From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 22:45:14 MDT
What is amazing here is that we all seem to agree on the problem, though
how to solve it leads inevitably to contentious debate.
One can go to the mountaintop, as it were, making of himself a Stalin
(for a while) and ponder the remaking the world in a better image.
Everything will be fine and dandy (after the initial 100 days of terror,
of course). One can think in realpolitic and ignore the individual
reality on the ground (as in, for example, dead Iraqi children).
One can ignore libertarian and extropian approbriations against violent
coercion, or Founding Fathers' disdain of foreign entanglement; after
all, those Founders didn't face nano or bio driven world-armageddon
scenarios. Morality must take a back seat to reality, eh?
Such has been a morality play often seen on television shows like Star
Trek and the like where the temptation is to kill a few to save the
many. For me, one of the best answers (from such a show) was the Babylon
5 episode where Delenn sparred with the inquisitor (who turned out to be
Jack the Ripper). Delenn's answer was that she defended *all life*, that
such defense was *local* (dealing with threats around her).
Personally, I've long been a fan of Israel. I've read several histories
of her founding, such as _Oh Jerusalem!_ and _Genesis 1948_, plus
several more histories of her wars, including such as Moshe Dayan's
_Diary of the Sinai Campaign_ (the '56 war).
And yet I wonder if the armageddon threat isn't here now. Certainly the
United States, along with the vast majority of nations, could survive
and come back even after multiple nuclear attacks, while it seems Israel
could be destroyed utterly with only 1 to 3 sizable nuclear blasts. It's
a very small country.
As Phil Osborn makes clear, it would be much better to straighten the
world out under a anarcho-capitalist systemm as there are many problems
with the current state doing it. Perhaps the algorithm then would be:
IF world-about-to-destroy-itself AND no-anarcho-capitalist options
THEN make-worldwide-police-state
But I wonder if the US administration is instead operating under:
IF Isreal-facing-annihilation
THEN make-worldwide-police-state
And I think a lot of the Christian Right in this country want to ensure
that Israel remains, so they can say I-told-you-so when Jesus comes
back. (Probably the result of an intellectual inferiority complex, as
the Jews are possibly the most progressive and intelligent peoples on
the planet).
Now, the antiwar movement 'failed' to stop the war, but it's possible
they had a moderating influence. I appreciate that the Pentagon planners
went to pains to avoid civilian casualities. If any of that was in any
way related to the universal protests, then truly the antiwar movement
had an effect.
I have heard of games of Pong being played on the big screen at football
games. The audience shows a red or green card, the cumulative effect
moves the paddle up or down. One does what one can, if too much analysis
is done to determine which card to show, one misses out on the game. For
me, the war was like this: many good reasons to attack, many good
reasons to not attack. I decided the latter were better and thus held an
antiwar position.
Contrast this with the pro-war majority, most of whom think that war has
become so quick 'n' easy we might as well take on Syria next.
Hey, maybe if there's a Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the
Euphrates, it wouldn't be so vulnerable to a couple nukes, and we could
put off the liberty-vs-police-state decision for a few more decades.
That's why I'm waiting for the 'Palestinian Relocation Zones' to appear
on the map of Iraq....
-Mike
--
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Apr 27 2003 - 22:55:50 MDT