Does he have a point?
On Harry's snazzy new site we get this gem of a quote from ex-President Jimmy Carter:
We've had such a confused foreign policy with demands on other nations. We've alienated almost everyone who offered their support after 9/11, and now we have just a handful of little tiny countries supposedly helping us in Iraq.
Taking ex-President Carter literally he may have a point. Looking at the land areas of the countries which have, or have had, troops in Iraq we find that they total 25,884,150 square kilometres, or only about 17% of the world's total land area.
Worse the US is by far the largest country in this, with 9.2m square kilometres of land area and is perhaps inadmissable as a country 'supposedly helping us' in Iraq. Removing it we find that the US's allies accounted for just 16.7m square kilometres, or about the same size as Russia.
Worse still a large chunk of this is down to the country-that-shouldn't-be-mentioned-as-an-ally-in-this-great-battle-for-freedom-and-democracy, Kazakhstan, with 2,669,800 square
In terms of population the old chap has even more of a case. The total population of the same set of countries as above is 920m, around 15% of the world's total population. Again the US accounts for rather a large share; without it the Phillipines and Thailand were the most populous allies (the UK was third), and in total the allies have only 10% of the world's population.It's only in terms of GDP, which might be the most important measure here, that Carter might have some trouble justifying himself. Using this measure the US and its allies in Iraq produced 39% of global output. Though this is heavily dependent on the hyperpower, as without it the coalition produced only 18% of global output (or 18%/79% of non-US global output), the main economic powers (in order UK, Italy, Spain, South Korea, and Australia) were the ones who stumped up some troops (not forgetting Poland of course).
posted by Matthew @ 7/28/2004 03:40:00 PM
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