Against war (off topic)
Erann Gat
patience for off-topic posts, stop reading now.
I am posting this because c.l.l. has been more than just a newsgroup
for me. It has been a community. I feel like I know and am known by
many people here despite the fact that we have never met. Indeed, in
many cases we have no idea what we look like, or what nationality we
are.
I was born in what was at the time West Germany, and am now a
naturalized citizen of the United States. My country is about to go
to war, and I wanted this community and the world to know where I
stand.
Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and solving
this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent. What is to
stop any country from launching a war against anyone that they judge
to be evil?
Robert Bolt said it best in "A Man for all Seasons":
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to
get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round
on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? The
country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's law, not
God's - and if you cut them down - and you're the man to do it - d'you
really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow
then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's
sake.
I stand with Thomas More on this occasion.
Thank you for your forbearance on this decidedly off-topic post. When
the bombs start to fly I wanted everyone to know that they do so
without the consent of this American.
OK, I've said my peace. You can come get me now, John Ashcroft. You
know where I live.
Erann Gat
Nils Kassube
Nils Goesche
> Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
> has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
> repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
> trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
> launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
Oh /come on/! The senate voted 77-23, the House 296-133 to authorize
the president to attack Iraq. This means that even most of the
Democrats voted for it. You can hardly call it dictatorial behavior
if the president does what he has been authorized to do by the
democratic institutions.
> The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
> Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
> without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and
> solving this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent.
I find this ``Saddam is not the only bad guy´´ argument very strange.
So, would it be ok with you if the US attacked all the other bad guys,
too?
> What is to stop any country from launching a war against anyone that
> they judge to be evil?
As has always been the case for the last few millennia: Nothing but
military force. There are several countries in the world that judge
not only the US but /every/ civilized Western country to be evil. And
that would attack us the very first minute they think they can do it
without being destroyed. No, this isn't nice, but when has the world
ever been a nice place?
Also, I reject this kind of relativism. ``We say they're evil, they
say we're evil, so who is to say?´´. I read a nice analogy somewhere
a while ago: This is as if you were saying that the guy who pushes an
old lady away from an approaching bus is morally equivalent to the guy
who pushes the lady /before/ the bus because both are doing the same
thing: Both of them are pushing old ladies around! ;-)
> Robert Bolt said it best in "A Man for all Seasons":
[snip nice little story]
> Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
>
> I stand with Thomas More on this occasion.
So do I, incidentally. The ``Rule of Law´´ is an important principle.
However I don't think that it applies here. We are not living in one
established law system; the UN are /not/ the government of the world,
and I wouldn't want them to be, either, at least for the time being,
where most of the governments in the world don't give a /damn/ about
Western values, freedom and democracy. For many decades doing
anything sensible with UN approval has been pretty much impossible
because of the Soviet ``Nyet!´´. The Korean war was one of the few
exceptions -- the Soviets were boycotting the Security Council at the
time and weren't there to give their veto :-) World isn't ripe for
this kind of world-government yet. Heck, not even the Europeans can
make up their mind whether they are for or against the war.
> Thank you for your forbearance on this decidedly off-topic post.
> When the bombs start to fly I wanted everyone to know that they do
> so without the consent of this American.
>
> OK, I've said my peace. You can come get me now, John Ashcroft.
> You know where I live.
A bit paranoid, aren't we? ;-)
Regards,
--
Nils Gösche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID 0x0655CFA0
Pascal Costanza
> http://www.poetsforthewar.org/poems/russel01.shtml
Did the Iraqi people ask for Mr. Russell's "concern"?
Pascal
--
Pascal Costanza University of Bonn
mailto:cost...@web.de Institute of Computer Science III
http://www.pascalcostanza.de Römerstr. 164, D-53117 Bonn (Germany)
Nils Goesche
> Nils Kassube wrote:
> > http://www.poetsforthewar.org/poems/russel01.shtml
>
> Did the Iraqi people ask for Mr. Russell's "concern"?
That probably depends on whether you ask those who are still living in
Iraq under the watchful eyes of the dreaded secret police or some of
the refugees living elsewhere.
Pascal Costanza
> Pascal Costanza <cost...@web.de> writes:
>
>
>>Nils Kassube wrote:
>
>
>>>http://www.poetsforthewar.org/poems/russel01.shtml
>>
>>Did the Iraqi people ask for Mr. Russell's "concern"?
>
>
> That probably depends on whether you ask those who are still living in
> Iraq under the watchful eyes of the dreaded secret police or some of
> the refugees living elsewhere.
Have you talked to some of those refugees? I haven't, but according to a
radio report I have heard today, at least some of those refugees are
strictly against the war.
I can't imagine that George W. has asked any of those concernced what
they want. It's obvious that he wanted the war from the very beginning,
and that he wasn't interested in peace in that region. His only interest
is to gain control over the oil fields. That's extremely disgusting!
Nils Goesche
> Nils Goesche wrote:
> > Pascal Costanza <cost...@web.de> writes:
> >
> >>Nils Kassube wrote:
> >
> >>>http://www.poetsforthewar.org/poems/russel01.shtml
> >>
> >>Did the Iraqi people ask for Mr. Russell's "concern"?
> > That probably depends on whether you ask those who are still living
> > in
> > Iraq under the watchful eyes of the dreaded secret police or some of
> > the refugees living elsewhere.
>
> Have you talked to some of those refugees? I haven't, but according
> to a radio report I have heard today, at least some of those
> refugees are strictly against the war.
``At least some...´´? Well, as there is a great lot of such refugees,
this is hardly surprising ;-)
> I can't imagine that George W. has asked any of those concernced
> what they want. It's obvious that he wanted the war from the very
> beginning, and that he wasn't interested in peace in that
> region. His only interest is to gain control over the oil
> fields. That's extremely disgusting!
*ROFL* Yeah, right. It's the oil fields.
Look, this ``for oil´´ argument is so extremely ridiculous that it is
not even worth being discussed. Even our leftist government didn't
use it, probably because they feared it would make them look all too
stupid, even through our biased media. Just think about it for a
moment (which you should have done the first time you read it in,
what, the ``taz´´?) and I'm sure you'll understand.
Hint: If they want oil, they'll buy it.
If you still don't get it, I'll make a little prophecy:
I claim the US are not going to annex any part of Iraq and they are
not going to declare any oil well in Iraq to be property of the US
government.
If you think I'm wrong, please say so. I'll happily quote you over
and over again, after the war :-)
Wade Humeniuk
"Nils Goesche" <car...@cartan.de> wrote in message news:lybs075...@cartan.de...> Look, this ``for oil创 argument is so extremely ridiculous that it is
> not even worth being discussed. Even our leftist government didn't
> use it, probably because they feared it would make them look all too
> stupid, even through our biased media. Just think about it for a
> moment (which you should have done the first time you read it in,
>
> Hint: If they want oil, they'll buy it.
I actually heard a plausible reason for it being partially about oil. A
strong right-winger here in Canada said that we should get control
of Iraqi oil because then we can really put the screws to Saudi Arabia.
Get control of the oil so the problem of Saudi Arabia can be dealt with
without throwing the world into a temporary oil crisis. After all the
vast source of terrorists involved in 9/11 were Saudi's, right? And,
I assume the US is thinking down the road.
Wade
Nils Goesche
> "Nils Goesche" <car...@cartan.de> wrote in message news:lybs075...@cartan.de...
> > Hint: If they want oil, they'll buy it.
> I actually heard a plausible reason for it being partially about
> oil. A strong right-winger here in Canada said that we should get
> control of Iraqi oil because then we can really put the screws to
> Saudi Arabia. Get control of the oil so the problem of Saudi Arabia
> can be dealt with without throwing the world into a temporary oil
> crisis. After all the vast source of terrorists involved in 9/11
> were Saudi's, right? And, I assume the US is thinking down the
> road.
IMHO this only shows that the typical ``strong right winger´´ is
actually a similar kind of paranoid lunatic as the strong left
winger :-)
Michael Parker
<g...@flownet.com> wrote:
The whole tone of this and much of the other rhetoric coming from the
left really reminds me of the sort of cr*p the wacko right was spewing
during the Clinton administration. But that sort of paranoid hysteria
was self-defeating for them, and it is not pretty to see it coming from
the left. It is unpursuasive, devoid of logic, and corrosive to public
discourse.
>
> Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> office has made me ashamed to call myself an American.
Sorry to hear that. He doesn't make me ashamed.
> No President
> has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> which is that what other people think matters.
You're sort-of right here, but a bit off the mark. A couple of points:
(a) the US is not strictly speaking a democracy. What people think
only directly matters at election time, with only an indirect influence
the rest of the time. This was considered a feature by the founding
fathers as a way around the instability and lack of focus that plagued
the classical democracies of ancient Greece.
(b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
(c) What citizens think does indeed matter, subject to the restrictions
I mentioned in (a). But the demonstrations thus far aren't significant
as an expression of public opinion, except to the extent that they sway
the greater public to their side and thereby effect an indirect
influence, which has notably failed to happen. Depth of feeling does
not equal breadth of opinion. And opinion polls are not convertible
with elections. As for the foreign demonstrations, (c) applies to
their governments, (b) applies to ours.
> George Bush has
> repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> give a damn what anyone else thinks.
I agree with him, at least wrt foreign opinion. I didn't vote for him
so he would listen to foreigners (actually, I didn't vote for him at
all, which I have since come to regret). As for U.S. opinion, the
majority seem to support him.
> He is a dictator who dons the
> trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance.
You're really out on a limb here -- what exactly makes him a dictator?
A handful of people claiming so does not make it true.
> When he
> launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> from Osama bin Laden.
Don't really know what to say here -- I think we're just on different
planets somehow.
> The next time terrorists strike the United
> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
> The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
> Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
> without him.
So what's the problem?
> But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and solving
> this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent.
What precedent? That liberating people from a horrible evil man is not
only possible, but even desirable? How exactly is this horrible?
> What is to
> stop any country from launching a war against anyone that they judge
> to be evil?
What has *ever* kept any country from launching a war? This is nothing
new -- the U.S. didn't suddenly pull the concept of war out of a hat.
> Thank you for your forbearance on this decidedly off-topic post. When
> the bombs start to fly I wanted everyone to know that they do so
> without the consent of this American.
He does so with the consent of this American. But thank you for your
opinion. Feel free to register it officially next election.
> OK, I've said my peace. You can come get me now, John Ashcroft. You
> know where I live.
Oh please, join the crowd. What have you said here that many americans
from congress, the press, celebrities on down haven't said? How many
of them has Ashcroft gone after?
I know, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're *not* out to
get you, but you really need to calm down.
I remember listening to a call-in show on the radio back in the mid
90's, and this one "militia" guy called in ranting, cowering in his
basement with his pistol claiming Reno was coming after him. Your
paranoia is no less absurd, and no less amusing, than his.
Joost Kremers
> (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
>> The next time terrorists strike the United
>> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
>
> Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
> this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
> deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
then they could have given much better reasons. the main reason for the
frustration that so many (ordinary) people in the middle east feel with the
US is caused by the fact that the US has supported and continues to support
a series of oppressive undemocratic regimes in the region: egypt, jordan,
saudi-arabia and other regimes on the arabian peninsula, israel, to a
lesser extent morocco. and in the past also the shah of persia, nowadays
iran. obviously, the US is not the only factor responsible for the lack of
freedom in the middle east, but it does contribute.
i should perhaps make it clear that although i find this policy of the US
repulsive, i do not believe it justifies terrorist attacks such as those of
9/11. but it isn't difficult to see how the people in the middle-east who
suffer daily from this US policy, may feel differently about that. in the
same way that the citizens of the countries that were occupied by
nazi-germany in WOII didn't object very much to the bombing campaigns of
the allied forces against german cities.
--
Joost Kremers http://baserv.uci.kun.nl/~jkremers
mail me for a bon mot
Thaddeus L Olczyk
<joostk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
>> this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
>> deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
>
>then they could have given much better reasons. the main reason for the
>frustration that so many (ordinary) people in the middle east feel with the
I see by your name that you are an expert in what Arabs think.
>US is caused by the fact that the US has supported and continues to support
>a series of oppressive undemocratic regimes in the region: egypt, jordan,
>saudi-arabia and other regimes on the arabian peninsula, israel, to a
>lesser extent morocco. and in the past also the shah of persia, nowadays
>iran. obviously, the US is not the only factor responsible for the lack of
>freedom in the middle east, but it does contribute.
Oh my my. You are so right. The US supports dictators. Such an evil
thing that can never be justified. It such an embarassment. In fact
it's worse, the US has supported some very nasty dictators in the
past. The US should immediately apologize and make reparations
for supporting these dictators. Including one of the worst dictators
in the whole of history. Josef Stalin.
Erann Gat
> g...@flownet.com (Erann Gat) writes:
>
> > Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> > office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
> > has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> > which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
> > repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> > give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
> > trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
> > launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> > from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
> > States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
>
> Oh /come on/! The senate voted 77-23, the House 296-133 to authorize
> the president to attack Iraq. This means that even most of the
> Democrats voted for it. You can hardly call it dictatorial behavior
> if the president does what he has been authorized to do by the
> democratic institutions.
Like I said, he dons the trappings of democracy when they suit him. Then
he discards then when they do not. He invokes the authority of UN
resolution 1441 as justification for war *now* despite the fact that it is
clear that the Security Council does *not* support war *now*.
One can only speculate what Bush might have done had Congress and the UN
not voted his way, but we can abserve his behavior in other cases where
democratic instutions have opposed him. For example, he has used the
power of the Federal government to nullify voter-approved initiatives in
Oregon (doctor-assisted suicide) and California (medical marijuana). He
has fought for the power to detain people indefinitely without trial or
access to counsel if they are "enemy combatants", but he gets to decide
who is and is not an enemy combatant. Clearer cases of contempt for
democracy I cannot imagine. He may not be a dictator in fact (yet), but
it is pretty clear to me that he has dictatorial aspirations.
> > The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
> > Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
> > without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and
> > solving this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent.
>
> I find this ``Saddam is not the only bad guy创 argument very strange.
> So, would it be ok with you if the US attacked all the other bad guys,
> too?
No. The point is this: if we're going to attaack Saddam because he's a
bad guy then we are hypocrites if we do not also attack all the other bad
guys. Attacking all the other bad guys is clearly a bad idea -- because
we would lose, and because we would get caught up in the tangle of
confusion trying to decide who "all the other bad guys" are.
That is really the point. It is clear to *me* that Saddam is a bad guy
and ought to be gotten rid of. And it is clear to Gearge Bush. But it is
not clear to a lot of other people in the world (including many Iraqis)
and (and this is the salient point) I believe THEIR OPINION MATTERS.
George Bush does not (and has said so explicitly).
I would actually like to see us go to war against Iraq and get rid of
Saddam. But only with the rest of the world behind us, as they were in
1991. Not like this.
> > What is to stop any country from launching a war against anyone that
> > they judge to be evil?
>
> As has always been the case for the last few millennia: Nothing but
> military force.
Yes, that is alas what we are reverting to. The whole point of the U.N.
was to get away from that "might makes right" philosophy that lead to all
the bloody wars of the 20th century. That is why I oppose this war. It
is not for lack of compassion for the Iraqi people. It is not for lack of
desire to see Saddam go. It is for the belief that we must adhere to
*principle*, because if we do not then we are indeed back to "might makes
right." Today we are the mighty ones. But great powers rise and great
powers fall. What will protect us when we are no longer the mighty ones?
> There are several countries in the world that judge
> not only the US but /every/ civilized Western country to be evil. And
> that would attack us the very first minute they think they can do it
> without being destroyed.
Yes, and why shouldn't they, when they see us doing exactly the same
thing? Why should they not follow our example?
> No, this isn't nice, but when has the world
> ever been a nice place?
Never. That is no excuse not to try to make is a nicer place.
> Also, I reject this kind of relativism. ``We say they're evil, they
> say we're evil, so who is to say?创.
That is not my brand of relativism. My brand of relativism is: we're all
a mix of good and evil. Saddam is pretty clearly towards one extreme, but
even he has done some good things for Iraq. Bush is pretty clearly
towards the other extreme, and I think in his heart of hearts his
intentions are good. But intentions don't matter -- results do. And I
believe that there is a significant danger that the results of our actions
will bring more evil than good in the long term.
> I read a nice analogy somewhere
> a while ago: This is as if you were saying that the guy who pushes an
> old lady away from an approaching bus is morally equivalent to the guy
> who pushes the lady /before/ the bus because both are doing the same
> thing: Both of them are pushing old ladies around! ;-)
No, because the resuls are what matter. A better example is giving
someone poison. Under certain circumstances that can be a compassionate
thing to do. For example, if they have cancer and the poison you give
them is a chemotherapy drug. Good and evil are not absolutes. There are
many shades of grey, and they are all colored by circumstance.
> > Robert Bolt said it best in "A Man for all Seasons":
>
> [snip nice little story]
>
> > Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
> >
> > I stand with Thomas More on this occasion.
>
> So do I, incidentally. The ``Rule of Law创 is an important principle.
> However I don't think that it applies here. We are not living in one
> established law system; the UN are /not/ the government of the world,
I agree. The "law" that is at work here is contract law, and the law of
honor. If we expect others to play by the rules then we must play by the
rules, even if the outcome of playing by the rules is not what we would
like it to be. It is hypocracy to hold up U.N. resolution 1441 as
justification for going to war, while at the same time ignoring the clear
message from the U.N. that the time for war has not yet come.
Hypocracy is the greatest evil, because once you yield to it you can
justify anything.
> > OK, I've said my peace. You can come get me now, John Ashcroft.
> > You know where I live.
>
> A bit paranoid, aren't we? ;-)
Perhaps. My grandparents lost most of their childhood friends in Nazi
concentration camps. The lesson of that experience is that it is
important to stand up to tyranny before it becomes apparent that it is
tyranny. Otherwise it may be too late.
E.
Joost Kremers
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 20:43:34 +0000 (UTC), Joost Kremers
> <joostk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>> Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
>>> this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
>>> deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
>>
>>then they could have given much better reasons. the main reason for the
>>frustration that so many (ordinary) people in the middle east feel with the
> I see by your name that you are an expert in what Arabs think.
given the fact that i have studied arabic for ten years now (am about to
receive my PhD), that i have been to egypt several times (in total for
about a year), talked to the people there and regularly keep up with the
arab media through the internet, yes, i do believe that although i wouldn't
call myself an expert, i do have a somewhat better insight into what arabs
think than the average citizen of europe and the US.
BTW, it doesn't take a genius to understand this part of their thinking.
>>US is caused by the fact that the US has supported and continues to support
>>a series of oppressive undemocratic regimes in the region: egypt, jordan,
>>saudi-arabia and other regimes on the arabian peninsula, israel, to a
>>lesser extent morocco. and in the past also the shah of persia, nowadays
>>iran. obviously, the US is not the only factor responsible for the lack of
>>freedom in the middle east, but it does contribute.
> Oh my my. You are so right. The US supports dictators. Such an evil
> thing that can never be justified. It such an embarassment. In fact
> it's worse, the US has supported some very nasty dictators in the
> past. The US should immediately apologize and make reparations
> for supporting these dictators. Including one of the worst dictators
> in the whole of history. Josef Stalin.
what is your point?
Erann Gat
Parker <michae...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > No President
> > has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> > which is that what other people think matters.
>
> You're sort-of right here, but a bit off the mark. A couple of points:
>
> (a) the US is not strictly speaking a democracy.
True. I'm referring to "democracy" in the sense that is meant when we
refer to ridding the world of dictators and tyrants.
> > George Bush has
> > repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> > give a damn what anyone else thinks.
>
> I agree with him, at least wrt foreign opinion. I didn't vote for him
> so he would listen to foreigners (actually, I didn't vote for him at
> all, which I have since come to regret). As for U.S. opinion, the
> majority seem to support him.
Yes, but this is merely a convenient coincidence. It is clear that he
would not be the least bit deterred if this were not so. He has said so
explicitly.
> > He is a dictator who dons the
> > trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance.
>
> You're really out on a limb here -- what exactly makes him a dictator?
> A handful of people claiming so does not make it true.
You're right, I was being overly dramatic here. He is not a dictator
(yet) but he does seem to have dictatorial ambitions. I cite once again
his invokation of Federal power to quash voter initiatives, and his
unilateral assertion of the power to detain anyone he deems to be an
"enemy combatant" indefinitely.
> > When he
> > launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> > from Osama bin Laden.
>
> Don't really know what to say here -- I think we're just on different
> planets somehow.
Perhaps I was being overly dramatic here too. But really, what is the
difference? Both men think that they are right, that they have God on
their side, and to hell with what anyone else thinks. The only
difference, it seems to me, is that bin Laden targets civilians
intentionally, whereas Bush doesn't, but again I say that it is the
results that matter, not intentions. How many civilians have we already
killed? How many more will die? I don't know -- those numbers aren't
regularly recited in the American press. But I'll be surprised if the
final tally is less than 2795.
> > The next time terrorists strike the United
> > States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
>
> Was it even true the last time?
Last time it was arguable. Next time it may not be.
> > The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
> > Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
> > without him.
>
> So what's the problem?
The problem is that my opinion is not the only one that matters.
> > But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and solving
> > this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent.
>
> What precedent? That liberating people from a horrible evil man is not
> only possible, but even desirable? How exactly is this horrible?
The precedent I fear is that it is OK for one country to launch a war
against another country simply because the one country judges that there
is sufficient reason to do so.
> > What is to
> > stop any country from launching a war against anyone that they judge
> > to be evil?
>
> What has *ever* kept any country from launching a war? This is nothing
> new -- the U.S. didn't suddenly pull the concept of war out of a hat.
Principle. Self-preservation. A desire to do the Right Thing. And yes,
as a matter of fact, the United States did pull the concept of this war
out of a hat. Before 9/11 there was nothing in George Bush's rhetoric
about Iraq. After 9/11 it's suddenly Job 1, despite the fact that Iraq's
connection with 9/11 is tenuous at best. That's part of the problem. I
don't understand why we're going to war *now*. It really does seem
completely irrational to me, particularly since North Korea seems to be a
much more credible and emininent threat to U.S. and world security.
> I remember listening to a call-in show on the radio back in the mid
> 90's, and this one "militia" guy called in ranting, cowering in his
> basement with his pistol claiming Reno was coming after him. Your
> paranoia is no less absurd, and no less amusing, than his.
<shrug> I don't suppose this person was calling from Waco Texas?
You know, I would like nothing better than to be proven wrong about all
this. If we attack Iraq and everything turns out all hunky dory, I will
happily eat the biggest serving of crow you can dish up. I will say, "Mr.
President, you were right, and I was wrong, and I'm damn glad you were
leading the country and not me." I honestly hope that I will some day be
able to say that.
But right now I'm saying that IMO this is not the time for war.
E.
Michael Parker
Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Michael Parker wrote:
> > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
>
> it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
> directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
Morally, yes, I agree with you. But Erann was complaining that Bush's
failure to listen to protesters (including those in other countries)
proved his disdain for democracy -- he actually called Bush a dictator.
My point was in the limited sense that wrt democracy, Bush is
fully justified in ignoring the small though strident internal protests,
and is under no obligation to attend to the foreign protests either. I
would further claim that it is undemocratic for him to allow
non-citizens to unduly influence his actions, precisely because they
are not his demos.
>
> >> The next time terrorists strike the United
> >> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
> >
> > Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
> > this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
> > deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
>
> then they could have given much better reasons. the main reason for the
> frustration that so many (ordinary) people in the middle east feel with the
> US is caused by the fact that the US has supported and continues to support
> a series of oppressive undemocratic regimes in the region: egypt, jordan,
> saudi-arabia and other regimes on the arabian peninsula, israel, to a
> lesser extent morocco. and in the past also the shah of persia, nowadays
> iran. obviously, the US is not the only factor responsible for the lack of
> freedom in the middle east, but it does contribute.
You're right, that was another whole set of reasons posited by both the
left and the right, and one that I would have taken a lot more
seriously if the terrorists weren't proposing to replace them with more
of the same -- my belief is that Bin Laden's real complaint is not so
much that the U.S. was supporting despots as it was that *he* was not
the despot.
I may be wrong about that, but I couldn't really see that the Taliban's
regime in Afghanistan, or the regime in Iran is terribly better than
that imposed by the U.S.-supported despots.
I also think that to the extent U.S. policy was wrong, this only
increases our responsibility to improve the situation in the middle
east. The key clause here is "to the extent" -- I do not believe that
a few million dollars a year to Egypt for example makes us 100%
culpable for Mubarak's regime. Does anyone truly believe that this
support was the critical factor preventing a true democracy from
flourishing in Egypt? That deal, after all, was put in place as
reward for the Egypt-Israeli peace accord. Similarly, the U.S. gave
food and oil to North Korea in exchange for promising to stop nuclear
development. Does this mean that the U.S. will now be held responsible
for North Korea's cruelty, and simultaneously restrained from doing
something about it in the future?
I do not know if we have the ability to effect such a democratic change
in the middle east. The responsibility for such a change lies firstly
with the European powers that left the Middle East in such a mess after
WWI, and only secondarily with the U.S. and Russia who used these
people and despots as pawns and proxies during the long struggle of the
cold war.
I do not believe Bush's drive to remove Saddam is motivated from
humanitarian concerns, but I think it is consonant with humanitarian
concerns. Bush's motives may or may not be the purest, but I think
this is orthogonal to the issue of the rightness or wrongness of the
policy.
> i should perhaps make it clear that although i find this policy of the US
> repulsive, i do not believe it justifies terrorist attacks such as those of
> 9/11. but it isn't difficult to see how the people in the middle-east who
> suffer daily from this US policy, may feel differently about that. in the
> same way that the citizens of the countries that were occupied by
> nazi-germany in WOII didn't object very much to the bombing campaigns of
> the allied forces against german cities.
I don't expect the rest of the world to view the U.S. as a saint -- we
have done some very bad things, sometimes because we believed it was
the best of a choice of evils, sometimes out of sheer self-interest.
But I do object to the view that is underlying the "ask yourself why
they hate you" argument so frequently propounded by both the far left
and far right -- that the U.S. must be perfect, that any U.S. action
that anybody disagrees with will serve whatever ills befall us.
This is an impossible standard for any country to live up to, and puts
the U.S. in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation. We
were condemned for being slow to intervene in Kosovo, we are condemned
for failing to stop the Taliban from destroying the Buddist statues, we
are condemned for overthrowing the Taliban. we are condemned for
failing to overthrow the various middle eastern tyrants over the long
years that we were attempting to overthrow a eurasian tyranny, we are
condemned for attempting to overthrow a middle eastern tyrant. In the
face of this, why should the US care for the opinion of others -- they
will condemn us no matter what we do.
Saddam has been killing thousands each year for 20+ years. The U.S.
decides belatedly to stop him. And yet those on the far left and right
would claim that we are the evil party because we supported him years
ago, and we are doubly evil because we wish to stop him now. We are
triply evil because we do not concurrently stop all the other dictators
in the world, yet we would be quadruply evil if we were to actually
attempt such an endeavor. We are condemned for being overbearing
imperialists, yet also condemned from those same mouths for not being
an omnipotent leviathan.
Nils Goesche
> In article <lyk7ev5...@cartan.de>, Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> wrote:
>
> > g...@flownet.com (Erann Gat) writes:
> > > George Bush has repeatedly demonstrated (and even
> > > explicitly stated) that he doesn't give a damn what anyone
> > > else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the trappings of
> > > Democracy but does not embrace its substance.
> > Oh /come on/! The senate voted 77-23, the House 296-133 to
> > authorize the president to attack Iraq.
> For example, he has used the power of the Federal government to
> nullify voter-approved initiatives in Oregon (doctor-assisted
> suicide) and California (medical marijuana). He has fought for
> the power to detain people indefinitely without trial or access
> to counsel if they are "enemy combatants", but he gets to
> decide who is and is not an enemy combatant. Clearer cases of
> contempt for democracy I cannot imagine. He may not be a
> dictator in fact (yet), but it is pretty clear to me that he
> has dictatorial aspirations.
Needless to say, I can't see any such aspirations, but I think
you haven't really understood how our democracies work. If the
president did anything against the rules, it is a safe bet that
the Democrats would already be calling the Supreme Court and it
will set things straight, as it did many times before in its
history. If this doesn't happen, that means that he played by
the rules and then you can't call him a dictator just because you
disagree with his measures. It would be a very, very long list
if I began to talk about all the actions of the German government
which I think are absolutely wrong, dangerous and making things
worse. But that doesn't give me any right to call our chancellor
a dictator, no matter how much I hate his guts.
> > > Yes, Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be
> > > better off without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in
> > > this regard, and solving this problem by starting a war
> > > sets a horrible precedent.
> >
> > I find this ``Saddam is not the only bad guy´´ argument very
> > strange. So, would it be ok with you if the US attacked all
> > the other bad guys, too?
>
> No. The point is this: if we're going to attaack Saddam
> because he's a bad guy then we are hypocrites if we do not also
> attack all the other bad guys.
That doesn't follow at all. Neither the US nor anyone else have
any /obligation/ to free /any/ country by military force. And
when they do it anyway in one or more cases, this is still better
than nothing at all.
> That is really the point. It is clear to *me* that Saddam is a
> bad guy and ought to be gotten rid of. And it is clear to
> Gearge Bush. But it is not clear to a lot of other people in
> the world (including many Iraqis) and (and this is the salient
> point) I believe THEIR OPINION MATTERS. George Bush does not
> (and has said so explicitly).
No, it doesn't. At least not so much that their disagreement is
reason enough not to fight the war. The German government, for
instance, played a strong part organizing the opposition in the
UN. Most of the politicians in our government are former sixties
radicals. During their whole life they have /hated/ the US and
been against /every single thing/ the US ever did! (Ironically,
all of their arguments, all of their protest forms /and/ their
Anti-Americanism were literally imported from the New Left in the
US ;-) Now I see them in political talk shows arguing Iraq isn't
dangerous at all. But I still lifely remember their faces when
these very same people gave interviews ten years ago, just when
Saddam had invaded Kuwait and was shooting rockets filled with
poison gas at Israel, and they /still/ opposed the war! One of
them, a well-known one, even claimed that Israel /deserved/ that
treatment. I don't have to tell you how disgusting and tasteless
such a statement is, especially when it comes from a German.
No. The ``opinion´´ of these people doesn't matter one bit
because it contains exactly zero information: No matter the
circumstances, they'd oppose the war in any case.
> I would actually like to see us go to war against Iraq and get
> rid of Saddam. But only with the rest of the world behind us,
> as they were in 1991. Not like this.
Yes, it would be nice if it could be done with the world behing
the US. But so far the few occasions when it was were
exceptional. You can't always wait for that to happen and do
nothing the rest of the time.
> > > What is to stop any country from launching a war against
> > > anyone that they judge to be evil?
> >
> > As has always been the case for the last few millennia:
> > Nothing but military force.
>
> Yes, that is alas what we are reverting to. The whole point of
> the U.N. was to get away from that "might makes right"
> philosophy that lead to all the bloody wars of the 20th
> century.
Exactly. Now try to remember how effective it has been in that
regard so far.
> Today we are the mighty ones. But great powers rise and great
> powers fall. What will protect us when we are no longer the
> mighty ones?
Nobody. Absolutely nobody; least of all the UN. This is
important to keep in mind.
At least not until more of the world is governed by sane,
Western-style democracies. The ``Rule of Law´´ is a Western
invention. Be careful not to expect everybody else to play by
our rules yet.
> > No, this isn't nice, but when has the world ever been a nice
> > place?
>
> Never. That is no excuse not to try to make is a nicer place.
Sometimes you can make the world a nicer place precisely by
bombing somebody. Remember when Ronald Reagan bombed Libya?
Nobody had /any/ trouble with Libya after that. I don't remember
if president Reagan asked the UN for permission but I'm pretty
sure he didn't. Still, it was the right thing to do.
> And I believe that there is a significant danger that the
> results of our actions will bring more evil than good in the
> long term.
Yes, this is precisely the question: What's more dangerous?
Removing Saddam or not removing him?
You know what? I don't know! And nobody /really/ knows. I
can't make a strong case either for or against this war because I
have absolutely no idea what's better in this case. The US
government has come to the conclusion that it is safer to remove
Saddam now. Maybe they're right, maybe they're not. All I can
say is that if they are convinced that it is the right thing to
do they should indeed go ahead and do it, with or without the UN.
And I wish them all the luck in the world.
Regards,
--
Nils Gösche
Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
PGP key ID #xD26EF2A0
Greg Menke
> http://www.poetsforthewar.org/poems/russel01.shtml
So we invade & depose (and likely assassinate) a soverign ruler,
dissolve his government, and then occupy the country for the next
decade because to keep some semblance of order we have to supress the
tribal/ethnic divisions that will certainly arise? Plus we want their
oil in reparation for the cost of going in- so we're not getting out
of there anytime soon anyway.
The average Iraqi will probably benefit from our political and
economic subsidy (and the investment of whatever blood we shed in the
process)- which is certainly better than what they have now & I'm all
in favor to helping them. I just wonder how we're going to pay for
it, both monetarily and strategically. Dubya doesn't seem to have
much of an idea much less a plan for those issues. What if some of
the Iraqi citizenry resent us for occupying their country & we start
having to kill people to keep afloat the government we sponsor? Or
more likely, the local security forces that we form & authorize will
do the killing and terrorizing.
Regardless, our invasion has never been about rectifying anything.
This time its a politically inspired war with only the vaguest
relationship to national security.
Gregm
Nicholas Geovanis
> Hint: If they want oil, they'll buy it.
Buying oil is not the issue. The issue is SELLING the oil. They would
like to sell it in order to acquire the profits. Oil is no good to you if
it stays underground.
> If you still don't get it, I'll make a little prophecy:
>
> I claim the US are not going to annex any part of Iraq and they are
> not going to declare any oil well in Iraq to be property of the US
> government.
Of course not, that isn't how America's upper-class does things. They will
install a government which gives American and British firms preferential
treatment and, more importantly, does NOT give French, German and Russian
firms the same treatment. They will also negotiate pricing agreements that
are favorable to US and British firms. This is precisely what was done in
Iran in 1953 when the Mossadegh government was overthrown and the Pahlevi
family installed as the new ruling dynasty.
> Nils Gösche
* Nick Geovanis
| IT Computing Svcs
| Northwestern Univ
| n-geo...@nwu.edu
+------------------->
Mario S. Mommer
> Pascal Costanza <cost...@web.de> writes:
> > I can't imagine that George W. has asked any of those concernced
> > what they want. It's obvious that he wanted the war from the very
> > beginning, and that he wasn't interested in peace in that
> > region. His only interest is to gain control over the oil
> > fields. That's extremely disgusting!
>
> *ROFL* Yeah, right. It's the oil fields.
>
> not even worth being discussed. Even our leftist government didn't
> use it, probably because they feared it would make them look all too
> stupid, even through our biased media. Just think about it for a
> moment (which you should have done the first time you read it in,
>
> Hint: If they want oil, they'll buy it.
Yes and no. I don't think this argument is all that ridiculous. Does
OPEC ring a bell?
If the Americans help to establish a government in Iraq that does not
respect OPEC quotas then oil price will be down by a significant
factor, probably for a long time. I think that is one of the
objectives.
It is possible for the american government to impose an ideological
framework that would have as a consequence a "free trade" approach to
this resource.
It is not necessary to claim oil fields as "american property" (how
primitive) to actually control them in a weak sense, as a
mathematician might say.
I hope the best for the Iraqui people. Overthrowing Saddam is
something that should have been done in '91.
Mario.
Nicholas Geovanis
> Michael Parker wrote:
> >
> > Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
> > this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
> > deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
>
> then they could have given much better reasons. the main reason for the
> frustration that so many (ordinary) people in the middle east feel with the
> US is caused by the fact that the US has supported and continues to support
> a series of oppressive undemocratic regimes in the region: egypt, jordan,
> saudi-arabia and other regimes on the arabian peninsula, israel, to a
> lesser extent morocco. and in the past also the shah of persia, nowadays
> iran.
You forgot a very important opressive, non-democratic regime which the US
supported for many years: Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The US supported him
with weaponry and hundreds-of-millions of dollars of subsidies while he
was at war with Iran and afterwards.
The National Security Archive at GWU has video footage of "special envoy"
Donald Rumsfeld, now Sec. of Defense, visiting with Saddam Hussein at the
end of 1983 (Windows Media format, .wmv. Scroll down below the picture
of Hussein and Rumsfeld shaking hands for the links to video). The meeting
being taped took place the day after American newspapers first reported
Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran and against its own Kurdish
population. At the same website you'll find dozens of declassified
documents showing how the Reagan and Bush-1 administrations got weapons
and money to Iraq, how they covered-up their activities, and how they
forced other US government agencies to cooperate. The documents were
obtained by Freedom Of Information Act request from the US government.
URL is...
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm
> Joost Kremers http://baserv.uci.kun.nl/~jkremers
Nils Goesche
> On 19 Mar 2003, Nils Goesche wrote:
>
> > Hint: If they want oil, they'll buy it.
>
> Buying oil is not the issue. The issue is SELLING the oil. They
> would like to sell it in order to acquire the profits. Oil is
> no good to you if it stays underground.
Oh yeah. How could I forget.
> > If you still don't get it, I'll make a little prophecy:
> >
> > I claim the US are not going to annex any part of Iraq and
> > they are not going to declare any oil well in Iraq to be
> > property of the US government.
>
> Of course not, that isn't how America's upper-class does
> things.
Only that the party that is usually favored by the upper-class in
America doesn't rule the White House right now.
> They will install a government which gives American and British
> firms preferential treatment and, more importantly, does NOT
> give French, German and Russian firms the same treatment. They
> will also negotiate pricing agreements that are favorable to US
> and British firms.
Ok. Let's just assume for a moment that no such thing is going
to happen. Will you change any of your opinions then? Don't
answer -- Maybe I'll ask you again after the war ;-)
Regards,
--
Nils Gösche
Nicholas Geovanis
> Thank you for your forbearance on this decidedly off-topic post. When
> the bombs start to fly I wanted everyone to know that they do so
> without the consent of this American.
Agree 100%. See my post later in this thread directing you to declassified
US documents online showing the US government's longtime support of the
"evil dictator" Saddam Hussein, as well as video of Rumsfeld meeting with
Saddam in 1983. Hope you're in touch with your local anti-war groups. If
not, write me and I'll get you info. My hope is that this is a short war
with few casualties, but in the worst case it could be quite bad for all
concerned, so don't feel that starting now is too late. There will be many
more wars to come.
> Erann Gat
John M. Adams
> Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
> has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
> repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
> trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
> launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
As an American, I agree that the war is a bad idea. But I am not
really clear on the basis for your statements about dictatorship and
the `bedrock of democracy'.
Given the world climate, especially our deeply regrettable relations
with the Arab world, I think this is one of those times where we
should step aside and let the bad thing (Iraq sponsored terrorism)
happen if it is going to happen. I don't care too much what France
and Germany think on this particular subject. But if the Arab leaders
don't want it, or if they are unwilling to say publicly that they want
it, then I think we should refrain.
Nevertheless, we elect people to exercise their judgment, not to be
poll takers of public/world opinion. I don't have any reason to
believe that Bush is doing other than what he thinks is right. It
seems to me that he has *much* more to lose than to gain by doing
this. I would guess that he knows this himself. The last thing any
nation needs is a leader that doesn't act unless a comfortable global
majority will go along.
I don't think people are sufficiently sensible that we are lucky that
*anyone* is willing to be President or Secretary of State (or Prime
Minister, Chancellor, ...) It is a huge, burdensome, impossibly
complex endeavor in which almost anything you do is sure to anger some
faction at home or abroad. The complexity one faces guarantees plenty
of mistakes. Most of us would prove decidedly inadequate in these
roles. I wish more people would think about this before bringing
forth harsh criticism against leaders (American or otherwise).
Surely, Americans have done many shameful, stupid and mean things.
Unfortunately, its a safe bet that many shameful, stupid and mean
things are going on all the time all over the globe and in every
country. This is the condition of humanity, not a peculiar property
of American government. The only way I know of to improve things is
to polish my own plate of tarnished silver.
--
John Michael Adams
Mario S. Mommer
> > He is a dictator who dons the
> > trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance.
>
> You're really out on a limb here -- what exactly makes him a dictator?
> A handful of people claiming so does not make it true.
That reminds me of my holidays in Venezuela: "Chavez is a dictator, a
fascist, repressive S.O.B", they used to say, using their freedom of
expression. What an oximoron.
If Bush was a Dictator, nobody would dare to say it.
Saddam Hussein is a REAL dictator.
> > The next time terrorists strike the United
> > States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
>
> Was it even true the last time? Most of the people I've heard making
> this claim were claiming last time that we must have done something to
> deserve it, the claimed reasons being kyoto, missile ban, etc.
11th of September 1973, Pinochet overthrows an elected government,
that of Salvador Allende, and installs an ugly facist dictatorship
that claims many more victims than the attack on the twin towers. With
substantial help of the CIA, one might add. And it is only one
example.
I want to add that I think the attack on the twin towers was a monstrous
crime. Nothing could possibly justify it.
> What has *ever* kept any country from launching a war? This is nothing
> new -- the U.S. didn't suddenly pull the concept of war out of a hat.
Well, wars are expensive, and might go wrong. Or might be hopeless,
anyway. Smart bombs, nor anything else, would help in Colombia, for
instance.
Mario.
Michael Parker
<Pine.SOL.4.10.103031...@merle.it.northwestern.edu>,
Nicholas Geovanis <nic...@merle.it.northwestern.edu> wrote:
> You forgot a very important opressive, non-democratic regime which the US
> supported for many years: Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The US supported him
> with weaponry and hundreds-of-millions of dollars of subsidies while he
> was at war with Iran and afterwards.
But does this not increase our responsibility to remove him?
Marco Antoniotti
Michael Parker wrote:
So your point is that you want your cake and eat it too?
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti
Marc Spitzer
> In article <lyk7ev5...@cartan.de>, Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> wrote:
>
> > g...@flownet.com (Erann Gat) writes:
> >
> > > Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> > > office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
> > > has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> > > which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
> > > repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> > > give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
> > > trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
> > > launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> > > from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
> > > States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
> >
> > Oh /come on/! The senate voted 77-23, the House 296-133 to authorize
> > the president to attack Iraq. This means that even most of the
> > Democrats voted for it. You can hardly call it dictatorial behavior
> > if the president does what he has been authorized to do by the
> > democratic institutions.
>
> Like I said, he dons the trappings of democracy when they suit him. Then
> he discards then when they do not. He invokes the authority of UN
> resolution 1441 as justification for war *now* despite the fact that it is
> clear that the Security Council does *not* support war *now*.
As far as I know the UN has no sovereignty over the US so its resolutions
are not binding. This is not democracy, it is a debating club.
>
> One can only speculate what Bush might have done had Congress and the UN
> not voted his way, but we can abserve his behavior in other cases where
> democratic instutions have opposed him. For example, he has used the
Well you seem to need some remedial civics courses if you are saying that
the UN has the same binding powers as the Congress of the United States.
> power of the Federal government to nullify voter-approved initiatives in
> Oregon (doctor-assisted suicide) and California (medical marijuana). He
I seem to remember another President who used the Army to enforce the
integration of schools in the south, Eisenhower if I remember correctly.
Was he also a dictator in sheep's cloths?
> has fought for the power to detain people indefinitely without trial or
> access to counsel if they are "enemy combatants", but he gets to decide
> who is and is not an enemy combatant. Clearer cases of contempt for
Well I have a great deal of contempt for democracy also, so did Ben
Franklin. He said "Democracy is 2 wolfs and a sheep voting on what
is for dinner and freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the decision".
I may have gotten the exact words wrong, but not the sentiment.
As to the prisoners of war, we are treating them much better then they
would treat us if the situation was reversed.
> democracy I cannot imagine. He may not be a dictator in fact (yet), but
> it is pretty clear to me that he has dictatorial aspirations.
>
> > > The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
> > > Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
> > > without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and
> > > solving this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent.
> >
> > I find this ``Saddam is not the only bad guy创 argument very strange.
> > So, would it be ok with you if the US attacked all the other bad guys,
> > too?
>
> No. The point is this: if we're going to attaack Saddam because he's a
> bad guy then we are hypocrites if we do not also attack all the other bad
> guys. Attacking all the other bad guys is clearly a bad idea -- because
> we would lose, and because we would get caught up in the tangle of
> confusion trying to decide who "all the other bad guys" are.
So instead of do what good you can, do nothing because it is not fair
to all the other victims of evil people? And I could say the WE(US) have
a greater responsibility to clean this one up because WE helped make it.
>
> That is really the point. It is clear to *me* that Saddam is a bad guy
> and ought to be gotten rid of. And it is clear to Gearge Bush. But it is
> not clear to a lot of other people in the world (including many Iraqis)
> and (and this is the salient point) I believe THEIR OPINION MATTERS.
> George Bush does not (and has said so explicitly).
In this case not unless it is backed with arms. How many are going back
to Iraq to defend it from the US?
>
> I would actually like to see us go to war against Iraq and get rid of
> Saddam. But only with the rest of the world behind us, as they were in
> 1991. Not like this.
So talk him into invading Kuwait again.
>
> > > What is to stop any country from launching a war against anyone that
> > > they judge to be evil?
> >
> > As has always been the case for the last few millennia: Nothing but
> > military force.
>
> Yes, that is alas what we are reverting to. The whole point of the U.N.
> was to get away from that "might makes right" philosophy that lead to all
> the bloody wars of the 20th century. That is why I oppose this war. It
It sounds like you are saying the reason for war is that the people
who are invaded fight back. And I prefer the idea of "Might in the
service of right", which has nothing to do with the UN.
> is not for lack of compassion for the Iraqi people. It is not for lack of
> desire to see Saddam go. It is for the belief that we must adhere to
> *principle*, because if we do not then we are indeed back to "might makes
> right." Today we are the mighty ones. But great powers rise and great
> powers fall. What will protect us when we are no longer the mighty ones?
What principal are you talking about? Opinion polls are policy?
The UN is now the world government
>
> > There are several countries in the world that judge
> > not only the US but /every/ civilized Western country to be evil. And
> > that would attack us the very first minute they think they can do it
> > without being destroyed.
>
> Yes, and why shouldn't they, when they see us doing exactly the same
> thing? Why should they not follow our example?
>
What in the name of reason are you talking about?!?!?!?!!!
If they could and survive they would. Now how is our example
going to have them change their minds?
The fact that we are going to destroy a government that is
evil and needs to die may send a message to other governments
that are evil but have not convinced us that they need to die
that it might not be such a good idea to really make us want
them to go away. For the simple reason that we have done it
and if needed, by *our* standards, we can and will do it again.
> > No, this isn't nice, but when has the world
> > ever been a nice place?
>
> Never. That is no excuse not to try to make is a nicer place.
>
It is also no excuse to stick your head in the sand and refuse
to look at the world as it is. And one way to try to make the
world nicer is to remove evil from it, we are in the process of
doing just that.
> > Also, I reject this kind of relativism. ``We say they're evil, they
> > say we're evil, so who is to say?创.
>
> That is not my brand of relativism. My brand of relativism is: we're all
> a mix of good and evil. Saddam is pretty clearly towards one extreme, but
> even he has done some good things for Iraq. Bush is pretty clearly
> towards the other extreme, and I think in his heart of hearts his
> intentions are good. But intentions don't matter -- results do. And I
> believe that there is a significant danger that the results of our actions
> will bring more evil than good in the long term.
>
> > I read a nice analogy somewhere
> > a while ago: This is as if you were saying that the guy who pushes an
> > old lady away from an approaching bus is morally equivalent to the guy
> > who pushes the lady /before/ the bus because both are doing the same
> > thing: Both of them are pushing old ladies around! ;-)
>
> No, because the resuls are what matter. A better example is giving
> someone poison. Under certain circumstances that can be a compassionate
> thing to do. For example, if they have cancer and the poison you give
> them is a chemotherapy drug. Good and evil are not absolutes. There are
> many shades of grey, and they are all colored by circumstance.
First I see no difference in the logic here. So fine the US is egg shell
on this and Iraq is dark brown.
>
> > > Robert Bolt said it best in "A Man for all Seasons":
> >
> > [snip nice little story]
> >
> > > Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
> > >
> > > I stand with Thomas More on this occasion.
> >
> > So do I, incidentally. The ``Rule of Law创 is an important principle.
> > However I don't think that it applies here. We are not living in one
> > established law system; the UN are /not/ the government of the world,
>
> I agree. The "law" that is at work here is contract law, and the law of
> honor. If we expect others to play by the rules then we must play by the
> rules, even if the outcome of playing by the rules is not what we would
> like it to be. It is hypocracy to hold up U.N. resolution 1441 as
> justification for going to war, while at the same time ignoring the clear
> message from the U.N. that the time for war has not yet come.
Then I guess the US and the UN have agreed to disagree.
>
> Hypocracy is the greatest evil, because once you yield to it you can
> justify anything.
You realize that this does not reflect well on some of your above
comments.
>
> > > OK, I've said my peace. You can come get me now, John Ashcroft.
> > > You know where I live.
> >
> > A bit paranoid, aren't we? ;-)
>
> Perhaps. My grandparents lost most of their childhood friends in Nazi
> concentration camps. The lesson of that experience is that it is
> important to stand up to tyranny before it becomes apparent that it is
> tyranny. Otherwise it may be too late.
And do not forget own lots of guns, so that when they do come in the
night you can kill them.
marc
>
> E.
Wade Humeniuk
"Michael Parker" <michae...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:190320031740390740%michae...@earthlink.net...
Yes it does. If the US government would admit culpability that would go a
long way to getting everyone on side. Right now they just
deny any responsibility or just change the topic.
Wade
Erann Gat
Parker <michae...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> In article <slrnb7hla5.2p...@catv0149.extern.kun.nl>, Joost
> Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Michael Parker wrote:
> > > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
> >
> > it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
> > directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
>
> Morally, yes, I agree with you. But Erann was complaining that Bush's
> failure to listen to protesters (including those in other countries)
> proved his disdain for democracy -- he actually called Bush a dictator.
I have since modified my position somewhat: Bush is not a dictator (yet)
but it seems to me that he would very much like to be one if given the
opportunity.
E.
Marc Spitzer
> Michael Parker wrote:
> > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
>
> it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
> directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
No it should not, the US government is sworn to do what is in the
best interests of the United States, real and/or perceived, period.
That is its job and only that. Now if you can show how country X
will advance US interests by making it take action Y then the US
should try to make it happen.
marc
Michael Parker
Humeniuk <wa...@nospam.nowhere> wrote:
> > But does this not increase our responsibility to remove him?
>
> Yes it does. If the US government would admit culpability that would go a
> long way to getting everyone on side. Right now they just
> deny any responsibility or just change the topic.
Admit culpability to what, exactly? To putting him in power? to
keeping him in power? To all the murders he has committed over the
years?
Get real.
The U.S. did not put Saddam in power. The U.S. did not keep Saddam in
power. The U.S. did help supply him with arms during the Iran-Iraq
war.
The morality of that action can and should be debated. Yes, he met
with various U.S. diplomats over the years -- that's what diplomats do,
after all. I once ate dinner with a serial killer -- does that make me
responsible for his actions?
The U.S. is not responsible for the evils of the world. Not all of
them, anyway. And these attempts to shoulder the U.S. with the blame
for the troubles of the world while simultaneously denying it the
authority to solve the problem is the cheapest sort of hypocrisy, and
completely unworthy of respect.
Michael Parker
<mar...@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> > Saddam has been killing thousands each year for 20+ years. The U.S.
> > decides belatedly to stop him. And yet those on the far left and right
> > would claim that we are the evil party because we supported him years
> > ago, and we are doubly evil because we wish to stop him now. We are
> > triply evil because we do not concurrently stop all the other dictators
> > in the world, yet we would be quadruply evil if we were to actually
> > attempt such an endeavor. We are condemned for being overbearing
> > imperialists, yet also condemned from those same mouths for not being
> > an omnipotent leviathan.
>
>
> So your point is that you want your cake and eat it too?
No. If the world will condemn the U.S. for both action A and (not A),
then that condemnation ceases to be signal and instead becomes just so
much noise.
Michael Parker
Gat <g...@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
> I have since modified my position somewhat: Bush is not a dictator (yet)
> but it seems to me that he would very much like to be one if given the
> opportunity.
Why do you think he would like to be a dictator? I just don't see it.
I have heard this claim many times, but have never seen any evidence to
justify this concern.
Donald Fisk
> Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
> has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
> repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
> trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
> launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
You might consider replacing Dubya with a smarter president at the
next election. Perhaps this candidate could run again:
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:FcRAEQSlo4kC:www.cs.rice.edu/~shriram/LispM/Campaign/+%22lisp+machine+in+%2796%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
(Apologies for the length of the URL -- the original page pines for
the fjords but was archived by Google.)
> Erann Gat
--
In any large organization, mediocrity is almost by definition
an overwhelming phenomenon; the systematic disqualification
of competence, however, is the managers' own invention, for
the sad consequences of which they should bear the full blame.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1986.
Joost Kremers
>> then they could have given much better reasons. the main reason for the
>> frustration that so many (ordinary) people in the middle east feel with the
>> US is caused by the fact that the US has supported and continues to support
>> a series of oppressive undemocratic regimes in the region: egypt, jordan,
>> saudi-arabia and other regimes on the arabian peninsula, israel, to a
>> lesser extent morocco. and in the past also the shah of persia, nowadays
>> iran. obviously, the US is not the only factor responsible for the lack of
>> freedom in the middle east, but it does contribute.
>
> You're right, that was another whole set of reasons posited by both the
> left and the right, and one that I would have taken a lot more
> seriously if the terrorists weren't proposing to replace them with more
> of the same -- my belief is that Bin Laden's real complaint is not so
> much that the U.S. was supporting despots as it was that *he* was not
> the despot.
i think one should distinguish between what drives bin laden and the others
in al-qaeda, and what drives the millions in the middle east that support
him or at least have some sympathy for his actions. bin laden is seeking
power, i agree with you on that. to obtain power, he emphasises the
frustrations of the common man. not only the anti-american feelings, BTW.
> I may be wrong about that, but I couldn't really see that the Taliban's
> regime in Afghanistan, or the regime in Iran is terribly better than
> that imposed by the U.S.-supported despots.
certainly not. IMHO the taliban were quite a lot worse than most regimes in
the middle east.
although i must say that iran is a bit of a different story. that country
is developing into a true democracy, partly as a result of the policies
of the fundamentalist regime, partly in spite of them. right now, a power
struggle is going on between the conservative mullahs and the progressive
parliament and goverment.
> I also think that to the extent U.S. policy was wrong, this only
> increases our responsibility to improve the situation in the middle
> east. The key clause here is "to the extent" -- I do not believe that
> a few million dollars a year to Egypt for example makes us 100%
> culpable for Mubarak's regime.
like i said, the US is certainly not the only factor that keeps these
regimes alive. and it would be silly to say that egyptians don't realise
that. they do not only blame the US. they certainly also blame their own
government.
but that's not the point. the point is that the US does have a role in it,
and that is enough for the likes of bin laden to play those frustrations.
> Does anyone truly believe that this
> support was the critical factor preventing a true democracy from
> flourishing in Egypt? That deal, after all, was put in place as
> reward for the Egypt-Israeli peace accord. Similarly, the U.S. gave
> food and oil to North Korea in exchange for promising to stop nuclear
> development. Does this mean that the U.S. will now be held responsible
> for North Korea's cruelty, and simultaneously restrained from doing
> something about it in the future?
no, not by me. but note that i wasn't talking about responsibility. i was
talking about the reasons for the anti-american sentiments in the middle
east. that doesn't necessarily mean that those reasons are entirely valid.
> I do not know if we have the ability to effect such a democratic change
> in the middle east. The responsibility for such a change lies firstly
> with the European powers that left the Middle East in such a mess after
> WWI, and only secondarily with the U.S. and Russia who used these
> people and despots as pawns and proxies during the long struggle of the
> cold war.
the historical responsibility, yes. but if you want democracy to develop in
the middle east, i think the US has much more the ability to set that
development in motion than europe. i do not know to what extent the
egyptian goverment for example is really dependent on US support (some say
the goverment wouldn't survive long without it). but i do think the US has
more influence on them than any european government. nonetheless, the US
shows no inclination to pressure governments into allowing more freedom and
democracy. the reason for that is quite simple: if there were more
democracy, many countries in the middle east would see the rise of islamist
parties. for some reason, the west fears this.
> I do not believe Bush's drive to remove Saddam is motivated from
> humanitarian concerns, but I think it is consonant with humanitarian
> concerns. Bush's motives may or may not be the purest, but I think
> this is orthogonal to the issue of the rightness or wrongness of the
> policy.
like someone else said, it's the results that count. *if* the war against
iraq results in more freedom and security for the iraqi people, bush made
the right decision. personally, however, i am not convinced it will.
> I don't expect the rest of the world to view the U.S. as a saint -- we
> have done some very bad things, sometimes because we believed it was
> the best of a choice of evils, sometimes out of sheer self-interest.
> But I do object to the view that is underlying the "ask yourself why
> they hate you" argument so frequently propounded by both the far left
> and far right -- that the U.S. must be perfect, that any U.S. action
> that anybody disagrees with will serve whatever ills befall us.
i wasn't trying to justify the anti-american emotions that i referred to. i
was merely trying to explain where they come from.
> Saddam has been killing thousands each year for 20+ years. The U.S.
> decides belatedly to stop him. And yet those on the far left and right
> would claim that we are the evil party because we supported him years
> ago, and we are doubly evil because we wish to stop him now. We are
> triply evil because we do not concurrently stop all the other dictators
> in the world, yet we would be quadruply evil if we were to actually
> attempt such an endeavor. We are condemned for being overbearing
> imperialists, yet also condemned from those same mouths for not being
> an omnipotent leviathan.
i agree there is some thruth to this. the ironic thing is that i am
convinced that if it was clinton instead of bush that was now going to
attack iraq, all of europe and probably much of the rest of the world would
support it fully. clinton had the ability to give the rest of the world the
idea that he listened to them, whether he really did or not. bush on the
other hand doesn't even try to give the impression that he does.
in the same way, i'm quite sure that if bush had not started out with
saying "we're gonna get rid of saddam", but instead had played it more
diplomatically, he probably would have been able to convince france and
probably russia to agree to an ultimatum months ago. but bush's fanatic (as
we see it) "you're either with us, or you're against us" doesn't help much.
Erann Gat
> g...@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) writes:
>
> > it is pretty clear to me that he
> > has dictatorial aspirations.
>
> Needless to say, I can't see any such aspirations,
Here's a quote from Bush's interview with Bob Woodward:
"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not
need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being
the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say
something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
Indeed what a beautiful thing, never having to explain yourself to anyone.
There's also this quote from Bush right after the first round of large
international protests:
"Democracy is a beautiful thing and people are allowed to express their
opinion. [but] Size of protest -- it's like deciding, well, I'm going to
decide policy based upon a focus group. The role of a leader is to decide
policy based upon the security, in this case, the security of the people."
And to steal the commentary from the Web site that I lifted this quote
from (http://www.fcnl.org/issues/int/sup/iraq_smith225-03.htm): Fair
enough -- except a very large number of "the people" believe that their
security will be further jeopardized by the war policy the White House is
pursuing.
Then there's the suspension of Habeus Corpus. The nullification of voter
initiatives. The withdrawal from Kyoto and the ABM treaty. I could go on
and on and on.
> > > > Yes, Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be
> > > > better off without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in
> > > > this regard, and solving this problem by starting a war
> > > > sets a horrible precedent.
> > >
> > > I find this ``Saddam is not the only bad guy创 argument very
> > > strange. So, would it be ok with you if the US attacked all
> > > the other bad guys, too?
> >
> > No. The point is this: if we're going to attaack Saddam
> > because he's a bad guy then we are hypocrites if we do not also
> > attack all the other bad guys.
>
> That doesn't follow at all. Neither the US nor anyone else have
> any /obligation/ to free /any/ country by military force. And
> when they do it anyway in one or more cases, this is still better
> than nothing at all.
No, because it is then impossible to tell if we are really attacking
because Saddam is bad, or if we're just using that as an excuse to cover
up some ulterior motive. Also, even if it is "better than nothing" (which
is not at all clear in this case) that is compeltely orthogonal to the
issue of whether or not we are being hypocrites.
> > THEIR OPINION MATTERS.
>
> No, it doesn't. At least not so much that their disagreement is
> reason enough not to fight the war.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. I believe that other
people's opinions matter, and that abandoning that principle is the path
to tyranny.
> The German government, for
> instance, played a strong part organizing the opposition in the
> UN. Most of the politicians in our government are former sixties
> radicals. During their whole life they have /hated/ the US and
> been against /every single thing/ the US ever did! (Ironically,
> all of their arguments, all of their protest forms /and/ their
> Anti-Americanism were literally imported from the New Left in the
> US ;-) Now I see them in political talk shows arguing Iraq isn't
> dangerous at all. But I still lifely remember their faces when
> these very same people gave interviews ten years ago, just when
> Saddam had invaded Kuwait and was shooting rockets filled with
> poison gas at Israel, and they /still/ opposed the war! One of
> them, a well-known one, even claimed that Israel /deserved/ that
> treatment. I don't have to tell you how disgusting and tasteless
> such a statement is, especially when it comes from a German.
>
> No. The ``opinion创 of these people doesn't matter one bit
> because it contains exactly zero information: No matter the
> circumstances, they'd oppose the war in any case.
Their opinion matters. That does not mean that they should get to decide
the issue any more than George Bush should get to decide the issue.
That's the whole point. And I wold also point out that Germany joined the
1991 Gulf War coalition despite these radicals. So Germany's current
position must be a result of people whose views do have some information
content.
> > I would actually like to see us go to war against Iraq and get
> > rid of Saddam. But only with the rest of the world behind us,
> > as they were in 1991. Not like this.
>
> Yes, it would be nice if it could be done with the world behing
> the US. But so far the few occasions when it was were
> exceptional. You can't always wait for that to happen and do
> nothing the rest of the time.
Perhaps not. But we could in this case.
> > > > What is to stop any country from launching a war against
> > > > anyone that they judge to be evil?
> > >
> > > As has always been the case for the last few millennia:
> > > Nothing but military force.
> >
> > Yes, that is alas what we are reverting to. The whole point of
> > the U.N. was to get away from that "might makes right"
> > philosophy that lead to all the bloody wars of the 20th
> > century.
>
> Exactly. Now try to remember how effective it has been in that
> regard so far.
I'd say it has been resoundingly successful. I don't have the numbers in
front of me, but I believe that war-related deaths as a percentage of
world population have been lower since 1950 than at any previous time in
recorded history.
> > Today we are the mighty ones. But great powers rise and great
> > powers fall. What will protect us when we are no longer the
> > mighty ones?
>
> Nobody. Absolutely nobody; least of all the UN. This is
> important to keep in mind.
I would rather die righteously than live as a hypocrite.
> At least not until more of the world is governed by sane,
> Western-style democracies. The ``Rule of Law创 is a Western
> invention. Be careful not to expect everybody else to play by
> our rules yet.
How can we expect them to ever play by the rules when we don't do so ourselves?
> > > No, this isn't nice, but when has the world ever been a nice
> > > place?
> >
> > Never. That is no excuse not to try to make is a nicer place.
>
> Sometimes you can make the world a nicer place precisely by
> bombing somebody.
Perhaps. I don't believe that right now is one of those times.
> Yes, this is precisely the question: What's more dangerous?
> Removing Saddam or not removing him?
No one disputes that Saddam must be removed. The disagreement is over
when and how.
E.
Nico
>As to the prisoners of war, we are treating them much better then they
>would treat us if the situation was reversed.
>
>
>
Sure, *they* just die in custody - a little 'smacky' is always in order.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Just about everything Geroge Bush has done since before he came to
> office has made me ashamed to call myself an American. No President
> has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> which is that what other people think matters. George Bush has
> repeatedly demonstrated (and even explicitly stated) that he doesn't
> give a damn what anyone else thinks. He is a dictator who dons the
> trappings of Democracy but does not embrace its substance. When he
> launches his war against Iraq he will be in my mind little different
> from Osama bin Laden. The next time terrorists strike the United
> States it will no longer be true that we did nothing to deserve it.
The amazing thing about it is he keeps saying he's doing everything to
encourage democracy, and freedom, and the media is in his back
pocket. Apparantley now words speak louder than actions.
1. George Bush is for Democracy: Except when there's a problem
counting votes in the state his Brother is Govenor of, then we have
to go to the supreme court to decide who the president is, and
forbid anyone to know what the real vote count is.
And when the democratic process of the United nations doesn't seem
to be going in your favor, you should just go ahead and do whatever
the hell you want.
Oh yes and did I forget that He consideres Communist China our
friend ? I guess it's all right to be a communist, if you're big enough.
2. George Bush wants to save the world from the threat of Saddam
Hussein, for his war crimes. But in the mean time let's keep
shoveling money into Israel who has a history of over 50 years of
human rights violations that make Saddam look like a preschooler.
3. George Bush wants to invade Iraq because he Saddam supports
terrorism. But apparantley providing any real proof that a Power mad
Paranoid control freak like Saddam Hussein, who has killed well over
a million Muslims, supports Fundametalist Islamic Terrorists is not
worth his time.
Oh yes, Saddam has used Weapons of mass destruction on his own
people. Now George Bush wants a turn, the 20,000 pound MOAB has
more explosive power than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Colin Powell was asked last weekend if the US could use Nuclear
weapons in Iraq. His response was "We reserve the right to use
Atomic weapons if the threat is great enough".
George Bush refused to sign a global Treaty which would have
reduced Atomic weapons because he would not allow UN inspectors to
tour US Military Bases.
The United States has 20,000 nuclear warheads, Israel admits to
having over 400.
4. George Bush believes he's working for I higher Divine Cause.
So did Adolph Hitler.
> The stupidity and tragedy of this situation boggles my mind. Yes,
> Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Yes, the world will be better off
> without him. But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and solving
> this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent. What is to
> stop any country from launching a war against anyone that they judge
> to be evil?
Every time this monster opens his mouth I feel like he's sinking us
deeper and deeper into a very bad position. Considering his "Axis of
Evil" speech, and his actions now, Iran and North Korea pretty much
know that they are the next in line for his wrath.
I also feel that foreign diplomats are biting their tounges and not
expressing their true opinions, for fear that Bush will turn on them next.
After making demands of Saddam that he had no way of meeting, what
will happen when George turns his site on the next "Evildoer" ?
> Thank you for your forbearance on this decidedly off-topic post. When
> the bombs start to fly I wanted everyone to know that they do so
> without the consent of this American.
The worst part of being an American right now is the feeling that the
rest of the world doesn't know just how scared we are of our "President".
Joost Kremers
> Joost Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Michael Parker wrote:
>> > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
>>
>> it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
>> directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
>
> No it should not, the US government is sworn to do what is in the
> best interests of the United States, real and/or perceived, period.
so you feel that if it is in the best interest of the US to occupy a
foreign country, exploit its natural resources without giving any of the
profits to the inhabitants, denying the population basic human rights, the
US should just go ahead and do that? (note: i'm just giving a general
example, i don't want to claim that this is the objective of the invasion
of iraq.)
i'm saying that there are cases in which the actions of the US have a
negative impact on people elsewhere in the world. and in those cases, i
believe the US government has the moral obligation to take those negative
effects into consideration and to listen to the opinions of the people
involved. (this of course goes for any government.)
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Look, this ``for oil创 argument is so extremely ridiculous that it is
> not even worth being discussed. Even our leftist government didn't
> use it, probably because they feared it would make them look all too
> stupid, even through our biased media. Just think about it for a
> moment (which you should have done the first time you read it in,
> what, the ``taz创?) and I'm sure you'll understand.
Let me ask you this, if it's not for oil, what is it for ?
I'd really like to know if you actually believe the crap coming out
George Bush's mouth. If you do I guess the American Media propaganda
is much more far reaching than I thougt
> I claim the US are not going to annex any part of Iraq and they are
> not going to declare any oil well in Iraq to be property of the US
> government.
Wow you could claim that pigs will never fly and you'd be making more
of a bold statement. You obvoisly don't know how the American
Businessmen, I mean politicians work.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Only that the party that is usually favored by the upper-class in
> America doesn't rule the White House right now.
I see you don't understand how America's two party system works. You
see, The two parties create enough of an illusion of opposition to
keep the general voting populace interested. The truth of the matter
is that they both know the worst possible thing that could happen is
the emergence of a strong third party.
And by the way the Republican Party tends to favor the rich.
> > They will install a government which gives American and British
> > firms preferential treatment and, more importantly, does NOT
> > give French, German and Russian firms the same treatment. They
> > will also negotiate pricing agreements that are favorable to US
> > and British firms.
>
> Ok. Let's just assume for a moment that no such thing is going
> to happen. Will you change any of your opinions then? Don't
> answer -- Maybe I'll ask you again after the war ;-)
No most likely Iraq will become much like Algeria, the Balkan states,
Chile, Venezuela, and Afghanistan "Instant Democracy".
Joost Kremers
> Here's a quote from Bush's interview with Bob Woodward:
>
> "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not
> need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being
> the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say
> something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
if he really believes that, then he is missing an important thing. the
whole point of democracy is to have leaders that *are* accountable, that
*do* have to explain themselves.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Needless to say, I can't see any such aspirations, but I think
> you haven't really understood how our democracies work. If the
> president did anything against the rules, it is a safe bet that
> the Democrats would already be calling the Supreme Court and it
> will set things straight, as it did many times before in its
> history. If this doesn't happen, that means that he played by
> the rules and then you can't call him a dictator just because you
> disagree with his measures. It would be a very, very long list
> if I began to talk about all the actions of the German government
> which I think are absolutely wrong, dangerous and making things
> worse. But that doesn't give me any right to call our chancellor
> a dictator, no matter how much I hate his guts.
I don't think you understand the American Psyche post
9/11. Unfortunatley there a a lot of people filled with misdirected
anger, and for a politician to take and hold a strong stand on this
would pretty much be seen as political suicide at this point.
The word "patriotism" has taken on a whole new meaning here in
America, it means you are supposed to blindly support your president
no matter how foolish and reckless he is. At least thats the implied
definition in the eyes of the media and General public.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> In article <1f4c5c5c.03031...@posting.google.com>, Erann Gat
> <g...@flownet.com> wrote:
>
> > No President
> > has ever shown more contempt for the bedrock principle of Democracy,
> > which is that what other people think matters.
>
> You're sort-of right here, but a bit off the mark. A couple of points:
>
> (a) the US is not strictly speaking a democracy. What people think
> only directly matters at election time, with only an indirect influence
> the rest of the time. This was considered a feature by the founding
> fathers as a way around the instability and lack of focus that plagued
> the classical democracies of ancient Greece.
No country in existance, strictly speaking is a democracy.
Many of our founding fathers who signed the constitution thought very
little of it, but after years of working on it and comprimises, they
all decided that it was the best they could do. I doubt any of them
could have forseen some of the uglier things it has created.
> (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
I guess it doesn't matter what a non-citizen thinks when they Hijack
four planes and kill three thousand people.
It's your arrogant attitude, as well as the Bush administrations that
causes so much animosity towards the American Government.
Nils Goesche
> In article <87k7evv...@darkstar.cartan>, Nils Goesche <n...@cartan.de> wrote:
>
> > g...@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) writes:
> >
> > > it is pretty clear to me that he has dictatorial
> > > aspirations.
> >
> > Needless to say, I can't see any such aspirations,
>
> Here's a quote from Bush's interview with Bob Woodward:
>
> "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not
> need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing
> about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to
> me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody
> an explanation."
>
> Indeed what a beautiful thing, never having to explain yourself
> to anyone.
The president indeed doesn't answer to anyone -- that's the point
of being in power. We vote a government into office so it will
exercise the power it is given by the constitution. That's
simply how it works. What is he supposed to do? Have a poll
taken before every decision?
> There's also this quote from Bush right after the first round
> of large international protests:
>
> "Democracy is a beautiful thing and people are allowed to
> express their opinion. [but] Size of protest -- it's like
> deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus
> group. The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the
> security, in this case, the security of the people."
Sorry, I can't find anything wrong with that. See above.
> And to steal the commentary from the Web site that I lifted
> this quote from
> (http://www.fcnl.org/issues/int/sup/iraq_smith225-03.htm): Fair
> enough -- except a very large number of "the people" believe
> that their security will be further jeopardized by the war
> policy the White House is pursuing.
Sure, they may feel that way. But that doesn't mean a thing
other than they will probably vote for somebody else next time
(although most of the opponents sound as if they voted for Gore
the first time, anyway).
> Then there's the suspension of Habeus Corpus. The
> nullification of voter initiatives. The withdrawal from Kyoto
> and the ABM treaty. I could go on and on and on.
Heh. I was actually delighted when he withdrawed from the Kyoto
thing. I think the Kyoto treaty was nuts. Insane. Fine, you
may disagree. It just happens now and then that we disagree with
the government. I told you already I hate mine, too :-)
You would have a more convincing case if you could point out some
actual abuses of power. Like, if he was found hoarding secret
FBI files about his political opponents, or repeatedly sending
the IRS after them... you know the rest. Did you complain, too,
when that happened?
> > > No. The point is this: if we're going to attaack Saddam
> > > because he's a bad guy then we are hypocrites if we do not also
> > > attack all the other bad guys.
> >
> > That doesn't follow at all. Neither the US nor anyone else have
> > any /obligation/ to free /any/ country by military force. And
> > when they do it anyway in one or more cases, this is still better
> > than nothing at all.
>
> No, because it is then impossible to tell if we are really
> attacking because Saddam is bad, or if we're just using that as
> an excuse to cover up some ulterior motive.
Again -- it just doesn't follow. Wasn't it you who was just
saying shortly ago that it's not intentions that matter?
> Also, even if it is "better than nothing" (which is not at all
> clear in this case) that is compeltely orthogonal to the issue
> of whether or not we are being hypocrites.
I don't see any connection there.
> > > THEIR OPINION MATTERS.
> >
> > No, it doesn't. At least not so much that their disagreement
> > is reason enough not to fight the war.
>
> We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. I believe that
> other people's opinions matter, and that abandoning that
> principle is the path to tyranny.
Well, does Saddam's opinion matter, for instance? :-)
> > No. The ``opinion´´ of these people doesn't matter one bit
> > because it contains exactly zero information: No matter the
> > circumstances, they'd oppose the war in any case.
>
> Their opinion matters. That does not mean that they should get
> to decide the issue any more than George Bush should get to
> decide the issue. That's the whole point. And I wold also
> point out that Germany joined the 1991 Gulf War coalition
> despite these radicals.
Only that the pinkoes weren't in power in Germany back then. But
they are now.
> So Germany's current position must be a result of people whose
> views do have some information content.
Nope. They were hanging moderately white bed sheets out of their
apartment windows back then, too. They also told everybody that
Saddam would light up some oil wells, the skies would darken, the
world's temperature would lower by some twenty-odd degrees and
we're all going to die because of the Evil Americans. When I
laughed at such claims back then I was called an evil fascist
right-winger. Some things never change.
> > Yes, it would be nice if it could be done with the world
> > behing the US. But so far the few occasions when it was were
> > exceptional. You can't always wait for that to happen and do
> > nothing the rest of the time.
>
> Perhaps not. But we could in this case.
Didn't you do just that for some ten years now?
> > > Yes, that is alas what we are reverting to. The whole
> > > point of the U.N. was to get away from that "might makes
> > > right" philosophy that lead to all the bloody wars of the
> > > 20th century.
> >
> > Exactly. Now try to remember how effective it has been in
> > that regard so far.
>
> I'd say it has been resoundingly successful. I don't have the
> numbers in front of me, but I believe that war-related deaths
> as a percentage of world population have been lower since 1950
> than at any previous time in recorded history.
Somehow I have a feeling that all those deaths reported in the
Blackbook of Communism weren't counted...
And how did the UN achieve that? By doing nothing? One of the
best things that happened in the 20th century is that the West,
mainly the US with an honorable mention of Maggie, wan the cold
war. The UN didn't help one bit fighting it, though, for obvious
reasons. Pretty much /every/ measure against the Communists had
to be taken /against/ the UN, /against/ the will of notable parts
of the population mainly in our universities, and especially
/against/ the will of all those Communist fronts calling
themselves ``Peace Societies´´ and some such, the members of
whose were essentially the same people who so vocally oppose this
war, too.
> > Nobody. Absolutely nobody; least of all the UN. This is
> > important to keep in mind.
>
> I would rather die righteously than live as a hypocrite.
Spoken like a good Christian ;-) Well, I prefer surviving. And I
don't understand what you think is so hypocritical, anyway. I
probably never will.
> > At least not until more of the world is governed by sane,
> > Western-style democracies. The ``Rule of Law´´ is a Western
> > invention. Be careful not to expect everybody else to play
> > by our rules yet.
>
> How can we expect them to ever play by the rules when we don't
> do so ourselves?
We don't? I think we do, in fact. I mean, it's not like we'd
invade Japan or France now, is it?
> > Sometimes you can make the world a nicer place precisely by
> > bombing somebody.
>
> Perhaps. I don't believe that right now is one of those times.
Ok. I can't prove this is the right time. You can't prove it's
not, either. The government has decided. I simply don't know
and you don't like it. But there is no reason to get so excited
about it :-) Well, at least Evil Saddam is removed. That's
certainly one good thing. Let's hope for the best.
Michael Parker
> > so he would listen to foreigners (actually, I didn't vote for him at
> > all, which I have since come to regret). As for U.S. opinion, the
> > majority seem to support him.
>
> Yes, but this is merely a convenient coincidence. It is clear that he
> would not be the least bit deterred if this were not so. He has said so
> explicitly.
I agree that he would not likely be deterred, not unless the polls were
strongly against him. But if that were the case, congress would likely
have intervened and refused to give its ok (or retracted its ok).
But this does not mean that he is undemocratic (in the U.S. sense) --
he is only beholden to the american voters at election time. Again,
this was a deliberate decision on the part of the founding fathers.
If the americans really oppose his decision, then they can toss him out
next election, or yank him out via proxy using the impeachment process.
> You're right, I was being overly dramatic here. He is not a dictator
> (yet) but he does seem to have dictatorial ambitions. I cite once again
> his invokation of Federal power to quash voter initiatives, and his
> unilateral assertion of the power to detain anyone he deems to be an
> "enemy combatant" indefinitely.
Sorry, I hadn't read this when I replied to your post below. I'm not
familiar with his attempting to quash voter initiatives, could you give
more detail? As to the enemy combatant thing, I'm only aware of one
case in this area, and that's Padilla, who I understand (though I could
be wrong) is now getting his due process. Are there more cases I'm not
aware of? Non-citizens don't count for this argument, since holding
non-citizens doesn't seem to threaten the democratic fabric -- they
can't vote, after all. I'm not claiming that it's ethical or moral,
but I really don't see that it threatens the democracy until we start
seeing due process violated for citizens (and more than just one or two
cases). Keep in mind that Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the
Civil War without any long-term problems, so slippery slope arguments
are on shaky ground as well.
> Perhaps I was being overly dramatic here too. But really, what is the
> difference? Both men think that they are right, that they have God on
> their side, and to hell with what anyone else thinks. The only
> difference, it seems to me, is that bin Laden targets civilians
> intentionally, whereas Bush doesn't
That's a heck of a difference :-)
> , but again I say that it is the
> results that matter, not intentions. How many civilians have we already
> killed? How many more will die? I don't know -- those numbers aren't
> regularly recited in the American press. But I'll be surprised if the
> final tally is less than 2795.
Does the fact that Saddam won't be able to top that death toll annually
help your conscience any?
> > What precedent? That liberating people from a horrible evil man is not
> > only possible, but even desirable? How exactly is this horrible?
>
> The precedent I fear is that it is OK for one country to launch a war
> against another country simply because the one country judges that there
> is sufficient reason to do so.
But that has always been the case that any country could launch an
attack just because it wants to. The U.S. is setting no precedent
here.
> > > What is to
> > > stop any country from launching a war against anyone that they judge
> > > to be evil?
> >
> > What has *ever* kept any country from launching a war? This is nothing
> > new -- the U.S. didn't suddenly pull the concept of war out of a hat.
>
> Principle. Self-preservation. A desire to do the Right Thing. And yes,
> as a matter of fact, the United States did pull the concept of this war
> out of a hat. Before 9/11 there was nothing in George Bush's rhetoric
> about Iraq. After 9/11 it's suddenly Job 1, despite the fact that Iraq's
> connection with 9/11 is tenuous at best. That's part of the problem. I
> don't understand why we're going to war *now*. It really does seem
> completely irrational to me, particularly since North Korea seems to be a
> much more credible and emininent threat to U.S. and world security.
This is another place where I think somehow we've been living on
different planets, and maybe it's just a difference in which newspapers
we read. But Iraq has been an issue in the U.S. ever since the first
gulf war, whether the press treated it as a top issue or not. We and
the British have been running regular missions over the "no-fly zones"
nearly every day. And it was not "job 1" after 9/11 -- it didn't
become job 1 until well after afghanistan, nearly 6 months after 9/11.
Bush has never claimed that Iraq was deeply involved in 9/11 (at least
not that I'm aware of). The Czech's claimed that one of the 9/11 guys
met with an Iraqi, but Bush has never made this a centerpiece of his
argument. He has claimed that Iraq is friendly with, and also sponsors
terror organizations including Al Quaeda.
Bush's case for taking out Saddam seems to be basically that since he
is friendly with terrorists, and had chemical and biological weapons
before the inspectors were kicked out, and was working on nukes, and
has resisted all attempts to disarm, that he presents an unacceptable
future risk. As for why now instead of later, that may simply come
down to "why not now?".
> > I remember listening to a call-in show on the radio back in the mid
> > 90's, and this one "militia" guy called in ranting, cowering in his
> > basement with his pistol claiming Reno was coming after him. Your
> > paranoia is no less absurd, and no less amusing, than his.
>
> <shrug> I don't suppose this person was calling from Waco Texas?
Michigan, I think he was part of the so-called "michigan militia". But
as the far-right discovered during that time period, it's all too easy
to get sucked into the paranoia trap. The "militia" guys became
convinced after Ruby Ridge that the government was out to get them, and
Waco confirmed it. In their paranoia, they never noticed the obvious
counterindications. In Popper's theory, they had an unfalsifiable
hypothesis -- the government was out to get them. There was no way for
the government to prove them wrong that they would accept as valid,
because of their intense suspicion.
This is something I see beginning to happen on the far left today, and
i don't know if it's because of the polarizing affect of the 2000
election or what. I'm pretty sure that the far right's paranoia was in
part due to the polarizing effect of Clinton -- they calmed down quite
a bit once the Republicans swept the '94 congressional elections,
although it took years for the paranoia to subside.
But for the left now as for the right then, it's a very dangerous
attitude because of the way it warps your perception of events. Yes
their fears are confirmed by the curtailment of civil liberties in the
patriot act, but they fail to realize the significance of the lack of
mass detainment of muslim and arab citizens. Yes middle-eastern
looking people are getting searched more at airports, but all of the
9/11 terrorists were middle-eastern. Perspective, I guess is what I'm
asking for.
> You know, I would like nothing better than to be proven wrong about all
> this. If we attack Iraq and everything turns out all hunky dory, I will
> happily eat the biggest serving of crow you can dish up. I will say, "Mr.
> President, you were right, and I was wrong, and I'm damn glad you were
> leading the country and not me." I honestly hope that I will some day be
> able to say that.
I hope it comes out ok as well. I had to eat crow after Serbia -- it's
not a lot of fun.
> But right now I'm saying that IMO this is not the time for war.
That's one of the nice things about both an open society and open
source -- there's a lot of eyeballs looking at things. Unfortunately,
the big blue room isn't nearly so clear-cut and logical as code so
there's lots more room for disagreement.
You and I are looking at the same world, yet by assigning slightly
different weights to certain events, and evaluating the risks slightly
differently, come up with a very different set of conclusions.
If you've read Meade's analysis of the philosophical schools in
american foreign policy
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415935369/qid=1048125019/sr=2-1
/ref=sr_2_1/104-4599810-9701544), you may have guessed that I'm a
"Jacksonian" like Bush II (at least Meade thinks he is, and most
self-acknowledged Jacksonians tend to agree). If you haven't read
Meade, "Jacksonians" are basically pugnacious introverts -- they are
deeply isolationist, but come out fighting (and fighting hard) if their
security is threatened, and they take their security very seriously.
This may partly be why I'm less worried about where Bush is taking the
U.S. Most Jacksonians I know (and they're pretty thick here in middle-
america) are deeply isolationist at heart. We really don't want these
foreign adventures. Before 9/11, Bush was disentangling the U.S. from
the rest of the world. Kyoto, International Court, etc, we wanted
nothing to do with it. It wasn't so much arrogance as simple
isolationism. The nuclear test ban thing and the whole missile defense
project was part of this disengagement as well, because we couldn't
disengage successfully without a good defensive solution for ourselves
and our close allies. Meade (a "Jeffersonian" in his typology)
described the "star wars" project as a Jacksonian's orgasm, because it
would finally allow them to withdraw from the rest of the world without
fear for the U.S.'s security.
9/11 snapped Jacksonians into a 180 degree turn. We could not after
all disengage from the world in safety, *at least not yet*.
It is this last bit that I think is critical. I do not think that the
"Emperialist America" hypothesis is true, unfortunately I don't think
it is falsifiable either. There are, however, a great many
contraindications, including the recent talk from the government that
the U.S. will not be returning to Germany, the claims from Bush that
the U.S. will not be engaging in a long-term occupation of Iraq, the
recent statements from Rumsfeld about the possibility of withdrawal
from S. Korea.
I do believe that once things settle down a bit, there will once again
be a shift to isolationism within the U.S. I don't know how long it
will be before the world will "settle down". But it probably won't be
until the middle east is fairly stable (Iraq is probably just the first
step there, though we may just try to do something about the
Israeli-palestinian problem and then bail), and N. Korea is contained
(possibly by Japan, Thailand, and S. Korea) or regime-changed, and some
sort of framework for containing China has been set up (probably
involving the above plus India and Russia).
Nils Goesche
> Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:
>
> > Look, this ``for oil´´ argument is so extremely ridiculous
> > that it is not even worth being discussed.
> Let me ask you this, if it's not for oil, what is it for ? I'd
> really like to know if you actually believe the crap coming out
> George Bush's mouth. If you do I guess the American Media
> propaganda is much more far reaching than I thougt
In a way, it is: Our media unfortunately shows the same leftist
bias as yours.
> > I claim the US are not going to annex any part of Iraq and
> > they are not going to declare any oil well in Iraq to be
> > property of the US government.
>
> Wow you could claim that pigs will never fly and you'd be
> making more of a bold statement. You obvoisly don't know how
> the American Businessmen, I mean politicians work.
I know pretty well, however, how the leftist mind works, as I
have been studying it for decades. I could write a much better
leftist tirade than that myself, if I wanted to.
Your grade: C-
To improve, you should mention at least once each of the words
``imperialism´´, ``military-industrial complex´´, ``dialectics´´
and ``proletariat´´, for a start. And it wouldn't really be
complete until you call me an ``evil, fascist, anti-communist,
counter-revolutionary, mindless puppet of the international
monopoly capital´´ or something like that.
Michael Parker
<a...@mongrel.dogpound> wrote:
> > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
>
> I guess it doesn't matter what a non-citizen thinks when they Hijack
> four planes and kill three thousand people.
>
> It's your arrogant attitude, as well as the Bush administrations that
> causes so much animosity towards the American Government.
Hmm, I think some context was lost. The original statement was that
because Bush is a dictator in part because he doesn't pay attention to
the foreign protests. My statement is factually true: Bush is free to
ignore the opinion of non-citizens without compromizing democracy,
because *they are not part of the demos*, i.e. the citizenry. This is
not arrogance, it is a simple statement of fact -- "democracy" == "Rule
of the demos (citizenry)".
Bush is not *required* to listen to the opinions of non-citizens. It
may be the ethical thing to do, it may be the moral thing to do, it may
be the intelligent thing to do, it is certainly the polite thing to do.
But he is ultimately answerable to the U.S. citizenry, which means he
is perfectly free to listen to overseas opinion, and decide it is
misguided. He is even free to ignore it.
Marc Spitzer
what percentage die in US custody? how many die out of the total? From
what little I know about it most of the deaths happened in Afgan hands.
marc
Anthony Ventimiglia
That's certainly a valid point, but when the actions of your
government, and the long standing policies of your government create a
long term contempt for your government's actions. It is your
government who is responsible when something like an act of terrorism
takes the lives of your people.
Anthony Ventimiglia
>
> Why do you think he would like to be a dictator? I just don't see it.
> I have heard this claim many times, but have never seen any evidence to
> justify this concern.
Who needs evidence ? George certainly does not.
Frode Vatvedt Fjeld
> [..] If the world will condemn the U.S. for both action A and (not
> A), then that condemnation ceases to be signal and instead becomes
> just so much noise.
It very much remains to be seen whether the U.S's current action is
actually (not A) and not something quite different and not at all
complementary to A. Almost no-one _knows_ this with much certainty; we
are left to guess what is going to happen. The U.S's historical record
of similar operations, and the administration's public performances
leading up to this are presumably our best indicators when taking this
guess.
--
Frode Vatvedt Fjeld
Marc Spitzer
> Marc Spitzer wrote:
> > Joost Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> >> Michael Parker wrote:
> >> > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
> >>
> >> it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
> >> directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
> >
> > No it should not, the US government is sworn to do what is in the
> > best interests of the United States, real and/or perceived, period.
>
> so you feel that if it is in the best interest of the US to occupy a
> foreign country, exploit its natural resources without giving any of the
> profits to the inhabitants, denying the population basic human rights, the
> US should just go ahead and do that? (note: i'm just giving a general
> example, i don't want to claim that this is the objective of the invasion
> of iraq.)
I do not have the responability to make that choice. And the history
of the US is that it will go home at the end of the war.
>
> i'm saying that there are cases in which the actions of the US have a
> negative impact on people elsewhere in the world. and in those cases, i
> believe the US government has the moral obligation to take those negative
> effects into consideration and to listen to the opinions of the people
> involved. (this of course goes for any government.)
I did not say that the US should not take into consideration the bad
feelings its actions might cause, that is part of its job. But the reason
for this is to further US goals not because we owe the locals anything.
IF for example the action in question will cause more bad publicity then it is
possible to benefit from it should not be taken because it is not in US
interests and for no other reason
marc
Michael Parker
<a...@mongrel.dogpound> wrote:
Fascinating post.
> The amazing thing about it is he keeps saying he's doing everything to
> encourage democracy, and freedom, and the media is in his back
> pocket. Apparantley now words speak louder than actions.
>
> 1. George Bush is for Democracy: Except when there's a problem
> counting votes in the state his Brother is Govenor of, then we have
> to go to the supreme court to decide who the president is, and
> forbid anyone to know what the real vote count is.
Given that the way those votes were being counted triggered a
constitutional question, I think it's reasonable that the supreme court
became involved. And before you ask, no, I didn't vote for Bush.
> Oh yes and did I forget that He consideres Communist China our
> friend ? I guess it's all right to be a communist, if you're big enough.
I could be wrong, but I don't recall him being particularly friendly to
China, at least not more friendly than any other administration in the
last 30 years. China is simply one of those countries we have to deal
with.
Would you prefer that we have taken them on before Iraq?
> 2. George Bush wants to save the world from the threat of Saddam
> Hussein, for his war crimes. But in the mean time let's keep
> shoveling money into Israel who has a history of over 50 years of
> human rights violations that make Saddam look like a preschooler.
Again, I haven't really noticed this myself. They're fighting a cold
war of sorts with the Palestinians, but I notice the palestinians seem
to be doing a pretty decent job of fighting back. I also notice they
don't seem to be nearly as squeamish about killing women and children
as the Israelis. This may or may not count for much.
> 3. George Bush wants to invade Iraq because he Saddam supports
> terrorism. But apparantley providing any real proof that a Power mad
> Paranoid control freak like Saddam Hussein, who has killed well over
> a million Muslims, supports Fundametalist Islamic Terrorists is not
> worth his time.
Depends on whether you consider Hamas and the PLO to be terrorists, I
suppose.
> Oh yes, Saddam has used Weapons of mass destruction on his own
> people. Now George Bush wants a turn, the 20,000 pound MOAB has
> more explosive power than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
> Nagasaki.
It's a big bomb, but it's nowhere near a nuke -- you're off by roughly
three orders of magnitude (though to be honest so were the press when
they reported it). Hiroshima was 12-13 kilotons equivalent. 20000 lbs
is only 10 tons. That's 10 tons vs 12,000 tons.
Even the little "tactical" nukes are something like 1 kton which is
still two orders of magnitude difference.
> Colin Powell was asked last weekend if the US could use Nuclear
> weapons in Iraq. His response was "We reserve the right to use
> Atomic weapons if the threat is great enough".
That's true. It'd probably take a pretty big threat, though.
> George Bush refused to sign a global Treaty which would have
> reduced Atomic weapons because he would not allow UN inspectors to
> tour US Military Bases.
Neither has any other president -- he's hardly unique here.
> The United States has 20,000 nuclear warheads, Israel admits to
> having over 400.
And france, britain, china, russia, pakistan, india, and n. korea have
how many?
> 4. George Bush believes he's working for I higher Divine Cause.
> So did Adolph Hitler.
So did Mother Theresa. Your point is?
> Every time this monster opens his mouth I feel like he's sinking us
> deeper and deeper into a very bad position. Considering his "Axis of
> Evil" speech, and his actions now, Iran and North Korea pretty much
> know that they are the next in line for his wrath.
Possibly, though that's hardly certain. Iran looks to be on the verge
of a revolution, and it looks like n. korea have us pretty well
deterred.
> I also feel that foreign diplomats are biting their tounges and not
> expressing their true opinions, for fear that Bush will turn on them next.
Haven't noticed this myself. France has certainly laying into him
these last few months, they're still there. But then maybe bush's evil
plan is to let germany invade while we're busy in iraq?
> After making demands of Saddam that he had no way of meeting, what
> will happen when George turns his site on the next "Evildoer" ?
(a) The U.N. made the demands. (b) Why couldn't Saddam meet them?
Because he truly doesn't have those weapons? Get real -- no one
believes that, not Blix, not France, nobody. The disagreement was over
what to actually do about it.
> The worst part of being an American right now is the feeling that the
> rest of the world doesn't know just how scared we are of our "President".
"we" is definitely figurative. I'm certainly not, and if the recent
polls are any indication most americans aren't either, unless you
believe Bush has them so afraid that they're lying to the pollsters.
Please read my posts to Erann regarding paranoia and the danger of
nonfalsifiable hypotheses.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, Joost Kremers wrote:
> The National Security Archive at GWU has video footage of "special envoy"
> Donald Rumsfeld, now Sec. of Defense, visiting with Saddam Hussein at the
> end of 1983 (Windows Media format, .wmv. Scroll down below the picture
> of Hussein and Rumsfeld shaking hands for the links to video). The meeting
> being taped took place the day after American newspapers first reported
> Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran and against its own Kurdish
> population. At the same website you'll find dozens of declassified
> documents showing how the Reagan and Bush-1 administrations got weapons
> and money to Iraq, how they covered-up their activities, and how they
> forced other US government agencies to cooperate. The documents were
> obtained by Freedom Of Information Act request from the US government.
> URL is...
> http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm
I'd like to add to that that Donald Rumsfeld provided Hussein with all
the means to make those chemical and biological weapons.
And under Eisenhower, Iraq was given the full technical report on the
Manhattan Project, So if Iraq had built atomic weapons, who's to blame.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Joost Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > Michael Parker wrote:
> > > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
> >
> > it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US government
> > directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
>
> No it should not, the US government is sworn to do what is in the
> best interests of the United States, real and/or perceived, period.
> That is its job and only that. Now if you can show how country X
> will advance US interests by making it take action Y then the US
> should try to make it happen.
>
If that's your view than we should have an isolationist policy much
like China.
Marc Spitzer
No it is not in US interests, IMHO.
marc
Michael Parker
>> No it should not, the US government is sworn to do what is in the
>> best interests of the United States, real and/or perceived, period.
This was marc's comment, not mine, but here goes...
> so you feel that if it is in the best interest of the US to occupy a
> foreign country, exploit its natural resources without giving any of the
> profits to the inhabitants, denying the population basic human rights, the
> US should just go ahead and do that? (note: i'm just giving a general
> example, i don't want to claim that this is the objective of the invasion
> of iraq.)
This is certainly not the stated aim of the US Govt, whether or not you
believe it is the hidden aim depends on how suspicious/paranoid you
are.
That said "best interest" involves a lot of calculations. The U.S. has
certainly done that in the past (e.g. US Indians). But historically,
we have rejected that model for a variety of reasons. We acquired
Spain's empire after the Spanish-American war, and pretty much divested
it within a few decades.
So for whatever reason, the U.S. has in recent (100+ yrs) decided that
it was not in its best interest to operate in that manner.
But if you want to play hypotheticals, then here's one for you. Say a
dictator of a central middle-eastern state attacked and conquered his
neighboring oil-producing states, proclaimed himself a successor to
Suleiman, receiving the acclamation of the people. Proclaiming the
inevitability of the global domination of his empire, he declares a
holy war of conquest and conversion against the evil west, which
unifies his newly-conquered subjects in common cause and dreams of
shared glory. He turns off the oil and launches war against the west
using funds captured in his initial conquest.
Facing economic collapse once the strategic reserves run out, would it
be in the U.S.'s best interest to conquer and occupy that region in
order to exploit it's natural resources without giving any profits to
the inhabitants? If the inhabitants continued to fight even after the
military battles had been won, would the U.S. be justified in
relocating the populace away from the critical oil-producing areas?
Of course the real question in that scenario is: how many other
"enlightened" countries would the U.S. have to beat out of the way in
order to capture that oil?
> i'm saying that there are cases in which the actions of the US have a
> negative impact on people elsewhere in the world. and in those cases, i
> believe the US government has the moral obligation to take those negative
> effects into consideration and to listen to the opinions of the people
> involved. (this of course goes for any government.)
I agree, we do indeed have such a moral obligation. But we are
rapidly getting into a situation where the U.S. is criticised no matter
what it does, and in that situation what reason does the U.S. have to
listen to that criticism? If we are damned if we do and damned if we
don't, then the damnation carries no information whatsoever.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Bush's case for taking out Saddam seems to be basically that since he
> is friendly with terrorists, and had chemical and biological weapons
> before the inspectors were kicked out, and was working on nukes, and
> has resisted all attempts to disarm, that he presents an unacceptable
> future risk. As for why now instead of later, that may simply come
> down to "why not now?".
I pretty much get the Idea that you don't accept Bush's Rhetoric, but:
If you take the basic characteristic of a dictator as being someone
who must control everything to stay in power, and would never risk
giving power to a possible enemy.
Then you take the definition of a terrorist as someone who basically
has no loyalty to a government, and feels they are working in an
effort for the helpless voiceless masses.
Then throw in the fact that that dictator is secular and runs a very
Stalinesque, non-religious government, and has killed probably over a
million muslims.
And consider that your terrorist in this case is driven by strong
religious beliefs.
How can you tell me that the dictator would give chemical or weapons
to the terrorist.
Osama Bin Laden is known to be very anti-Saddam, he considers him a
Communist.
The only way Saddam would give weapons to terrorists is in the
eleventh hour when he knows he will not survive.
And think about this, the terrorists who took down the twin towers
lived, and learned their most important skill (fyling) in The United
States.
Every day more Al-Queda operatives are being captured in Pakistan.
Terrorrists have more freedom to gain their power and operate in a
Democracy than an Authoritarian state like Iraq.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> Anthony Ventimiglia <a...@mongrel.dogpound> writes:
> > Let me ask you this, if it's not for oil, what is it for ? I'd
> > really like to know if you actually believe the crap coming out
> > George Bush's mouth. If you do I guess the American Media
> > propaganda is much more far reaching than I thougt
>
> In a way, it is: Our media unfortunately shows the same leftist
> bias as yours.
No once again the current state of our media is so right wing it
scares the hell out of me. With exception to the New York Times, and a
handful of non-commercial radio stations, it's impossible to actually
hear more than a mention of a dissenting opinion in the mass Media.
I think there are two major reasons for this:
1. Most of America has 3 full time 24 hour News Channels, here in the
New York Area we have 7 other major stations that have at least 4
to 6 hours of news a day. I think the people who work there are so
scared of saying, or doing anything controversial for the simple
reason that they can be replaced in a moments notice.
2. Once again the American Psyche post September eleventh. The general
feeling perpetrated by the mass media is that any form of
dissenting opinion is Anti-American, non-patriotic, and possibly
subversive. For people like me the real fear is not terrorism, but
impending loss of Liberty. Some of the things going on here are
almost Orwellian.
> > > I claim the US are not going to annex any part of Iraq and
> > > they are not going to declare any oil well in Iraq to be
> > > property of the US government.
> >
> > Wow you could claim that pigs will never fly and you'd be
> > making more of a bold statement. You obvoisly don't know how
> > the American Businessmen, I mean politicians work.
>
> I know pretty well, however, how the leftist mind works, as I
> have been studying it for decades. I could write a much better
> leftist tirade than that myself, if I wanted to.
>
Placing labels on people gets you a C.
Placing labels on people after you've only heard their opinion on a
single topic gets you an F.
> Your grade: C-
>
> To improve, you should mention at least once each of the words
> ``imperialism创, ``military-industrial complex创, ``dialectics创
> and ``proletariat创, for a start. And it wouldn't really be
> complete until you call me an ``evil, fascist, anti-communist,
> counter-revolutionary, mindless puppet of the international
> monopoly capital创 or something like that.
I bet you'd like that, but see the above, I don't go jumping to
conclusions about people I don't know, nor do I take it personally
when their opinion is different than mine.
It would be a boring place if everyone thought the same way as me.
Christopher Browne
> Marc Spitzer wrote:
>> Joost Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> writes:
>>
>>> Michael Parker wrote:
>>> > (b) What non-citizens think *doesn't* matter, except as a courtesy.
>>>
>>> it should be more than a courtesy when the policy of the US
>>> government directly influences the lives of non-US citizens.
>>
>> No it should not, the US government is sworn to do what is in the
>> best interests of the United States, real and/or perceived, period.
>
> so you feel that if it is in the best interest of the US to occupy a
> foreign country, exploit its natural resources without giving any of
> the profits to the inhabitants, denying the population basic human
> rights, the US should just go ahead and do that? (note: i'm just
> giving a general example, i don't want to claim that this is the
> objective of the invasion of iraq.)
No, the point is that citizens of the United States have a right to
expect to have some influence over the policy of the government, and
the US government thereby has a corresponding obligation to at least
consider the opinions of their citizenry.
And non-citizens have no right to expect for their opinions to be so
considered.
As a Canadian citizen, I have the right to express my aspirations to
/my/ nation's politicians, but I don't consider that there's any
particular reason for US politicians to try to represent my desires.
US Congresscritters, Senators, and such are responsible to their
constituents, and those constituents happen /ALL/ to be US citizens.
If a Member of Congress were to follow foreign opinions in lieu of
listening to their constituents, there is a good argument to be made
to the effect that they are betraying their constituents, and calling
this "traitorous" is not, I do not think, going vastly too far.
> i'm saying that there are cases in which the actions of the US have
> a negative impact on people elsewhere in the world. and in those
> cases, i believe the US government has the moral obligation to take
> those negative effects into consideration and to listen to the
> opinions of the people involved. (this of course goes for any
> government.)
Listening to it /as reasoning/ is fair enough. But to consider such
opinions to be politically binding goes beyond that, on towards being
a betrayal of their responsibilities to their constituents.
--
If this was helpful, <http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=cbbrowne> rate me
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/sap.html
"If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you
handy..." -- The Red Green Show
Wade Humeniuk
"Michael Parker" <michae...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:190320031813392353%michae...@earthlink.net...
> The U.S. is not responsible for the evils of the world. Not all of
> them, anyway. And these attempts to shoulder the U.S. with the blame
> for the troubles of the world while simultaneously denying it the
> authority to solve the problem is the cheapest sort of hypocrisy, and
> completely unworthy of respect.
I will glady give the US the authority. Go ahead and take the weight
of the world. But it is highly unlikely that anyone would want to be
solely responsible. What the US government seems to want is to
be supported and not feel alone, which it does when it is blamed
by some and relied on by others. (which is why Tony Blair's support
is so welcomed) I guess even the strongest need support.
Wade
Hartmann Schaffer
Michael Parker <michae...@earthlink.net> writes:
> In article <87ptomq...@mongrel.dogpound>, Anthony Ventimiglia
> <a...@mongrel.dogpound> wrote:
>
> Fascinating post.
>
>> The amazing thing about it is he keeps saying he's doing everything to
>> encourage democracy, and freedom, and the media is in his back
>> pocket. Apparantley now words speak louder than actions.
>>
>> 1. George Bush is for Democracy: Except when there's a problem
>> counting votes in the state his Brother is Govenor of, then we have
>> to go to the supreme court to decide who the president is, and
>> forbid anyone to know what the real vote count is.
>
> Given that the way those votes were being counted triggered a
> constitutional question, I think it's reasonable that the supreme court
> became involved. And before you ask, no, I didn't vote for Bush.
in a representative democratic system it should be important to at
least count the votes and let the count decide the winner, even if
some events like electorate assembly or inauguration have to be
delayed because of the recount. what happened in the last
presidential election:
- the margin of bush's "victory" in florida was less that the known
error rate of the equipment used to guesstimate the votes (this was
discussed at length and in some detail in comp.risks for a few weeks
after the election
- a request for recount was blocked by an administration controlled by
the brother of one of the candidates (who was declared to be the
winner)
- a court largely appointed by the two brothers' father backed up that
blockage
too bad this didn't happen somewhere in africa, latin america, or
asia. i really would have liked to read about the american reaction
to such a situation
> ...
hs
--
men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education
Bertrand Russel
Anthony Ventimiglia
> In article <87ptomq...@mongrel.dogpound>, Anthony Ventimiglia
>
> Given that the way those votes were being counted triggered a
> constitutional question, I think it's reasonable that the supreme court
> became involved. And before you ask, no, I didn't vote for Bush.
>
So you think it's better for the Supreme court to just come in and
decide who's president rather than actually count votes.
But aside to how the votes were being counted you also have to realize
that the florida state police put up road blocks so they could stop
cars and serve warrants during the election in areas with high
minority populations. On top of that some people who were registered
were being turned away at the polls for not showing sufficient ID. You
may not think much of that, but it is illegal for pollsters to do this.
> > Oh yes and did I forget that He consideres Communist China our
> > friend ? I guess it's all right to be a communist, if you're big enough.
>
> I could be wrong, but I don't recall him being particularly friendly to
> China, at least not more friendly than any other administration in the
> last 30 years. China is simply one of those countries we have to deal
> with.
Well recall a little harder.
> Would you prefer that we have taken them on before Iraq?
So you're suggesting that they are somewhere on his list ?
> > 2. George Bush wants to save the world from the threat of Saddam
> > Hussein, for his war crimes. But in the mean time let's keep
> > shoveling money into Israel who has a history of over 50 years of
> > human rights violations that make Saddam look like a preschooler.
>
> Again, I haven't really noticed this myself. They're fighting a cold
> war of sorts with the Palestinians,
Apartheid, and destroying homes and villages is NOT A COLD WAR.
> but I notice the palestinians seem
> to be doing a pretty decent job of fighting back. I also notice they
> don't seem to be nearly as squeamish about killing women and children
> as the Israelis. This may or may not count for much.
Wow, you're quite misinformed my friend, did you happen to hear the
news report about the American who was killed on Sunday ?
She was trying to block an Israeli bulldozer from knocking down a
Palastinian Doctors home. The bulldozer drove over her. Then stopped,
while she was alive and pinned underneath the bulldozer, and proceeded
to back ovver her one more time.
Today at the funeral procession, Israeli tanks came and fired tear gas
at the Funeral procession, if that's not enough for you, the very
bulldozer that killed her drove by along with the tanks. If that's not
terror and opression, I don't know what is.
Wake up one day, stop watching the commercial media, and start paying
attention to what is really going on over there. I'm sure you can get
your hands on the New York Times, it's one of the few widely
circulated media sources that actually tells the truth, otherwise
listenm to Public radio.
> > 3. George Bush wants to invade Iraq because he Saddam supports
> > terrorism. But apparantley providing any real proof that a Power mad
> > Paranoid control freak like Saddam Hussein, who has killed well over
> > a million Muslims, supports Fundametalist Islamic Terrorists is not
> > worth his time.
>
> Depends on whether you consider Hamas and the PLO to be terrorists, I
> suppose.
Well has he or can you provide any proof that he supports or provides
weapons of mass destruction to them ? Cause I think if he did provide
chemical weapons to Hamas then they would have used them quite a long
time ago.
As far as the PLO goes, and Palastinian terrorism, when a group is
opressed as much and for as long as the Palastinians have beenm their
only way of fighting back is by Drastic measures.
The rules of war only apply if you are the stronger power. If you are
a small powerless group being opressed by a power much much greater
than yours, there are no rules as to how you fight. Look at the IRA,
and look at the way the US won our independance.
> > Oh yes, Saddam has used Weapons of mass destruction on his own
> > people. Now George Bush wants a turn, the 20,000 pound MOAB has
> > more explosive power than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
> > Nagasaki.
>
> It's a big bomb, but it's nowhere near a nuke -- you're off by roughly
> three orders of magnitude (though to be honest so were the press when
> they reported it). Hiroshima was 12-13 kilotons equivalent. 20000 lbs
> is only 10 tons. That's 10 tons vs 12,000 tons.
Just the same no one in the US will bat an eye if we drop say 1000 of
them on Iraq.
> > Colin Powell was asked last weekend if the US could use Nuclear
> > weapons in Iraq. His response was "We reserve the right to use
> > Atomic weapons if the threat is great enough".
>
> That's true. It'd probably take a pretty big threat, though.
How much of a threat would you think would actually justify that ?
> > The United States has 20,000 nuclear warheads, Israel admits to
> > having over 400.
>
> And france, britain, china, russia, pakistan, india, and n. korea have
> how many?
So who's weapons of mass destruction are the problem ?
>
>
> > 4. George Bush believes he's working for I higher Divine Cause.
> > So did Adolph Hitler.
>
> So did Mother Theresa. Your point is?
Mother Theresa never killed anyone, Bush gets nervous if he can't kill
at least 6 people a year.
> > Every time this monster opens his mouth I feel like he's sinking us
> > deeper and deeper into a very bad position. Considering his "Axis of
> > Evil" speech, and his actions now, Iran and North Korea pretty much
> > know that they are the next in line for his wrath.
>
> Possibly, though that's hardly certain. Iran looks to be on the verge
> of a revolution, and it looks like n. korea have us pretty well
> deterred.
Assumption is the mother of all major Fu#kups.
> > After making demands of Saddam that he had no way of meeting, what
> > will happen when George turns his site on the next "Evildoer" ?
>
> (a) The U.N. made the demands. (b) Why couldn't Saddam meet them?
> Because he truly doesn't have those weapons? Get real -- no one
> believes that, not Blix, not France, nobody. The disagreement was over
> what to actually do about it.
So if The US Government decised to start locking people up on purely
circumstantial evidence, or just a general suspicion, you'd have no
problem with that ?
The disagreement wasn't about what to do, don't try to tell me for a
second that there was anything Saddam could have done to satisfy G W
from day one. I mean it's bad enough that this whole thing is
happening, but the fact that Bush has tried to act like he even tried
diplomacy is what really pisses me off, if he would have just gone
ahead and done this last September it wouldn't have made him look like
such a joke.
> > The worst part of being an American right now is the feeling that the
> > rest of the world doesn't know just how scared we are of our "President".
>
> "we" is definitely figurative. I'm certainly not, and if the recent
> polls are any indication most americans aren't either, unless you
> believe Bush has them so afraid that they're lying to the pollsters.
I use "we" the same way Bush keeps telling me what "Americans"
want. I have no faith in polls, they can easily be doctored.
Anthony Ventimiglia
> too bad this didn't happen somewhere in africa, latin america, or
> asia. i really would have liked to read about the american reaction
> to such a situation
I actually do recall a foreign election that the US nullified, or
refused to recognize, because the vote was fixed. Can't remember
where, but it wasn't too long before the 2000 debacle.
Erann Gat
Parker <michae...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> In article <gat-190303...@k-137-79-50-101.jpl.nasa.gov>, Erann
> Gat <g...@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
> > > I agree with him, at least wrt foreign opinion. I didn't vote for him
> > > so he would listen to foreigners (actually, I didn't vote for him at
> > > all, which I have since come to regret). As for U.S. opinion, the
> > > majority seem to support him.
> >
> > Yes, but this is merely a convenient coincidence. It is clear that he
> > would not be the least bit deterred if this were not so. He has said so
> > explicitly.
>
> I agree that he would not likely be deterred, not unless the polls were
> strongly against him.
If you take him at his word, if every last person on Earth were strongly
against him that would not deter him.
> Sorry, I hadn't read this when I replied to your post below. I'm not
> familiar with his attempting to quash voter initiatives, could you give
> more detail?
See e.g. http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_02/prsc0506.htm
> > , but again I say that it is the
> > results that matter, not intentions. How many civilians have we already
> > killed? How many more will die? I don't know -- those numbers aren't
> > regularly recited in the American press. But I'll be surprised if the
> > final tally is less than 2795.
>
> Does the fact that Saddam won't be able to top that death toll annually
> help your conscience any?
My conscience is not really the point. The people whose feelings matter
the most are the Iraqis. When this is over, will they be dancing in the
streets or cursing us? I don't know, and I don't think George Bush does
either. But he thinks he does -- or he doesn't care.
> > > What precedent? That liberating people from a horrible evil man is not
> > > only possible, but even desirable? How exactly is this horrible?
> >
> > The precedent I fear is that it is OK for one country to launch a war
> > against another country simply because the one country judges that there
> > is sufficient reason to do so.
>
> But that has always been the case that any country could launch an
> attack just because it wants to. The U.S. is setting no precedent
> here.
Of course any country *could* launch an attack. That does not mean that
such actions are acceptable.
> As for why now instead of later, that may simply come
> down to "why not now?".
Well, at this point it's moot since the bombs are flying. But twenty-four
hours ago there was still the possibility of getting rid of Saddam without
firing a shot.
> Perspective, I guess is what I'm asking for.
OK, to be perfectly honest I am not really very worried that the
government will come knocking on my door because of the position I have
taken on this issue (and I am supremely grateful to be living in a country
where that is true). But the current state of things seems to me
uncomfortably similar to the McCarthy era, with "terrorists" (or
"potential terrorists") substituted for "communists." I think I'm safe,
but I'm not at all certain that I would still feel as safe if my name were
Mohammed instead of Erann.
> > You know, I would like nothing better than to be proven wrong about all
> > this. If we attack Iraq and everything turns out all hunky dory, I will
> > happily eat the biggest serving of crow you can dish up. I will say, "Mr.
> > President, you were right, and I was wrong, and I'm damn glad you were
> > leading the country and not me." I honestly hope that I will some day be
> > able to say that.
>
> I hope it comes out ok as well. I had to eat crow after Serbia -- it's
> not a lot of fun.
Being wrong will be a hell of a lot more fun for me than being right in
this case.
> > But right now I'm saying that IMO this is not the time for war.
>
> That's one of the nice things about both an open society and open
> source -- there's a lot of eyeballs looking at things.
Yes, but that only helps if the people making the decisions actually care
about what the people those eyeballs are attached to have to say.
> It is this last bit that I think is critical. I do not think that the
> "Emperialist America" hypothesis is true,
I never said anything about imperialism. Our motives are not the issue as
far as I'm concerned. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The issue is, as I've said, that what other people think ought to matter.
E.
Erann Gat
> The president indeed doesn't answer to anyone
Actually, the President answers to Congress. You need to read the Constitution.
> -- that's the point of being in power.
Yes -- if your aspirations are to be a dictator.
> You would have a more convincing case if you could point out some
> actual abuses of power.
I never said Bush has abused his power. I said he exhibited contempt for
democracy.
> > > > No. The point is this: if we're going to attaack Saddam
> > > > because he's a bad guy then we are hypocrites if we do not also
> > > > attack all the other bad guys.
> > >
> > > That doesn't follow at all. Neither the US nor anyone else have
> > > any /obligation/ to free /any/ country by military force. And
> > > when they do it anyway in one or more cases, this is still better
> > > than nothing at all.
> >
> > No, because it is then impossible to tell if we are really
> > attacking because Saddam is bad, or if we're just using that as
> > an excuse to cover up some ulterior motive.
>
> Again -- it just doesn't follow. Wasn't it you who was just
> saying shortly ago that it's not intentions that matter?
Intentions don't matter, but predictability does. The rule of law works
not because the law is necessarily more fair than human judgement but
because it is less capricious. Hypocrisy is bad not because it
necessarily leads to evil, but because it can lead *anywhere*, and there's
no way to tell until you get there, by which time it may be too late.
> > Also, even if it is "better than nothing" (which is not at all
> > clear in this case) that is compeltely orthogonal to the issue
> > of whether or not we are being hypocrites.
>
> I don't see any connection there.
There isn't any. That is the point I was trying to make.
> > > Yes, it would be nice if it could be done with the world
> > > behing the US. But so far the few occasions when it was were
> > > exceptional. You can't always wait for that to happen and do
> > > nothing the rest of the time.
> >
> > Perhaps not. But we could in this case.
>
> Didn't you do just that for some ten years now?
Yes. So? It was working, wasn't it?
> > > > Yes, that is alas what we are reverting to. The whole
> > > > point of the U.N. was to get away from that "might makes
> > > > right" philosophy that lead to all the bloody wars of the
> > > > 20th century.
> > >
> > > Exactly. Now try to remember how effective it has been in
> > > that regard so far.
> >
> > I'd say it has been resoundingly successful. I don't have the
> > numbers in front of me, but I believe that war-related deaths
> > as a percentage of world population have been lower since 1950
> > than at any previous time in recorded history.
>
> Somehow I have a feeling that all those deaths reported in the
> Blackbook of Communism weren't counted...
Those deaths weren't war-related. Figuring out a way to keep leaders from
oppressing their own people is a much different and much harder problem
from trying to prevent war.
> And how did the UN achieve that? By doing nothing? One of the
> best things that happened in the 20th century is that the West,
> mainly the US with an honorable mention of Maggie, wan the cold
> war.
Indeed, and we did it without firing a shot.
> > > Nobody. Absolutely nobody; least of all the UN. This is
> > > important to keep in mind.
> >
> > I would rather die righteously than live as a hypocrite.
>
> Spoken like a good Christian ;-)
Actually, I'm an atheist.
> > > At least not until more of the world is governed by sane,
> > > Western-style democracies. The ``Rule of Law´´ is a Western
> > > invention. Be careful not to expect everybody else to play
> > > by our rules yet.
> >
> > How can we expect them to ever play by the rules when we don't
> > do so ourselves?
>
> We don't? I think we do, in fact. I mean, it's not like we'd
> invade Japan or France now, is it?
Funny, I must have missed that part in the UN charter that says it's OK to
invade other countries as long as it's not Japan or France.
> But there is no reason to get so excited about it :-)
Like I said, the best time to stand up to tyranny is before it becomes
apparent that it is tyranny. In fact, that we didn't do so with Saddam is
one of the reasons for the current mess.
> Well, at least Evil Saddam is removed. That's
> certainly one good thing. Let's hope for the best.
Indeed.
E.
Thaddeus L Olczyk
>g...@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) writes:
>
>> In article <87k7evv...@darkstar.cartan>, Nils Goesche <n...@cartan.de> wrote:
>>
>> > g...@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) writes:
>> >
>> > > it is pretty clear to me that he has dictatorial
>> > > aspirations.
>> >
>> > Needless to say, I can't see any such aspirations,
>>
>> Here's a quote from Bush's interview with Bob Woodward:
>>
>> "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not
>> need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing
>> about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to
>> me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody
>> an explanation."
>>
>> Indeed what a beautiful thing, never having to explain yourself
>> to anyone.
>
>The president indeed doesn't answer to anyone -- that's the point
>of being in power. We vote a government into office so it will
>exercise the power it is given by the constitution. That's
>simply how it works. What is he supposed to do? Have a poll
>taken before every decision?
I did not read Woodward's book. However I have seen television
interviews with Woodward totaling several hours. From what Woodward
said and his tone, I would say the quote above is a lie. Either just
wrong or taken severly out of context.
Espen Vestre
> > But Saddam is hardly unique in this regard, and solving
> > this problem by starting a war sets a horrible precedent.
>
> What precedent? That liberating people from a horrible evil man is not
> only possible, but even desirable? How exactly is this horrible?
Instead of leaving the decision of whether to intervent to the
dangerous "think tank" around Bush (who are following vice defense
minister Wolfowitz's doctrine of "preemptive intervention" (*)),
have a look at the report from The International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty:
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/report2-en.asp
To me it's obvious that Iraq is FAR from fulfilling the requirements
for justifying a military attack that this commision suggests.
(*) it's important to understand that the current american policy is
the brain child of a right-wing group _around_ Bush, which were
too extreme even for his father, but which got out of their "think
tanks" and made their way into the current government and which
even Bush has struggled to moderate (they wanted to attack Iraq
the day after 9/11). This seems to be a pretty good summary of
the story behind the new doctrine:
http://www.presentdanger.org/papers/foretold_body.html
(I don't know the organization behind these web pages, american
c.l.l.-ers may know more, but at least the presentation on the
above url is consistent with what I've read on this topic from
other sources)
--
(espen)
Espen Vestre
> Hmm, I think some context was lost. The original statement was that
> because Bush is a dictator in part because he doesn't pay attention to
> the foreign protests.
The relevant facts are:
- he disrespects international law
- his rhetoric is that of a religious fanatic and extreme nationalist
Given statements like:
"..because this is the greatest nation, full of the finest people,
on the face of the Earth."
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030116-1.html)
there's no wonder people in "old Europe" conclude that "this looks like
a dictator and smells like a dictator, so it must be a dictator".
--
(espen)
Mario S. Mommer
> [Franklin said]: "Democracy is 2 wolfs and a sheep voting on what is
> for dinner and freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the
> decision".
Parlamentary democracy is when they decide to have "McWabbit Stoo" for
dinner. This is hard to swallow for the sheep, but it is generally
regarded in the media as a reasonable compromise.
Mario.
Tim Bradshaw
> what percentage die in US custody? how many die out of the total? From
> what little I know about it most of the deaths happened in Afgan hands.
That's not the point, and neither is the point whether the bad guys
would do worse. The point is being able to hold `enemy combatants'
indefinitely with no overview, where you (the government) get to
define someone as an `enemy combatant' as suits you. If the bad guys
can push you into laws like that, then they *have won*.
--tim
Michael Livshin
> Michael Parker <michae...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>> Hmm, I think some context was lost. The original statement was that
>> because Bush is a dictator in part because he doesn't pay attention to
>> the foreign protests.
>
> The relevant facts are:
>
> - he disrespects international law
what is your definition of "international law"? so far I've seen this
term used mostly by people who are deliberately mistaking Belgium for
the world.
(don't bother defining "international", concentrate on "law".)
--
Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection.
Joost Kremers
>> 2. George Bush wants to save the world from the threat of Saddam
>> Hussein, for his war crimes. But in the mean time let's keep
>> shoveling money into Israel who has a history of over 50 years of
>> human rights violations that make Saddam look like a preschooler.
>
> Again, I haven't really noticed this myself.
then you haven't been paying attention.
> They're fighting a cold
> war of sorts with the Palestinians,
oh, if you're living in palestinian occupied territory, it's very hot war
indeed. it's also pretty hot if you're living in israel. since the start of
the second intifadah (the end of 2000, IIRC), close to 2100 palestinians
and some 700 israelis have died. (yes, those numbers are 3:1, something
that few people in the west seem to realise.)
> but I notice the palestinians seem
> to be doing a pretty decent job of fighting back. I also notice they
> don't seem to be nearly as squeamish about killing women and children
> as the Israelis. This may or may not count for much.
again i can only say that even though i abhor the killing of civilians,
whether they be palestinian or israeli, i can understand where the
sentiments of the palestinians are coming from. and again i can only point
out that if you are the oppressed party, or the party under threat, you
also feel very differently about killing civilians than you do now.
just try and imagine the situation that china had occupied the US. (you
were american, right?) would you mind it very much if some american decided
to blow up a busy railway station in china?
Joost Kremers
> But if you want to play hypotheticals, then here's one for you. Say a
> dictator of a central middle-eastern state attacked and conquered his
> neighboring oil-producing states, proclaimed himself a successor to
> Suleiman, receiving the acclamation of the people. Proclaiming the
> inevitability of the global domination of his empire, he declares a
> holy war of conquest and conversion against the evil west, which
> unifies his newly-conquered subjects in common cause and dreams of
> shared glory. He turns off the oil and launches war against the west
> using funds captured in his initial conquest.
>
> Facing economic collapse once the strategic reserves run out, would it
> be in the U.S.'s best interest to conquer and occupy that region in
> order to exploit it's natural resources without giving any profits to
> the inhabitants?
on a short term, that would be their best interest, yes. whether it would
also be beneficial on the long term is a different story. in any case,
conquering and occupying the region, and then exploiting it without regard
for the inhabitants is unlawful and unjust.
> If the inhabitants continued to fight even after the
> military battles had been won, would the U.S. be justified in
> relocating the populace away from the critical oil-producing areas?
no, the US or any other country would certainly not be justified in doing
that. the US doesn't own those resources, so at best they have the right to
buy the oil fairly.
if the inhabitants continue to fight the US even after the military
battles, that should be a clear sign that the US isn't wanted there and
that they should go.
>> i'm saying that there are cases in which the actions of the US have a
>> negative impact on people elsewhere in the world. and in those cases, i
>> believe the US government has the moral obligation to take those negative
>> effects into consideration and to listen to the opinions of the people
>> involved. (this of course goes for any government.)
>
> I agree, we do indeed have such a moral obligation. But we are
> rapidly getting into a situation where the U.S. is criticised no matter
> what it does, and in that situation what reason does the U.S. have to
> listen to that criticism? If we are damned if we do and damned if we
> don't, then the damnation carries no information whatsoever.
this is of course a nice and easy way to justify not listening to
anybody. but listening to criticism and acting upon it are two different
things. i believe one should always listen to criticism, try and see where
the person expressing it is coming from, why he criticises you, and then
decide if he has a point or not. and then explain why you (dis)agree. the
bush administration does not appear to be doing this. they issue statements
such as "if you're not with us, you're against us", and live by a policy of
"we do what we want and to hell with the rest".
Espen Vestre
> what is your definition of "international law"? so far I've seen this
> term used mostly by people who are deliberately mistaking Belgium for
> the world.
I'm not a law expert (and hence, it would be foolish of me to try to
answer your request for definitions), but this is not something I'm
making up or somebody in Belgium (!?) is making up, it is claimed by
leading law experts from several countries, e.g. the International Law
Commision in Geneva.
If you can read german, here's a pretty good article which discusses
the topic (and brings up some interesting consequences: If the war
atually is in breach with internationational law, then according to EU
law, Poland is in breach with the requirement for EU membership):
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,241087,00.html
--
(espen)
Michael Livshin
> Michael Livshin <use...@cmm.kakpryg.net> writes:
>
>> what is your definition of "international law"? so far I've seen this
>> term used mostly by people who are deliberately mistaking Belgium for
>> the world.
>
> I'm not a law expert (and hence, it would be foolish of me to try to
> answer your request for definitions), but this is not something I'm
> making up or somebody in Belgium (!?) is making up, it is claimed by
> leading law experts from several countries, e.g. the International Law
> Commision in Geneva.
I'm not a law expert either, but to claim the existance of a law, I
think, is to claim at least that there is a court (to determine if
there's a breach of the law) and a police (to punish those who break
the law).
so far I don't see a court (well, Belgium claims a right to put
foreign nationals on trial, which is why I mentioned this famous
superpower in my post; and then there's the UN with Libia (or was it
Syria?) heading the Security Council -- court run by inmates), and the
only thing anywhere close to a potent police is, well, the US.
so the claim about there being some kind of "international law" is,
in my view, completely absurd.
> [snip]
--m
--
I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!
Espen Vestre
> so far I don't see a court
The international criminal court is in The Hague (which isn't in Belgium).
There are other international courts as well.
See http://www.un.org/law/
--
(espen)
Michael Livshin
> Michael Livshin <use...@cmm.kakpryg.net> writes:
>
>> so far I don't see a court
>
> The international criminal court is in The Hague (which isn't in Belgium).
yup, forgot about The Hague (wonder why -- perhaps it's just not as
obviously comical as Belgium).
> There are other international courts as well.
sure. I could open one tomorrow, it would probably be as effective as
those as far as law enforcement is concerned. even more effective, if
the criminal on trial happens to be my cat.
--
it takes more than not to remember how you did it the last time to be
innovative. -- Erik Naggum
Espen Vestre
> > There are other international courts as well.
>
> sure. I could open one tomorrow, it would probably be as effective as
> those as far as law enforcement is concerned. even more effective, if
> the criminal on trial happens to be my cat.
What are you trying to prove?
--
(espen)
Michael Livshin
> What are you trying to prove?
that in the absence of law enforcement, there's no law.
perhaps I've failed to understand what it was that you were objecting
to?
--
All ITS machines now have hardware for a new machine instruction --
BFM
Be Fruitful and Multiply.
Please update your programs.
Espen Vestre
> > What are you trying to prove?
>
> that in the absence of law enforcement, there's no law.
Sigh. Your arguments are those of a nihilist.
--
(espen) "And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!"
Laurie Anderson
Raymond Wiker
> Michael Livshin <use...@cmm.kakpryg.net> writes:
>
> > > What are you trying to prove?
> >
> > that in the absence of law enforcement, there's no law.
>
> Sigh. Your arguments are those of a nihilist.
Also: The presence of what Bush calls "Law Enforcement" does
not imply a "Law".
--
Raymond Wiker Mail: Raymon...@fast.no
Senior Software Engineer Web: http://www.fast.no/
Fast Search & Transfer ASA Phone: +47 23 01 11 60
P.O. Box 1677 Vika Fax: +47 35 54 87 99
NO-0120 Oslo, NORWAY Mob: +47 48 01 11 60
Try FAST Search: http://alltheweb.com/
Nils Goesche
> In article <190320032035185146%michae...@earthlink.net>,
> Michael Parker <michae...@earthlink.net> writes:
> > Given that the way those votes were being counted triggered a
> > constitutional question, I think it's reasonable that the supreme
> > court became involved. And before you ask, no, I didn't vote for
> > Bush.
> in a representative democratic system it should be important to at
> least count the votes and let the count decide the winner, even if
> some events like electorate assembly or inauguration have to be
> delayed because of the recount. what happened in the last
> presidential election:
Actually, they counted the votes /many times/. And each time they
counted, Bush turned out to be the winner. They even broke the law to
count more times than would have been necessary by the constitution.
> - the margin of bush's "victory" in florida was less that the known
> error rate of the equipment used to guesstimate the votes (this was
> discussed at length and in some detail in comp.risks for a few weeks
> after the election
That's too bad. But if you have a result as close as this, counting
the votes is still all you can do. And they did count them. Many
times. And always got the same result: That Bush had more votes.
> - a request for recount was blocked by an administration controlled
> by the brother of one of the candidates (who was declared to be the
> winner)
You forgot to mention just how many requests for recount arrived...
> - a court largely appointed by the two brothers' father backed up
> that blockage
Of course. There are /rules/ and /laws/ saying how many times the
votes have to be counted. Nevertheless, the votes were counted even
/more/ often than the rules say they should (and always with the same
result: Bush wan). The constitution certainly doesn't say that votes
have to be counted as often as necessary for the Democrats to win.
> too bad this didn't happen somewhere in africa, latin america, or
> asia. i really would have liked to read about the american reaction
> to such a situation
When we doubt the result of elections in such countries, it is
typically because of, say, reports of the police or military blocking
voting rooms and/or stealing and replacing ballot boxes. Nobody ever
claimed that any such thing happened in Florida.
Regards,
--
Nils Gösche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID 0x0655CFA0
Russell McManus
> OK, to be perfectly honest I am not really very worried that the
> government will come knocking on my door because of the position I
> have taken on this issue (and I am supremely grateful to be living
> in a country where that is true). But the current state of things
> seems to me uncomfortably similar to the McCarthy era, with
> "terrorists" (or "potential terrorists") substituted for
> "communists." I think I'm safe, but I'm not at all certain that I
> would still feel as safe if my name were Mohammed instead of Erann.
(And isn't it ironic that most of McCarthy's basic claims have proven
to be true[1] thanks to the opening of the Soviet era files? The
state department _was_ infiltrated with Soviet spies at the highest
levels, Rosenberg _did_ pass nuclear secrets, etc., etc..
So many shibboleths, so little time...)
And about your point that the cold war was won without firing a shot,
I beg to disagree, nothing could be further from the truth. Many
shots were fired in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, all over
Africa, and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.
Now rewinding a bit...
In order for peaceful deterrence to work, your enemies must perceive
that you will back up your values with guns. Sad, but true.
Sometimes, your enemies fail to get the message (e.g. Kuwait, for a
relevant example), and then you must use your guns.
Many people, and I suspect you are in this camp, simply refuse to
believe this important principle, even in the face of overwhelming
historical evidence. This accounts for the massive differences of
opinion one perceives in this thread.
Finally, a question for you: should the US have intervened in 1999 in
Serbia? We were not threatened, there was no UN authorization. Yet
we saved many lives, a goodly portion of them Muslim lives. Should we
have watched the slaughter from the sidelines because the
international community, (including France and Germany) preferred
'non-violent' means to 'combat' the problem? The answer to me is
quite clear. Bravo to Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright.
Now using your no-doubt-considerable powers of reason, be consistent
and apply your answer to the question of Iraq. I eagerly await your
response. I've gone through this exercise, and found it instructive.
I think that many liberals have a big problem accepting these ideas
from George Bush, and if it was Bill Clinton making the same case,
there would be much less wailing. But the question of America's place
in the world is too important to be held hostage to petty issues of
diplomatic style in the executive branch. We will be living with the
consequences of these decisions for many years after Bush is no longer
president, so let's decide what is the right course, ignoring Bush's
limitations, as best we can.
Respectfully,
-russ
Michael Livshin
> Also: The presence of what Bush calls "Law Enforcement" does
> not imply a "Law".
naturally. you also need a court, which is recognized and supported
by a broad consensus.
The Ligue of Nations and the UN had both turned out to be no more than
fancy discussion clubs. looks like the world is not yet ripe for true
international law. sorry for nihilism.
--
Hit the philistines three times over the head with the Elisp reference manual.
-- Michael A. Petonic
Arvid Grøtting
> that in the absence of law enforcement, there's no law.
Thankfully, there's always usenet cops to enforce the Common Lisp
standard.
--
Arvid
Raymond Toy
Tim> * Marc Spitzer wrote:
>> what percentage die in US custody? how many die out of the total? From
>> what little I know about it most of the deaths happened in Afgan hands.
Tim> That's not the point, and neither is the point whether the bad guys
Tim> would do worse. The point is being able to hold `enemy combatants'
Tim> indefinitely with no overview, where you (the government) get to
Tim> define someone as an `enemy combatant' as suits you. If the bad guys
Tim> can push you into laws like that, then they *have won*.
Hear hear!!!!!!
Ray
Nils Kassube
> She was trying to block an Israeli bulldozer from knocking down a
> Palastinian Doctors home. The bulldozer drove over her. Then
Looks like suicide. A candidate for the Darwin awards.
> As far as the PLO goes, and Palastinian terrorism, when a group is
> opressed as much and for as long as the Palastinians have beenm their
> only way of fighting back is by Drastic measures.
How about a really drastic measure -- peaceful demonstrations.
I mean, violence didn't help them for what -- _fifty_ years now?
The Palestinians have an incredible stupid and selfish leadership.
Erann Gat
olc...@interaccess.com wrote:
> >> Here's a quote from Bush's interview with Bob Woodward:
> >>
> >> "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not
> >> need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing
> >> about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to
> >> me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody
> >> an explanation."
> I did not read Woodward's book.
Then it is astonishing that from this position of self-admitted ignorance
you should claim:
> I would say the quote above is a lie. Either just
> wrong or taken severly out of context.
The interview was audio taped, and that part of the tape was broadcast on
U.S. network television on the show "60 Minutes". I heard it with my own
ears. Bush's brazen arrogance is truly extraordinary.
E.
Nicholas Geovanis
> Nicholas Geovanis <nic...@merle.it.northwestern.edu> writes:
> >
> > Of course not, that isn't how America's upper-class does
> > things.
>
> Only that the party that is usually favored by the upper-class in
> America doesn't rule the White House right now.
There is only one political party in America, the Rich Persons' Party.
It has two factions, one called the Democratic Party, one called the
Republican Party. While it's true that America's rich fund the Republican
Party much more heavily than the other faction, nevertheless, the rich
contribute to both.
While the party names have changed over the years, this overall situation
has remained constant since 1787. Of course there were no "official"
political parties in America until Jefferson's administration.
> Nils Gösche
* Nick Geovanis
| IT Computing Svcs
| Northwestern Univ
| n-geo...@nwu.edu
+------------------->
Nils Goesche
> On 20 Mar 2003, Nils Goesche wrote:
>
> > Nicholas Geovanis <nic...@merle.it.northwestern.edu> writes:
> > > Of course not, that isn't how America's upper-class does things.
> > Only that the party that is usually favored by the upper-class in
> > America doesn't rule the White House right now.
> There is only one political party in America, the Rich Persons'
> Party. It has two factions, one called the Democratic Party, one
> called the Republican Party. While it's true that America's rich
> fund the Republican Party much more heavily than the other faction
...
No, this is precisely what's /not/ true: It is the other way around,
as you can easily check if you have a look at the campaign
contributions to each party.
Marco Antoniotti
Michael Parker wrote:
> In article , Marco Antoniotti
> wrote:
>
>
> >>Saddam has been killing thousands each year for 20+ years. The U.S.
> >>decides belatedly to stop him. And yet those on the far left and right
> >>would claim that we are the evil party because we supported him years
> >>ago, and we are doubly evil because we wish to stop him now. We are
> >>triply evil because we do not concurrently stop all the other dictators
> >>in the world, yet we would be quadruply evil if we were to actually
> >>attempt such an endeavor. We are condemned for being overbearing
> >>imperialists, yet also condemned from those same mouths for not being
> >>an omnipotent leviathan.
> >
> >
> >So your point is that you want your cake and eat it too?
>
>
> No. If the world will condemn the U.S. for both action A and (not A),
> then that condemnation ceases to be signal and instead becomes just so
> much noise.
That is a very good point. However, it is kind of sidestepping the
issues here. In your previous post you graciously admitted on several
"shortcomings" of US foreign policy over the recent historical period.
However, there is a distinction between you and your honesty (which I
appreciated in your posts) and what has been said and done over the past
few months by the Bush Administration (and maybe we should also consider
what it has *not* been said by the Bush Administration, e.g. how much is
actual cost of the war going to be, and what effects it will have on a
budget already plagued by diminishing revenues - hint: ludicrous tax
cuts for the wealthy - and soaring deficits).
Even if I profoundly disagree with his stance, Prime Minister Tony Blair
said one important thing in the debate in the Commons. History does not
necessarily dictate the future.
So, when the dust settles, it will be time to make amends for everybody.
For the time being, let's just hope this thing will be over soon, let's
turn our compassion to the people dying and let's hope that some good
people will get the chance to rebuild Iraq and our societies.
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti
Joost Kremers
> Anthony Ventimiglia <a...@mongrel.dogpound> writes:
>
>> She was trying to block an Israeli bulldozer from knocking down a
>> Palastinian Doctors home. The bulldozer drove over her. Then
>
> Looks like suicide. A candidate for the Darwin awards.
do you feel the same about the chinese student that defied a tank when the
government crushed the tienanmen square demonstrations? (if you're old
enough, you know what pictures i'm talking about.)
not to mention the fact that the israelis had no right demolishing that
house in the first place.
>> As far as the PLO goes, and Palastinian terrorism, when a group is
>> opressed as much and for as long as the Palastinians have beenm their
>> only way of fighting back is by Drastic measures.
>
> How about a really drastic measure -- peaceful demonstrations.
> I mean, violence didn't help them for what -- _fifty_ years now?
> The Palestinians have an incredible stupid and selfish leadership.
that, unfortunately, is terribly true.
Erann Gat
<russell...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> And isn't it ironic that most of McCarthy's basic claims have proven
> to be true[1] thanks to the opening of the Soviet era files?
Doesn't matter. The ends do not justify the means.
> And about your point that the cold war was won without firing a shot,
> I beg to disagree, nothing could be further from the truth.
OK, "without firing a shot" is overstating it. "With far fewer shots
fired than one might have expected during an all out war between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union" is a more accurate characterization.
> In order for peaceful deterrence to work, your enemies must perceive
> that you will back up your values with guns. Sad, but true.
> Sometimes, your enemies fail to get the message (e.g. Kuwait, for a
> relevant example), and then you must use your guns.
>
> Many people, and I suspect you are in this camp, simply refuse to
> believe this important principle, even in the face of overwhelming
> historical evidence. This accounts for the massive differences of
> opinion one perceives in this thread.
No, I agree that peaceful deterrence must be backed up with a credible
threat of force. I think most sane people agree with this. The
disagreement is over when and how that threat should be acted upon.
> Finally, a question for you: should the US have intervened in 1999 in
> Serbia? We were not threatened, there was no UN authorization.
And, if memory serves, there were not millions of people marching in the
streets in protest.
> Now using your no-doubt-considerable powers of reason, be consistent
> and apply your answer to the question of Iraq. I eagerly await your
> response. I've gone through this exercise, and found it instructive.
I never said we should not go to war in Iraq. I said we should not go to
war in Iraq *now*. Can you apply your no-doubt considerable powers of
reason to grasp the subtle difference?
> I think that many liberals have a big problem accepting these ideas
> from George Bush, and if it was Bill Clinton making the same case,
> there would be much less wailing.
That may be true, but Clinton did not engage in brazen displays of
dictatorial ambition. Clinton did not have a personal vendetta against
Saddam, as George Bush does. (Another of my favorite Bush quotes: "Don't
forget, this is the man that tried to kill my father," as if that were
somehow relevant.)
> But the question of America's place
> in the world is too important to be held hostage to petty issues of
> diplomatic style in the executive branch. We will be living with the
> consequences of these decisions for many years after Bush is no longer
> president, so let's decide what is the right course, ignoring Bush's
> limitations, as best we can.
But Bush's limitations are *relevant* because his ostensible reasons for
going to war now are so bogus. There is no credible evidence that Saddam
is an imminent threat. Bush is essentially saying: trust me, I know what
I'm doing. Well, I don't trust him because he has shown me time and time
again that he does not believe in what I believe in. I believe in freedom
and democracy and the rule of law. He believes in undermining freedom and
democracy and the rule of law in the name of "security" and "God" and
whatever else George Bush deems to be good. And he believes that he
doesn't owe anyone any explanations. To me, that makes him very, very
scary.
E.
Kent M Pitman
> There is only one political party in America, the Rich Persons' Party.
> It has two factions, one called the Democratic Party, one called the
> Republican Party. While it's true that America's rich fund the Republican
> Party much more heavily than the other faction, nevertheless, the rich
> contribute to both.
[I don't know what this has to do with Lisp or even war, but with war
breaking out in the world, I suppose few forums are devoid of
discussing politics, so I guess I'll indulge it for a moment, too,
since it seems so civilized...]
People often cite the two-party system in the US as a strength of its system.
I always say "no, it's not the having of two parties", it's the having
of unprincipled parties.
The problem with some other countries that have lots of parties isn't
that they have a lot, but rather that each party is identified in a
principled way. If you have a party of "coal workers" and a party of
"sun worshipers", no one is going to change parties (except in the
rare situation that they intersect both party names, which probably
happens even less when parties are all religion names or social
classes). So mostly no one who is running for office in any of those
parties needs to listen to what people OUTSIDE the party wants, since
they're just not going to attract those people no matter what.
But if there's a risk that people WILL change parties--that is, if
each party is just an amorphous mass of people (divided not by
principle but by chance, history, and other "noise" effects) with
various degress of inertia who float back and forth between the
parties depending on who is saying the most rational thing, or if even
only the so-called swing voters do this, then the people running have
to moderate in order to attract the middle, which implements (in
clumsy form) a requirement that each party care about what the other
wants. And that means the overall system will tend toward the middle
instead of to the extreme, which is overall probably better for more
people.
Or so it seems to me.
Fred Gilham
> The president indeed doesn't answer to anyone -- that's the point of
> being in power. We vote a government into office so it will
> exercise the power it is given by the constitution. That's simply
> how it works. What is he supposed to do? Have a poll taken before
> every decision?
In particular the Constitution provides that the Congress has
war-making power, so your answer is "Yes, a poll should be taken, at
least before going to war," if you want to follow the Constitution.
The Congress has spinelessly abdicated its Constitutional duty to
decide whether to make war.
There was a recent court decision where people tried to sue to prevent
the war without Congress declaring war (as the Constitution
requires). The judge in the case made an idiot decision. He said
that the Congress and the President were not seriously at odds, so the
time wasn't right for the suit to go forward.
But the problem is that the Congress and President aren't the
interested parties here. It's not their power, nor are their lives
being risked. It's "our" power (supposedly). It is delegated through
the Constitution to the government. It can only be lawfully exercised
through the Constitutional provisions. And the Constitution provides
that the decision to go to war can not be the decision of one man.
Congress, which more closely represents the people, must decide to do
so. It's our money, our lives; therefore the decision should be made
closer to home.
It's highly likely that the Congress would have declared war if asked.
But then they'd be on record, aye and nay. And people who don't like
their decision would be able to vote them out of office. This is the
way things are supposed to work. What we have now, and have had since
the Korean War, is an imperial Presidency that unconstitutionally
abrogates the war-making powers of the Congress, a spineless Congress
shirking responsibility, and a judiciary that doesn't even understand
its own constituting document.
Personally I hope Saddaam Hussein gets ousted with a minimum of
casualties, both allied and Iraqi, since the offensive has begun.
He's a bad man. But there are a lot of bad men out there. And I fear
the long-term "blowback" consequences, both in the US and abroad.
--
Fred Gilham gil...@csl.sri.com
Thou shalt not convince stupid people to try cordless bungee jumping....
Thou shalt not substitute Semtex when all the Playdough's gone....
Thou shalt not bob for hand grenades....
Eugene Zaikonnikov
[snip]
> *ROFL* Yeah, right. It's the oil fields.
>
> Look, this ``for oil创 argument is so extremely ridiculous that it is
> not even worth being discussed.
Ridiculous? Just look at all the 30+ liter per 100km, 1000+
horsepowers monsters disguised as cars that were presented this time
at Detroit Motor Show.
Cheap oil is already in business plans.
--
Eugene
Nils Goesche
> > The president indeed doesn't answer to anyone -- that's the point
> > of being in power. We vote a government into office so it will
> > exercise the power it is given by the constitution. That's simply
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I think I should have emphasized that point more, so I do it now ;-)
> > how it works. What is he supposed to do? Have a poll taken
> > before every decision?
>
> In particular the Constitution provides that the Congress has
> war-making power, so your answer is "Yes, a poll should be taken, at
> least before going to war," if you want to follow the Constitution.
> The Congress has spinelessly abdicated its Constitutional duty to
> decide whether to make war.
>
> There was a recent court decision where people tried to sue to
> prevent the war without Congress declaring war (as the Constitution
> requires). The judge in the case made an idiot decision. He said
> that the Congress and the President were not seriously at odds, so
> the time wasn't right for the suit to go forward.
Sometimes judges decide to our liking, sometimes they don't. If it is
so clear that what's going on is against the rules, why isn't
everybody running to the Supreme Court right now? Apparently people
have had 50 years time for doing that by now.
> But the problem is that the Congress and President aren't the
> interested parties here. It's not their power, nor are their lives
> being risked. It's "our" power (supposedly). It is delegated
> through the Constitution to the government. It can only be lawfully
> exercised through the Constitutional provisions. And the
> Constitution provides that the decision to go to war can not be the
> decision of one man.
Both the Senate and the House voted already in October to authorize
the president. So it's not like he simply decided on his own to
attack without asking anybody.
> Congress, which more closely represents the people, must decide to
> do so. It's our money, our lives; therefore the decision should be
> made closer to home.
If Congress ``must´´, somebody should tell the Supreme Court.
> It's highly likely that the Congress would have declared war if
> asked.
In that case I can see even less of a problem.
> But then they'd be on record, aye and nay. And people who don't like
> their decision would be able to vote them out of office.
Come on. People who are so much against this war /will/ vote Democrat
in any case, no matter whether Congress votes, too, or not.