I'm watching live video of Iraqi men dragging the head of a
Saddam statue around the streets of Baghdad -- riding it like a horse even -- and generally celebrating like it's 1999. Meanwhile: more anti-war protests scheduled for this weekend. Better hurry... this could be your last chance! Until we regroup and pimp-slap Syria of course, but that'll wait until '04.
It's a shame that this all came at such a terrible price... tens of thousands of american casualties, millions of Iraqis dead, a huge backlash of terrorist attacks around the world, scuds fired into Israel, Turkish forces clashing with the Kurds in the north, hundreds of oil wells ablaze, thousands of regular Iraqis rising up to resist the imperialist invaders. When will we ever learn that war never solves anything, and that arms are for hugging?
[I see we have a neocon in our midst. I think that if you really want to set the anti-war crowd to rights, the argument you have to make is that there was moral justification for the war and that we got more out of it than we put into it. Any thoughtful anti-war person (who are as rare as thoughtful people in general) would have to acknowledge that (1) Saddam is a generally bad guy who is unpopular within Iraq and (2) that the U.S. can clearly kick Iraq's ass. The real issues are, or should be, whether either of these factors provide per se moral justification for military action and whether what we get out of the military action is worth what we put into it (with apologies for the redundancy) both in terms of absolute costs and in terms of returns vis-a-vis other investment choices. If the answers to both are "yes", then by all means commence military action. I'll even posit that military action may be justified if only one of the two conditions is satisfied. Although I disagree with your conclusions, I think that we're all friends here and can engage in debate on the real issues rather than engaging in a rhetorical argument between war-mongering imperialists and tree-hugging panty-waists. Or at least, I'll acknowledge that you're not a war-mongering imperialist if you'll agree that I'm not a tree-hugging panty-waist. Ideally, such debate would involve copious amount of alcohol and ultimately be settled by a drinking contest in true Raiders Of The Lost Ark style. In any event, such discussion is probably best taken off-blog, since our beloved blog is best reserved for links to bestiality videos and discussions of the ettiquitte for masturbating at work. Or perhaps, as dog owners, we can simply engage in a
shit-throwning contest. -- RM][
E: I will agree, if you refrain from calling me a neocon simply because I support our current military action. There isn't a whole lot of debate going on here, so I'm not sure why we should take this "off blog" -- although I would not in any way seek to overshadow the fine links below, especially the photos from the bikini company. Yowza.]
[
R: OK, "neocon" is name calling, I thought it was accurate name calling, but if you disagree then fair enough, I respect that. The whole off-blog thing is just because I know myself and I know I'll get caught up in it and next thing I know it'll be the end of the day and I won't have gotten anything done other than blogging.]
MH Things are so simple to me. We are the cop-o' the-world. Some crack-house in the middle east housed a bad ass dude beating up on his wife and kids and interfering with legitimate commerce, so we sent in the SWAT team and cleaned out that infestation. Good job, O'Grady! sez me.
[E: first the UN cops said "Stop! Or I'll say stop again!"]
MH OK, that is REALLY funny. Tied into teh O'Grady reference and capped th' U.N. You are Genius.
RM: Which brings me back to the whole "neocon" thing. My neocon checklist looks something like, (1) Supports unilateral aggression against Iraq? (2) Supports subsequent agression against Iran or Syria? (3) Contempt for U.N.? (4) Thinks Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is AOK? If the answers to all four are "yes," then we've got ourselves a neocon. I didn't mean it as a pejorative, anymore than I would use "Reagan-Republican" or "Supply-Sider" as pejoratives (i.e., I don't support it, but the term itself is neither positive nor negative). I really meant it as purely descriptive. So I guess my question for you is, since you bristle so at the label, how
do you differentiate yourself from the neocons?
MH well, I think you only described the democratizing vision of neocons, as opposed to a situational acceptence of brutal repression and murder, which is the U.N. way. I'll side with that. But
other definitions, no they don't apply.
RM: OK, I skimmed your linked article. Sure I'm a bit slow, but I didn't see anything in there other than the "democratizing vision" of the neocons. So I guess I'll have to rely on you to tell me how your vision differs. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I just really don't see it. I also don't completely understand your criticism of the U.N. I mean, the U.N. does have a limited mandate to enforce human rights internationally. Perhaps they could be more forceful in their approach, and I for one would have like to see the U.S. lead the U.N. in that direction, but does that make "situational acceptance " etc. etc. definitive of the U.N.? Or at least no more so than it defines the U.S.? Sure it would be great if the U.N. or the U.S. could summarily deal with brutal repression and murder in China, Zimbabwe, Zaire, Turkey (vis-a-vis the Kurds), Iran, North Korea and various and sundry other locales, but as a practical matter neither the U.N. nor the U.S. can cash that check. I'm not saying that the U.S. is guilty of "situational acceptance," just that political realities dictate a conservative approach.
[
E: To start with, the word "unilateral" is not a synonym for "without explicit UN approval," no matter how many times it is used that way. The idea that only the UN can confer legitmacy on international action is a fairly new one and mainly supported by groups who seek to use the UN as a check on US might. I support the idea of a world body dedicated to the promotion and protection of basic human rights, but as currently formed the UN may be too corrupted with anti-American and anti-capitalist members to ever be able to fulfill this simple function. Not to pick on the dumber anti-war protestors (too easy), but when I hear people claim that the evils of capitalism and globalization are worse than Saddam, I am unfortunately reminded that these sentiments are shared by more than a few UN ambassadors.]
RM is unsure where this is coming from, but suspects that it's a resonse to my implicit position that the U.N. is a good institution that should be nutured rather than abandoned. OK, I'll bite. As far as I can tell, legitimacy only exists within a rules-based community. Outside of such a situation, there is only power. One could wield power in good or desirable ways in that context but the concept of legitimacy doesn't apply. I'll ignore for now whether "legitimacy" matters and stick to the more pedestrian definitional issue. On the next issue - U.N. as a curb on American might - I would definitely agree and go one step further and say that almost all U.N. member countries view the U.N. as imposing a check on U.S. might. Isn't it pretty much always the case that when small fish enter into a coalition or agreement with bigger fish, one of the primary things the small fish get out of it is some check on the behavior of the bigger fish? And what the bigger fish get out of it is some ability to control the actions of the smaller fish without having to rely on force to do it? It seems that following your logic to its necessary conclusion, the U.S. should opt out of international organizations and treaties altogether except insofar the U.S. maintains carte blanche to dictate and act at will, because any other situation curbs U.S. might. On your final issue - anti-americanism and anti-capitalism among U.N. member states - I suppose reasonable minds could differ but I come out at a different place. The decline and fall of the U.S. isn't really in the interest of the international community both in terms of the world economy and international security and I think that most governments appreciate that to the extent that they are at least self-interested. And I don't see the anti-capitalist thing either, but in any event I don't see how anti-capitalist sentiment impacts the U.N. since the promotion of international capitalism isn't part of the U.N. mission. That's a criticism that one might have of the WTO rather than the U.N. But ultimately it may be that these are all just meta-issues and the core disagreement remains unaddressed, namely, "Does the U.S. obtain a net benefit by cedeing some of it's power to act at will in exchange for the opportunity to form and participate in a rules-based international community?" But perhaps I'm not understanding your position.
