🚀 go-pugleaf

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

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

: Merlin>      Actually the Turks are doing something...but not due to
: Merlin> any American intervention.  They want to join the European
: Merlin> Community, and there are some standards they must meet before
: Merlin> even being eligible.  One is abolishing the death penalty,
: Merlin> which they have just done.  

: Was this before or after they executed the Kurdish leader?

    IIRC they commuted his sentence, or at least postponed the
execution indefinitely.
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020803/ap_to_po/turkey_politics_82>
     "Turkey has not executed anyone since 1984, although courts
regularly imposed death sentences - 50 people now are on death row."
     "The 14-point reform package was passed despite sharp opposition 
from the nationalist party, the largest grouping in parliament, who 
want the death penalty applied to Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader 
of Kurdish rebels."

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

: Merlin>      Needs to be a mixture of both.  The only way to make sure
: Merlin> nobody wants to hurt you is not to take any stands on
: Merlin> anything.

: No, that's not the only way.  Another way is to have a truly inclusive
: consensus-building organization where either everyone or no one has a
: veto and where other peoples "vital national interests" are considered
: as well.

     That should be the objective, but it is in my opinion wildly
optimistic to believe that it can be achieved in all cases, and in
finite or reasonable time.  I can think of half-a-dozen international
situations today where there is no consensus position that will keep
all parties sufficiently happy that nobody will want to to off and
start shooting.