Ratner on international law

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Sun Jan 13 08:45:27 PST 2002



> Maybe the UN Charter can be amended to read, "prohibits the
>use of force, unless David Rieff and Christopher Hitchens say
it's
>humanitarian". - MP

heh. What's the date on this article? Is there a link to Znet or somewhere?


>We will not here describe in detail the policy reasons as to why
the
>use of military force is inadvisable. Others have addressed this
>issue at length. Suffice it to say that military force 1) kills
>civilians; 2) has the potential to destabilize countries such as
>Pakistan; 3) widens the divide between the United States and
Islamic
>nations; 4) sews the seeds of future terrorism; and 5) will not
make
>us or anyone in the world safer.

#5 depends on the situation. In the war on fascism during WWII, military force made the world safer. I thought Hitchens has said he would like to see an international tribunal set up and therefore agrees to some degree with Ratner. #4 makes little sense to me. It's like saying if you fight and antagonize capitalists, you sow the seeds for future capitalism. Obviously, the capitalists are already angry with you; you simply fight the next crop, too.

Peter



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