Since my views have started to attract some attention from a lot of users that do not maintain their own blogs, I have decided to post a weekly answer to some of the more interesting comments on my blog.

First of all, in response to “Liberal Nobility and the Myth of Conservatism”

You are correct that George Bush is the greatest disaster this country has had in modern history. But I would add this to the conservative voice, gay marriage, abortion and so called adding faith in government are not what conservatism is all about, those are just political mumbo jumbo to keep the masses appeased. This country has major problems, major, our infrastructure is falling apart, we are spending trillions of dollars on foreign ventures, again led by a politician and an party that claims conservatism. The reality is, they use the little things that mean NOTHING, to control the voices that think those little things are more than they are, so they can play slight of hand. Conservatives need a voice, but not a voice of BS, a voice that says lets move this country forward, not backward.

True American:

I’m glad that someone finally agrees with me on the topic of Bush, but I wouldn’t say that all of the moral “BS” issues are useless.  In fact, these issues are very important, but not necessarily from a policy perspective.  These wedge issues are used as a means of dividing an electorate, and forcing conservative voters out to support a particular candidate.  If it were not for issues such as these, conservatives would be hard pressed to win any election.  Unfortunately, the most important information is usually the least digestible for the masses…  That being said, I would say that the value of any issue in an election is only worth as much as the politician that it empowers. 

El Gordo and I have been commenting back and forth for a week or so, and it’s a shame that he doesn’t have his own blog.  He does make some interesting points.

Here’s what Mr. Gordo has to say about Humint and Russia

Mr. Gordo, I agree that from a proper, strategic point of view, NATO expansion is far more threatening than a simple radar installation.  However, we are not just talking about radar, but actual anti-missile defenses.  These types of installations do have a very specific purpose, which has been highlighted by Russia time and again.

Furthermore, many things in the world do not happen because of the US, but this is one of the cases where the US is solely responsible.  True, the Czech Republic is a free nation, but all of the equipment being set up is at the behest of US interests.  Furthermore, how would the US react if, all of a sudden, Russia installed special defensive, anti-missile and radar posts in Cuba or Mexico?  I bet that your reaction would be quite a bit more alarmed.

I also agree that it is entirely possible that Russia is using this same action to drive a wedge between the US and Europe.  In fact, it’s working pretty well from their standpoint.

Can you be a bit more clear about what “corporatist fascism” is? 

It seems that in every development in Russia, you are seeing some sort of potential strategic threat, even in their economy.  This, in fact, is exactly the way that Russians see us, in exclusively strategic terms, which is why their foreign policy keeps falling flat on its face.

Also, I’m a bit unfamiliar with “Bush Derangement Syndrome.”  What is that exactly?

Later on, Mr. El Gordo practically wrote me a dissertation on America and Europe Part II: How Europe sees US, so I’ll go ahead and say that I do agree with some of what he says, but I’ve picked out a few parts that strike me as inaccurate.

Look, I followed the pre-war debate in Germany, such as it was. Back then most European governments did not deny that Iraq was close to having nuclear weapons or was a dangerously aggressive regime that threatened the region. They simply did not want to face it, just as they simply hope for the best with regard to Iran now. They did not advance a single credible alternative to the war. Containment or sanctions would have been entirely up to the US. Almost all talk shows and editorials dealt with the need to stop the US, not with adressing the problem at hand.

Actually, I think that you might have your timing a bit off on this one.  The major criticisms with the war were that Bush authorized the invasion based on the congressional resolution that empowered him to “Disarm Saddam by Force.”  However, as the date for invasion came closer, the story for war kept changing.  The first story, WMDs, was based on evidence that was more than 10 years old, the same stuff that Clinton used to justify bombing baby-aspirin factories (which the Republicans jumped all over in the late 1990s).  Then, after Hans Blix concluded that there were no WMDs (later verified by the Pentagon in 2006), the story changed to “Saddam is a terrorist, and he supported 9/11 hijackers.  Polls taken before the war showed that nearly 40% of Americans thought that Saddam was directly responsible for 9/11. 

After reporting on this showed that Saddam’s special service was not in support of Al-Qaeda, the last rationale, even before the first bombs fell, was that Saddam was just an awful man, and that he deserved to die.  This is why the invasion was renamed “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” ostensibly designed to liberate the Iraqis from their dictator. 

Europe didn’t pose any solutions because the problem was already solved: Saddam was not armed, and not affiliated with terrorists, so the threat that he constituted didn’t actually exist.  Europe wasn’t ready to jump on the war bandwagon just to get rid of one more dictator, simply because they (and we) are in bed with lots of questionable regimes, far worse than Iraq was.

„Remember that regional conflicts of this nature can spread very, very fast“ / „looking at the potential consequences of a war with Iraq, and looking at all of the evidence, Europe feels entirely justified at criticizing US behavior in Iraq“
- it seems we are on different continents. Well, one immediate consequence of the Iraq war was that asylum applications by Iraqis in Germany (which had been going at about 1000 per month in the years before) went down by 80-90 percent. No that the press mentioned this; I had to look up the statistics myself. One thing people here do not fear is that the instability is spreading to them. If they say it, they don´t mean it. They feel very snug and secure. I have heard this often enough: Oh, the Americans are always fearful, they are paranoid, but not us.

When I was talking about the problems with regional wars, I was referring to different cases where remote wars suddenly consumed large areas.  It was a definition of principle.

Anyways, the Iraq was has had lots of effects on the European continent, not the least on oil prices.  France and Germany had deals with Iraqi oil, and an invasion would leave their countries in a very vulnerable position, which is why they opposed it as soon as Blix gave his report (see the above rationale cycle).

Honestly, I, too get fed up with European condescension, but no matter how smug they are, they were right about the problems of going to war.