"We can do just fine without America"

[SpiralHawk]

Here's an eye-opening article from the Nation about the Paris Air Show (arms bazzar) -- and the context in which it unfolded.

The unelected BushCo continues to deepen the hatred of America's enemies, and to alienate it's long time allies. Is this a recipe for peace and security? I don't think so.

Should be of especial interest to laid-off US aerospace workers.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030804&s=hartung


July 24, 2003 Copyright © 2003 The Nation

Ugly Americans in Paris
by William D. Hartung & Michelle Ciarrocca

The conventional wisdom at this year's Paris Air Show was that Donald Rumsfeld's temper tantrum and Russia's shaky financial status were going to take all the fun out of the world's largest arms bazaar and aerospace exhibition...

<snip>

...Since Rumsfeld had refused to send US combat aircraft to Paris to "punish" the French for not supporting Washington in Gulf War II, and Moscow was afraid to send fighter planes for fear that a Swiss creditor might confiscate them, commentators were droning on about how the "firepower" would be missing from Le Bourget this year...

<snip>

...While the journalists were preparing for gloom and doom, someone apparently forget to tell the scores of nations, hundreds of exhibitors and hundreds of thousands of members of the general public who came to the show to follow suit...tens of thousands watched French pilots dominate the air over Le Bourget at a show whose theme seemed to be "we can do business just fine without America, thank you very much."

This point was underscored by the largest deal announced at the show, a blockbuster purchase by UAE airlines of twenty-one massive Airbus 380A airliners -- one of the most lucrative single airline deals ever made. The United States may have won the war for regime change in Iraq, but US companies are in danger of losing the peace, in large part due to backlash against the Rumsfeld/Perle/Wolfowitz brand of Ugly Americanism.

....<snip>...

[rjbcar27]

1. The words 'reap' and 'sow' spring to mind.

:eyes:

[aquart]

3. And it never once occurred to the shortsighted twits.

So much for reading their Bible.

[Spazito]

2. There has been an interesting shift in the world re US.....

that the Shrub cabal didn't think through, surprise, surprise. That shift is a realization that, yes, indeed, the rest of the world does not need US participation in a great many things in order for an event, a product, etc to be successful.

What vindictiveness by this cabal has done is bring diversification of trading partners beyond the US, it has brought the realization that there are many millions of customers world-wide that will buy products not made in the US.

[aquart]

4. Yeah, Fortress America is beginning to look more like

a nasty neighbor surrounded by everybody else's really tall fences.