-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Brown <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Aren't you in law school ? What about the fact that the U.S. and NATO are
>violating international law ? Doesn't that impact your reasoning as to what
>is legitimate or illegitimate use of deadly force ?
By that logic, I should respect US corporate law, the laws underpinning the IMF and GATT, and US labor law? I'm in law school to learn how the system works and oppresses workers and communities in order to fight corporate power, not justify its application in our world as some form of justice.
There is a real oddness in leftists who argue the government can be trusted to control our whole health care system and tax people at will, then turn around and assume that no such government could ever do a single act militarily that might be to a good, then turn around and argue that international law should be completely respected, even though most of that international law (especially the parts that are enforced) are oppressive trade and intellectual property laws.
In fact, enforcement of international law in the form of intellectual property laws concerning medicine kills far more people each year (probably each day) than this whole NATO campaign ever will. If you want the true source of murder and oppression based in Europe, don't look at NATO, look at the World Information Property Organization (WIPO).
International law is, at least in its present form where it is shaped completely without any global democratic parliament, just a tool of corporate and government self-interest. Yes, there are a few nice words about human rights, but the fine print all makes it unenforceable. (Which is why the Kosovars were shit out of luck without NATO intervention in the first place.)
God, when did leftists become law-and-order types arguing "the law says so" is an adequate response to a moral challenge to the law.
If you learn anything in the law, it's that justice and the law have little or nothing to do with each other. The Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes was once told on the way to court, "I hope you are off to do justice." Holmes answered, "That's not my job."
Pretty much sums up the legal system, don't you think?
--Nathan Newman