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I think the real issues are what sorts of int'l governance are we going to support to check our leader's ability to lead us on these battles of good against evil.

I think it is a given that the US is in a position to provide leadership for the world and there are important things that we need leadership over. However, given our own fallibility, we must make sure that there are checks against us and the we hold our leaders to them.

That is why I oppose the BushAdmin's policy of rewarding the contracts to only those that support us. I think allowing this practice will give us more economic power to get countries to go along with us in relatively unilateral actions. Disallowing it will both likely decrease the cost to the US through more competition and make it harder for any particular interests to anticipate economic gains from a military action and reduce their willingness to sway the gov't into taking said military action, with the gov't then manipulating the public into supporting the war.

The deaths of countries soldiers/personnel does not mean their country's companies have the right to a greater certainty of economic profits.

Not limiting the scope of competition for said contracts both serves to reduce the already high tax-burden of the war on US citizens AND to set a precedent that is more likely to discourage activism towards similar endeavors for pecuniary reasons.

[emphasis added].

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Consider:
Hussein became president/dictator of Iraq in 1979. In late 1983, Donald Rumsfeld was dispatched by then-President Ronald Reagan to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein as part of an envoy sent to restore official relations between Iraq and the United States, for the first time since 1967 (full diplomatic relations were restored between the two countries in late 1984). Rumsfeld made another visit to Baghdad in 1984, this time meeting with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Around the time of this visit (late March, 1984), the U.N. reported that Iraq had dropped bombs laced with chemical weapons (mustard gas) in Iran as part of the ongoing Iran-Iraq war. In fact, an official state department report from early March 1984 also reported that evidence indicated that Iraq had used lethal chemical weapons against Iran. After full diplomatic relations were re-instated, Hussein took full advantage of his freedom to purchase U.S.-made goods (helicopters, weapons, ammunition, and so on) that ended up in the hands of his military. It has been reported that these U.S.-purchased helicoptors were used in the poison gas attack on Kurdish citizens in 1988. The U.S. Senate passed sanctions that would have prevented Iraq from further purchasing U.S. technology. The White House did not pass it.

And NOW...well now Hussein's actions are seen as immoral, terroristic, murderous...and this is not to say that they AREN'T. BUT...why are his actions considered this way NOW, but they supposedly WEREN'T back in the 80s?? We KNEW Hussein both possessed and used chemical weapons. THIS IS NOT A SURPRISE! Rumsfeld friggin' helped restore FULL DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS with Iraq with FULL KNOWLEDGE of what Hussein had already done, and was capable of doing. We've known about Iraq's chemical weapons abilities for decades, we took Iraq's side in a war in which they used chemical weapons (the Iraq/Iran war). But the Iranians were bad people, right? Of course we had to side with Iraq, make friends with Saddam, and turn a blind eye to his terror, because at least it meant we had an ally fighing the evil Iranians.

Everyone can think whatever they want to about Saddam Hussein, and I'm sure not about to argue that he was a saint or anything. But it's ironic that we judge Hussein for the things he has done, while conveniently forgetting the role our nation played in supporting his crimes.

Edited by - whasssuuuppp on 12/16/2003 01:41:54 AM

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That, gentlemen, is realpolitik....

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"If the U.S. really believes that supporting terrorists makes you as guilty as the terrorists themselves, then it would have to put on trial most of its military and political leadership over the last handful of administrations, and more." Peter McClaren

I understand realpolitik and I agree it often plays a role in decisions made by nations. Fine. But we need to cut out the good vs. evil****that is so often propogated by our nation. The people in the world see right through it. They know that the United States has been caught in bed, so to speak, with too many brutal leaders to have any right to speak about who is really "evil" in the world. Call it what it is--when Saddam was our ally in the 1980s, he was in possesion of chemical weapons, had expressed interest in nuclear weapons (and interestingly enough, had was in negotiations with Jacques Chirac about this), and had committed known human rights abuses against his own people...but we still chose him as an ally. Now we call the exact same behaviors by Saddam evil. If they are evil now, they were evil then.

I am happy that Saddam is gone from Iraq, but sad that we once were allies with this man and turned a blind eye to the terrible things he did. Again, realpolitik comes into play, because at the time we considered the evil of the Iranian regieme "more" evil than Hussein, and therefore chose to put up with Hussein's craziness. But again, this only reinforces my point that in this world the distinctions between "good" and "evil" are complicated, and it serves as a reminder of why much of the world greatly resents the U.S.'s continual insistence that we are "good" and we are unilaterally fighting the "axis of evil."
It's more gray than that...

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Originally posted by Mayflower
New Zealand HERALD
Published December 18, 2003

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DLW and Mayflower, I do have access to news online. I see no need to continually repost news stories here. For one reason, you may be violating copyright laws.

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Originally posted by Mayflower

Greetings, Laika:

F.Y.I.:
Newspaper and/or journal articles; and/or 'experpts' of documents (pertaining to innumerable issues and/or topics) are posted on this site very, very frequently -- by countless people.

You never objected when the articles were pro-war.
Why do you object now??

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You're right, I've never objected to entire articles being posted continually, day after day until now. Whether they were pro-war, anti-war, pro-calvin, anti-calvin, pro-vanilla, pro-chocolate, whatever. And you're not the main offender, DLW is. And I've probably done it myself once or twice. But the cup just ran over.

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Originally posted by Harley

How soon we forget!! Saddam was a murderer and a tyrant. The number of people he killed is estimated to be in the millions. He tortured his own people, as well as those from other countries. He used WMD (mustard gas) on his own people. He spent the people's money building elaborate palaces for himself while his people went without money. We had to go in and remove him from power, and in so doing we lost a number of our own people. It is all so reminiscent of what Adolph Hitler did. And some people are sorry because he was reduced to living in a "spider hole". How soon we forget!! I agree with President Bush that he should receive the death penality.

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Laika: keep the pressure on... what you are doing is highly important.

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Posted by Laika -- 03/27/2003 : 10:58:21 AM:
Western Sahara
1423 Posts


bad hair day
_________________________
1 + 1 = 3 for large values of 1

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Laika: keep the pressure on... what you are doing is highly important. The number of posts that contain just one huge article (and usually nothing else) pile up like firewood. ...

Edited by - honorman on 12/20/2003 08:29:55 AM

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That, gentlemen, is realpolitik.
.
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik
.
... it's messy, it's unethical but it sometimes works.

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