January 01, 2004
Wars
I'm regularly participating over at dailykos, and I'm surprised at how many people are opposed to the Iraq war because it contrasts with the first Gulf war. "Well, we had an international coalition for the first war, so that was okay, unlike this one." I didn't think there was so much support for the Gulf war among Democrats back then.It's interesting to think of Democrats and what wars they have supported or not supported. I'm not exactly an isolationist like a lot of the ultra-left people are. But I think if you asked any Democrat to explain their stances on the Gulf War, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the Iraq war in order, while also fully reconciling their moral war code among all of them, it would require a lot of nuance. I'm interested in hearing more of that nuance because I'm not sure a lot of people have that nuance. Such as much of the GOP supporting Iraq while being against Kosovo when Clinton was in power.
Kosovo is the one I know the least about - I just was not paying attention to either that or Rwanda, although in Rwanda's case it's easy to be in favor of intervention. I think the best way of reconciling Kosovo with Iraq is to focus on two things:
- In Kosovo, the governmental body that recognized an imminent threat against them (and actually had one) was the one that took action: NATO. In Iraq, if there was an imminent threat at all, it was only against the region, and yet it was the U.S. taking action.
- In Kosovo, they were (arguably) able to make the case that there were no more options other than force to use. In Iraq, they didn't really even try.
I personally wasn't in support of the Afghanistan war either because it honestly seemed like that focusing on an international police/detective action might have had even better results. The force seemed more like it came out of a desire for vengeance.
Who is this international police force? Not the UN. The UN depends on using the armed forces of some (actually a very small number) of its members. It would have taken another few years, maybe more, and then the UN would have requested that the US military do most of the heavy lifting. It's the perfect answer. The UN could skim a lot of cash. Eleventy six star General HumpdyRump of the Peoples Republic of Macarena would be put in charge of half the Delta Force, getting a substantial number of them killed and the western world would have had a lot of fun criticizing US actions.
There is no "International Police" force.
rjk
Posted by: kestrel at January 1, 2004 10:27 PMWhat on earth are you talking about? I didn't say anything about a mythical police force. I talked about an international police action which very well was taking place - intelligence services of multiple countries all working in parallel, sometimes collaborating, sometimes not, but getting results. Afghanistan was even offering to give up Bin Laden due to the pressure.
Posted by: Curt at January 2, 2004 01:24 AM