Two Cheers for the Autocrat and His Lebensraum!
Matt Welch | August 12, 2008, 3:57pm
One of the worst intellectual side-effects of war in far-flung lands is when people insist on seeing it through the parochial and distorting lens of domestic American politics. From that faulty starting point, it's a race to the Booby Prize for dumbest piece of commentary. Some recent candidates inspired by the Georgia-Russia war:
John Derbyshire, National Review:
We are governed by fools. At least Putin knows what he wants, and how to get it. If only freedom had such leaders!
James Pethokoukis, U.S. News & World Report:
Two cheers for Russia's invasion of Georgia. [...] There's a big long-term positive in all this. We also now have greater clarity on the need to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic:
Since Cheney has exactly the same view about the use of American military power as Putin does about Russian power, I'm not sure what grounds he has to complain. Maybe we should start complaining when as many Georgians have perished as Iraqis − and when Putin throws thousands of innocent Georgians into torture chambers.
Ian Welsh, firedoglake:
NATO, the US and Europe broke their word. They expanded NATO further and further, into what Russia considers its buffer states, states which cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of potential enemies. Russian geopolitics has been obsessed with controlling those states for centuries (along with getting a warm water port). This is not a short term, minor issue. It is at the heart of what Russia believes it needs to be defensible-lots and lots of space. [...]
US and Western policy towards Russia in the 90's was based around a shock therapy transition to a free market. The result of that was an actual decline in the Russian population. US neo-liberal economics applied to Russia killed millions of people. No exaggeration.
the Korean Menace | August 13, 2008, 5:30am | #
As is the favorite sport here at H & R, I call for a massive helping of ... the STRAWMAN GAME! (full-cap yelling and flaming commence).
This year's "Ad Hominim Award" goes to the "dumbest commentary" by Matt Welch. Dumbest commentary, indeed. (note self-referential irony, oh joy!) Guilt-by-noncontextual-association placed a close second.
"Master-of-the-Blindingly-Obvious Award" goes to John Derbyshire.
Yes John, we ARE governed by fools. And Putin DOES know what he wants. And thus, we too must also elect fools that know what they want. Wait, you mean Putin is NOT a fool? Well, why didn't you say so!
James Pethokoukis wins the "Death-by-a-Thousand-Qualifications Award" for "two cheers" for invasion. As if three cheers was too much, we can now conclude that the USA must have political "clarity" in order to reduce the use of foreign oil or otherwise we'll only have one cheer remaining.
Meanwhile, The "Moral Equivocation Award" goes to Andrew Sullivan for the notion that Cheney has the same view of military power as Vladimir Putin. Andrew deftly slipped his main premise of moral equivalence in the first sentence of the quote, ahead of the outrage-inducing oppressed-country death-toll found in the second sentence. The argument of tit-for-tat, combined with a severe case of satirical irritable-bowel syndrome, impressed the judges mightily. Said one, "I think Sullivan's combination of apathy, cynicism, and populist indignity almost gave me whiplash."
And finally, this year's "Award for Best Ideological Harrumph" goes to Ian Welsh for his jaw-dropping claim that US policy actually killed the population of another country. Russia, that is. And thus, the methodology of one credible claim-- namely, that USA policy toward Iraq has led to the death of Iraqis-- is merged with an incredible claim that anything that the USA government does can affect somebody, somewhere, very badly.
Well, we apparently deserve this disjointed display of quote-trolling from Matt Welch. It just goes to prove that somebody somewhere will say something stupid to try and prove a point. Whether or not the points are actually valid remains to be seen.
(clap, clap, clap)
TrickyVic | August 13, 2008, 12:00pm | #
"""The US justification to invade Iraq goes back to the original ceasefire in 1991 which did give us to right to invade if Iraq didn't abide by the terms and all subsequent UN resolutions."""
Show me the text that says it.
1441 does not authorize force. At best it says any means necessary to enforce 660 and here's what 660 says. It's about Iraq invading Kuwait, not the WMD arugment.
RESOLUTION 660 (1990)
Adopted by the Security Council at its 2932nd meeting, on 2 August 1990
The Security Council,
Alarmed by the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 by the military forces of Iraq,
Determining that there exists a breach of international peace and security as regards the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait,
Acting under Articles 39 and 40 of the Charter of the United Nations,
1. Condemns the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait;
2. Demands that Iraq withdraw immediately and unconditionally all s its forces to the positions in which they were located on 1 August 1990;r
3. Calls upon Iraq and Kuwait to begin immediately intensive negotiations for the resolution of their differences and supports all efforts in this regard, and especially those of the League of Arab States;
4. Decides to meet again as necessary to consider further steps with to ensure compliance with the present resolution.
The purpose of in the 1991 invasion was to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, and it makes sense that the UN would authorize resuming war if Iraq tried to re-enter Kuwait. I've looked through the resolutions for an hour or two and I didn't find anything that authorized restarting the war over weapons dispute. I did some hollow tough talk and threats but nothing supporting your claim.
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