Sorry fella, you're now too far apart from me in shared theoretical and factual premises to make this worth discussing. I'll be happy to be a limited political ally in the areas where may happen to agree, but trying to explain why yoiur fundamenatl viewsd about the way the world works in general, in this case, and with respect to the last 50 years, are totally ass-backwards is more than I can do. That was what the University of Michigan was supposed to help with. Alas, it doesn't seem to have done.
It's sometimes worth debating with antagonists who fundamentally disagree with one if they help you to sharpen your own views or if they are powerful enough so that it is necessary to discredit them to others, but I don't find that discussion with you in this context falls in either category. C'est la vie. You do have a good future in the war party if you keep away from the likes of us, though.That's not to scare you away, it's just a fact.
Justin wrote:
> But the Vietnamese and the Afghans were not nuclear
> powers, and unlike Europe and Japan, were not covered
> by the nuclear umbrella.
So what? You don't believe Saddam, with nukes at his disposal, wouldn't (perhaps correctly) surmise that he could now take Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? Further, do you think there's any reason to believe that he doesn't now have such territorial ambitions (which don't exactly amount to a "boundless lust to expand")? Past actions seem to provide considerable evidence to the contrary.
> Iraq that is already half-occupied and substantially disarmed, that
> probably could not stand up to an Iranian attack, much
> less an American one, is the argument that makes no
> sense.
Even a" weakened and debilitated" Iraq could take Kuwait and Saudi Arabia if not for the threat posed by the US military.
> Second, there is the point made by someone that Saddam's previously
> ventures were carried out with, in the case of the
> Iran war, the open encouragement and support of the
> US, and in the case of the Kuwait attack, what Saddam
> took to be the implicit authorization or benign
> neglect of the US -- wrongly in that case. What makes
> you think that Iraq qould ever attack anyone without
> what it took to be an OK from the US? It never has
> done.
It did rather quickly become apparent that there was no "implicit authorization" by the US for an invasion of Kuwait, and Saddam didn't back down. Further, the best defense against US attack for an Iraq without further territorial ambitions would be genuine disarmament and the unequivocal acceptance of UN inspectors--something Saddam hasn't been willing to do until the US massed hundreds of thousands of troops in the region. I don't think my account is ahistorical. I think yours invests mere historical accidents with a vastly inordinate amount of import.
I wrote:
>> Admitting that a given course of action will have negative material
consequences that cannot >> be dismissed is not equivalent to writing off
the lives of an entire generation of people.
Justin wrote:
> That's just a roundabout way of putting the same point -- at least in this
context.
Interesting that you would say that the consequences of attempting to liberalize Russia are equivalent to writing off a generation while also claiming that insisting that the Iraqis must free themselves of Baathism (which they can't) isn't.
Justin wrote:
> You were wrong about Afghanistan? How? It's deteriorioated into a chaos of
warrlordism.
> Outside Kabul there is no govt. The NA has lived down to expectations.
Still better than the Taliban, especially if you're a woman.
> The US has abandoned the country except as a hunting ground.
Sad but true.
> It's almost as bad as the worst fears that we had.
No, the worst fears were many of thousands of direct civilian casualties and perhaps a million more killed by famine.
> Well, I made a falsifiable prediction about the breakup on the USSR, and I
was unfortunately > vindicated. Meanwhile we have to make our assessments
now based on predictions that are
> testible in the medium term. The only long term prediction I'mw iolling to
stake my life on is
> that socialism would be better than what we (or the Russians) have now. In
ed medium term it > was obvious, and is true, that the collapse of the USSR
was a predictable catastrophe for at
> least a generation, probably a century.
As I said, check back with me around 2040. I think I understand your point about why our predictions should be testable in the medium term (too many variables to control for otherwise), but nonetheless I can't accept it in this case: no one thought Russia would be transformed into a market panacea within a dozen years.
> Oh for Christ's sake. You can't just plop down a new set of rules and call
them "reforms" and > expect everyone to follow them. You're talking about a
cultural change that took 500 years in > the West. The steam engibe does not
give you a workable tort and contract law, an effective
> banking and credit system, stable property relations, and the level of
trust and confidence you > need to operate a first world market system.
No, I suppose one couldn't just drop lists detailing new sets of rules out of an airplane and expect them to take. However, I doubt it will take 500 years of cultural change to adopt political institutions and standards similar to what most of the industrialized world have been working with for some time.
> My prediction is that the fSU will continue to drift into third world
conditions, more like
> Brazil or worse than Western Europe.
Do you mean Eastern Europe? Conditions a bit worse than those enjoyed by Western Europe wouldn't be so bad, in fact, I think the US should aspire to them.
> Sheesh, for a utulitarian, you have a head for fantasy rather than social
reality.
> Because consequentialism is associated with naive, top-down, simplistic
arrogance, by and
> large.
My naivete is either emblematic of or contrary to utilitarianism, take your pick. Your first statement (unless in jest) naturally suggest the former interpretation and your second the latter. Now, if you actually want to discuss consequentialism, I'd be happy to defend it against whatever sort of pragmatic pluralism or intuitionism it is that you subscribe to, but please cease and desist with the tiresome passing shots.
I wrote:
>> But there are many, many reasons for regime change that have nothing to
do with
>> hegemony. Of course, those reasons won't appear to have force to those
who think the
>> prospect of Iraq with a nucear veto over any foreign meddling (uni or
mulilateral) in the ME is >> perhaps not such a bad thing after all.
> Count me as one. I'm a starting to think the nuclear proliferation might
not be such a bad think > after all.
The non-specific "those" was written with you in mind.
> Look, the Cold War was a sideshow in the global conflict of 45-89. More on
this later.
Still waiting.
I wrote:
>> The US had nuclear weapons, and yet that did not
>> stop the USSR from waging war in Afghanistan.
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