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| George Soros uses his philosophical approach to today's
geo-political, economic position:
Bush's Inflated Sense of Supremacy [ A Copernic Summary of a Thursday, March 13, '03 article in The Financial Times. Full article here ] Iraq is the first instance in which the Bush doctrine is being applied and it is provoking an allergic reaction. The doctrine is built on two pillars: first, the US will do everything in its power to maintain unquestioned military supremacy; second, it arrogates the right to pre-emptive action. These pillars support two classes of sovereignty: American sovereignty, which takes precedence over international treaties; and the sovereignty of all other states, which is subject to the Bush doctrine. This is reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. This belief is not entirely false but it exaggerates one aspect of reality - military power - at the exclusion of others. I see a parallel between the Bush administration's pursuit of American supremacy and a boom-bust process or bubble in the stock market. In this case, the dominant position of the US is the reality, the pursuit of supremacy the misconception. Reality can reinforce the misconception but eventually the gap between reality and its false interpretation becomes unsustainable. This course of events seems inexorable but a boom-bust process can be aborted at any stage and few of them reach the extremes of the recent stock market bubble. President George W. Bush came into office with a coherent strategy based on market fundamentalism and military power. But before September 11 2001 he lacked a clear mandate or a well defined enemy. Mr Bush's administration deliberately fosters fear because it helps to keep the nation lined up behind the president. We have come a long way from Franklin D. Roosevelt's dictum that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. But the war on terrorism cannot be accepted as the guiding principle of US foreign policy. A rapid victory in Iraq with little loss of life could cause a dramatic reversal. - Full article: http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullS tory&c=StoryFT&cid=1045511573224&p=1012571727088 |
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