@Finn dAbuzz,
Finn dAbuzz wrote:Absent all of the sound and fury it comes down to this:
There are very bad people in the world doing very bad things to their fellow humans.
As a nation we have a choice:
Attempt to intervene and stop these bad people in each and every case we find,
or
Intervene in only those cases where intervention serves our strategic interests.
Or, of course, the choice I argued at length in this thread:
Define a consistent threshold of currently ongoing evil where intervention is justified.
Ie, instead of haphazardly intervening under the pro forma nomer of human rights in one dictatorial country but supporting another equally dictatorial country because of strategic interest, define an "only in acute emergency" threshold and stick to it. The one I suggested: in case of currently ongoing genocide (and I'll leave "one country occupying another" in the discussion pool).
Eg, the Holocaust and Pol Pot's slaughter of a third of his countrymen qualified; Vietnam and Grenada didnt. I know; this would require the democratically elected leaders of the powerful countries to rise above partisan ideology and national interests when it comes to the question of whether to start a war or not. But if that's the measurestick that had been used for the decision whether to intervene or not since WW2, I think looking back it would have led to a damn better track record.
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Bah. I am tagging Africa threads, and that's how I came across this oldie. And like many of the others, it's been a depressing re-read. The thread was dominated by sincere interest and concern about, you know, the actual events in Sudan, until about halfway through when SierraSong c.s. came in, and turned it into a partisan slugfest. After all, who is interested in discussing the actual events in Sudan if you can use the occasion to slag George Clooney and such liberals? Bah again.
Off to more tagging...
