Wdtabor wrote:

In article , Frank writes:


snip


Shame on anyone, anywhere for ignoring any such atrocities.


OK, so we don't ignore it. Then what, write a strongly worded letter to
"The Times"?

Or send in troops to take out the monster?

Because monsters like Saddam are not going to stop killing their
opponents, and their relatives and aquaintences, unless they believe that
someone will get up on their hind legs and punish them.

Agreed. I'm sure I didn't say it explicitly before so I'll say it now. I
don't think for a moment that the days of using force are over yet. But I
want to see us working toward that day and I don't see much evidence of us
doing that right now.

You make it sound as if there are only two options: "Do nothing" or "Nuke
the *******". I'll admit that there are scenarios where that might be true
but usually there are other avenues to persue.

As an example take the "sanctions" imposed on Iraq. Many scoff and say they
didn't work and they are right. But we pretty much guaranteed they wouldn't
work by not pressuring others to support them and turning a blind eye when
we knew they were being violated. In other words, we weren't as committed
to using our economic power as we are now to using our military. As a
result we lost much of our moral high ground.

Military force must be a last resort for it to have any chance of being
morally justified.


We may not have known the number of people he killed, but we, and the UN,
knew
it was in the tens of thousands, and neither the UN, nor his Moslem
neighbors did a damned thing about it until the Cop on the Corner showed
up.


I said it badly but I'm talking about going forward. Get the internet into
the hands of the people. While there are certainly fine journalists out
there, the news organizations that we rely on for delivery are failing
miserably and can no longer be trusted to fulfil their role.

I agree that the internet is a great tool for getting inforamtion around
the barriers set up to contain it, but you can't even change my behavior
by posting something critical to usenet, much less the Saddams and Pol
Pots of the world. Sooner or later, you need the presence, or the credible
threat, of troops on the ground to effect that change.

I hope you don't think I was suggesting that posting "Saddam is a big fat
idiot" in rec.soc.heads_of_state would make a big difference......

I'm talking about ensuring a conduit for the free flow of ideas which we
know makes it harder for dictators to gain and/or maintain power. And of
course in times of crisis it can be invaluable for tactical matters. Just
look at how it helped during the attempted coup in Russia some years back.
Or during the Bosnia fighting.

Once again I don't rule out the possibility that troops will be needed. But
I don't rule out anything that has the potential to avoid the need in the
first place. And we also get the benefit of overtly doing something to
promote our ideals.

It's also a way for us to demonstrate to the world that we really mean it
when we talk about free speech. We in America know open dialog is crucial
to democracy so exporting it can only help us in the long run.


Well, exporting the rule of law in the form of a representative republic
would be a good thing, but I would not inflict democracy on even our worst
enemies.

Don

Killing's too good for 'em, let 'em have Congress!
--
Frank....H