February 12, 2002

9:40 AM

Another Prime Minister kisses ass.Maggie tells us to git 'em, because "it is best that the United States, as the only global military superpower, deploy its energies militarily rather than on social work." (NYT)
posted by swift (27 comments total)

I suppose one expects such a line from Thatcher; still, it is a bit bizarre to have the former prime minister of England more or less insisting that the U.S. maintain absolute dominance over the world order.
posted by BT at 9:47 AM on February 12, 2002

I always liked Thatcher.
posted by revbrian at 10:33 AM on February 12, 2002

No, for the definition of "kissing ass" please see the US Senate Minority leader Tom Daschle...

Kissing Ass consists of saying "oh, don't do anything on your own; get a coalition...". The entire coalition idea was the reason Saddam was left in power. We should have fixed the problem the first time we had a chance.

(Ok, I'm more than willing to admit that we - the U.S. - are the primary reason Saddam is a problem at all. One could argue that the responsibility for fixing it falls to us alone...)
posted by hadashi at 10:45 AM on February 12, 2002

Daschle is Majority Leader.
posted by jpoulos at 10:49 AM on February 12, 2002

That's the best link title I've seen lately.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 11:07 AM on February 12, 2002

finally a brit that has some balls.........go maggie, go maggie!!(doing a little dance now).
posted by billybob at 12:00 PM on February 12, 2002

First let's do Iran, then Iraq, and then lets do a swoop of Africa, where millions of people are dying of starvation. No, I don't care if it's "their civil war."

Superpower never lasted very long in history. Let's be the good guy before our kryptonite comes.
posted by aaronshaf at 12:36 PM on February 12, 2002

"it is best that the United States, as the only global military superpower, deploy its energies militarily rather than on social work."

It is best if we deploy our energies on both, IMHO.
posted by jonmc at 12:48 PM on February 12, 2002

Haven't you heard? Nobody takes Thatcher seriously these days.
posted by niceness at 12:49 PM on February 12, 2002

Apart from the numerous insane things she was responsible for during her time in office (the sinking of the Belgrano, anyone?), Maggie Thatcher's said enough of late to mark herself out as very much in the batty and senile camp.

Having presided over some of the most callous and damaging social policies of the 20th Century, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that Thatcher congratulates America on deploying its "...energies militarily rather than on social work." Personally if given the choice of where my tax money was going, I'd still rather hospitals and schools than bombs. But hey, that's just crazy old me.
posted by skylar at 1:44 PM on February 12, 2002

I believe the various charges of ass-kissing flying about in this thread are more revealing of the posters than of the subjects.

And hadashi is apparently under the impression that there is nobody in the world with moral culpability for their actions but the United States. hadashi, do you realize how contemptible and indefensible that position is?

Thatcher's column doesn't really contain anything new, and I suspect (given the reception above!) that it's unlikely to persuade anyone who didn't like her in the first place -- and of those who did, they're already saying what she does here.
posted by dhartung at 3:00 PM on February 12, 2002

Oops, meant "Majority", wrote Minority. Sorry.
posted by hadashi at 3:07 PM on February 12, 2002

dhartung writes:

And hadashi is apparently under the impression that there is nobody in the world with moral culpability for their actions but the United States. hadashi, do you realize how contemptible and indefensible that position is?

Um, I'm confused by your statement.

Are you criticizing me or the U.S. because I'm saying we should clean up the messes that we make? Or are you saying that I don't think anyone else believes that they should clean up their mess?

Please clarify.
posted by hadashi at 3:10 PM on February 12, 2002

The Thatcher piece was excellent. Too bad so many people are self-hating Westerners; unable to acknowledge evil and inferiority from good and superiority. It's too simple for your constitution? Well, at the extremes, good and bad are clear cut. neo-13th Century regimes are BAD, primarily because said regimes refused to "go all the way" and keep to 13th Century arms. The West, and the US is Good, which doesn't mean perfect, which doesn't mean you have to adore George W Bush. So grow up. Get secure. The depravity of N. Korea; and Iran and Iraq and most of the Islamic world is obvious. This is not a fight over campaign finance reform or whether the US to too free market.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:08 PM on February 12, 2002

I have to go back to work. Apologies for the first-draft quality of the above. Yes, distinguish, not acknowledge.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:10 PM on February 12, 2002

Well, let's roll then.
posted by swift at 9:51 PM on February 12, 2002

hadashi:

You suggested US culpability as follows: "We, the US, are the primary reason Saddam's a problem at all" ... as opposed to -- oh, I dunno --- maybe Saddam himself? Nah, that's just crazy talk.

And before you unroll the "we helped him during the Iran Iraq war" poster, consider that he also got aid from Saudi Arabia (and other Sunni nations) during that period, SA being more concerned at the time with Iran's muscle-flexing. Is some ultimately inconsequential (the war was one of the more complete stalemates of modern times) arms assistance a "primary reason" why he decided to invade Kuwait and begin a program to develop NBC weapons? Or is it, perhaps, that Saddam is a two-bit Stalin who was the biggest thug in a junta of thugs and ascended to power on murder and stayed there through sequential waves of murder, failed to manage his nation's economy despite dollars falling from the sky for little to no work, and when faced with obvious demographic and economic challenges chose to solve them by moving his army around so it could capture a slice of sand where somebody else was collecting dollars falling from the sky for little to no work?

There is this dangerous assumption that regions of the Earth where the US has exercised various types of diplomacy were tabulae rasae where without US interference nothing untoward would ever have happened. This simply doesn't reflect an understanding of history. The 'one drop of oil' approach where the moment the US lifts a finger it is suddenly "primarily responsible" for whatever happens next is annoyingly reductionist.
posted by dhartung at 11:10 PM on February 12, 2002

Yeah, ParisParamus, must remember: US and the West GOOD, everyone else BAD. So *that* was the Axis of Evil they've been talking about.

To say America is in danger of losing its support from the West on this War on Terrorism thing is an understatement. We're making progress on relations with Iran; thousands of civilians die needlessly in Iraq as a result of our sanctions. And you support a mission to bomb these places? To what end?

Have you ever thought that there are people just like you living in Iraq, North Korea, Iran and any other sundry "depravity"-filled Islamic nation you care to think of? And that your opinion of these places is itself influenced by the progressively more isolated and contained nature of the country in which you live? You xenophobic, racist idiot.
posted by skylar at 12:40 AM on February 13, 2002

What skylar said (not that it hasn't been said multiple times about the exact same person before).
posted by lia at 1:04 AM on February 13, 2002

Oh please you aren't still listening to that woman.....

During the last election she said "On my way here I passed a local cinema and it turned out you were expecting me after all, for the billboards read: The Mummy Returns. "

Hello? Anyone home?
posted by brettski at 1:37 AM on February 13, 2002

Have you ever thought that there are people just like you living in Iraq, North Korea, Iran and any other sundry "depravity"-filled Islamic nation you care to think of?

Like, Afghanistan is, or these other places would be, worse off after a US invasion/war.

People are being murdered, abused, imprisoned in these places daily. It would take little, if no time for the death tally to even out. PLUS the danger of other countries being, e.g., nuked, or gased, or bombed in a restaurant would be reduced. Your strawman arguments are juvenile and ignorant. Taking out the governments and militaries of these nations would OBVIOUSLY be of great benefit to each nation's population.

You should go live in one of these places for a few years and see how your tune changes. Governments of these kinds have no right to exist. Add the fact that they threaten other nations, and destroying said governments is moral and necessary.

Hope you have a tantrum when Iraq is invaded!
posted by ParisParamus at 5:45 AM on February 13, 2002

Thatcher is a sad, senile old joke who would have done her and her party a big favour by dying peacefully in her sleep fifteen years ago.

For your information the only people who take her seriously anymore are the sort of old tory tossers who pay to get their arses spanked and nipples clamped every weekend.
posted by dodgygeezer at 5:51 AM on February 13, 2002

ParisParamus, not only are you tiresome, but monotonously predictable too.
posted by Markb at 8:20 AM on February 13, 2002

Mefi is sufficiently populated by immature leftist dellusionalists that I feel obliged to stick up for a sane, middle-of-the-road outlook on the world. Even if my remarks are somewhat repetitive.

What's your beef with M. Thatcher? How cheap is it to ad hominem her about her age. She helped save England from a fate worse than....well...some combination of Italy and Argentina.

People who support regimes such as Iraq and Iran (does anyone really support N.Korea?) should be, and are laughed at.

Great pieces today by Michael Kelly and Thomas Friedman on the Axis of Evil.
posted by ParisParamus at 12:43 PM on February 13, 2002

but monotonously predictable too.

Guess what? You're right. It's called CONSISTENCY. This is not the place for creativity or variation.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:05 PM on February 13, 2002

ParisParamus: try as I might, I can't find any hint of logic in your argument. Yours is an oddly black and white world with simplistic solutions to complex problems. Maybe you should run the planet for a while... see how long it takes before there's nothing left to blow up.

If military action is so effective at stopping people from being "bombed in a restaurant" then how come Israel, well funded by the US, armed to the teeth and striking out every which way, is finding itself more the victim of terrorist attacks now than at any other time in recent years?
posted by skylar at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2002

ParisParamus: This is not the place for creativity or variation.

Damn, I knew I had metafilter figured out all wrong.
posted by bittennails at 5:36 PM on February 13, 2002