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2004-05-26 Europe

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Posted by tipper 2004-05-26 20:58|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The democratic experiment in Iraq is very much is an attempt to save western values in Europe. The demographic future of Europe is Islamic; without a vision of freedom in arab middle east, that future is fascist Wahabbist Islam.

Posted by john 2004-05-26 9:49:45 PM|| 2004-05-26 9:49:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 I think a metaphor of the US acting as a veterinarian to an "animal" â the Arab World â is quite fitting. Our task in Iraq is to determine whether the patient is ill mannered or rabid. A treatment decision will be selected based on the results of this diagnostic test.

Posted by Super Hose 2004-05-26 10:53:59 PM|| 2004-05-26 10:53:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Something that I've recently discovered and I think is FREAKING AMAZING is the concept of "Jacksonian Americans". I've become fascinated with the concept and it's impact on US Foreign Policy. Maybe I'm simple-minded, but it makes an INCREDIBLE amount of sense. And it sheds light on the "Why Europe doesn't understand US."

Here are a few blog entries (not mine) and articles about the topic.
The last two are the cake.

http://www.billingsgazette.com/blog/citylights/index.php?p=394
http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org/archives/000315.html
http://specials.ft.com/attackonterrorism/FT3XTFTOEYC.html
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/01/Supposetherewastreachery.shtml

Mead covers it more thoroughly.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/04/mead.htm
http://denbeste.nu/external/Mead01.html (MONEY ARTICLE)

All I know is that in times like these, I think it's "Jacksonian Americans" that will lead us through these dark times.

:/ I'm sad that my beautiful post will be lost and missed by tomorrow morning.

Posted by Anon4021 2004-05-26 11:06:16 PM|| 2004-05-26 11:06:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Anon4021, just repost this article or one of the others you cited after midnight..."Your beautiful post"--LOL
Jacksonians rule and I love to hear Den Beste talk about them, especially!

Posted by Jen 2004-05-26 11:18:20 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-05-26 11:18:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Well, he (denbeste) doesn't go as deep as Mead does. And that Mead article is just mirrored on denbeste's site.

The topic of Jacksonians is the one that I've recently discovered and it's totally awesome from my POV.

I'll see if I can repost it tomorrow. It does seem like it's a slow news day/week (aside from the awesome pics of GOOOORREEEEEEE)

Posted by Anon4021 2004-05-26 11:31:51 PM|| 2004-05-26 11:31:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 As a counter point to Zachary Selden's thesis that the WH's current forign policy is not associated with neocons as a political group, here's an article from iconservative.com via freerepublic:
http://www.iconservative.com/neoconservatives.htm
"Neoconservatives-what and who they are"
Neoconservatives are pro-bombing, pro-empire heavyweight intellectuals (very rarely a business or military background) who have filled the vacuum on the Right, where most Americans have little interest in foreign policy. They dominate Republican foreign policy because they care about it, whereas most Americans don't. NATO expansion was an example; most Americans don't think about it and don't care. "Neocons" do. Also they heavily influence the Democratic Party from whence they came. They are close to European Social Democrats, many of whom have also now favor pro-interventionist wars, since the collapse of communism...

Food for thought, another viewpoint.

Posted by rex 2004-05-26 11:34:34 PM|| 2004-05-26 11:34:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Unfortunately, when the EUroweenies and even the Left here use the term "neocon," it's code for "Zionist."
This is especially true of the Euroweasels who have a thick anti-Semitic streak as it is.
Now they can just disguise it as hatred for people in the Bush Administration like Wolfowitz and Pearl and call them "neocons" with a sneer without being labeled "Jew-haters."

Posted by Jen 2004-05-27 1:00:41 AM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-05-27 1:00:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 I don't think anti-semitism is the reason for criticism of neocons, at least not in the USA.The majority of sneers come from the Democrat Party and any hint of anti-semitism would certainly alienate the Jewish voting bloc. As for Republicans, a good many of them are God fearing Christian pro-Israel supporters, so anti-semitism would not be tolerated.

I believe that the criticism comes from Democrats who think the neocons deserted them, betrayed them and from conservatives who are suspicious that neocons are still liberals at heart, who are using and abusing the taxpayer and the military in a messianic quest to change the world.

Selden, I suspect, is a neocon himself so he puts a historical spin to the WH's foreign policy. But the Iraq war is an experiment, there's never been anything like this venture before. Postwar Japan, Germany, Italy bear no resemblance to what the WH is trying to do with Iraq. The axis powers had democracies and they shared similar values to ours. Iraq is definitely a new kind of project.

Posted by rex 2004-05-27 3:39:07 AM|| 2004-05-27 3:39:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Not exactly, rex.
If you think about it, the Japanese Shinto culture before 1945 in which emperor and ancestor worship were supreme was very close to Islamofacism.
It was as much a "shame-based," chauvinistic and theocratic culture that sought world domination to be the "better" world power, even at the cost of the suicide of their soldiers at the end and down to the last man, woman or child standing.
They had to be utterly defeated and their "backs" broken.
Thus, we used the new Bomb to do just that.
Islamist extremism must also be utterly defeated for the same reasons.
(Another war foe that is similar is the South in the Civil War.)
Germany under and after Hitler is another story--not sure we tamed them too well because look at them today!
As for Italy, they were never really completely on board with Hitler and they began to reform themselves when they strung up Mussolini.
After living with domestic terrorism during the '70's and flirting with Communism and the assault on Catholicism and Italian culture by their own Muslim immigrants, we now have the stalwart Conservative Berlusconi.
The Italians, infinitely more so than the French, remember and are grateful for the Allied Liberation of Italy in 1944.

Posted by Jen 2004-05-27 3:58:05 AM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-05-27 3:58:05 AM|| Front Page Top

10:21 Frank
04:05 Jen
03:58 Jen
03:39 rex
03:34 Super Hose
02:32 Mike Sylwester
02:18 Lucky
01:29 Mark Espinola
01:14 Super Hose
01:00 Jen
00:49 Seafarious
00:44 Jen
00:33 Dog Bites Trolls TROLL
00:19 RMcLeod
00:07 Old Grouch
23:59 Secret Master
23:34 rex
23:31 Anon4021
23:28 Jen
23:27 Super Hose
23:24 Jen
23:23 meeps
23:20 Jen
23:19 11A5S