VCJIM, sorry if I gave you the impression I was claiming we had UN support. Bush asked for it, but it wasn’t given.
I think the UN is quite capable of emaciating itself. Case in point – France has decided to send just 200 troops to Lebanon, saying the “peacekeeping mandate is not explicit enough” – yet the mandate comes in a resolution which was written by France in the first place.
World opinion should not be ignored, but it shouldn’t just be obeyed either.
Why do you think the lack of UN blessing equals doom? The US ousted Milosevic with an aerial campagin that had no UN backing. In fact, the invasion of Afghanistan did not have formal UN support. Are you embarassed that we removed the Taliban from power?
There is no reason to think the war in Iraq is doomed. We haven’t lost. The enemy hasn’t won. The war is still going on. We’ve been in Iraq for 3 years trying to lift people who had been tyrranized for decades. In this country, terrorism against blacks continued for over 100 years past the end of slavery. Should we have given up after 3? 3 years after Pearl Harbor the Germans launched an offensive that killed 10,000 – three times more than have died in the entire Iraq campaign. Should FDR have given up? He had no exit strategy either. We’re still in Germany.
Finally, I’m curious about your anecdotes from overseas. I hear frequently from people I know in other countries that the US should act differently to improve its standing elsewhere. I’ve never told someone from another country that their government should change to suit us better. Have you? I’e never heard someone ask how their country could change to become closer to us. Have you? I understand the value of considering other points of view, but why is it always the US that should conform to another country, rather than them to us?
