>>We could argue that a less charismatic leader, someone less skilled in mass psychology, may have caused the whole inflammation to fizzle out, but the pressure would remain. Specially the pressure of investors.
>
>And had that leader been a Bismark instead of a Hitler you may have had a belligerent, revanchist Germany but it would have had and entirely different complexion - and very different goals (and they'd be speaking German in Paris today)

Like I said, we can play WWIHBHIHB all day. And the goals you have set in this example aren't that different in nature, only in the layout.

>>So Iran's ambitions to be some sort of leaders to their followers is wrong, while the US's ambitions to be some sort of leader of "the free world" (to differ from the locked-up world) is right? Take that as an axiom?
>
>It is not Iran's ambitions to "leadership" that I am worried about - no one but Shiites would follow them anywhere. It is their millenarian thinking. If you believe we are in the end times then you play an end-game. It is the reason I would not want to see Pat Robertson with his finger on the Big Trigger.

I'd prefer that Big Trigger didn't exist - and actually don't see why is Reagan so praised, he restarted the whole armament game just when it was beginning to peter out. In a world where any nation thinks it can't be safe from their ideological enemies unless it gets the nukes, all the ideological enemies will eventually want to have the nukes. Peace is good for business. War is good for business. If you're selling weapons, that is.

So yeah, I don't want anyone with delusions of their god being on an in-house extension to have The Button. Actually, I'd rather prefer that such guys don't get voted in at all. One never knows where their loyalties lie.

>>This is another hypothetical reminder of how things may look from the outside. It's brought to you in part by bicycle.
>
>OK, I missed that one ...?

It's a distraction... I was imitating the style of the advertisements on NPR and PBS, "brought to you in part by {truck brand here}" - that DVD must be really heavy if they can't load all of it on a truck. In case of the radio, it's an mp3 or ogg file which can fit as an email attachment - so why bring it by truck. Besides, why use trucks at all, we got waves, cables... which means they lied, I saw no truck and nobody came with a shard of a disk.

Set Digression Off.

It was just a freebie public service, that hypothetical reminder.

>Everyone has given it up, now that the Soviets are kaput. The new game is far different (and yet, as you point out in your remarks on globalization, remarkable similar.) But that means you can't use Amerikan Imperializm as a scapegoat for the ills of 'developing nations'.

Yep, the name of the game has changed. It's still "all your {insert asset} are belong to us", it's just that we don't bother, in most cases, to establish a regime. We just pwn the current one by bribing them with the money from the loan that will keep their country in debt forever. So we don't really need to be an empire, nor a country, to do that. We can be IMF, or just a bank. Consortium sounds nicer. And somehow, there's the whole international legal system to guarantee that we'll either make money on them, or that we'll own their asse..ts forever.

>I like that. Marxist were 'philosophers' but those further to the right than Haubsbaum were 'paid theoreticians' <g> Fuk Fukiyama. History ain't over yet.

If they served their bosses for free, they are fools.

>>banks own countries.
>And in the future there will be no war ... only Rollerball !!

:)

>Ground rules for limiting carnage are not a structure of international law.

See above - how come, then, that the debts of the developing countries are firm? If international law wasn't there, these debts would be worthless, and the banks wouldn't go into reprogramming etc. They'd have cut their losses decades ago and stay away. But they don't. So there's some international law which guarantees the sanctity of their property. I expect nothing less and not much more to apply to sovereignty of countries. That much international law, applied across the board, would be a very good start, as long as it applies to all, regardless.

>Remember the Kellog-Briand Pact ? (no cereal - or simultaneous - jokes ) And that involved nations with at least a similar cultural heritage.
>
>Exactly how do you get nations that are actively working to establish Sha'ria to sign on to international law?

You get your best diplomats to work on it. You lead by example. C'mon, who am I to teach you diplomacy?

>Iraqi legal system wasn't good enough for anything. The trial was a sop. They were going to hang him - as well he should have been - and they wanted to dress it up. US played along for reasons that were entirely pragmatic.

You mean it was one of those "it looked like a good idea at the time"?

>>>The intervention in the affairs of others may or may not be a good idea based on circumstances.
>>
>>Not a good idea, based on principle. In the same Judeo-Christian tradition it's the marxist idea of the golden rule (and not the cynical "got gold, make rules").
>
>If your neighbor is abusing his child and your reporting it to the police has yielded no result and you have the physical power intervene and you hear screaming ...
>
>Principles are complex.

Aha... specially when they cried "wolf" several times and you really don't trust any of them, specially the guy who came running to your door saying he heard screaming, while still stuffing freshly printed money into his pockets. This screaming argument has become worn out, because it was staged so many times - by your guys. And by guys who know how to make news. And by guys who wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. And by...

>>And the perpetrator reserves the imperial rights to decide what's good, what's greater good, and which nations are too stupid to think for themselves (and give the wrong answer to "who owns your oil" again).
>
>Making decisions involves responsibility. Not acting is also a decision, but it is easier to deny responsibility.

So you HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY? Wow. And that's the responsibility to react to whatever any government (not of the "our thug" persuasion, but of "their thug") does against its citizens and neighbors, but you don't have any responsibility to undo your own wrongs?

>>I'd rather believe in the golden rule than in the "might makes right".
>
>Those are not the only two options. The golden rule sounds great but it is bumper sticker morality. If I were to try to kill someone's friend, I would want them to not stop me. Does that mean if they try to kill my friend I should not stop them?

You may try to reduce it to a bumper sticker soundbite, but it won't go away from the foundations of Judeo-Christian culture.

And you've asked your question the wrong way. It's "If I were to try to kill someone's friend, I should expect to be killed myself". Once you accept that, it's easier to deal with the rest.

>I think it would have been a splendid idea. Trotsky would have liked it. It may have prevented the crimes against the kulaks. The monster Yagoda was Stalin's creature, as was Beria. The world would unquestionably have been a better place with Stalin's piece removed from the board.
>
>And a socialist Germany would have been much less militaristic and quite possibly a model for how a society very good at organizing things could have applied that to socialism. Sweden on steroids.

And don't forget that at the time the main socialist thinkers were either Germans, or between Germany, Britain, France and Switzerland. With all those brains in place, they had a good chance of creating a version of it which would actually work - provided that they wouldn't have to become yet another militaristic endeavor under siege mentality, like USSR had (which brought Stalin up in the ranks in the first place).

>Yeah, killing Stalin would have been a very very good thing. Do you think otherwise? Or do you think it would have made no difference and we would have had the same outcome because of Historical Forces or some drivel about The Masses ?

I'd actually go a few years back and simply leave early USSR alone - no intervention, no reason for the guys who knew nothing but fight to get on top. The nature of the system may have been closer to what the idea advertised. There wouldn't be as much bloodshed, and the need for military types wouldn't be decisive - so Stalin may never have reached Moscow, he may have stayed as a local apparatchik somewhere in the province.

>>One's personal attitudes are a matter of one's free will. Believe me, there are several brands of Serbian culture that I seriously dislike ;). This was about relations between countries, don't apply toothpaste on a carwash brush.
>
>That last phrase loses something in translation <g>

Wasn't translated - was just looking for a good comparison to show how far did you miss the point.

> Dealing with other 'nations' often means dealing with other 'cultures'. Actually quite relevant if often ignored.

Ah, that - that's a different question, it's the "how". The "what" was "all countries treated equally". Their cultures, at that, may require some adjustment - that's how it's done, that's diplomacy. You know whom not to offer pork and stuff like that. Again, there's always a common language, or else international banking wouldn't exist.

>You can acknowledge that someone is the head of state without 'taking them seriously'. And you can take someone seriously even if they are thug or a buffoon, simply because they may be a dangerous thug or buffoon. And sometimes 'taking them seriously' means trying to do them harm as soon as possible. There was a time when no one took that silly little man with the Charlie Chaplin mustache seriously.

By Internet rules, you lost. You brought Hitler into dispute, twice.

Or do you mean that we should watch for a silly illiterate guy with a fake Texan attitude?

>I think one should distinguish between foreign policy in a bipolar ( so apt ) world and foreign policy since the Cold War. I saw a lot of the bipolar stuff up close and I also got a good look at what was ready to fill the vacuum anywhere we didn't want to play. Since 1990, I'd say thinking changed a great deal - or at least did until 911. It is a very different game now from the one that was played in 50s - 80s.

So it is. BTW, what was the excuse for keeping NATO?