Can US BRIBE UN Countries?

[Beetwasher]

Many seem to feel that France, Germany, China and Russia's UN support is merely a matter of working out the dollars. Let's take that at face value and say that's the only impediment to UN support.

Would that be a good business decision for those countries?

Think about it for a second. They would in essence be sending their troops to die to provide cannon fodder and PR cover for Bush. And they would do this on the WORD of Bush that they would eventually get a piece of the Iraqi pie.

First of all, that would mean pacifying and making Iraq productive. Is that possible anytime soon now, even with international support? Their support would be based on this gamble and on Bush's competence to get it done. That would be a very bad decision.

Second of all, it means TRUSTING BUSH TO KEEP HIS WORD. Do you think they trust him? This is after all they man who trashes international treaties and agreements for a hobby and without second thought. Another very bad decision.

[Beetwasher]

1. Kick?

n/t

[opihimoimoi]

5. Trust the Shrub??? No freakin way man. Bribe them, its already been tried

Thats how Turkey got in the act.

Bush is in charge of spending our monies and he is fucking up big time.

These wars(Iraq/Afghanistan)is costing 4.7 Billion per week

In my book, das is big bucks.

If it stops, absolutely stops Terrorism, then its worth it. But like the Irish wars, the Palestinian/Isreal war, there is no end in sight.
Sure we got the "might", the power, the smart bombs, but do we have the wisdom to really stop the terrorism, without bloodshed??? and the answer is also nowhere in sight.

The Bush guys have hidden ulterior motives and it shows. The Peoples hearts have to be softened, not hardened. Bush is doing the latter. For that is his problem he doesn't know how nor does he have a clue.

And us DEms who do have some possible answers ain;t telling either. Why should we? and let him get re elected? No way man. He dug his hole, he can fill it. We all posted our reservations, the world did it too. He did not listen, was arrogant about it too, Now he has to eat CROW... and get used to it too,

What a waste of potatos and bread. "Mo bettah ma kay baby time."

"Poho poi"

[Blue_Chill]

2. Yes the US can bribe the UN countries

and the US does all the time. The only reason France and Germany weren't into this war in the first place is business deals they had with Iraq. Now they feel cheated and want some serious contracts to even consider it.

I'm sure they will send a couple dozen troops as well....wouldn't want the world to think they are completely useless would we.

[BonjourUSA]

8. You make a mistake

1) Iraq was only 0,5% of the French trade.

2) Million French was in the street against the Bush war.

3) The principles are not negociable. Listen well Chirac.


But, like I already said, in this shit we are condemned to succeed together. I think we allow Bush to save face. Let's hope that this asshole will make that possible.

[CentristDemocrat]

3. Is the Pope Catholic?

[Cocoa]

4. Ari was SHOCKED when a reporter suggested that

he said that would be unthinkable.

Then all the reporters laughed and laughed and laughed, and Ari abruptly ended the press conference. :-)

[spinbaby]

6. Probably not

I suspect they no longer trust the U.S. to pay up and so, to effectively bribe 'em, we'd need the money up front. Don't think we can afford that.

I often think how much more efficient it would have been to simply offer Saddam a few billion to take his family and get out.

[uptohere]

7. sure he can, thats why they would not join in before

that and the fact that it would cancel all their sweetheart oil deals.
He certainly can and it would likely only cost re-instating those deals. Now, how to word it so that it doesn't SOUND like that...

[Snellius]

9. They tried to bribe Angola, Cameroon and Gabon

small African countries, notoriously corruption, temporary members of the Security Council, to pass the pre-war resolution.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Not with IOU's. And that all we got left to offer. And they know it too n/

[pippin]

11. Bribe 'em?

Bribe 'em? What with? We're bankrupt and at the rate the value of the dollar is dribbling away we may as well offer our "coalition of the willing" monpopoly money :-(

[welshTerrier2]

12. Coalition of the Coerced

here's a link to an excellent study that describes the leverage the U.S. held over many Security Council members prior to the invasion of Iraq ... and things haven't really changed all that much ...

http://www.ips-dc.org/COERCED.pdf

here's a sampling of a few countries:

Mexico

The United States, the destination of more than 80 percent of Mexico’s exports, wields tremendous influence over its southern neighbor. To frighten President Vicente Fox into supporting their position, Administration officials have warned that a failure to do so would likely spark an anti-Mexico backlash in the U.S. Congress. According to the Washington Post, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza warned that U.S. legislators might block any legislation
related to Mexico as revenge for a “no” vote in the Security Council.
At the moment, Fox is in a particularly vulnerable position, as he is relying on the Bush Administration to continue to allow Mexico to delay the lifting of tariffs on sensitive farm products.

Pakistan

In the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, General Pervez Musharraf’s swift support for the U.S. "war on terrorism" reaped considerable benefits for the debt-strapped nation. In exchange
for Pakistan’s support in the offensive against the Taliban, Bush dropped economic sanctions related to Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests and 1999 military coup. The Administration also committed more than a billion dollars in U.S. assistance and several billion dollars from
international organizations.13 Bush also promised to lift quotas on textile imports from Pakistan.

France and Germany

France, which holds veto power on the Security Council, has been the target of the most virulent pressure. Some U.S. lawmakers, including House Leader Dennis Hastert, have vowed to propose trade sanctions on French wine and water. France is by far the largest source of U.S. wine imports, with nearly $830 million worth in 2001. Other lawmakers have resorted to crude insults. Rep. John McCain, for example, likened France to an aging starlet from the 1940s who is “still trying to dine out on her looks, but doesn’t have the face for it anymore.”

With regard to Germany, the Bush Administration has threatened to withdraw its military bases, prompting Republicans in Congress to announce plans for hearings on the issue. The United States currently maintains about 71,000 U.S. troops in Germany. Although their presence has become increasingly controversial, the bases nevertheless contribute to the economies of local communities. The Pentagon estimates that the U.S. bases contribute as much as $4.5 billion per year through purchases of goods and services, direct and indirect hires of foreign nationals, and other expenditures. Both Germany and France may also face repercussions in the form of lost
U.S. contracts for defense-related goods and services.

[Beetwasher]

13. Great Link! Everyone claiming we can bribe them NOW should read this

Thanks!

Amazing. They were unable to bribe them before and they can do it now?? No way. We now have a track record of PROVEN FAILURE. Things have changed for the worst. Why would they be bribed in now and not before?

[welshTerrier2]

14. The Bribes will have to be much larger this time

and when you get into a simple cost / benefit analysis, we're already spending a billion a week with no end in sight ... and the "real violence" is just getting started ... and many in the Congress, including some misguided democrats i'm sorry to say, are pushing for increases in troop strength ...

on the other hand, there's been some evidence that the Russians may cave ... hard to see it happening with France and Germany though ...

ya gotta love those "old Europeans" ...

[Beetwasher]

15. It's really the C/B analysis that I'm dissecting here

As a country, how do you make this call? It's a tough call when the country is in chaos, throug no fault of your own, and you have to send your troops in, many to probably die, after being egregiously insulted by the country whos ass your saving, and against the will of 3/4 of your country for a very tenuous "promise" of a payout at some indeterminate time when the country is "pacified" and "productive"...

[welshTerrier2]

19. let's try this one more time ...

not sure you got the point i was trying to make about cost / benefit analysis ...

my point WAS NOT that other countries should consider whether the american bribe outweighs the reasons for not sending troops to support the U.S. efforts in Iraq ...

my point WAS that bush may be willing to substantially increase the amount of the bribe because, if he doesn't, we're already on the hook more more than 1 billion dollars per week ...

hope this gets us on the same page ...

great thread topic, btw ...

[Beetwasher]

20. I understand

I was making an additional C/B analysis point from the international perspective. No matter how much Bush increases the bribe (doing so using C/B analysis to arrive at the conclusion that he must), it's going to have to be evaluated on the other end with their OWN C/B analysis...IMO, that's the more important decision and the weakest link. The bribe would have to be accepted, the question is, will it and is a bribe what's required....

[aquart]

16. Sweetie, you seem to think we still have money.

No, honey, it's long gone.

We couldn't even sell our last Treasury Bond issue, I hear.

The United States is broke. Ken Lay is still rich.

[htuttle]

17. To what end?

I posted this as a reply to a thread in LBN, but I'd like to repeat it here. The US is screwed 'six ways to Sunday', no matter what the UN decides to do.

Assuming that the Bush administration actually thinks they can get UN assistance (which may be arguable at the moment), what sort of help do they think they could possibly get?

I finally found some statistics I was looking for. I'd had a hunch that Bush was going to be asking for an unprecedented number of UN troops, to be able to pull out as many US troops as possible (politics...politics...2004).

However, I don't think that's at all realistic, even in the best case for the Bushes.

The statistics I was looking for were how many UN allied troops were deployed during the Korean War (probably the largest UN peacekeeping mission to date, unless I'm missing something.

Here's how many UN allied troops were from countries other than the US, UK and ROK during Korea:

Australia 2,282
Belgium 900
Canada 6,146
Colombia 1,068
Ethopia 1,271
France 1,119
Greece 1,263
Holland 819
Luxembourg 44
New Zealand 1,385
Philippines 1,496
South Africa 826
Thailand 1,204
Turkey 5,453
Total 25,276


Notes: The US contribution was about 300,000, UK about 14,000, and ROK had about 590,000 involved.

How many troops do they need to ADD to Iraq according to all the non-Bushite generals? I've heard numbers like 50,000 to 100,000. That's additional troops -- not for rotation.

Will a peacekeeping mission in Iraq be more appealing to the international community than the one in Korea was? Korea was defending against an illegal invasion, not cleaning up after one. There weren't 14,000,000 people marching in the streets against the Korean War.

My point is that there simply aren't enough UN troops to 'bail us out' (unless what...China sends a hundred thousand? Under US command? Right...). A different tack must be taken toward reconstructing Iraq that relies more on factions in Iraq.

Bush may not have wanted an independent Kurdistan, but he's going to have one as a matter of sheer practicality. Bush may not have wanted an Islamic Republic of Iraq, but he's going to end up with one, since he's devastated the secular factions in Iraq (the Ba'ath party).

There is, quite simply, nothing the international community can do to fix this in a way that would be acceptable to those who wanted the war in the first place. Iraq needs to find it's own way (with UN assistance....not administration) from here on.

[Beetwasher]

18. I Agree!

Your analysis is astute IMO. Even if the international community decides to pitch in, they won't send enough troops to be able to really effect the situation meaningfully. IMO, that's an even bigger deterrent for them to actually send them in the first place. IOW, they know it's insufficient and there won't be enough security, so why send them? Merely to throw them needlessly into the meat grinder? Considering their country's populace is probably 75% opposed to the war, it would be political suicide at the very least with no guarantee of financial gain. What's the payoff for these countries to get involved? I just don't see it aside from the humanitarian mission...

[Brian Sweat]

21. Aren't we bribing Poland?

[oasis]

22. The leaders of UN countires are savvy enough to know what a danger

Bush is to the world. They will not bail him out of a situation that will most likely cost him the election.

What good are monetary fortunes when you allow a madman to have four additional years to destroy the planet?

[sushi]

23. Exactly! I agree, but

can the UN (the world) leave the Iraqis in this mess? Isn't the UN supposed to (help) promote peace?

[Beetwasher]

24. Right. I do think there are some principled players involved

such as Kofi Annan who really want to do the right thing for the Iraqi people by getting involved. After all, the only hope for that country is the involvement of the UN. That's one of the BIG problems here because it's huge disconnect between the Admin. and the UN. The admin. truly believes it's own bullshit that EVERYONE is unprincipled and out for a buck so they are going to try to bribe everyone and I don't think everyone is bribeable. Some really want to get invovled to do the rith thing, and in order for that to happen the know what must be ceded by the US. Without that, there's no point in them getting involved as it would very possibly worsen the situation if it's not done correctly.