Asymmetrical Information

"I'm sure other bloggers will point out that Mr. Debray, for all his assertions of continental worldliness, is ignorant of us and the art of persuasion."

Well, I suppose that's one way to put it. I'd just say that he's a dork, but I suppose that just points up how simplistic this American is.

James

"To be sure, in defending its interests a great nation may end up promoting freedom. Such was the situation with the concentration camps. It will not be the case for the $15 barrel of crude."

WTF? Am I misreading this? Is he really saying the concentration camps were an example of promoting freedom?

To summarize his article: Europe has consistenly made a hash of its foreign relations, and it's impossible for some American cowboy to do better than us, so don't even try.

All Mr. Debray was asking, is why can't the Americans be more like us (Old Europe)? He can find that answer in New Europe, who recognize if the US held continental attitudes, they would still be oppressed.

I'm glad I read this nasty little diatribe because it allowed me to realize that one of the problems the French and all of their cowardly friends seem incapable of understanding is that wars of liberation are not the same as wars of conquest. Since they never engaged in any they do not understand but history of the United States unlike those losers is all about freedom fighting.

Wars of liberation sounds too much like what we stood against during the cold war. We're not out to overthrow tyrants (in Myanmar or Zimbabwe, e.g.)around the world to liberate people, but we do seem set to overthrow tyrants that give support, comfort or sanctuary to terrorists who act against us. I surely hope that the latter is our true policy.

We're not out to overthrow tyrants (in Myanmar or Zimbabwe, e.g.)around the world to liberate people, but we do seem set to overthrow tyrants that give support, comfort or sanctuary to terrorists who act against us. I surely hope that the latter is our true policy.

Standing against global liberation was the most tragic legacy America brought out of the Cold War.

Ultimately, B'ham, dictatorship will need to be ruled as an illegal counterfeit of national government. What many people these days cannot or wish not to understand - whether by age, political persuasion or denial - is that the absence of freedom in a society is the root of international discord. Whether by a dictator threatening his neighbors or a populace, bereft of any semblance of expressive freedom and left to nothing but the hate of extremist ideologies, unfree nations pose grave dangers to their democratic neighbors.

The 20th Century effortlessly showed us the dangers of monarchigal nationalism and totalitarian megalomania when mixed with industrial power. The advent of world-reaching communications and coordinations technologies has buried the idea carried right up to the Baby Boomer generation: "live and let live." Living and letting live, of course, is what allowed the Middle East to fester in its own societal despair to the point of fertility for Islamist control. With cell phones and laptops, Islamofascists have overcome oceans, borders, and militaries. September 11th is a herald to unprecedented dangers directly caused by unchecked regions of oppression and engendered ignorance.

Global reach has provided for two disturbing phenomena: the incalculable cascade of instability provided by the fall of consensual government and the dark alliances that inevitable form from one evil man to another, whether head-of-state or cave-habiting terrorist.

Pathetic strongmen like Robert Mugabe are exactly the sort of small fish that must be directly stamped out when larger threats to international security like the Middle East, North Korea and China have been defeated politically or militarily and democratized. Look at the damage caused to Zimbabwe's neighbors through the successive power grabs, from trampling on citizens' rights to inducing a region-wide famine. Spattering the continent are beleaguered states infested with al Qaeda and other Islamist sects. Disarray invites a host of invaders. An ambivalent United States allowed Afghanistan's rejection of Soviet incursions to be transformed into an Islamist nation - that soon came to be the home of Osama bin Laden. Only the worst can be expected to come of unstable regions with desperate populaces.

All those who eschew free will eventually find common ground. We can see it in the last century: Nazis signed non-aggression pacts with Communists and a Pacific empire whose people were otherwise revoltingly inferior to the Hitlerian ideal; Pan-Arabists and Islamists alike struck deals with the Soviet Union; today, all manner of dicators dabble with every stripe of thug and terrorist. Whatever emnities exist between certain nations - like, say, Iran and Iraq - are more than made up by the interconnected trade of weapons and other deadly commodities. North Korea sells whatever it can to whomever will buy; Iran is the primary financier of many Islamist terrorist organizations; Venezuela's Hugo Chavez faces fairly convincing evidence of his ties to al Qaeda, as does Saddam Hussein.

Why, B'Ham, must America not take the charge of bringing its bounty to others in the world by allowing nations to provide for themselves under the architecture of liberty? For any good reasons, or just because of a century's-worth of ideological inertia? We've had the ability and the inclination to free the world one nation at a time for fifteen years; how much longer should America wait?

" Not having any training as a satellite state, unlike the countries of Eastern Europe, France ...."

Uh...then what was going on with the plot in, "Casablanca"?

As for: "Europe has learned modesty."

Too bad that's not true, because lately they have much to be modest about.

Regis Debray has demonstrated an important truth about our world: you can be an incompetent writer, a passionate devotee of a failed ideology, and a citizen of a country with a history of needing to be saved from its own failings by others, and you can still sneer.

Is this a great planet, or what?

I just don't get the French. I mean, we order and they don't jump. It's like they think they're a sovereign nation or something. I just can't get over their arrogance of why those smelly little cheese-eating surrender monkeys are so chauvenistic.

Oh, aren't you cute.

Scott H., I believe he's saying that the war to liberate the concentration camps ended up promoting freedom, but it won't be the case with the war to liberate oil.

Of course, one might recall that the war to liberate the concentration camps was not; it was a war against people who had attacked us and gave every indication of doing it again. The concentration camp liberation was only a side benefit.

The problem with the French---for any passing idiots---is not that they disagree with us or even obstruct us, but that they do so with their patented dismissal and contempt. Cowboy! Unilateral! Simplisme! Warmonger! Then, of course, they get their pantalons in a bunch when they are referred to as "Old Europe". We have been insulted! Merde alors!

I have always thought that being charged with "arrogance" by the French was a mark of professional jealousy on their part. Rather as if Madonna had called you a slut.

As usual since WWII, the U.S. is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't regarding intervention in matters outside its immediate territory. If the U.S. intervenes, it is condemned as a bully, a would-be tyrant, and so on. If the U.S. decides to stay home, things inevitably escalate as the local powers decline to get involved(*cough cough* Bosnia *cough cough*), and thunderous whining erupts: "Why won't the U.S. deal with this problem?" Basically, they want the U.S. to take the risks, pay the bills (what would fifty years worth of interest on the Marshall Plan go for, I wonder?), and go away afterwards. My advice to those who don't like the "imperial" United States:

1) Start dealing with your own damned local problems in a remotely adequate manner;

2) Lose our phone number.

Of course, most of those complaining won't take this advice, but those who don't should at least realize the reasons why we're still knocking on your door--your own laziness and incompetence.

The Times identifies Regis Debray as an advisor to Mitterand. Can someone tell me what is his relationship to the Regis Debray who fought with Che Gueverra in Bolivia, and is the author of Che Lives, Che's Guerilla War, Chilean Revolution, The Long March in Latin America, Prison Writings, Revolution in the Revolution, and Strategy for Revolution?

Angie: Yeah, I could have read it that way, but the sentence left a little wiggle room, so I took it;) I'm not that stupid. I'm almost that stupid, but not that stupid.

What's sad is that, for all the talk of New vs Old Europe rejection of the US's policy in Iraq is common to the populations of ALL Europe.

“I just don't get the French. I mean, we order and they don't jump. It's like they think they're a sovereign nation or something. I just can't get over their arrogance of why those smelly little cheese-eating surrender monkeys are so chauvenistic.”

The French have every right to think for themselves. I have absolutely no problem with their offering well thought out objections. This sort of dissent should even be eagerly welcomed. However, that’s not what is currently going on. Chirac ‘s government is only interested in sticking it to America. His actions are childishly petulant. To be truly blunt: Chirac intentionally wishes to do us dirty.

PS: My very last sentence is not flippantly asserted. Chirac is truly a scum bag desiring to place the United States in harms way.

"If the American administration is intent on precipitating the war that is Osama bin Laden's fondest wish, if it wants to give fundamentalism, which is currently ebbing, a second chance, we can say only, so much the worse for you..."

No wonder you moronic wingnuts are in such a tizzy. Debray is dead on.

Yes! By the very act of calling us names, you have convinced us! Had to be that, because there was precious little else there to do the trick.

Can I have your autograph?

Tom Kalson, according to Andrew Stuttaford in the Corner, they are one in the same. That is borne out by this Che hagiography page, which says that Debray's efforts to find Guevara in Bolivia "almost certainly" contributed to Guevara's death.

It also says Debray went on to dismiss the guerrilla method and later joined the government of François Mitterand.

Poor "Dave". Can't even think of a new insult.

"Wingnuts!" O! I am slain! (Swoons.)

BlogSpot is having an "FTP moment," so I'll post this here:

With all the comment on the French position, most of us appreciate that the issue isn’t one of all Americans losing taste for everything French, or all Frenchman losing their final shred of patience for anything American. But it is about a reconciliation of our cultural similarities and differences. And for us in particular, it is about loyalty, and for the French it is about independence. And for both, it is about where loyalty and independence intersect.

Unfortunately, this piece by Debray was just another in a long list of reasons for the American public to oversimplify the issue and lose faith in our alliance with the French. It was classically to type … or more accurately, stereotype: pompous, pedantic, and argued from a place of moral and cultural superiority. Wave your way through the fog of Debray’s verbosity, and in the end his argument was simple:

You’ve not been around long enough to understand, so until you’ve got more time under your cultural and political belt, you Americans should mind your tongue. Maybe the U.S. feels compelled to rush in, but we Europeans … we know better.

And for most Americans -- and certainly for me -- our counterpoint is also classically to type:

Yes, we will rush in, thank you. And you don’t need to tell us that American policy has a history of double standards that reflect the realities of political necessity … we know this, and we’re not as naïve as you may think. That said, more often than not, we do rush in, and we do in an attempt to do what’s right. Because that is who we are.

This is the history of major American military conflict in the 20th century:

In World War I we rushed in to respect our cultural ties with Western Europe, our alliances, and to help our allies repulse a invader bent on occupation.

In World War II we rushed in to respect our alliances, and to help our allies in two hemispheres repulse invaders bent on occupation. While there, we help halt a programmatic and racist slaughter that had taken over 14 million innocent souls.

In Korea we rushed in to help a foreign populace repulse an invader bent on occupation and installation of a dictatorial regime.

In Vietnam we walked in … tripped in … without consistency of commitment or clarity of vision, but still in an attempt to help a foreign populace repulse an invader bent on occupation and installation of a dictatorial regime. And in doing so, we endured military defeat and cultural revolution.

In the Gulf War we rushed in to help a foreign populace repulse an invader bent on occupation and installation of a dictatorial regime.

In each instance, people will make arguments about hidden or ulterior motivations. But in the end we know this: we are not imperialists. We did not invade other nations to secure land for our populace (whatever the “no blood for oil” folks may say). We did not invade other nations to make their people subject to a dictatorial doctrine. History bears out that in each case we acted based on moral principle … to do what was right … our occupying force lying not in the statehouse, but under headstones … many of which are in France.

And perhaps that’s the greatest difference between us and our French critics … they critique, while we act.

And given the choice, I’ll take the side that acts every time.

GT:

First, I'd question your basis for presuming that all Europeans oppose our policies. As others have pointed out, where were the anti-war protests in Eastern Europe?

But let us presume that some large portion of the populace in Europe opposes the US. The question that arises then is why this should matter, at two levels:

1. Why should this affect US foreign policy, what some percentage of Europe's population thinks; and
2. At the meta-level, is foreign policy best conducted by plebiscite.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, any poll would have shown a plurality, if not a majority of Americans opposing any war with Germany. Prior to Poland (and even afterwards), most in England and France opposed war w/ Germany (especially thanks to the efforts of the "United Front" in places like France, where Communists joined quasi-Nazis and right-wingers in opposing any war on the members of the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact). Do you really think that this suggests that this was the "right thing" to do?

What were the polling numbers for intervention in Bosnia? For both among the EU, and in the US? Was it a clear majority in either instance?

That's at the larger level. At the national level, the numbers in opposition in foreign countries serve the purpose of reminding us that we act somewhat alone. And therefore, "if t'were done, t'were best done quickly." But I hardly think that even a majority in European popular opinion polls should dictate AMERICAN foreign policy.

After all, if that were the case, perhaps Europe would then heed us on the death penalty (where a majority here clearly supports it); or support for Israel (where a majority here clearly supports it).

The point is that American foreign policy does not exist to make others happy; it exists to serve the American interest.

But Dean, if they don't like us, they won't elect us to the Student Council!

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