supply. Don't tell me that we are.

Tell me why we are.

"Well, well, aren't we just overflowing with the Milk of Human Kindness today! Gee, I thought you were the one who was all worried that we'd mistreat people down in Cuba..."

Clue #1. If we weren't tied up in the oil over there, they wouldn't be in Cuba.

"We live on a planet that's eight thousand miles in diameter, more or less. "

Clue #2. When people start quoting irrelevant "facts", that usually means they've run out of relevant facts are are going to try to bullshit you.

"What part of "the planet is too damn small for us to go it alone?""

Yep, there's the bullshit. Why is it that Japan cannot ensure that it has access to the oil it needs? Why do we have to do that?

Answer the question.

"Clearly Planet Brandioch is not inhabited by anyone you give a damn about. "

Ooooohhhh. I am verily wounded to the core!

Oh, wait a minute. Am I not the one who advocates treating the other people like humans?

Ah, I understand. You don't have any reason why we are responsible for everyone else's oil supply. So you're going to claim that I don't care about them.

Why don't you just tell me why we're responsible for their oil supply and leave off the hysterics?

"If you think the Arabs and the French don't like us now, watch what happens when we adopt an energy policy that beggars Europe. "

Again with the hysterics. Tell me why we're responsible for their energy usage? Don't give me the dire scenarios. Tell me WHY we're responsible for their oil supply.

"You really do think that the only reason Israel was established was to serve as catspaw so the U.S. could rape and pillage in the oil fields, don't you? Bah. Holocaust Denier, are you? Getcher brown shirt here..."

Again with they hysterics. I asked why we were responsible for everyone's oil supply. You said that Israel wants Arab recognition.

So? Why are we responsible for everyone's oil supply?

"Yes, we're responsible for the world's oil consumption... by your very own arguments."

Uh, no. That was my question to you. Why are we responsible for everyone's oil supply?

"After all, the whole point is to gitthatoil so we can make stuff cheap and make money, no?"

Nice tangent. Why are we responsible for everyone's oil supply?

"And the original point of the essay was why the Arabs are giving us trouble, no?"

True. I say that it is because of our interests in their oil and our willingness to support anyone in anything as long as they keep the oil flowing.

You say that this is our national responsiblity. And that the oil isn't for us. It's for everyone else.

So I'm asking why is it our national responsiblity to make sure other countries have oil? Why can't they do it themselves?

"We -- the Western nations, not just the United States -- established Israel for a complex of reasons, some based on generosity and good feeling, some based on guilt, and some based on various nastinesses."

And why are we responsible for everyone else's oil supply?

"The point I was trying to make was that we didn't expect the Arabs to love Jews (or anybody else); we expected the Arabs to participate in the ebb and flow of the Western World, and got severely disappointed. "

Very nice. So, why are we responsible for everyone's oil supply?

"You want to reduce it to the single word "oil", so the issue will be simple enough to fit in your frontal lobes. "

Nope. I want to show that without the oil, our foreign policy is COMPLETELY different.

And why are we responsible for everyone else's oil supply?

"Trouble is, it ain't that simple, and if you try to make decisions based on that oversimplification, you're gonna make it worse, not better."

So you claim. But you have not supported that statement yet. Tell me why we're responsible for everyone else's oil supply.

"Oh, and BTW -- ever hear the phrase "My Brother's Keeper?""

Yes. So tell me why we are responsible for everyone else's oil supply.

"No, I didn't skip it. What part of WE DON'T NEED THEIR OIL don't you get?"

The part where you tell me why we're responsible for everyone else's oil supply.

"
[AND]
--we want to abandon the rest of the world (how nicely they'll remember us!)
[AND]
--we don't mind the pollution and nuclear fallout resulting from the abandonment.
[END IF]
"

So tell me, why are we responsible for everyone else's oil supply?

Why aren't they responsible for their own oil supply?

"Brandioch, I'm sorry, but the issue really is more complicated than the people you're listening to want to paint it. "

And yet you cannot answer a simple question or two.
#1. Why are we responsible for everyone else's oil supply?

#2. Why can't they be responsible for their own oil supply?

"We don't need Middle Eastern oil; it provides around a fifth of what we use, and we could do very well indeed if it all vanished tomorrow. "

Yet our foreign policy seems to be based around it.

"Our own resources [oil, nuclear, "alternate"] could be developed; we could depend more on the Venezuelans and [especially] Russians to take up part of the slack; we could, yes, judiciously and carefully freeze a few people in the dark to minimize consumption. "

Again with the hysterics. Just tell me why we're responsible for everyone else's oil supply.

"There are even a fair number of people proposing just that -- but I don't think you'll like the much as allies; you certainly denounce them often enough. "

Whatever. You still haven't answered the question. Why are we responsible for everyone else's oil consumption?

"I'm talking about the people who claim that the right way to do it is to go cold turkey, sink the tankers, blast the Middle East flat with nukes, and paint parking-lot lines. "

Hysterics, again. Why are we responsible for everyone else's oil supply?

"But if you think we'd be better off, given that we've got to share this little pebble with two billion Chinese, a billion Europeans, and two and a half billion others, Planet Brandioch is indeed a strange and wonderful place. "

Whatever. Just tell me why we're responsible for their oil supply.

Why can't they be responsible for it themselves?

"Most of my previous post was an attempt to point out some of the unforeseen [by you and your ideological advisors] consequences of making those decisions. "

Actually, most of it was you stating your beliefs without support.

You see, you COULD give 99% of your money away to other people. They'd appreciate you for it. They'd have nice homes and warm clothes. And there would be a few of them that would be mad at you if you ever stopped doing it. You do share the planet with them, you know. "Brother's keeper" and all.

But you still haven't answered why you SHOULD do that.

Nor why they aren't able to support themselves.

That that again.

Well, first off, I'm not aware of any treaty with Japan that says we have to make sure they have affordable oil. If they're attacked, we will help them. But I don't see a yen/barrel inclusion anywhere.

"We *do* currently need oil from the Middle East. Theoretical pipe dreams about living without it aside, it would take years to muster the resources - which yes, we should do, but that's not the here and now."

Nope. It's not. And it NEVER will be UNTIL we start doing it.

Like I said before. For the next 20 years, cut 1/20'th of the influx from them. After 20 years, we will be at zero. Focus on developing alternatives.

We can KEEP saying that it won't work TODAY.

But until we START, the day when we're off their oil will NEVER come. (well, until the oil is gone and we have no alternatives readied)

First you say:
"We aren't responsible for everyone."

And I can agree with that.

Then you say:
"We are responsible for ourselves."

And I can agree with that.

Then you say:
"We have to take responsibility for others who need our help, just as others have to take responsibility for us when we need help."

And that's where you lose me. If we ARE NOT responsible for everyone (see the first two lines of this post), the how can we be RESPONSIBLE for everyone?

"If the Japanese don't get oil, their people die, their industry dies, and a huge chunk of our trade goes away."

Ummmmm, no. You are COMPLETELY wrong on this. People in Japan are going to DIE if we don't fuck around with the people of S.A. (and thereabouts)?!?

Please support that statement.

"Very likely, they get pissed off and start another war."

Excuse me, but could you find your way back to reality before continuing this conversation?

"If the Europeans don't get oil, their industry starts dying, their people start dying, a huge chunk of our trade goes away, and we get poorer."

Again, please support your position that people in Europe will die if we don't fuck around with oil producing nations.

"What happens when they get really mad?"

I don't know. Why don't YOU tell me what YOU think will happen?

"New England is a part of the United States."

Like I said before. When lots of irrelevant facts are thrown into the conversation, it is usually a sign that their position is crumbling and they're hoping to swamp you so you don't notice.

(skips forward a few paragraphs).

"But you're trying to focus the entire thrust of your argument on one single issue, and ignoring the "side" issues and the consequential damages."

And the rebuttal is.....................
New England is part of the US. Japan isn't.

It's like I said before. YOU (that is you, Ric), could give all your money away to strangers. They would like you. In fact, you could reduce the rations of some of your family members. Just like some of our troops die so that Japan can have cheap oil.

I'm not saying that we can't do this.

I'm asking why we have to do this.

A question that you have YET to answer.
Except to claim that Japan might start another war if we don't.

"It might be wrong, but it is accepted as one possibility -- and if you don't think United States trade policy hasn't included that idea as one of its components, you don't know anything about international policy."

Good move. Claim that I don't know something because you just brought it up. Hello? So, we trade with various countries. And we tried to negotiate a pipeline with Afghanistan. But now we're bombing them. Do you see the flaws in your viewpoint?

"And again -- do you think they're going to just disappear? [Whoever "they" are.] "

Ummmm, why don't you answer that second question first? Who are you talking about?

"Like the ostrich's enemies, that disappear when it puts its head in the sand [yes, I know they really don't do that]?"

Who? What? Reality?

"What you're positing is that if we don't buy their oil, they'll go away."

Amazing. How many posts and you STILL haven't read them?

I've never said that ANYONE will go away if we don't buy oil. The CLOSEST that this "discussion" has come to that is YOUR claim that people in Japan and Europe will DIE if we don't keep up our current policy (care to tell that to the orphans from the WTC attack?)

That's right.
"It's okay that daddy got killed, 'cause Daddy died so our country can make sure European Socialists can badmouth the US."

Or, at least, that seems to be the sum of your position.

"What's "away" in that context?"

You tell me. YOU are the one that said it.

"Is there any valid analogy with the concept of "throwing away" pollutants? "

And now you're going to introduce another concept? Does the term "straw man" have any meaning to you?

"Will they be poorer?"

Will >WHO< be poorer? Who are you talking about?

"If so, will they be enough poorer that they aren't a threat any more?"

Will >WHO< be poor enough? Who are you talking about?

Okay, I'm going to skip the rest of your post 'cause it's just repetitions of that theme. Until you tell me WHO you're talking about, asking rhetorical questions of them is just a waste of time (more so than regular rhetorical questions).

Oh, and from your last post it seems you've just proven you can't grasp a thought that extends over more than one -- preferably short -- sentence, O Master Of The Snip.

Happy now?

Now, to what were you refering? Be specific.