The world from a non-US perspective

[achtung_circus]

24 December 2004

2004 Year-Ender

By Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer is perhaps my favourite talking head. He know whereof he speaks, having served in teh Canadian, US and Royal Navies, taught at Sandhurst and Oxford.

snip
Two popular perceptions of what is happening dominate the world at the moment. One, held mainly by Americans, sees a world beleaguered by such a huge terrorist threat that all the old rules have to be abandoned. The United States, they believe, is carrying the main burden of this "war against terror" while other countries shirk their share of the load. (Despite all the talk of a fundamental clash of values in the recent US election, both parties basically held the same view on this issue.)

Most people in other countries, and most of their governments, too, see terrorism as a much smaller threat. Certain measures need to be taken to contain it, but it is nowhere near big enough to justify scrapping all the rules of international behaviour we have painfully built up over the past half-century.
snip

<http://www.gwynnedyer.net/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%202004%20Year-Ender.txt>

[purduejake]

1. I wish they wouldn't speak in general terms about Americans...

because I don't think the majority of us feel that way. However, there are enough of them to drive this country into the ground and rip away civil rights and send Americans fleeing for the border.

[achtung_circus]

2. GWB

L'etat, c'est moi.

[purduejake]

3. I wish I knew more than english...

What's that mean? =)

[CHIMO]

4. The State

I am the state.
Or it is me.

Hope this helps.

[achtung_circus]

5. I am the state.

Said by Louis XVI just before the French Revolution. Indicative of an overweening pride, that what I want, the country wants, that I have the only valid opinion.

GWB has the same opinion of himself.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Actually it was Louis XIV

who was Louis XVI's great great great grandfather. XIV was 'The Sun King' - possibly the most powerful French king there was.

Louis's reign can be characterized by the remark attributed to him, “L'état, c'est moi” )I am the state). Louis continued the nobility's exemption from taxes but forced its members into financial dependence on the crown, thus creating a court nobility occupied with ceremonial etiquette and petty intrigues. The provincial nobles also lost political power. Louis used the bourgeoisie to build his centralized bureaucracy. He curtailed local authorities and created specialized ministries, filled by professionals responsible to him. Under his minister Jean Baptiste Colbert industry and commerce expanded on mercantilist principles and a navy was developed. The war minister, the marquis de Louvois, established the foundations of French military greatness.

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0859352.html

[achtung_circus]

7. Oops, I sit corrected, thanks. nt

[Martin Eden]

8. I thought these paragraphs were very perceptive:

Two popular perceptions of what is happening dominate the world at
the moment. One, held mainly by Americans, sees a world beleaguered by such
a huge terrorist threat that all the old rules have to be abandoned. The
United States, they believe, is carrying the main burden of this "war
against terror" while other countries shirk their share of the load.
(Despite all the talk of a fundamental clash of values in the recent US
election, both parties basically held the same view on this issue.)

Most people in other countries, and most of their governments, too,
see terrorism as a much smaller threat. Certain measures need to be taken
to contain it, but it is nowhere near big enough to justify scrapping all
the rules of international behaviour we have painfully built up over the
past half-century.

A lot of the governments also believe (in private) that the Bush
administration is deliberately pumping up the fear of terrorism in order to
justify a unilateral strategy that really aims at establishing American
hegemony worldwide. The popular American belief that the United States has
the right to go anywhere and attack anybody if it feels itself threatened
-- "we do not need a permission slip from the UN," as Vice-President Dick
Cheney frequently puts it -- predates 9/11, but it has been greatly
strengthened by the rhetoric of the "war on terror."

Most of the other great powers on the planet are coming to see the
United States as a rogue superpower. (Britain is formally an exception
under Prime Minister Tony Blair, but even in London the concern is palpable
at lower levels of government.) Yet everybody is deeply reluctant to
confront the United States directly, since that would just hasten the
collapse of the multilateral order they still hope to save. The result has
been a lengthy pause in which most other major powers refuse to approve or
assist the American adventure in Iraq, but avoid any open defiance of
American power.