Poshdeluxe

it is pouring rain again, but this time i’m at home, in my pjs, with a gingerbread candle burning and the promise of sleep very near…

i just read an editorial by zbigniew brzezinksi (whoah), the national security advisor to jimmy carter. i want to post a few striking passages from the article, all of which made me wish with all of my being that mr. brzezinksi was in charge instead of, oh, richard ashcroft or george w. or condi rice…

first of all, this illustration is amazing, unbelievable and sad:

“forty years ago, an important emissary was sent to france by a beleaguered president of the united states. it was during the cuban missile crisis, and the emissary was a tough-minded former secretary of state, dean acheson. his mission was to brief french president charles de gaulle and solicit his support in what could become a nuclear war involving not just the united states and the soviet union but the entire nato alliance and the warsaw pact.� at the end of the briefing, acheson said to de gualle, ‘i would now like to show you the evidence, the photographs that we have of soviet missiles armed with nuclear weapons.’� the french president responded, ‘i do not wish to see the photographs.� the word of the president of the united states is good enough for me.� please tell him that france stands with america.’�

would any foreign leader today react the same way to an american emissary sent abroad to say that country X is armed with weapons of mass destruction that threaten the united states?� it is unlikely.� the recent conduct of u.s. foreign policy, by distorting the threats facing america, has isolated the united states and undermined its credibilty.”

and another excellent point…

“since the tragedy of 9/11, our government has embraced a paranoiac view of the world summarized in a phrase president bush used on sept. 20, 2001:� ‘either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.’� i suspect officials who have adopted the ‘with us or against us’ formulation don’t know its historical origins.� it was used by lenin to attack the social democrats as anti-bolshevik and justify handling them accordingly.� this phrase is part of our policy-makers’ defining focus, summed up by the words ‘war on terorism.’� war on terriorism reflects, in my view, a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign poicy for a superpower and for a great democracy with geniunely idealistic traditions.”

and one more…

“while america is paramount, it isn’t omnipotent.� we need europe, which shares our values and interests, even if it disagrees with us on specific policies.� but we cannot have a relationship if we only dictate to or threaten those who disagree.� sometimes we may be right.� sometimes they may be right.� but there is something transcendental about shared values that shouldn’t be subordinated to tactical requirements.”

a-men.