How Much Longer Can America Lead Without Followers?

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Mario Simon
How Much Longer Can America Lead Without Followers?
Posted November 27, 2007 | 08:14 PM (EST)



It is not that difficult to conclude that the war in Iraq has failed miserably against its stated purpose of making America safer. Most likely the war has made America less safe. Not only did we not find WMDs, the casus bellum, but also we created a breeding ground for groups whose presence and growth definitely does not help world stability.

At a higher level, so the argument goes, the war was not about WMDs, but about establishing a democratic, friendly, pro-Western state among a minefield of enemies, providing stability and an example for others to follow. For a moment there during the election in Iraq when the turnout was much higher than initially expected, I hoped that that higher order objective was achievable; reality however fell far short of our hopes.

Strategically, the war has increased security risk to the United States via at least three avenues.

The war has eroded the ideological leadership of the United States. For a large part of the 20th century the U.S. was the superpower not only because it produced half of the World's GDP and was militarily and technologically the strongest nation. Kids in the then Soviet bloc would crave to wear Levi's jeans. I remember in trips to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia back then that anything Western, and especially anything American, was desirable just because it was a symbol of a different, a "better" ideology. American music, American movies, the Western lifestyle in general, resonated with people around the World in a way that made the U.S. the unquestionable source of hope for the rest of us. On a transnational level, American agencies such as the CDC, the FDA, and so forth, had an instant credibility with whatever they came out with: If the FDA approved it, it must have been safe, if the CDC pronounced it, it must be fact.

Ideological leadership wanes with the decline of empires, and as such America is a victim of that predicament. The actions of the current administration have sped up that process of decline, and the war has been a serious contributor to this ever faster erosion of global credibility.

The smaller ideological equity of a leader, the harder it is to marshal followers to march on his own drumbeat, making it harder to coordinate security efforts around the globe. Pakistan is a good example of how such erosion has impeded achievement of U.S. security objectives in the past few years in that region. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mario-simon/how-much-longer-can-ameri_b_74401.html

[tom_paine]

1. Oh the Bushes have followers, about the same proportion to the general population

as Nazi followers.

That is all Bush or Hitler needs needs, herdsmen to move the sheep. Murderous, conscienless zealots who will do what they are told when they are told, wiuth question, remorse r pity for the victims of their crimes.

Right now, the Bushies are only asked to disenfranchise Blacks and some other non-violent (well, aside from some rare, "had to be done yesterday" stuff, like Bushies executing Pat Tillman before he could get home and use his voice that could not be denied a microphone) yet felonious actions.

They will soon be asked to do so much more, the others, to shut their eyes and hold their ears while the atrocities are happening.

In is almost historically inevitable and the only question is will we get a short break from the vampirism in 2008 if Sen. Clinton is allowed to ascend the throne for a brief time, which she won't be.

The Bushies are making sure she's our candidate precisely because she's the only one they can beat and for whom many Democrats will find it impossible to vote for (not I) and even mor impossible to work for (definitely I).

[Demeter]

2. Thank God Bush Has Lost His Following Nations (Except for France)

and Canada is not willing to make the full break, but its people are! Even the Middle East is turning its collective back.