Let's leave aside the silly stuff, and focus on this issue. One of the differences between the candidates in this election is the question of balancing concerns over doing "the right thing" when there does not appear to be global political support for such activities. So here goes an analysis.
Objections to "doing the right thing" (as an example, surely turning Saddam to dust, viewed solely on its own, is a net positive) are either practical (i.e., having global political support implies a greater chance of success in the activity undertaken) or theoretical (i.e., having global political support confers a measure of legitimacy to the activity undertaken).
The practical concerns seem overstated - criticisms of the performance to date (To date? How long should it take to redirect 25 million people?) typically center on the fact that America is being less forceful than it should. Considering that the U.S. Army could turn the entire land mass between Austria and India into a smooth sheet of glass, it seems as though the exercise of force is being balanced against concerns over the ill-will likely to be generated among the occupees. Having insufficient manpower, on the other hand, does not appear to be a credible complaint.
Moving to theoretical issues, and sidestepping the obvious snideness that typically (and accurately, I might add. However, this is one of those blogposts in which I adopt a mature, 'balanced' tone in the hopes of one day being considered the Jewish and electronic version of David Broder) results from evaluating whether the survey of world opinion represented by the United Nations actually represents some sort of moral advance, as opposed to an incessantly repeated depiction of Piggy's murder in The Lord of the Flies. Let's also leave aside the accumulating evidence of financial partiality among certain members of the U.N. Security Council whose opposition to the war in Iraq prevented it from being multifariously multilateral.
Any criticism of the attack on Iraq starts with the premise that, in fact, one Turtle Bay member, considered to be in at least reasonably good standing, wanted to do something that other members thought ill-advised. Stated elsewise, sometimes nations have differing opinions about what constitutes appropriate action, and if one is willing to accept that possibility, then one can no longer ascribe much value to an international consensus.
- Moishe Potemkin
Posted by MoisheP at October 4, 2004 10:11 PM