From: Adam Flinton 

John Beckett wrote:

> Adam Flinton  wrote in message
> news::
>
>>So what are your people fighting for? It ain't liberty & the rule of law
>>it would seem so it must be keeping in with the Americans. Heck didn't
>>you also send troops to Vietnam for the same reason?
>
>
> I'm not sure you would understand any reason to fight for anything. Also,
> I haven't noticed where you have displayed any understanding of the new
> rules for getting on in the world. Being nice may not cut it any more.
>

It never did. I'm much harsher on this than you may realise. It's about
power. Period. No "liberty" or cr*p like that. It's about power
& the control that results.

Power comes in 2 forms economic (which can kill e.g. sanctions but is
generally "soft" i.e. non-violent) & violent (generally mil,
but also terrorism, assassination etc.)

Economic had been tried & had failed wrt getting control over Iraq
& violent power could not be tried against Saudi because of the
economic damage which would have resulted so the option was political
violence against Iraq.

There is no intrinsic difference between the US blowing up a restaurant
full of people because they though Saddam might be in it & a terrorist
cell blowing up a restaurant because of their pol objective.

It's akin to the fact that the only form of execution I support is
political execution. Saddam for example may well be functioning as a
political figurehead for his supporters & thus more people may die as a
result ergo bullet to the back of the head. Equally some pro-democracy
types might cause trouble which might cause people to be killed en mass so
bullet to the back of the head.

As to who should suffer a political execution, that is simply a political
decision. It simply requires a pol decision (e.g. would sending a man with
a gun into Saddam's cell be a net positive politically or a net negative).

It has to be said that all executions are political executions as there
needs to be a political decsion to have a death penalty, however I discount
the std execution of a std crim as it's murder with no real political
benefit.

So to use the Iraqi example, I would have been fine with a statement of the
political objectives & benefits vs the negatives so that people could
weigh them up (e.g. a democratic Iraq under effective US control will put
pressure on the Iranians & Saudis vs the Arabs may well take against
such action & there may be resistance).

None of this "oh Saddam is a bad man" or "it's for the
benefit of the Iraqis" or "it's in the cause of liberty & the
rule of law" or any of the other cr*p we've been spoonfed. I've taken
against the adventure mostly on the basis that it was based on lies & I
don't like being lied to. If they'd been honest & said "it's
because of the position of Iraq in the Middle East & it's conjoining of
shia holy sites & Sunni ones & if we control it & make it
democratic then the Iranians & Saudis are going to feel the heat
then..." I'd have said fine, but the negatives are...? & if they'd
been stated & the citizenry of the places going to war had said
"those look like political goals I'd like to /I'd like to see my kids
die for" then OK.


> However, you're implication that Australians went to Vietnam in order to
> maintain an alliance with the US is correct. The same reasoning would
> probably have carried some weight in regard to Iraq, but I think there is
> more to it.
>

I doubt it.


Adam

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