🚀 go-pugleaf

Russell Senior (seniorr@aracnet.com) wrote:
: >>>>> "Merlin" == Merlin Dorfman <dorfman@rahul.net> writes:

: Merlin> [...]  the surprise is that Clinton (with some help from
: Merlin> our "allies") was able to keep some inspections going, keep
: Merlin> the embargo in place, and keep Saddam from exterminating the
: Merlin> Kurds.  

: Heh.  If we actually cared about the Kurds, don't you think we'd be
: doing something (i.e. intervening) with the Turks, our allies?  Our
: policy in Iraq has nothing to do with the Kurds.  The Kurds provide a
: convenient excuse to maintain military pressure on Iraq.

     Actually the Turks are doing something...but not due to
any American intervention.  They want to join the European
Community, and there are some standards they must meet before
even being eligible.  One is abolishing the death penalty, 
which they have just done.  Others involve human rights and
treatment of ethnic minorities, and they have started working
on that.

: The silly thing is that, if we "had" anything significant on Iraq's
: supposed connection to "terrorism", we'd just start bombing now.
: That's what we usually do.  We'd define it in "our vital national
: interests", declare that our aggression was "in self-defense" and just
: go ahead.  If they really posed a threat, we'd be irresponsible to
: wait, right?  The fact that we have _not_ done that indicates that we
: do _not_ have anything significant and are still trying to figure out
: how we are going to justify what we want to do anyway.  This is just
: pedal-to-the-metal political opportunism, as we've already seen much
: of since last September. 

     It's as much figuring out how to succeed as how to justify
it.  It's not an easy job, especially with no allies, which will
be the situation.  And there's always the question of "what do
we do after we win?"

: There are two ways of being safe in the world: a) make sure no one
: _can_ hurt you; and b) make sure no one _wants_ to hurt you.  We've
: been pretending that, for large parts of the world, option a) is our
: only choice.  It seems to me, in a highly interdependent world that we
: say we want (see WTO, etc), option b) is our only honestly moral
: choice.  Otherwise, let's just haul out the death star and the Darth
: Vader capes and get to work.

     Needs to be a mixture of both.  The only way to make sure
nobody wants to hurt you is not to take any stands on anything.
Europe is providing a good example of how to do that.