How Good of A Friend is Canada to the US?

[zipo]

>>It is unsustainable since the US is not powerful enough in itself to succeed in its agenda<<

Specifically, what "agenda" are you referring to? Your previous comment addressed the totality of US foreign policy.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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>>It is unsustainable since the US is not powerful enough in itself to succeed in its agenda<<

Specifically, what "agenda" are you referring to? Your previous comment addressed the totality of US foreign policy.

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Yes, I am not backpedalling [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I meant what I wrote then. The cumulative level of ambition is higher than resources available (creating stability in the Middle East, financing global antiterror operations, balancing China in Asia etc.).

[zipo]

Well, my point is that US foreign policy is complex and multidimensional, consisting of many 'agendas' - and in fact there are tensions between constituencies/agencies within American institutions that govern foreign policy (e.g. the Pentagon, the White House, the State department, the FTC, the Fed, etc.)

And there is hardly a monolithic "agenda" or central issue that overrides or dominates all elements of the vast enterprise that constitues the totality of "US foreign policy" which you condemned as "unsustainable".

Now if you want to take issue with specific aspects of US foreign policy (e.g. democratizing the middle east)that's one thing. But blanket condemnation is simply unreasonable.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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But blanket condemnation is simply unreasonable.

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I am not condemning everything, just some major parts but they are major enough to condemn the totality.

[zipo]

>>but they are major enough to condemn the totality.<<

Well, at least you clarified your position unambiguously.

Black and white thinking, though. Which is funny, because that's one of the prime accusations leveled at the Bush administration by its critics.

Mirror images.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

[img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]


[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
It is not black and white-thinking. Foreign policy is all about totality and if I don't like the totality I say so. That doesn't mean I don't think it is good that the US tries to capture Balkan war criminals etc..

[zipo]

>>Foreign policy is all about totality<<f

Again, proving my point.