On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 07:44:20 +0900, "John Yamamoto-Wilson"
<johndeletethis@rarebooksinjapan.com> wrote:

>MacHamish wrote:
>
>[snip a lot of interesting stuff about the US's role in the two wars]
>
>> Communism really is a horrid system, don't you think?
>
>The aims of communism are not horrible. Unfortunately, communism is not
>well-suited to humans, so its aims become corrupted and the result is a
>travesty of what Marx envisioned.

Right, and you've nailed the reason.

>If you want to put it like that, though, you could look at a society where
>millions of people do not have access to health care, where young black
>people (the descendants of slaves) are today more likely to be in prison
>than in university, where 4% of the world's population produces 25% of the
>world's pollution, etc., etc., and say that *that* is a horrid system.

No, I couldn't say that at all.  I think the system I live under is just
great.  Everyone has opportunity.  It's the motivation that has made this
society so prosperous and the reason so many people want to emigrate here.
You're probably going to argue that not everyone is prosperous and that's
just too horrid to contemplate.  If that's the case, I'll refer you back to
your first statement.

If the world were just a little less crazy, I'd vote a straight Libertarian
ticket.

>> I apologize for misreading your intent in posting that timeline.
>
>OK.
>
>> However, there was something in your tone that struck
>> me as demeaning
>[snip]
>> Of course, you're entitled to your opinion, but my opinion is
>> that its dangerously wrong to make a moral equivalence out
>> of attitudes like FreddyN's and the strident claims of militant
>> Islam.  The former is relatively harmless bravado when
>>considered in light of the current actions of Islamic fundamentalists.
>
>I disagree. US attitudes are backed by tremendous military might, and can
>never be dismissed as "harmless bravado". It's a bit like saying hornets are
>dangerous, but those who go around stirring up hornets' nests are harmless.
>The US is stirring up a hornets' nest, and the legacy of that will be with
>us for many years to come.
>
>BTW, are you familiar with the article in the Lancet, which estimates that
>as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives as a result of the
>US invasion/occupation of their country
>(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3962969.stm)?

I'm familiar with the Lancet article.  It seems to me there was an awful lot
of extrapolation going on in the Lancet's analysis.  The following Web site
is no friend of the Coalition, and they're numbers are considerably lower.

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

So the Lancet's figure is over 5 times greater than the top range of a group
that is tracking actual deaths.  If that isn't enough, the article also
claims that the likelihood of death among Iraqis is now 58 times greater
than it was before the war.  This sure sounds agenda driven to me. 

Furthermore, have a look into their database on this site where you can
review the individual cases and causes.   Far more Iraqis have been killed
by insurgents and foreign fighters than by Coalition actions.

I don't believe the Lancet's figure.  Now, if you come back with the
argument that its a damn shame that there are any figures at all to report,
then I'll have to agree with you.

>It is too simplistic to say that FreddyN isn't beheading anyone (not that
>you did say that, but I infer something of the kind from your words). 

You inferred correctly.  I'm surprised you want to defend such a false
analogy. 

>The
>point is that his government has authorised the military occupation of
>another country, his country's army is engaged in manoeuvres that involve
>substantial civilian casualties, and the ill-feeling this has generated will
>poison world relations for years.

It all depends on how it comes out.  I'm not as pessimistic about it as you
are.  In fact, I'm convinced Bush did exactly the right thing.  You have to
be completely horrified by that, but that's where I'm coming from.

The question is, will the millions of Iraqis who are not active in the
insurgency get fed up enough to take action on their own to rid the country
of the foreign jihadists, disarm the Iraqi insurgents, see that the common
criminals are rounded up, and tell the Imams to ask for serious
negotiations?  The ultimate outcome depends on this.

>> I wasn't trying to discourage you from posting your timeline.
>> I think that was the best part of your post.  Nor was I trying
>> to suppress truth for "propaganda purposes".  That accusation
>> *is* demeaning, condescending, and wrong.
>
>OK, my turn to apologise!
>
>> FreddyN represents the thesis;  you represent the anti-thesis.
>> The truth does indeed lie somewhere in between.  I don't
>> think you'd have had any problem with FreddyN if he had
>>simply said that the US *helped* to save China and Britain.
>
>I take your point.
>
>> >You would perhaps do better to point out that critics of the US
>> >seem to want both to have their cake and eat it; they criticise
>> >US involvement in world affairs on the one hand and its isolationism
>> >on the other.
>>
>> Exactly.  We're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.  I have
>> pointed out this catch-22 before, only to be howled at incoherently
>> by the Chomsky clones out there.
>
>Well, I must admit to stringing you along a bit there, as I do have a point
>to make. My point is that many of the catch-22 anomalies can be resolved if
>you look at the matter from a slightly different angle. If you stop thinking
>about it as involvement vs. isolationism and instead think about it along
>the axis of multilateralism vs. unilateralism you will see that the US is
>not (or not necessarily) in quite the "damned if we do, and damned if we
>don't" predicament that you suggest.

Warning:  rant ahead.

I'm about up to here with this multilateral/unilateral business.  In the
first place, the US action is not unilateral.  There is a coalition.  But
that's not the half of it.  Bush went to the UN and presented his case.
Certain members of the Security Council rebuffed him.  France's veto was
particularly galling, if you know what I mean.  Where does Chirac get the
authority to single handedly determine US defense policy?  Or Putin, or Hu
Jintao, for that matter.

So, there was no UN Resolution beyond 1441 showing Saddam Hussein that the
UN, representing the world community, was serious about enforcing its own
resolutions.  It even made a sham of 1441, which did, in fact, call for
serious consequences if Saddam continued to ignore the UN's demands.  

Of course, now we know what was going on behind the scenes with the
Oil-for-Food scandal.  I would submit to you that no decision with a
corrupted premise can be a correct decision.  France, China, and Russia were
bought agents of Saddam Hussein.

While all this was going on, the anti-war marchers where demonstrating by
the thousands in the all major cities of the west and it's outlying
locations around the world, including the USA.  In all of those
demonstrations, I never once saw a sign criticizing the regime of Saddam
Hussein and calling for him to step down.  Virtually all of the more vocal
demonstrators' anger and invective was directed at Bush and Blair.  How
could Saddam not have believed that he had the world community on his side? 

That's the ultimate irony of the piece.  The leftists/progressives/liberals
were actually acting on behalf of a regime that does all the horrible things
to its people that they would otherwise decry in a paroxysm of
righteousness.  I would find that very strange if I didn't know the
organizers of the anti-war demonstrations were groups that are pretty far
over on the left.  This will completely floor you, but I think the
demonstrators were dupes, useful idiots, to a bunch of Marxists (see the
first paragraph of your reply).

To sum it up, I think it's outrageous that we don't have UN support and the
complete cooperation and full participation of every freedom loving nation
in the world.  Instead were niggled about unilateralism that isn't
unilateralism.

>The US's perceived problem of being criticised whatever it does basically
>raises its head when it ignores international opinion. When the US acts in
>accordance with a broad international agreement there is no significant
>problem. There was no massive outcry about the legitimacy of the *first*
>Gulf War, which had a clear mandate from the United Nations and a
>broad-based coalition. Even neighbouring Islamic countries accepted the
>necessity of taking action and gave qualified support. Of course, there will
>always be a few who will criticise the US whatever it does, but the answer
>to that is for the US to endeavour, wherever possible, to have the tide of
>world opinion on its side before acting. The US can get involved without
>fear of undue recrimination when the rest of the world feels it *should* get
>involved.

"Wherever possible", sure. but we should always act from sound principles,
especially when the rest of the world has gone off like a bunch of lunatics.

>The US is ill-advised to get involved in wars that give rise to widespread
>international protest at a popular and political level, and with only one or
>two "poodles" giving support. It would have helped if Kofi Annan had said at
>the time that the second Gulf War was illegal, but the fact that he said it
>at all is significant. If the US wants to take a proactive role and gain the
>world's support as a world player it should never get itself into a
>situation like that.

Sorry, but there are times when appeasing the world community is the wrong
thing to do.  This is one of those times.

<snip some stuff about global warming>

>Do you see a pattern here? If the US thinks about it purely in terms of
>isolationism and involvement it will end up like a teenager, crying "Why
>don't they like me?" But if it thinks in terms of unilateralism and
>multilateralism then it will see that it is not unpopular when it adds its
>weight to a broad consensus, and only becomes unpopular when it insists on
>having its own way, regardless of what the remaining 96% of the planet's
>population might think.
>
>Of course, this doesn't mean that the US has to emasculate itself
>completely, and simply become a willing dogsbody for world opinion. If it
>really can't get by without invading Iraq, or if it really can't see its way
>to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, so be it. But let it be for reasons that
>the world can understand and respect.
>
>Disinformation will only work with the citizens of the US itself. It will
>not convince the rest of the world. If the media are constantly telling US
>citizens that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was somehow involved in the attack
>on the World Trade Centre, and largely ignore contradictory evidence, then
>US public opinion can be manipulated. If the media are constantly citing the
>small number of scientists who disagree with the evidence for global
>warming, and largely ignore the far larger number of scientists who consider
>the evidence overwhelming then, again, US public opinion can be manipulated.
>
>The result of such manipulation of public opinion is that the leaders of the
>US can then say, "Oh, we can't go along with the views of the outside world,
>because we don't have a mandate from our people to do that. They actually
>disagree with what the rest of the world is saying." But this is a
>fabricated situation. The citizens of the United States are brought up on
>one diet, but the rest of the world is getting a different diet, including
>(for example) the view that the real reason the US doesn't want to curb
>greenhouse gas emissions is because it is addicted to oil, and that it
>invaded and occupied Iraq for the same reason.
>
>How you decide which is right and which is wrong is a tricky matter. As you
>said before, the truth probably lies somewhere between the extremes. If so,
>US policy (which allows only of black and white, and acknowledges no middle
>ground) is clearly extreme, and as a result has alienated world opinion to
>an unprecedented extent.

You've seen a little bit of where I'm coming from on these matters, so you
can safely and correctly extrapolate that I'm so far on the other side of
what you've written here that we might as well end the discussion.  I'd like
to address all the points you've made, but it would be just too tedious and
a total waste of time.  Best wishes to you, John.

MacHamish M$(D??(Br