Here is something to put beside Ignatieff's eloquent paper ...
speaking of which ... I am just speechless that NO ONE (except Karen and Ray) had anything at all to say about Ignatieff's piece (which puts everybody in their place). If you're inclined to give it another try, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/magazine/05EMPIRE.html Meanwhile, Buruma lets us know in no uncertain terms that the old labels just don't work. You need a score-card to keep track of who's who. Even then, I find it impossible to convince myself that I have any idea what's really going on here. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ... A few days in the US capital are enough to reveal the splits, not just between Democrats and Republicans, but also the various factions on the right, squabbling for the president's fickle attention. Much depends on the outcome of these struggles. Several people I met, none of them even vaguely on the left, were convinced there would be no war. The president, they assured me, was backtracking. Others told me, with equal conviction, that Bush certainly would go to war. Then there are those who talk as if the war is already over. I was invited to take part in a discussion at the American Enterprise Institute about Iraq after Saddam. The AEI is a neo-conservative outfit, whose members are imbued with a revolutionary mission to bring democracy to the world, backed by American force. Our discussion, in which several prominent Arab liberals took part, was on the whole reasonable and interesting. We argued about the future role, if any, of the Baathist party, of the Iraqi armed forces, of the Sunnis, and of the Kurds. We talked about possible lessons to be drawn from the US role in postwar Germany and Japan. ... My point is that the neo-conservatives today, as far as Iraq is concerned, are the idealists, and if their revolutionary ideals have any chance of succeeding, they will have to prevail over the realists, the oil men and the country-club Republicans, who will surely stand in their way. The irony here is that what is left of the left, on the whole, shares the views of the old right. Few believe in a democratic revolution in the Middle East, and even fewer think it is up to America to enforce it... see: "A squeamish namby-pamby European wimp joins the Washington war debate," The Guardian, (14 January 2003) by Ian Buruma http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,874256,00.html all best wishes, Stephen Straker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Vancouver, B.C. [Outgoing mail scanned by Norton AntiVirus] _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
