I don't understand the point of your mentioning "Saddam and his gang of thugs" killing lots of people, when I was comparing US actions toward Iraq and North Korea. What was your point (if you had one, that is)?
At 10:59 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
>Now, to repeat my question; do you think that the Iraqi invasion of
>Kuwait was justifiable?
Justifiable if the Arab masses think it justifiable, unjustifiable if the Arab masses don't think it justifiable. I leave it up to them to determine.
At 10:59 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
> > I'll leave it up to Koreans, North and South, to decide the
>Korean question.
>====================
>
>That's fine with me, but, interest-theoretically, given what I've
>written above, what happens if they form an alliance and decide in
>2012 to turn their collective know-how on China or Indonesia in an
>adversarial manner? I pose the question not for the sake of
>encouraging cynicism, but only to set a space for having the courage
>to deal with worst-case-scenario thinking, along the manner in which
>we're accustomed to thinking the worst about US interests and the
>potentially nefarious implications......
It may make sense to consider the "worst case scenario"; I don't think it's necessary to concoct a farfetched scenario just for the pleasure of considering it.
At 10:59 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
> > 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.
>=============================
>
>Duh. This is a staple of military strategy; don't attack a
>potential enemy if your models cannot reduce the risk/uncertainty of
>defeat to a desired minimum.
Well, then, you don't have any disagreement with me on the initial point I made in this thread.
At 10:59 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
> > ***** 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/six
>th.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.
>
>==============================
>
>Again, that unnecessarily changes the whole point/context of the
>discussion, which was whether or not Iraq was justified in attacking
>and annexing Kuwait. The contradictions of the popular sentiments
>given above do nothing to address the substantive issue regarding
>what, if anything, justifies the violation of the territorial
>integrity of a politically recognized society.
I'm saying that what would justify Iraq's annexation of Kuwait would be the Arab masses' approval of it.
At 10:59 PM -0800 1/8/03, Ian Murray wrote:
>If sovereignty is organized hypocrisy, then you've got a mighty wild
>horse to ride..............
Sovereignty is a historical fact, neither a trans-historical essence nor "organized hypocrisy." People have sovereignty only to the extent that they are capable of defending it. When they are incapable of doing so, they lose it, as Yugoslavs have, for instance. The map of the Middle East had better be redrawn as many of the boundaries left by the colonizers don't make any sense (to this day, Kuwait is not a "nation" -- it's a monarchy dependent upon the exploitation of non-citizen-workers' labor), but I think it should be the Arab masses, not the US government, that should do the job if they want to. -- 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/>