Category: Politics

Recently, the Observer reported on US plans to punish Germany by pulling out US troops. This would hit Germany’s economy fairly hard.

Glenn Reynolds covered this in one post.

Two days later, Chirac threatened Romania and Bulgaria for their pro-US stances. Reynolds covered this, and covered this, and covered this, and covered this, and covered this, and there are another four or five references which I won’t link.

Atrios, who’s more or less Glenn’s counterpart on the left, hit the Rumsfeld issue once and hasn’t commented on Chirac’s threats. No points for ignoring Chirac, but points for relative consistency.

I think both Chirac and Rumsfeld were over the line, and I think it’s hypocritical to harp on one while ignoring the other. It seems to me that both statements reflect a fundamental confusion about the definitions of ally and enemy; or, more accurately, they reflect a failure to realize that there’s something in between. Germany and France are not saying that they’ll oppose the United States militarily if we invade Iraq, they’re saying they don’t think we should do it and they won’t vote for it in the Security Council. Similarly, the European countries supporting the United States aren’t threatening to invade France if France doesn’t stand aside, they’re just disagreeing.

It is somewhat disturbing to see disagreement treated as if it were active threats. The first country to threaten force in the US/Europe dispute was, um… us. The second was France. Neither the French or US citizens should be proud of either action.

First off, the families of those killed or injured in the South Korean subway tragedy have my utmost sympathies. I want to make that clear up front, since I’m about to use it as an example to support my thesis regarding the future of terrorism. I wish it had never happened. I also know it wasn’t terrorism, but it’s relevant nonetheless.

One person, acting alone, killed over 140 people in a single action. It didn’t require a lot of technological ingenuity, nor did it require the backing of a rogue state. He just tossed a flaming container of liquid into a subway car. Not too difficult.

What’s more, he was immediately jumped by other passengers. A pack, not a herd — but it made no difference. It’s nice to think that through group action we can thwart terrorism, but we can’t. We can be effective. It’s good that the guy was caught quickly. But citizen action isn’t going to stop all of these.

I’ve seen arguments that the tragedy wouldn’t have happened in New York, because we have better safety measures. Probably not this particular incident, nope. Other incidents? Sure; surely the fall of the WTC taught us that we haven’t considered all the safety possibilities. Further, that line of thought brings us to the world in which we can’t buy a steak because there are carcinogenic chemicals in meat, and I’m not too fond of that world. Things are too cotton-wrapped already. (Safety versus liberty, again.)

A world in which all rogue states are gone is not a world without terrorism. There are more than enough examples of individuals and non-state backed terrorist groups to prove this. We can’t stamp out terrorism that way.

And then I wonder: how did we go from this to this?

It’s almost like a bandwagon. Tony Blair said today that Blix will report to the Security Council again, on February 28th. Getting kinda chilly out there by yourself, Bush.

Planned Parenthood. This restriction affects some of the groups which have been working to fight STDs the longest.

Meanwhile, there are lawsuits pending in Iowa against InnerChange, an organization that received funds from Texas under Bush’s earlier faith-based initiatives. In fact, Bush has cited InnerChange as the kind of faith-based program he wants to fund as President. This isn’t necessarily proof that Bush intends to break down the wall between church and state, but even if he’s aghast at this sort of thing, it does tend to show that his faith-based initatives have failed to include proper controls in the past. Kevin Drum has the whole story.

Japan has threatened to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea. This is pretty much right on the edge of violating the World War II surrender terms. Possibly those are obsolete and should be reconsidered anyhow, but I’d like to see that done under less frantic circumstances.

Man, I’m glad I don’t live in Northeast Asia right now.

Edit: Thanks to my anonymous commentor for correcting my geography.

In honor of Jon Carroll’s 2/11 column, and inspired by my friend R. Francis Smith, I present the Candidate X Store. Candidate X: he doesn’t like killing people. It is, in my mind, a perfectly chosen phrase.

Everything there is priced at cost; I don’t make any money off ‘em. The slogan is thanks to R. Francis.

Eugene Volokh provides me with an excellent launching point for some stuff I’ve been mulling over lately. He’s discussing recent polls which may show that the British public is not behind the US war on Iraq. In his wrapup, he says “I hope British public opinion is not being accurately reported here. But if it is, then just reflects the errors of the British public, not the errors of a hawkish policy.”

While (given his assumptions) there’s some validity to that stance, it fails to recognize that simply being convincing is an important goal for any diplomatic policy. If Bush’s hawkish stance turns Britain against the United States, and as a result Tony Blair is voted out and Britain joins the Franco/German coalition, it is not unreasonable to count that as a cost of the hawkish policy. At some point, one has to stand back and say “Wait a second. Perhaps it is not mere coincidence that the populace of so many European countries is upset with us; perhaps we might have put our case better.”

On my drive into work this morning, I was contemplating the rather aggressive actions France and Germany have taken lately. A lot of people are acting like this is some kind of inexplicable surprise. Well — you know, a lot of people warned of this several months ago. If the US takes unilateral action, they said, the world will turn against us. That foreign policy of Bush’s, they said, is going to make a lot of people very concerned. At the time, many claimed that the polls showing anti-American sentiment were just biased fluff, and that no rational nation would get upset about Bush’s preemptive doctrine.

Apparently, those who were concerned were right to be concerned. The question is not whether or not France and Germany are behaving rationally; the question is whether or not Bush’s policies will alienate much of the world. The answer, now, is obviously yes. Discussion of Bush’s policies must take into account the cost of that alienation; we can talk a lot about whether or not it’s worth it, but you can’t deny that it’s happening.

And in that regard, it might be wise to consider cautionary statements about the reaction of the Middle East to the actual invasion. Maybe — just maybe — those who warned us about the consequences in Europe are right about the possible consequences in the Middle East.

Baddish news on the UN front, from my point of view. Well, potentially bad. France, Germany, and Russia are working on a Security Council resolution which would do a number of things none of which include sanctioning a war on Iraq. It does include peacekeepers, which is interesting. Powell is upset that he learned about it from a press report. Takes respect to give respect, which Powell no doubt knows but he’s gotta register a complaint anyhow.

I regard this as potentially bad because I would like to see the Security Council agree on something, and increased divisiveness between the various factions ain’t gonna help anything. On the other hand, there’s a distinct possibility that this is a diplomatic ploy. The countries wanting something other than a US-led non-sanctioned war on Iraq haven’t had any coherent counter-proposal yet. If the Security Council winds up considering something like this, it gives in particular Turkey and the rest of the potential US allies in the region something to rally behind.

As Bush has demonstrated with his aggressive diplomacy vis a vis Saddam, it helps to have a stick. A resolution which might sap support for the US is definitely a stick. The question in my mind, however, is whether there’s a carrot in the other hand. Hope so.

I dunno, it’s like I feel some weird obligation or something. Saith Professor Reynolds: “essentially a pro-democracy, anti-dictator — and hence pro-war — student organization…”

It’s kind of hard to tell, since that’s a pretty terse argument, but I think that’s a fallacy of composition — he’s pro-war, as a consequence of his anti-dictator and pro-democracy stance, so everyone who’s anti-dictator and pro-democracy must therefore be pro-war. But since he doesn’t lay out the steps, preferring to just leap to the conclusion, one can’t be sure.