And significant reasons for are thus rendered null and void?
> It ought to be supported only where, like WWII, there are no serious
reasons
> against intervention.
That's controversial. I think many of the "serious reasons" raised against other US interventions (which usually can be reduced to the obvious truism that many people will die as a result) were equally applicable to WWII. I'd make the weaker (but clearly correct) claim that the reasons for intervention outweighed those against.
> When I wrote that sentence, I reread it twice to make sure that I had
> carefully inserted "else" after 'no one" at least twice, so that it could
> not be misunderstood. Apparantly my labor was in vain.
My apologies.
> Why? Sure, the Bushies disagree, buts ince they won't tell us why, that's
> nota reason to fear the Iraqis.
I do doubt that Iraq is going to wage war against the US without provocation. But they do have a history of being rather nasty with their neighbors (there's little doubt that they're a much bigger danger to the Saudis, Iranians, and Kurds than the US is to Canada or Mexico)...
> >and drove out hundreds of thousands
> >more, I think that would qualify
>
> But levellling thousands of homes is OK?
Not OK, but not nearly as bad, either.
> There the massacre didn't start till the war did,
I believe hundreds of thousands were driven out of their homes before the first NATO bomb fell. The Serbs also had a track record during the '90s for gruesome massacres (including the sort requiring makeshift mass graves) that far surpasses anything the IDF does in the West Bank or Gaza.
> a nd the war may have precipated it and probable did.
That's like arguing that the Soviet Union's advance into Germany precipated the quickened pace of the Nazi extermination camps.
> Course the peace of other people counts for something too. If US attacks
on
> Iraq (assuming arguendo what is not true, that the people of Iraq enjoy no
> peace whatsoever--a claim that could be honestly made about the
> Palestinians, however),
I'm not sure how much more peace the Iraqis presently enjoy than their counterparts on the West Bank. Perhaps you'd care to enlighten me?
A few tangentially related further points:
This conversation began when I brought up national sovereignty and suggested that it has its limits. I then made the argument that "preserving the peace" isn't a very good rationale for non-intervention in those cases where a large group of people is being systematically butchered and/or forcibly driven away. At no point did I claim that Iraq at the present moment is one of those cases.
> and there is no peace to preserve there, so the
> people will not really notice if the US flattens their homes, blows up
their
> electrical grid (again), destroys their water supply (again), and so
> forth--
Yes, of course they'd notice. But I think a good question to ask wrt Iraq is whether or not the state of affairs six months after an invasion will be more peaceful than the present set of circumstances. I'd say it's a possibility, whereas I speculate you'd probably say "Of course not," even though you're not in a position to make such an unqualified judgment. I apologize if I'm ascribing a position to you that you don't hold.
>further encouragement it offers the US for other military advaentures to
consider.
> These things do not happen in isolation,
>From our past conversations, this seems to be the one thing that most
worries you.
> My opposition is not a priori. It is based on over a century of bloddy
> history which I have recounted here many times, as well as on a realistic
> undferstanding of the nature of the US state.
Maybe we should debate that "realistic" understanding of the nature of the US state.
> >As I said, the disgusting foreign policy "realism" that grounds the Bush
> >doctrine is quite distinct from the idealistic stance you sketch above.
>
> Not in real world terms.
Yes, it is. Many realists stridently opposed intervention in the Balkans while the Wilsonian idealists made it a reality. The two camps were similarly divided with regard to the Gulf War, with the realists mostly for and the Wilsonians mostly against.
> Besides, I think the "idealistic" stance I sketched
> is disgusting. Frankly, I'd rather deal with great power realists than
> Wilsonian idealists. I their they are safer and smarter. Calculations of
> interest are manageable and leave room for negotiation. Ince they go all
> high-handed and moral on you, they'll do anything.
Don't quite know how to respond to this. If you actually prefer Doctor K to Michael Walzer, bully for you.
> "A state," maybe Holland or Sweden. Not an imperialist hyper-power.
I think this "imperialist hyper-power" has done so before. Now I'm beginning to see why Chomsky spent so much time impugning the motives of NATO figures in the aftermath of the Bosnian bombing campaign.
> I'd like to hear more from them as knows about
> thespecific conjuncture, whether Iraq is more than a targer of
convebiencea
> t the pointw here Bush needs an Enemy to distract us from a weak economy
in
> an election year.
???
>That sort of talk is more productive than speculating
> about whether, in some hypothetical circumstances,a hypotherically
> benevolent state might do the right thing by attacking uts neighbors.
There's no such thing as a purely self-interested actor in the real world.
-- Luke
> jks
>
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