From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Sat Mar 15 2003 - 05:18:30 MST
On Sat, 15 Mar 2003 01:44:49 -0800, Samantha Atkins
<samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
> There is not a bit of "rectitude" to be had in preemption.
I am going to spend a lot of time repeating that the issue isn't just about
Iraq. But to get one Iraq-specific point out of the way...
From the standpoint of an armistice with dictated terms (not a peace), a
military action in response to a violation of the terms of the armistice is
not preemption. It would be a cleaner matter in old (Treaty of Westphalia)
terms if there had been a tidy declaration of war on both sides, but such
seem to have gone out of fashion. I wish I really understood why--I have my
suspicions.
[The UN security council thing makes for muddy waters. The USSR treated the
UN as a toothless gabberfest precisely up until the time they sat a session
out and the US achieved the utterly unthinkable--rammed through a
resolution to fight the Korean War--that was back when the Kuomintang had
the China seat. Chastened, the USSR never missed a session after that. So
the UN took no action on Hungary or Poland, to name two biggies.
Miraculously, the UN got cranked up about Kuwait. So from the standpoint of
actual history, there are only two cases, both miracles, in 41 years where
the UN gave a military hoot, officially.]
> If we consider preemption to be reasonable then it is certain we are
> wrong in our basic analysis, never mind the particular victims we pick.
I'm not sure. I used to be sure. As I said, non-solution unsatisfactory.
And the even more correct term is not pr-emption, it's PREVENTION, which is
an even bigger red flag to the parts of me that are still wired to dislike
"status crimes"--making things, rather than actions, unlawful.
The point being that pre-emption is action taken when an attack is
imminent, and prevention is action taken to make attack impossible. I don't
like it when, e.g., some busybody want to PREVENT me from doing X or Y or
Z. But I don't have a track record as bad as Saddam's. Factor out the "who
gassed who" jazz, ignore whether or not he got a green light to roll over
Kuwait--he's still killing something like 36,000 of his countrymen every
year. That's HIM doing it, as a matter of policy, independent of any effect
of sanctions. And I think there's some indication that if somehow Saddam is
"contained" for, say, ten more years, another 300,000 to 400,000 of his
people will be killed by his policies.
But I am done talking about Saddam in this post.
You want everybody to wait until there's a big smoking hole; that's the
only fair way to fight. In the abstract, I do agree with you--retaliation
is much more clear-cut. But did you actually read the referenced articles,
or are you simply reacting to the parts I (/Dan) quoted? The notion that
some states are much more functionally sovereign (and more functionally
vulnerable) than other is crucial to the conclusions quoted. I am not sure
I disagree sharply. I do agree that things are a mess.
And as the scene is becoming clear, in the general case one can create a
big smoking hole without leaving a clear contrail back to the guilty party.
It truly is only a matter of time before someone manages to pull that off.
What then? And the crucial thing is that superempowerment can lead to a
non-state actor deeply damaging a sovereign state. Do we just grimace and
shrug when that happens?
I mean, hey, after all, it's a free world, right?
I am opposed to human suffering. As one of the quoted parts of the article
said, it might very well be that Saddam isn't the droid we're looking for.
But it also may be that by granting creeps like him the same standing as
leaders of less screwed up countries, we are doing a net disservice to
humanity. This presupposes that some creeps really are a lot worse than
others--sepecially inasmuch as they might not care who they empower, or
might even delight in the deniability of same. The issue needs to be looked
at squarely, independent of the situation with Iraq qua Iraq.
And this is separable from all the things you (I guess) don't like about
George Bush. It really is.
And it is separable from all the things the US has done in foreign arenas
in the past that sucked. It really, REALLY is.
Maybe it _is_ time for "sovereignty lite". I don't like it much. But I
consider the topic to be open for discussion, INDEPENDENT of the presenting
situation in/around Iraq, which is why I posted. I suspect that the Treaty
of Westphalia is on borrowed time no matter what happens to/in Iraq. And I
do not consider dicsussion of such unreasonable. Especially if a paradigm
shift really is on the way, for good OR ILL. I am not confident I grok all
the ramifications. It doesn't have to imply utter chaos, though that's a
comfortably-hysterical view for some.
I really do have to publish my take on those articles... Or perhaps just
did.
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