Clipmarks | masbury's 'foreign policy' clips

Why America Will Survive George W. Bush

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:53:01 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Otto von Bismarck saw how American blunders led to American power and allegedly said that God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America.

Walter Russell Mead (of the Council on Foreign Relations) puts Bush's 8-year stint in the White House into proper perspective.

America's foreign policy has been short-sighted and often self-defeating from the get-go, alternately collaborative, passive, and interventionist. And, yet, miraculously, we always come out ahead.

With the unstoppable rise of a global capitalist economy, Mead makes the case that America, for all its past and current faults, will continue to be the inevitable leader of this new international buoyancy. Not even our latest mistakes (unprecedented though they may be) can derail such a powerful incentive that is the modern American world trade system.

Which means, more than ever, we're literally all in this together.

Clip Source: www.tnr.com

Failing Upward

Nothing in the field of international affairs is as scandalous and as perplexing as the fact of American power. From Revolutionary times to the present, virtually all observers foreign and domestic have agreed that Americans don't do foreign policy well.

Moralistic, uninformed, unsubtle, alternately isolationist and hyperactive, hamstrung by a clumsy constitutional process and a public that oscillates between fatuous idealism and ignorant bellicosity, U.S. foreign policy has been shocking the world for more than 200 years.

And, worse still, we win. For two centuries, the United States has astounded critics with its bad foreign policy--and, for two centuries, the United States has steadily risen to an unprecedented level of power and influence in the international system.

The spectacle is often surreal. The United States seems to wander nearsightedly but relatively unscathed past one hazard after another

like a version of the chronically oblivious cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

Tags: america, usa, bush, foreign policy, world, history, war, empire, trade, economy

Is the Search for Aliens a Good Idea?

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 03:21:14 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

One thing is clear from our searches for ET - there is nobody transmitting strong interstellar beacons in our local vicinity. If "they" are out there, they are keeping quiet, prompting the question that they might know something we don't.

Listening for transmissions from space is rational; intentionally announcing our presence to unknown civilizations borders on irresponsible. On Earth, radio technology and nuclear weapons were invented within only 50 years of each other. Any civilization with the capability to receive and understand our beacons will likely have figured out worse.

Humans are bad enough at co-existing as it is without near constant war. Could you imagine being forced to enter foreign policy negotiations with another species like our own? It would be calamitous.

Clip Source: comment.independent.co.uk

Meet the neighbours: Is the search for aliens such a good idea?

The fact is, and this should have been obvious to all, that we do not know what any extraterrestrials might be like - and hoping that they might be friendly, evolved enough to be wise and beyond violence, is an assumption upon which we could be betting our entire existence.

The late Carl Sagan, the American astronomer who died a decade ago, also worried about so-called "First Contact". He recommended that we, the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos, should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes. He said there is no chance that two galactic civilisations will interact at the same level. In any confrontation, one will always dominate the other.

it's likely that any creature we contact will also have had to claw its way up its own evolutionary ladder and may possibly be every bit as nasty as we are - or worse.

Tags: alien, aliens, planet, radio, space, war, civilization, science, politics, humans

Wrong Woman; Wrong Message

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:46:12 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

Holy Warriers Set Sights on Iran

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:54:27 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Check out some of our fellow clipper's comments:

"Willhelm, there is no stopping this war. The players are all falling into place. At least we know how it will end."

"i agree this could be the final piece to the beginning of armagaddon"

"but in the book of revelation and some other books in the new and old testament percieve the bear of the North or the great bear as Russia! Russia is in no way to be taken lightly."

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Christian right has evolved into one of the most powerful grassroots organising forces within the Republican Party, and a host of Christian Zionists have taken a well-earned seat at the foreign policy table.

At the same time, their support for Israel is not only growing -- it is also becoming an influential political factor.

And some have started to train their sights on Tehran. In a recent blog post datelined Jerusalem, Rosenberg wrote: "The buzz here in the last few days is that Israel is seriously considering a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities and ballistic missile sites."

Rosenberg said that "the question that's been most interesting among these various administration and congressional officials is, 'Are you saying that the Bible talks about an alliance between Iran, Russia, and a group of Middle Eastern countries to attack Israel at some point?' And the answer is yes."

Tags: holy, war

China threatens to crash the Dollar.

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:43:09 GMT

clipped by: BitDrifter

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Tags: business, economy, china, national secuirty, defense, dollar, money, currency, war, politics

These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:32:21 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz
clipper's remarks: The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable.

Clip Source: www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed

The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable. The country might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your weapons inspectors mandate.

Please try the following:

Click the Regime change button, or try again later.

If you are George Bush and typed the country's name in the address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly. (IRAQ).

To check your weapons inspector settings, click the UN menu, and then click Weapons Inspector Options. On the Security Council tab, click Consensus. The settings should match those provided by your government or NATO.

If the Security Council has enabled it, The United States of America can examine your country and automatically discover Weapons of Mass Destruction.
If you would like to use the CIA to try and discover them,
click Detect weapons

Some countries require 128 thousand troops to liberate them. Click the Panic menu and then click About US foreign policy to

Tags: weapons

Canada Removes U.S and Israel from Torture Watchlist

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:08:52 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem... Evil thrives when good men do nothing... What does it help you gain the whole world, if you lose your soul?

Cowards.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Canada removes U.S., Israel from torture watchlist

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.

Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said he regretted the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual, which also classified some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture.

"It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten,"

"The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions."

the minority Conservative government

is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel.

Tags: torture, is, not, torture?

CALLING ALL CLIPPERS: Create and Manage your own nation!

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:29:06 GMT

clipped by: sohil
clipper's remarks: And join the Clipmarks region I just created

Almost as addicting as Clipmarks

Clip Source: www.nationstates.net

Clipmarks

Clipmarks is an amazing place deep in outerspace where all the Clippers, sick of the state of the current society formed their own nations in hope of future for all :D

Founder: The United Socialist States of Sohil

Regional Power: Backwater

Clip Source: www.nationstates.net

The United Socialist States of Sohil

"Peace, Prosperity and Productivity"

UN Category: Inoffensive Centrist Democracy
Civil Rights: Good	Economy: Good	Political Freedoms: Very Good

The United Socialist States of Sohil is a tiny, devout nation, notable for its compulsory military service. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 5 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

Crime -- especially youth-related -- is relatively low. Sohil's national animal is the peacock and its currency is the rupiya.

Tags: clipmarks, country, politics, foreign policy, liberals, democrats, ideas for clipmarks

Childhood is dying in Iraq

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:04:16 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: .5M kids died during sanctions before 2003. 122k children died in 2005 alone.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

BAQUBA - Iraq’s children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population.

The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.

A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a population of about 25 million.

UN Children’s Fund report

“at least two million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Programme assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other threats including interrupted education, lack of immunisation services and diarrhoea diseases.”

Tags: politics, foreign policy, iraq, terrorism

Censorship in American Universities: Harvard

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:12:13 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: But is it anti-Semitic to ask why the Palestinians should pay the price for the ghastly crime of the Germans? Why were the property rights of the German perpetrators sacrosanct and those of the guiltless Palestinians adjudged an acceptable casualty?

In U.S. foreign policy, not all racial groups are guaranteed the same rights and protections. Otherwise, why does the U.S. rightly defend Jewish people’s claims on EU bank accounts, property, and compensation for labour expropriated during the 1930s and 1940s, while quashing the rights of millions of Palestinians refugees to lands, houses, and goods stolen as a condition of Israel’s founding in the late 1940s?

As a nation we seem unconscious of the hypocrisy. The convention that persecuted Europeans had the right to safe havens on lands stolen from non-EU was, by the mid-20th century, as outmoded as the Confederacy’s defence of slavery in the mid-19th.

...Harvard Crimson

Clip Source: www.thecrimson.com

The

Israel and Censorship at Harvard

Since Vietnam, Israel has become the heartbeat of U.S. foreign policy and a litmus test of what can be debated—and even of who will be allowed to speak—on university campuses

he British lecturers’ union—proposed a boycott of Israeli universities and academics

This boycott has its counterpart in a decades-old U.S. practice of threatening, defaming, or censoring scholars who dare to criticize Israel.

In recent years, at least three professors

have been invited to speak at Harvard and then disinvited after complaints that they had spoken critically of Israel

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse vocalized the underlying rationale of such censorship as few other professors have dared. Denying that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are separate phenomena, she declared anti-Zionism

worst kind of anti-Semitism

For such defenders of Israel

Zionism in principle and in practice violates Palestinian rights is tantamount to an endorsement of the Holocaust

Tags: zionism, israel, censorship, usa

"Like a Fox on the Run" Rummy Runs Ragged. Flees EU

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:40:43 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years

Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil

According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld, shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, U.S. embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons"

Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over the open border to Germany

French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive

"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces were hunting him down,"

war crime doesn't pay."

Tags: war, crimes, torture, prison, iraq, wmd, usa

McCain's plan to kill the UN

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:44:10 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: The article is hilarious in it's bias, though in fairness I do not think the writer pretends to be neutral. Still, it is so petty and outlandish in it's assertions.

That said, I think this dude his given me a reason to vote for John McCain.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Does John McCain have a "hidden agenda" to "kill the UN?" That's what the man who devised McCain's big set-piece foreign policy proposal says -- and he's delighted it is sailing silently through the presidential election campaign towards success.

Yet McCain cannot oppose the UN outright -- because the American people support it so passionately.

So McCain has decided to build up an innocuous-sounding alternative called a "League of Democracies." It would be an alliance of countries the US labels democratic that can be used to legitimate US military actions. Charles Krauthammer, the conservative journalist who invented the plan, says: "What I like about it is, it's got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it's about listening and joining with allies... except the idea here, which McCain can't say but I can, is to essentially kill the UN.

Study Of Countries

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:19:08 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: I do not claim that sites such as this are the be all and end all of research regarding any given country. But still they are fairly comprehensive.

If any given country or nation intrigues you then I recommend further research. If this site creates a even greater thirst for knowledge then I will have done something useful.

Clip Source: countrystudies.us

Country Studies

This website contains the on-line versions of books previously published in hard copy by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998. Each study offers a comprehensive description and analysis of the country or region's historical setting, geography, society, economy, political system, and foreign policy.

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Bhutan
Bolivia
Brazil
British Virgin Islands
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Caribbean Islands
Cayman Islands
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Ethiopia
Finland
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Ivory Coast
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakstan

Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Libya
Lithuania
Madagascar
Maldives
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Moldova
Mongolia
Nepal
Nicaragua
Nigeria
North Korea
Oman
Pakistan
Panama
Paraguay
Persian Gulf States
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Seychelles
Singapore
Somalia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
Sudan
Syria
Tajikistan
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam

Tags: countries, nations, peoples, cultures, geography

Palin, aside from being a woman...

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:10:13 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: Obviously a lot has been said about the fact that McCain picked a woman as his VP. That is no doubt an interesting fact that can be interpreted in a few different ways. But putting that aside, i think the facts that matter most are those in this clip.

These come from a comment by debbyski and i think they represent the reasons people will or won't support her.

I would certainly be shocked if anyone who voted for Hillary would support Palin based on these specific differences in beliefs and policies.

Clip Source: clipmarks.com

is also anti-choice, pro-gun, pro big oil, opposes stem-cell research, wants to teach creationism in schools, also has ZERO FOREIGN POLICY EXPERTISE

Tags: sarah palin, mccain, vice president, politics

US No.1 BoogieMan? A bantam Cock? Worth WAR?

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:51:44 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: "The right has decided it is at war with Iran, so a routine visit by Iran's ceremonial president to the UN GA has generated sparks. The foremost cheerleader for such a view in Congress is Sen Lieberman, who recently pressed Gen. Petraeus on the desirability of bombing Iran in order to forestall weapons smuggling into Iraq from that country.

American hawks are beating the war drums loudly because they are increasingly frustrated with the course of events. They are unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm among the EU and UN for impeding Tehran's nuclear energy research program. While the Bush administration insists that the program aims at producing a bomb, the Iranian state maintains that it is for peaceful energy purposes. It wants tighter sanctions on Iran at the UN but is unlikely to get them in the short term because of Russian and Chinese reluctance. They may attempt to create a "coalition of the willing" of Iran boycotters outside the UN framework."

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1

Demonizing the Iranian president and making his visit to New York seem controversial are all part of the neoconservative push for yet another war.

he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces

never invaded any other country

denies he is an anti-Semite

never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed

allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament

remarkably little substance to the debates now raging

His quirky personality

penchant for outrageous one-liners

combative populism are hardly serious concerns for foreign policy

Taking potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another, deeper anxiety

fear of Iran's rising position as a regional power

its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo

Reagan administration sold substantial numbers of arms to Iran

The sales would have been a form of treason

Ledeen is apparently accusing himself of treason

Lieberman

it is at war with Iran

Tags: iran, president, usa