interesting article on the US' problem internationally (and a bit of a hatchet job)

One thing I have noticed is that when Bush makes a statement at a speech it is intended only for the domestic audience. The fact that the entire world will hear does not seem to matter to Bush or his speech writers.

 

Politically, I agree that the switch to Iraqi human rights arguments has been a bad tactic. It reeks of hypocrisy, especially to the international community who question how the US picks & chooses where it's going to push for "regime change". No one wants to defend Hussein's human rights record, but it's things like Mugabe walking freely through Paris on his birthday that make you scratch your head on this whole argument.

The 1441 violation argument is also weak because (a) it's without precedent to go to war over someone violating a UN resolution, and (b) if you're going to depend on the UN for your justification and the UN isn't going to explicitly agree with your conclusions, you come off looking like a thug.

The pro-war side has to move back toward the Hussein-as-global-threat strategy in selling this if they are going to make any inroads internationally. I have little problem saying that the family of nations that are allowed to possess nuclear weapons is closed, and we ("we" meaning the world community, both those with and those without nukes) will work together to stop anyone who insists on trying to join that group. And, if we have any evidence at all that Hussein is doing this, we have to do what is within our power to stop him. Whether that can be done via containment or requires invasion is another issue entirely.

But when intelligence people say "we have the evidence" and won't share it even in private with UN Security Council members like France and Russia, it's infuriating. The paranoia surrounding this evidence is enough to make John Nash look totally sane. We might as well just quit the UN and join other countries like North Korea and Yemen as an outsider.

 

I agree that human rights isn't the main issue why Bush wants to go to war. However, I also think groups and people on the left such as Amnesty International are being hypocritical. If they're really concerned about human rights then they would be happy to see Saddam taken out of power. Instead they're too riled up in their emotions over their hate for Bush to look at the issue objectively.

 

I think this points to French hypocricy. They were perfectly happy going to war over Kosovo yet they allow Mugabe to come to Paris for wine and cheese with no hinderance.

 

has the US ever given a f/(& what the UN thinks anyway unless the US can benefit?

 

I'm not going to fault Mr. Doofus Head for finally starting to verbalize a more legitimate basis for the war. However, it clearly won't be taken well...

 

Huh? Amn. International is obviously concerned about the fact that the Iraqi people are going to 1) take the brunt of the destruction from this war against Saddam, and 2) not going to end up in any better situation than they were before, after Bush puts in a new puppet regime no more open to democracy than Saddam.

So basically, the Iraqi people get killed in mass numbers, their nation's infrastructure gets destroyed again, and they pretty much end up in the same place.

 

Well there's yer fundamental fault line on the issue, innit? The pro-war ... sorry, the "pro-freedom" lobby would have you believe that any war would be followed by a benign interim administration aimed at rebuilding structural damage and alleviating the immediate effects of a war in the country and that this in itself would be followed by a long-term transition to a free and democratic Iraq.

'Free' as in "free of Saddam", mind ...

The ultimate judgment on this whole sorry episode must be taken years from now, when we can accurately ascertain whether that justification for war was brought to pass in the aftermath of any war.

 

That's the point.

When Bush decided to go with the UN, the rest of the world expected to give this route a real chance of succes.

What he's done instead is manipulate the UN, to make it an excuse for a war he wanted regardless. This so-called "second resolution" is a classic example of this. Want to know why it doesn't mention "war", "conflict", or "military action"? It's because they know that it would have no chance of passing if they used those phrases.

Using "serious consequences" gives the impression of keeping options open, but what it really is is an attempt to hoodwink the UN into legalising and legitimising a war they want.

To give another example, Bush continually says that the UN must show that it is "relevant". What does relevance mean? Uh, that the UN agree with whatever he says. In Bush's world, if you don't agree with him, you are not "relevant". It's the same old "with us or against us" crap again.

 

Please find me a single example of Amnesty or HRW or any other international human rights organization advocating the use of force to carry out a "humanitarian" mission. There's no hypocrisy because AI and HRW advocate diplomacy and non-violence.

Saddam's been on Amnesty's shit list for decades now, and it's more hypocritical to pay attention to it only when it suits your political needs.

 

What strikes me as interesting about this article is that, on one level, it condemns Bush for doing a bad PR job.

Guilty as charged there.

You know what? I don't think he cares -- largely because in some international quarters, it won't matter WHAT we do on the PR front.

Like most things in life, it's important to set a context, to wit.

--Much of Europe is now awash in a geo-political, cultural, and economic inferiority complex. The formation of the EU has been an effort to deal with economic vector, but on the other two, the symptoms still rage more or less unabated.

--Much of the Middle east is awash in some mixture of autocratic/totalitarian/fundamentalist regimes, with seething disenfranchised populations. Of course, the Arab leadership and the Arab press, in a perverse effort to ignore/gloss over these issues, try to keep the spotlight on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and demonize us by equating us with Israel.

--Finally, you have got rogue states/entities, either with, or with a desire to acquire, WMDs, and perhaps the will to use them.

Put it all together, and you've a got a tough, tough sell job.

Bush's view -- and can anyone doubt his sincerity on this?? -- is that the United States should exercise its power for good. Of course, this makes the cosmopolitan, ennui-laden moral relativists REALLY uneasy. It's important to understand the context in which you're operating, but should you try to make everybody like you first before you do it? I think the answer to that question is obvious on the face of it.

Of course, the exercise of power, even with the best of intentions, has both its intended and unintended consequences. We are taking some big risks here. Could it backfire? It could. Could it be a tremendous success? It could.

 

I respectfully disagree. I think Bush's PR (ie marketing) is excellent. The problem is that the majority - outside the US at least - doesn't like the pruduct he is trying to sell.

If anyone is acting unnaturally because of a weak bargaining position vis-a-vis the USA, it is Tony Blair, not Chirac or Schroeder.

Why take those risks when the present situation is fairly good?

 

I don't quite follow the logic here, unless you're implying that we were responsible for directly, or indirectly, supplying him with chemical weapons.

Often, one aspect of the anti-regime-change-by-military-force viewpoint can be summed up thusly.

"We were bad then, so therefore we are/can be/will bad this time. As a result, we don't have the right/obligation to exercise power because we've made a hash of things before, or had less than stellar motives before."

I find this particular viewpoint not especially helpful; it's an emasculating perspective, particularly in this instance.

Look, everybody knows Saddam is a bad guy with very dangerous weapons.

Seems to me you can question the military option as bad policy and, by extension, the Wolfowitz belief that regime change will lead to a groundswell of democracy in the Middle East. Or you can oppose the action on conscientious grounds. Either one of those are legitimate counter-arguments.

But to say, "We can't exercise military force because we've been bad boys in the past" takes THAT option off the table as a policy instrument, and leads, inevitably, into a degree of isolationism that could be even a WORSE option that action.

 

Moral relativism assumes that all behavioral choices are driven by things like cultural or biological constructs, and thus denudes such choices from containing any kind of "moral" content.

In other words, there is no "good" or "bad" just human action in the context of culture and biology.

Meanwhile, your initial observation gives short shrift to the principle: "That was then...this is now."

Maybe we've just changed our minds to the correct viewpoint. The cynical/pejorative perspective would be to call such a turnabout "hypocritical."

If that's the case, though, any change of mind, no matter how right that change of mind might be, would be labled at best inconsistent, at worst hypocritical.

Just because you subscribed to a bad set of policies and ideas in the past -- assuming you believe in morality to begin with -- doesn't obviate your ability to choose goods one now.

 

I think we can be better, and maybe we're getting better.

You think we were bad then, and, by changing out minds now, equally bad, or bad in a different way.

There we differ -- and its a difference with a significant difference.

 

So, if George Bush apologizes for the failed policy acts of previous administrations, then everything would be hunky dory with you, and we could march right into Baghdad with SUPERdave's conscience at peace??

Yeah, I bet.

Oh, sure, let's make geo-political policy from the confessional! That's the ticket!! I'm sure the Pope would like it.

 

You got your bus ticket for Baghdad yet?

 

The causus belli is material breach of Resolution 1441. He doesn't need to look for one...it's already there.

A "confession" may assuage the liberal guilt of some, but after that, then what??

Once again, this issue of "gee, we were bad before, we need to acknowledge it" is basically a red herring. Better to focus on the merits of THIS issue RIGHT now.