Then, why mention "Saddam and his gang of thugs" killing lots of people? Hearing such a remark, one would be led to think that relative death tolls mattered.
At 5:43 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
>If you want to go the international law route and say human
>rights trump national sovereignty, to be consistent, scores of countries
>would need to undergo regime change and since there's no terrestrial
>Leviathan that does not live in a glass house capable of throwing stones
>at this point in history, what, in the absence of using even more
>violence is the solution to unwinding the standoff with NK and all the
>forms of tyranny on the planet today?
I'll leave it up to Koreans, North and South, to decide the Korean question.
At 5:43 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
>You seem to be confusing me with someone who thinks its ok for the
>US to attack anybody it want, but I'm not so what's your point other
>than the usual leftie anti-imperialist boilerplate?
I'm simply saying that the US attacks only nations that do not have any military capacity to pose threat. If Iraq actually had nukes, ICBMs, etc., the US wouldn't be so aggressive toward it. I'm not sure what your disagreement is.
At 5:43 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
> > If you asked Arab citizens and non-citizen residents in the Middle
>> East, you would notice that they were even less threatened by Iraq's
>> annexation of Kuwait than Arab autocrats were.
>
>========================
>
>Give me a plane ticket and a supply of fresh water and I'll take the
>damn poll myself. What sample size will convince that it's not as
>simple as you propose?
***** The Arab masses, throughout the region, will, for long, see US involvement in the Gulf as a war waged against Iraq in order to maintain the Arab clientele of Washington in power, on the one hand, and to protect Israel and maintain its strategic edge in the region, on the other. The Arab masses will not easily forgive the for adopting a double standard: one, for Iraq and Arabs and Moslems, in which immediate implementation of UN Security Council resolutions is pursued through garnering international support to wage a merciless war on an Arab country. The second standard is that with which Israel is favored. Israel has not implemented even one of the numerous UN Security Council resolutions on the Palestinian problem. It continues to occupy Arab land without the US raising serious objections against it. In fact, the US has been rewarding Israel, over the years, with substantial economic and military aid amounting to billions of dollars. <http://www.passia.org/publications/annual_seminar_reports/pagwa1991/sixth.html> ***** That sounds about right to me. The only Arabs who really wanted war against Iraq were the elite in Kuwait. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.
At 5:43 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
> > We are not talking about any state. We are talking about the USA.
>
>====================
>
>Ah, American exceptionalism in reverse!
As far as military power and imperialist ambition are concerned, yes, the US is exceptional. Who can deny that?
At 5:43 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
> > That's what Arabs should determine without the strong-arming on the
>> part of the USA.
>
>=====================
>
>What, you want to privilege geographical proximity as trumps in the
>discussion of international norms for consideration of what, if any,
>conditions determine whether unprovoked use of aggression is possibly
>justifiable? The governments of Yemen, UAE, SA etc. are no more
>qualified to determine whether Iraq's unprovoked aggression against
>Kuwait was justified than they're qualified to talk about democracy.
>Since it's an a priori with you that the US isn't qualified, who, in
>this day and age would make the Olympian determination you seem to want?
If left entirely to citizens and non-citizen residents in the Arab world without the US strong-arming, there would not have been a Gulf War. Arab governments have been much more pro-US than Arab masses have been. Why shouldn't citizens and non-citizen residents in the Arab world decide, rather than the US government? -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>