JDG wrote
... let's consider a reasonable definition of the US's
friends as being those countries with which the US has a
formal Alliance ... Of the 32 or so of these ...
To which I responded
That fails to provide much legitimacy. It is the same argument
as that in favor of the United Nations.
and JDG answered back
You may recall that I was not seeking to provide legitimacy. I
was simply rebutting the proposition that the US had not listened
to the opinions of its friends in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Except you were trying to rebut the argument that the US did not
listen to the opinions of its friends. That is what legitimacy is
about: being accepted, if not happily, then grudgingly. Nowadays,
one of the ways of being accepted is that people come to feel that
enough have been consulted.
To be considered important opinion givers, people have to be
considered rich enough and to live in a populous enough country. The
terrible truth is that many Americans do not pay much attention to the
general opinions of people in small, poor countries, especially if
their culture it different from that of most Americans.
Counting countries does not work, unless that count includes big, rich
countries with a culture not too different from most Americans.
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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