Blair Is Risking Career for War
From London's Guardian:Tony Blair yesterday admitted he was risking everything politically on his determination to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, as he briefed MPs on his belief that President George Bush and the rest of the UN security council will endorse a second resolution backing the claim that Iraq is breaching UN resolutions.
That, Mr. Blair, is statesmanship, and it is heroic.
For a Foreign Policy of Self-Interest
Today I sent the following to J.P. Avlon of the New York Sun, in response to his column Thursday entitled "Eagle Foreign Policy":Dear Mr. Avlon:
In your column Thursday, "Eagle Foreign Policy," you argue that by appeasing dictators we make it appear that "America is just another great power motivated solely by self-interest." Yet your whole argument is that it's not in our self-interest to appease dictators. So which one is it?
Is it in our self-interest to support pro-freedom forces? Isn't that what we would do if we were "a great power motivated solely by self-interest"? By your argument, then, wouldn't we be hurting our image abroad by doing so?
Too many people thoughtlessly blame all the world's evils on the pursuit of self-interest. But the terrorists who attacked us did not do so for any conceivable selfish reason. They did not want to live; they wanted us to die. In the past century, both fascism and communism denounced self-interest as the ultimate evil, and aimed to create a society based on altruism. Yet both slaughtered human beings in numbers unprecedented in human history.
Meanwhile, the changes that have improved life immeasurably for billions of people across the world--rail transport, electricity, the automobile, air travel, refrigeration, the computer--these and many more are the products of self-interest. Where is the Mother Theresa who could hold a candle to the life-giving power of Edison, Ford, or Bill Gates?
The generally accepted idea of self interest as involving sacrificing others to one's aims is incoherent and needs to be completely rethought; otherwise, we will face nothing but ethical false alternatives. Case in point: Later in your column, you quote George W. Bush: "We've got to be humble and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom... If we are an arrogant nation, they'll view us in that way, but if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us."
George Bush is wrong. The only "humility" that will satisfy our critics is our total abdication of leadership, for to them any projection of strength or assertiveness by a world power is selfish and arrogant. To try to win respect by catering to such a viewpoint is to sacrifice our interests and our security.
But arrogance vs. humility is a false alternative--and until we reject these kinds of stale philosophical commonplaces we are going to be led around by the nose, following those who would use such ideas to manipulate us.
Mandela and the Left’s Agenda
Former South African President Nelson Mandela continues to discredit himself. Quoting the January 30, 2002 edition of the Washington Post,Former South African President Nelson Mandela lashed out at U.S. President George Bush's stance on Iraq on Thursday, saying the Texan had no foresight and could not think properly....Mandela's comment about "unspeakable atrocities" is coming from someone whose followers used to burn their opponents to death in flaming automobile tires. Perhaps he thinks these acts pale in comparison to the "innocent people" who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But no civilian who remained in Japan or supported the wartime Japanese government can be considered innocent. Moreover, to the extent that any actual innocents did die in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their deaths were the moral responsibility of the Japanese government who put them in harm's way. Civilians have no right to expect to live unharmed in an aggressor nation.
"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq," Mandela told an audience in Johannesburg. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust...."
"Both Bush as well as Tony Blair are undermining an idea (the United Nations) which was sponsored by their predecessors," Mandela said. "Is this because the secretary general of the United Nations (Ghanaian Kofi Annan) is now a black man? They never did that when secretary generals were white."
Mandela said he would support without reservation any action agreed upon by the United Nations against Iraq....
"Because they decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still suffering from that, who are they now to pretend that they are the policeman of the world?..." he asked.
"lf there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the United States of America...They don't care for human beings."
To give the devil his due, however, Mandela's comment about "wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust" was not about war in Iraq, for he claims to support any U.N.-sanctioned action against Iraq. Presumably, what he thinks would plunge the world into a holocaust is the undermining of the U.N.
Of course, abandoning the U.N. would be probably the best thing the U.S. could do for world peace. But Mandela's remark is worth noting because it is a clue to the left's agenda. Their denunciations of unilateralism are increasingly hysterical because, like the courtiers in the tale, they know the emperor has no clothes, and they think they can keep everyone else from finding out by means of moralistic intimidation.
But the crucial point is that they are threatened. They have no rational basis for their beliefs, they know it, and they're afraid everyone else will find out.
Is God on Our Side?
It's reassuring to think that God will protect us from tragedy or defeat. But that belief has two dangerous implications. One is that courage is unnecessary and unreal. The crews of Challenger and Columbia weren't actually taking risks or showing bravery... because their fate was in God's hands.In short, belief in God makes no sense. But belief in a lawful reality that can be understood and conformed to--that does make sense. Such a reality, in the long run, rewards those who conform to it and destroys those who rebel against it. That is the truth hidden behind the phrase "God's non-neutrality."
The other implication is that tragedies are God's will.... "God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans," Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi, an Iraqi government employee, told Reuters. That statement is certainly false and despicable. But on a day when six Americans and an Israeli have fallen from the heavens, if you think God is fighting for America against Iraq, Mr. al-Quraishi has a better case than you do....
In the skies over Baghdad, as in the skies over Texas, God's non-neutrality is a guide, not a promise. If Iraq insists on building weapons of mass destruction, we must fight not because God will protect us, but because He won't. [William Saletan, Slate.com, 2/1/03]