----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 4:25 PM Subject: Re: Fascist Censorship Spreads: Vichy Style
> On Aug 25, 2004, at 2:16 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > > > > >> In situations like this it might make more sense to give some > >> enforcement power to an international authority comprised of member > >> nations from all over the world. Of course the US has decided the UN > >> is > >> bogus, so until we get a little national humility and get rid of a > >> certain arrogant, cowboy Texan in DC, little will change. > > > > But there is an experimental basis for that view of the UN. For > > example, > > the UN is tacitly endorsing the genocide in the Sudan. My Zambian > > daughter > > said that, as much as she hates to admit it, Bush has done more than > > anyone > > to address the situation. > > Yes, those kinds of lapses are really troubling and hard to understand. Why are they hard to understand? Arabs are committing genocide. Europeans want to be on the good side of Arabs. Who cares about black Africans? > It's not a perfect institution, but at the moment the entire planet is > verging on slipping into balkanization -- a globe covered with nations > engaged in petty squabbles for local and short-lived ascendancy. And how in the world would the UN address that. Remember the UN is an organization of governments, and its first priority is best interest of those governments. Thus, human rights are simply paid lip service, and used as a political tool. >We (as a planet or as a species) are not capable of sustaining or surviving > perpetual international war, and as imperfect as the UN is, it's what > we've got right now to try to address these kinds of problems. Actually, we have a lot of other ways to adress that. The UN is a useful tool to enforce the collective will of what were the most powerful countries in the world. When the enlightened self interest of the US, China, Russia, France, and Britian align, the UN is a very useful tool. When they don't, it doesn't do anything. The General Assembly is even worse, ignoring real genocide and focusing on attacking un-PC ethnic groups. > The solution is not to unilaterally bomb the Enemy Of The Month. While I agree that Iraq was a mistake, because the US wasn't prepared to deal with the peace afterwards, that's really not a fair description of US foreign policy over the last 15 years. Let's look at a better intervention, in the Balkins. The UN specifically ordered its troops to step aside and allow genocide. The US violated international law by acting and stopping genocide. Its true that NATO finally went along with the US, but that's because the mess was in Europe...and they were totally unable to handle it. Are you arguing that Clinton was morally oblidged to accept the UN's ruling that the genocide must continue? >The solution *might be* to mobilize the will of nations to conform to the > UN charter and to give it enough enforcement power to make its edicts > carry some clout. But, the will of the nations is not to do the right thing. Its to preserve the self interest of the governments. The US has a tremendous self interest in peace and stability. A world in which poor dictatorships become fairly well off liberal democracies (e.g. S. Korea, or Tawain) is in the enlightened self interest of the US. The US will keep its status as the lone superpower for years in such a world. France's self interest is not the same. Dan M. This also means that nations (including the US) which > step out of line need to accept sanction rather than charge off on > their own. > It's a damned mess, all of it. I've toyed from time to time with > formally renouncing my specieshood as h. sapiens and declaring myself a > bottlenosed dolphin instead. But they won't let me into any of their > club meetings! Actually, its an opportunity to make hard moral choices. Bottlenosed dolphins do neither good nor evil; making no moral choices. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
