Best Article on World Events!

[Whitehall]

Here\'s one of the most insightful articles on world affairs I\'ve ever read. I highly recommend this to all thinking about the coming war in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UN.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-031103A

[Elana]

Very worth the long read. Thanks for posting this, Whitehall

<<<But this is precisely the problem with trying to grasp such events - they are utterly without precedent, and this means
And judged by this criterion, much of American policy toward the Islamic fantasists has been a signal departure from the American tradition of realism. For so much of our policy, from the Iran hostage crisis up until the events of 9/11 have almost been designed to encourage the growth of fantasy thinking among the most dangerous social forces in the Islamic world. Their policy has been to make us fear them through displays of force, whether in taking the staff of our embassy hostage or by flying airplanes into our buildings. And we have given our enemy the ultimate satisfaction - we have shown we are afraid. We have displayed how much their acts have devastated us, and our grief has provided a sickening opportunity for Schadenfreude on the part of far too much of the Islamic world. We must learn not only to exact a price for those who murder our citizens - but for those who, though technically innocent of the crime, dance in the streets to celebrate its consequences. This thirst for the indulgence of bloody fantasies at our expense must be brought to an end by whatever means it takes. Indeed, in the long run the greatest danger we face comes not from the terrorists of today, but those being bred for tomorrow - the children who are being inducted and brainwashed into the terror cult that is at the heart of the fantasy ideology of Islamism. >>

[franki]

I am almost through with the article and I agree with most that has been said.




\"At the heart of the dialectically emergent concept of neo-sovereignty is precisely the double standard that Mr. Butler denounced - a double standard imposed by the U.S. on the rest of the world, whereby the U.S. can unilaterally decide to act, if need be, to override and even to cancel the existence of any state regime that proposes to develop WMD, especially in those cases where the state regime in question has demonstrated its dangerous lack of a sense of the realistic.

What the critics of this policy fail to see is the simple and obvious fact that if any social order is to achieve stability there must be, at the heart of it, a double standard governing the use of violence and force. There must be one agent who is permitted to use force against other agents who are not permitted to use force. The implementation of the fashionable myth that all violence is equally immoral and reprehensible would inevitably result, in a typical dialectical reversal, in the Hobbesian state of universal war.\"

I understand the idea of the agent, though my fear is that there will be a lack of control of the USA. There has to be some sort of control, or even the best people will turn from good to bad and do things that can\'t be tolerated.

Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[franki]

\" First, by closing the nuclear club to any new members, it acts to secure the monopoly of those states that are already members in good-standing of this club. Hence the U.S. is defending its interests as much as its own.

Second, by closing the nuclear club, it takes away one of the main incentives to enter into this club, namely, the fear that your neighbor will get there before you do. Would India and Pakistan have been worse off if such a double standard had been applied to them? And this fear would become endemic in a world in which every state, no manner how marginal, was developing weapons. \"

In the case of India and Pakistan, I think the presence of nuclear weapons rather PREVENTS them of going to war. Thus that region benefits from those weapons.

Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[seadove]

Franki
Are you serious?
You expect us to read all this?
We have a life you know.

[franki]

Sorry, something happened. I only wanted to quote a small part of the article. I am going to edit the message.

Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[seadove]

No leave it.
It gives an impression that you are a learned man.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[franki]

Ok, now I edited it and now it makes sense. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Franki

[Whitehall]

There is a case for nuclear weapons increasing stability between rational national players. Today, India and Pakistan act fairly rational. After all, a calculation of what\'s to be gained from using nukes has be offset against what\'s to be lost. Kashmir is not worth New Delhi or Islamabad.

If you think the tradeoff is now between using nukes and enjoying 71 virgins in Heaven, then there will be no stability.

As to not trusting the US in this new order, whom would you trust or what altenative do you suggest? Right now, it looks like France and the others are moving beyond being \"free riders\" on the security the US has created, they seem to intend to cut us down while we work to create it.

The US is a reliable democracy. Our history, while not blameless, has shown a willingness to help others and to sacrifice to create peace, freedom, order and a better standard of living for all - insofar as practical. We know that what we want as a people are what other peoples want too and know that taking the good things of life from another people doesn\'t add to our happiness or prosperity. As the Iraq and North Korea crises play out, the US will fashion a world where it controls the grosser violence just because we are the primary target. We\'re going to have to knock some heads to make it so - to do nothing risks every civilization on the planet.

We will make the world in our own image to a large extent - just remember that you don\'t HAVE to eat at McDonalds - and we will ensure our own commercial ascendency. While what we will create is not an empire, we will need for it to pay and not become too big a drain on our energies. Perhaps a worldwide carbon tax payable to the US government to support the US military?

France is going to get busted BIG TIME - my advice is don\'t get caught up on the losing side.

[franki]

The USA is without a doubt the only country that can play this role and I don\'t think any other country could fulfill that role any better.

Still, I think that there should be a system of checks and balances in international politics, just as there is a system of checks and balances within the USA (executive power, legislative power and justice). This article hasn\'t discussed that enough.

Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Whitehall]

There should eventually be a World Government but that will have to follow world order and security - not preceed it. The UN has certainly not proven a success nor a model for future success.

The American notion of democracy is universalist. It\'s in the the Declaration of Independence - \"We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all men are created equal...\"

That same point can be made of Islam or Christianity - there\'s one answer for everyone and we\'re here to share it. If the point is that there is one god and he\'s Allah and that the theocracy is guided by Allah and the thoecrcy is going to tell me what to do, then I\'ll politely disagree - even to using a gun or an H-bomb if push comes to shove.

However, the underlying goals and premises of American democracy do seem to apply to the mass of humanity. We\'ve been lucky that our mechanisms (checks and balances, voting, etc) have provided a framework to sort out most of our disagreements (barring the Civil War). In a real sense, the US polity can stand in the stead of the rest of the people in the world until a broader world political structure is created. We won\'t allow ourselves to surrender any of our sovereignty to an undemocratic, and hence illegitimate, authority. Therefore no World Court, no Security Council, no Kyoto Treaty. Nor will we subjegate or annihilate another people to serve ourselves. We\'re not going to attack Iraqis, just Saddam\'s ruling party. We\'re not going to wipe out North Koreans, just the regime. Both countries are going to be better off.

I have seen signs of American over-reach - this worries me too. For example, when Afghanistan was going hot and heavy, two very liberal US senators (Boxer and Clinton, both women) conducted formal hearings planning to have the US interfer in the Afghans\' sex lives! All in the name of feminism. We can explore some crazy ideas but we do seem to self-correct fairly rapidly.

I think that Americans are well aware of our responsibilities we have in the exercise of our power. We must exercise it in ways that live up to our ideals because we think that those ideals apply to just about everyone on the planet.

Wish I had a better answer too.

[nonscents]

Thanks for the provocative article.

Let’s examine its claims. Bush Jr. is our world-historical figure (Hegel had Napoleon in mind during his time) at the helm of the world-historical nation leading a world-historical transformation? This is on the lines of Francis Fukuyama\'s book (The Last Man and the End of History was the title, I believe) which explained how the defeat of communism left the West unchallenged for the remainder of time. No one is reading him anymore.

Lee Harris points out the weakness of the US. The US military, by far the most powerful in the world, is prepared to fight post-World War II wars. We (the US) are totally unprepared to oppose this new kind of force.

Let me put my politics out front, I am totally in support of liberalism in the sense of freedom of expression, worship, travel, etc. I have no truck with Osama Bin Laden or his ilk. (I live in Manhattan and know first hand the consequences of Bin Laden’s innovations.) But let us be clear, if there is anyone who Hegel could deem world historical today it is not George W., it is Osama, precisely because he (unwittingly, since he never expected the towers to collapse), virtually overnight, redefined power. Lee Harris points out that Al Qaeda lacks the objective circumstances to challenge the only superpower. Well, to use Harris\'s own words, Osama is the character with \"world-historical innovations\" that \"transcend the conceptual categories of the old world, and call into existence an entirely novel set of categories.\" Unfortunately, contra Hegel, the world-historical man represents a step backward in the development of World Spirit, which for Hegel was freedom. Osama’s “innovations” surely advance the cause of unfreedom.

Osama has rendered our military ineffective. And how do we respond? We all know the old saying, “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” So we take our military, our hammer, and invade a nation-state, because that’s all we know how to do. We don’t understand the new category that Al Qaeda created.

Again, please understand my position. Bin Laden is bad, very bad. He is not a hero. But if anyone rewrote the rules it is he. Harris is making Bush out to be the innovator, and implies that France and Germany are just too dimwitted to understand that the times have changed. Bush is not rewriting world history. He is doing what we in the US have always done. We invaded Grenada. We lost a war in Viet Nam. Bush’s response is straight out of the book written by his predecessors: further US interests by invading nation-states and annihilating the opposition.

Harris’s final words:

No one’s crystal ball is in such good shape that they can afford to be too vehement in denouncing those who disagree with them. Fear and trembling is the first order of the day, both on the part of those who counsel action and those who do not

With that I concur wholeheartedly. As Hegel, Harris’s favorite theologian, said, “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings with the coming of dusk.” Translation: we don’t know the historical significance of current events when they are current. Their meaning becomes apparent only after we view them as past events. But of course Harris does not counsel merely fear and trembling. His screed is the not the dispassionate balanced intellectual analysis that it purports to be. He is an ideological apologist for US war.

[Whitehall]

9/11 was real. The challenge from radical Islam is real. The threat of further mass terrorism in America and the West is real. The threat to our oil supplies by Saddam is real.

I think we can all agree on those premises. Now, the question is \"What is our response?\"

I would agree that one point bin Laden makes is a real one - the West is weak from internal confusion and decadence. Look at the institution created by the West to deal with security threats - the UN Security Council - hopelessly and cynically divided. The peace demonstrations again show the truth in the definition of liberals - they can\'t even argue their own self-interest. Bush at least has chosen a response and is pursuing it with vigor and purpose. \"Give Peace a Chance\" is completely passive and totally inadequate. \"Give inspectors time to work\" is disingenuous.

Whether bin Laden or Bush should wear the title of World Historical Figure doesn\'t really matter. I wouldn\'t say that our military is ineffective. Afghanistan is no longer a viable base for bin Laden and his other havens are being reduced in value. He can operate out of a lawless country - in which case we step in and institute stable government. Or, he can operate out of a rogue state in which case we pursue regime change. As Harris points out, our commitment to the notion of involutile nation-states has to fall before the new realities of nuclear terrorism so that world security can be maintained. Otherwise there will be no city in the world where one is safe from an undeterrable nuclear attack.

Just like a monopoly of violence by a nation-state allows peace within, we\'re now at a point where a monopoly of mass violence must be imposed on the world or a tyranny of anarchic violence will be imposed on all of us. I would point out that thinking on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons has seen this day coming for at least 30 years. Here\'s one book:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=6T5EM00CRV&isbn=0884102 076&itm=11

I\'ve read extensively on history and current events so I think I\'ve surveyed current thought fairly well. The plan Bush is following is a tough, rough one. Harris, I think, captures Bush\'s dilemma and puts it into a cogent framework. It\'s a brutally honest look at the world. It will cost Americans dearly and we\'ll take on that burden with precious little help from the rest of the world. (Thanks, Britain, Australia, Spain)

None of the alternatives advanced so far make any sense. Show the world a better choice and you\'ll deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now a question the Harris piece begs is what about North Korea? Can it be put into the same fantasy framework?

[franki]

\"- just remember that you don\'t HAVE to eat at McDonalds -\"

A few days ago I read in the paper about Saudi-Arabia, where people are boycotting American products. They were buying less american food, cars etc and of course McDonalds`popularity decreased.

BUT the popularity of Starbucks wasn\'t affected!

I think that symbolizes the opinion of the rest of the world pretty well: We want less of the ugly (McDonalds etc.) America and more of the good looking, sophisticated (I was almost going to say french) America (keyword: Starbucks). This not only applies to restaurants, but also to politics, movies etc.

Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[**DONOTDELETE**]

You and us both.

[proteus]

The whole problem with the concept of World Government and the UN for that matter, is that the US seems to think it must lead this World Government and that anyone who does not fall in line with America\'s policies is an enemy/traitor etc. That is not World Government, but rather a dictatorial empire - I think until the leaders in this country grow up, a World Government is nothing but a pipe dream, as what the US conceives of when it mentions World Government is in actual fact an America Empire. Now from a realpolitik standpoint I can\'t argue with this as it has always been that the strong/wealthy/powerful dictate to the weak/poor nations, but if we really believe in an ideal of a World Government the US will have to learn a degree of humility and grow up a little. There\'s a lot of good about this country, but it\'s amazing to me how blind so many people are here to just how arrogant so many of the policies are. Anyway, very interesting and thought-provoking article and thanks for posting it.

[Whitehall]

Many who do not fall in line with US policies are free riders - they\'ll take the benefits of having a benvolent hegemon but don\'t want anything to do with the costs and the risks.

Some, like the French, deliberately profit on circumventing those policies of peace and stability. Why else sell military hardware to the Iraqis?

As the article says, we are going to have to enforce a double standard. better arrogant than live in nuclear anarchy. If they (the Islamists) achieve some more success like 9/11, they will bring down death and destruction on themselves and their societies in turn. If an American city goes up in a nuclear fireball, just guess what any American president will do (except Jimmy Carter.) What would Chirc do if Paris or Roun went up? In a way, we have to be cruel to be kind.

The author offers a metric - do our actions \"teach them a lesson\" in reality? By that definition liberating Iraq passes.

God, I wish I could be an isolationist!


\"Make the world go away....get it off of my shoulders....\"

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Who sang that? I can\'t remember now.

[upsidedown]

I think it was Eddy Arnold.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

It was. I would have sworn Jim Reeves, but you\'re right. Eddy Arnold.

[upsidedown]

I initially was thinking Ray Price, but ran a Google search and found that it was Eddy Arnold. I also came across what appears to be a version of it recorded by Elvis as well. But I have no first-hand memory of a version recorded by him.

[nonscents]

Even Harris does not make the claim that the US is a benevolent world cop. Even he acknowledges that it intervenes overtly or covertly in international affairs out of self-interest. When we gave Stinger anti-aircraft guns to the Islamic groups in Afghanistan, our intentions were to advance our country\'s interests. When we gave aid to those who mined the harbors of Nicaragua, in defiance of the judgment of the World Court, we were not calculating what was best for the world, we were calculating what we thought was best for US interests. When we supported the overthrow of the popularly elected Salvador Allende in Chile, whose interests were we defending? When we announced our pleasure with the (fleetingly) successful coup against the popularly elected Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, were we so benevolent?

Criticism of the \"free riders\" on the benevolent US gravy train is disingenuous.

Harris\'s argument is classical economics from Adam Smith. Harris calls it the \"cunning of reason.\" He says that the unintended consequence of the US\'s pursuit of its self-interest is the advancement of the world\'s self-interest. The thing is, with Adam Smith, I am supposed to advance my own self-interest by selling a product that others want to buy from me. I don\'t care about them, except insofar as I can get them to freely purchase the commodity I am selling. If they don\'t buy from me, according to classical economics, I don\'t a legitimate complaint. By definition, if they didn\'t choose to buy from me, I wasn\'t providing the right commodity at the right price.

Harris: \"in its role as neo-sovereign the United States, in pursuing its selfish policy, is also forced to increase the general level of security throughout the world.\" This is the cunning of reason. Hegel\'s God has structured the universe in such a way that selfish behavior brings about a greater good.

What\'s ridiculous in all this is that, Harris implies, everyone in the world has misjudged their self-interest except for the US. The US understands its own self-interst, and in pursuing it, the world will inadvertently be made a better place. But no other nation-state, with the possible exception of Tony Blair\'s Britain (and we don\'t really know about them, do we?), understands its own self-interest.

This really is nonsense on stilts. Hegel\'s God has created the US to lead the world to the promised land. The US doesn\'t understand that that is the mission assigned to it by God. No other nation understands that that is the world-historical role assigned to the US by God. But Lee Harris, like GWF Hegel, is able to understand world history before its secret has been revealed to mere mortals. He, like Hegel, has the key that unlocks the clasp to the book of knowledge of world history. And in that book he finds that George Bush is Moses leading the chosen people to the promised land.

Maybe the followers of Khomeini and Bin Laden can swallow this theocratic nonsense, but how can any thoughtful rational citizen of the \"free world\" buy into it? Read what he is saying. This is secularized theology.

[Whitehall]

I think you\'re reading other countries\' sense of \"self-interest\" too narrowly. In the UN, a vote against war is merely a symbolic gesture - Bush is going in, no matter what. And remmber, the United Nations is an organization of governments - not necessarily of legitimate representatives of the peoples of the world.

Harris makes the point that many states are legitimized by other states, not necessarily their own Darwinian abilities. Hence, they will object when the rule of legitimacy and safety for existing governments is being forced to come to an end - as when the US forces regime change on an outlaw state. Who\'s next - Angola? An invasion of Iraq will discipline ALL states - better behave according to the standards of the US or YOU could be next.

Yes, it\'s a double standard but such is the nature of poweer. The state says murder is a crime - but we\'ll execute you for it. That double standard deters crime. If that\'s what it takes to prevent terrorism and nuclear proliferation, well, so be it - \"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.\"

Harris is also correct in pointing out that results matter. No theology needed. This is the case before us, the world as it is, our turn at making history. We have to deal with it one way or another. A decision has to be made - to act or to not act.