🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>>> "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.

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. 

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.

-- 
Russell Senior         ``The two chiefs turned to each other.        
seniorr@aracnet.com      Bellison uncorked a flood of horrible       
                         profanity, which, translated meant, `This is
                         extremely unusual.' ''