Quote from: Chaunte on October 13, 2008, 09:44:20 PM
The New World Order was a phrase Bush Sr. used in mobilizing the world against Iraq after their invasion of Kuwait. At that time, the Soviet Union had fallen and the new Russian Confederacy was starting to take shape. Capitalism was starting to take root in Easter Europe and nations were actually trying to work together instead of kill each other - at least killing each other was not the first option.
It started to fall apart when we did not help Russians learn and understand how capitalism worked. That left the New World Order floundering for a while, but far from dead.
The Clinton administration continued the birthing process through negotiation with other nations. Slowly, things were taking shape.
When George W was elected, every initiative that Clinton touched was tossed out. An opposite rhetoric was used, thus alianating the United States from the rest of the world community. There was a remarkable opportunity to bring back the New World Order after 9/11. Regretably, that opportunity was wasted in an ill-conceived war against Iraq.
As a result, the New World Order lies dying on the operating table. Their might be a chance to be part of any New World Order if an administration is elected that would rather talk than fight. However, the fall out from the Iraq war means that the United States will have very little say in how the new New World Order shapes up.
Just my thoughts...
Chaunte
I disagree. There were many different ways I wanted to respond and dispute this, but after a few tries I realized my base philosophy is far different than your own. I believe what we are doing now, for the first time and whether right or wrong, is for much farther reaching goals than we have ever attempted in the past. The war in Iraq means alot to me because I have enormous personal stock in it, I have served two tours over there and will be going back for a third shortly.
Most people would agree that Vietnam was a tragic mistake. But whether a mistake or not, it played no small part in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Vietnam, as showing their true pragmatic nature, is on friendly relations with the west and strongly desires to learn the Art of Capitalism, and has made long strides to do so. China, even with its human rights violations, is rapidly evolving and I have no doubt will one day, I hope in my lifetime, become a free and benevolent society, if not a democracy. North Korea and Cuba, isolated and desperately poor, are on the short list of truely communist states, with Cuba peeling of with the fading of Castro. So who won the war in Vietnam? In the sense of the larger idea, our philosophy against theirs...we did. I do agree that did not, of course, mean much to the many who died during those years...but it does to their grandchildren.
You rightly defend a big theme, the New World Order, the idea that all nations can get along with words instead of the sword, and those nations provide responsible government and a measure of freedom, security, and prosperity to their citizens. We both want this. But I disagree with the mechanics on how this will be accomplished. There are still alot of people with swords out there, who have no need for words because they know violence speaks much louder.
Russia's story has not played itself out yet. Give it a generation or two. We do not have enough historical perspective to say that Democracy in the former USSR is a failure. Remember they had to shed off 1000 years of history and awoke into the new world, Russia was not free under communism anymore than under the brutal Czars before them. Look at the Roman Empire after the death of Constantine...he made the Empire officially a Christian one...but within two generations, the emperor Julian the Apostate tried to revert it back to paganism in what was still largely a pagan society. But the clock had irrevocably turned forward, and within a hundred years European paganism had virtually disappeared. We are an impatient species.
I use Christianity to illustrate a point, not as an advocate of the religion...but it is a good point.
What we are doing in Iraq will determine what the world will be like for my grandchildren, as well as my Iraqi friends and everyone else in the world. I don't know if what I'm doing is truely the right thing, only future historians will, but more often than people want to admit it is good intentions that count for more...that paved road does not lead to hell, as the saying goes, but to salvation because it shows a willingness to make the world a better place. If it fails, then we try, try again.
In my profession, it is called "the long war". The war in Iraq is not about battlefield victories, oil, or long casualty rolls. But in a sense it is about nation building, up to a point. It is about showing the world we are willing to sacrifice, and willing to try, to make the world a better place for all of us; not just America. Many mistakes are yet to be made. It is getting people to understand which is the hardest part. We will not win this war in my own generation, and I don't mean just Iraq...this is a war of ideas that is forming how the world will be generations from now.
We, as humans, are for the first time beginning to think beyond the span of our own lives...the environment comes to mind. This idea of the New World Order is just that...but it takes time and sacrifice.
One last example from history...the British Empire's war on the slave trade took forty years to accomplish. Most of the world said it was folly and could not be done, and would only result in a tragic and confusing war against non-national groups in the shadows. When it was finally over, victory bells were not ringing in London, most of them were no longer paying attention...they rang in Washington DC at the end of the American Civil War and the end of all slavery. And even then, it took another hundred years for it to truly end with the triumph of the civil rights movement.
Don't look for an end to history, we will never have a perfect world society. We can only strive to make it better than it is.
That's my two cents.
Chris
