pragmatismo

Some US analysts listed the failure to prevent US forces from becoming occupiers in the eyes of Iraqis and Arabs as the major mistake made by the Bush administration in planning the war. [ Could Iraq issue lead to Bush's political demise? China People's Daily December 20, 2003 ]
prmn

I sat down to talk with more than 20 young men and women from nations ranging from China and Nigeria to Colombia and Egypt. They work in U.S. embassies in their native countries and are traveling the United States to learn something about their new employer. For about an hour, they pelted me with questions about the American media, the American public and, most of all, American attitudes toward the rest of the world. (...) One question in particular struck home. I wasn't taking notes, but I'll try to paraphrase it: "We watch the American government be friends with this dictator over here and support him, because he will give you the oil or minerals or something that you want," one person stood up to say. "But then with this other dictator over there, who is not so friendly and cooperative, you will start talking about democracy just so you can get rid of him. This is so hypocritical, to use democracy this way, like a weapon. Do Americans think that the world does not understand what it is you are doing?" World Knows our Foreign Policy Better Than We Do by Jay Bookman - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 18/12/2003
prmn

there's a certain triumphalism slipping into the discourse of American politics on both sides of the Dem-GOP divide, that I think does come from the agenda set at the top, a kind of "trickle down" psychology: Those Republican partisans who feel Bush's reappointment is a done deal, and those Democrat partisans who feel Howard Dean's nomination is equally wrapped up. I think both phenomena stem from the feeling that if one says victory is inevitable it therefore becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, if only by bullying dissident voices into silence. [Al Giordano - On democratic presidential primaries 15/12/2003]
prmn