legal angle

[Brad DeLong]

>  > >>Of course there is a hypocrisy factor. As Francis
>>  >>Boyle himself would point out, all of the countries concerned let Bosnia
>>  >>stew in its blood for years despite UN resolutions that called upon them
>to
>>  >>act. In an area swarming with NATO troops, Mladic and Karadjic are free
>>  >>despite Srebrenica, which killed twice as many people as at the WTC.
>>
>>  I've never understood what the bite of arguments like this is
>>  supposed to be. People *seem* to take statements like this as
>>  arguments that the U.S. shouldn't be dropping bombs on the Taliban.
>>  But the only conclusion I can draw from it is that NATO should have
>>  arrested (or killed) Mladic long ago...
>
>It proves that NATO has no interest in things like human rights and
>democracy.  Therefore, whenever they claim to be doing something on the
>behalf of those ideas we know they are lying.  There must be some other
>motivation - usually a more sinister and imperialist one...
>
>Joe

Now this is the stupidest thing you've posted yet.

Anyone who has spent any time looking at governments--or even looking 
at people--knows that motives are always mixed, that high moral 
principles are unevenly applied, that the question "what is the right 
thing to do?" is only one of the questions people ask themselves.

But that high principles are unevenly applied and that motives are 
mixed does not mean that there is "no interest" in high principles. 
And the proper function of the criticism of hypocrisy is to level the 
situation up--to put Mladic in jail--not to level the situation 
down--to give free hunting licenses to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Brad DeLong