Devil Bush?

[Pure]

A couple questions for Roxanne,

from one who may be 'simplistically beating the drum for human rights.' ---that's the kind of beating that's very bad, apparently.
better the nuanced beating of the drum, that's a little quieter in the vicinity of pakistan, our now valued ally.

R said I am very sympathetic to emphasizing human rights more in our foreign policy. But I'm suspicious that beating the human rights drum simplistically often is motivated by partisanship, not principle.

Leaving that aside to a far more nuance mind than mine...

On the topic of 'inter-nationmorality.'

R: I'm really just kind of thinking out loud there about what I "am" in terms of a foreign policy philosophy. I'm essentially pragmatic, in the plain english sense, not necessarily the philosophical sense, but pragmatism broadly interpreted, so sometimes the effective stance is a Jimmy Carter human rights campaign, because that plays to an opponents weakness. At other times Kissengerian realism makes more sense.
[elaborated in a posting above, as follows]

R: The key concept there is that nation-states still exist in a Hobbesian war of all against all. Do the principles that apply to individuals living in civil society also apply in that environment? I don't know. There's not much point in having high principles if you're radioactive dust floating in the troposphere. On the other hand, might high principles be what it takes to stay out of the troposphere? I don't think it's a simple question, which means it may be simplistic to suggest that it is.

The is a key question. Is there a problem being, like Carter, a gentle Christian privately, then, as Commander being a 'tough guy' who makes alliances with the devil. That's because Xtianity recommends 'resist not evil.'

I would think that for a Randist, the question should quite easy, since on a person level, 'rational egoism' is advocated--it's also expected of others. Other than force and fraud, the other is expect to take no prisoners, but that doesn't justify lying to him.

SO there is NOT an obvious difference in the international arena, where the actors are nation states. Self interest rules.

It's not always "war" per se, as you suggest, but certainly there is struggle; 'take no prisoners' so to speak. so why doesn't a rule based on 'rational self interest' suffice.


Often simple ecomomics prevails internationally; to use your illustration, if France and French companies benefit from Saddam, they go with it. Notice this is just as with the Saudis: If the US and US companies benefit, who cares if they shoot a few 'immoral' women.

So let's consider the virtues, which are the marks of this rational man, individually. WHAT exactly is the problem practicing them internationally--lets say, integrity, and honesty. WHY do these work well for the individual rational being, and NOT for a nation state?

Taking bad acts, you don't like *individuals* that just grab by force; that violates the principle of NOT initiating force (and others). Would the analysis apply to a country, or not? or 'just depends.' If the US can, say, take over Mexico, or a big chunck (as was already done), why not just do it, if the individual rules of morality do not apply?

In short, or all the moralities, ones based on egoism would seem to be in a splendid position to take on questions of inter-nation morality.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

from one who may be 'simplistically beating the drum for human rights.' ---that's the kind of beating that's very bad, apparently.
better the nuanced beating of the drum, that's a little quieter in the vicinity of pakistan, our now valued ally.

R said I am very sympathetic to emphasizing human rights more in our foreign policy. But I'm suspicious that beating the human rights drum simplistically often is motivated by partisanship, not principle.

Leaving that aside to a far more nuance mind than mine...

On the topic of 'inter-nationmorality.'

R: I'm really just kind of thinking out loud there about what I "am" in terms of a foreign policy philosophy. I'm essentially pragmatic, in the plain english sense, not necessarily the philosophical sense, but pragmatism broadly interpreted, so sometimes the effective stance is a Jimmy Carter human rights campaign, because that plays to an opponents weakness. At other times Kissengerian realism makes more sense.
[elaborated in a posting above, as follows]

R: The key concept there is that nation-states still exist in a Hobbesian war of all against all. Do the principles that apply to individuals living in civil society also apply in that environment? I don't know. There's not much point in having high principles if you're radioactive dust floating in the troposphere. On the other hand, might high principles be what it takes to stay out of the troposphere? I don't think it's a simple question, which means it may be simplistic to suggest that it is.

The is a key question. Is there a problem being, like Carter, a gentle Christian privately, then, as Commander being a 'tough guy' who makes alliances with the devil. That's because Xtianity recommends 'resist not evil.'

I would think that for a Randist, the question should quite easy, since on a person level, 'rational egoism' is advocated--it's also expected of others. Other than force and fraud, the other is expect to take no prisoners, but that doesn't justify lying to him.

SO there is NOT an obvious difference in the international arena, where the actors are nation states. Self interest rules.

It's not always "war" per se, as you suggest, but certainly there is struggle; 'take no prisoners' so to speak. so why doesn't a rule based on 'rational self interest' suffice.


Often simple ecomomics prevails internationally; to use your illustration, if France and French companies benefit from Saddam, they go with it. Notice this is just as with the Saudis: If the US and US companies benefit, who cares if they shoot a few 'immoral' women.

So let's consider the virtues, which are the marks of this rational man, individually. WHAT exactly is the problem practicing them internationally--lets say, integrity, and honesty. WHY do these work well for the individual rational being, and NOT for a nation state?

Taking bad acts, you don't like *individuals* that just grab by force; that violates the principle of NOT initiating force (and others). Would the analysis apply to a country, or not? or 'just depends.' If the US can, say, take over Mexico, or a big chunck (as was already done), why not just do it, if the individual rules of morality do not apply?

In short, or all the moralities, ones based on egoism would seem to be in a splendid position to take on questions of inter-nation morality.

That is a cogent and civil post, Pure. I'm still waiting for your reccomendations regarding what our policy will be regarding Pakistan. Meanwhile I shall ponder the points you have raised here.

 

[cantdog]

There are laws on the books against bribing foreign officials and things like that. It's a tricky issue though, because if you squeezed too hard on that front the effect would be no investment in certain countries, which wouldn't help the people there either.

Not exactly. While there are local laws, the companies do not want them enforced, and so they are not. In some cases, there are no local laws.

For instance, they make baseballs in Haiti. Women put the balls, in one of the final steps, in a bath of caustic, by hand. It is a step which shrinks the outer cover down into the layers beneath, and the by-hand process is very much superior. Haiti makes the best baseballs. Once their hands reach a point where they must leave the job, they are let go and replaced. The brain damaged people on the glue step of the process can usually shuffle and drool on far longer. There is no support for these people. No safety steps need be taken, no compensation be paid. All the company needs to do is fire them and replace them, at will. There are no laws which bear on this, no safety requirements. There are laws, however, against organizing. They kill organizers under some regimes, and imprison them in others. You wouldn't like the conditions or treatment on the facilities for political prisoners. Aristide instituted safety inspections, and he was deposed in a coup.

The caustic, like any other waste from indusrial processes, is merely dumped. There are safety regs about it, but the companies make it very clear they don't wish them enforced, and the law at least insures a steady bribe income for the officials involved. Aristide began to enforce those laws, and he was deposed in a coup.

Now you may say these things, these practices, are not pervasive. I believe you are very sadly mistaken. They are not pervasive here in the US, but when it is a question of brown people, the laws are not enforced, either. I can't speak to the bribery aspect, but the laws are not enforced. I believe there is a certain amount of spotlight on the blind eye being turned in employment of immigrant illegals, just now? Organizers get fired in violation of the labor laws, as well.

Which, again, beats an indefinite stay in a beating-and-torture facility. Better place to live, the US, all around, even though the pro-torture anti-due-process bill is being voted on here very soon. The average guy who has come such a long way doesn't want his hands tied, as the constitution suggests they should be.

Laws here in the US about bribing officials abroad can be and are avoided by basing the "home office" somewhere else; but even that is not necessary, since, as you note, no one here squeezes too hard.

It's a complex and messy world, Cant, as you know, and simplistic answers can look pretty dumb when they crash into the on-the-ground realities in many places.

The kinds of fraudulent coercive actions we all condemn are not the norm, but they do happen. Should the law be more proactive in responding? Probably, but there are limits, and you don't want to throw out the baby of investment with the bathwater of corruption. Mixing metaphors here, it's not always easy to separate the sheep from the goats in such matters. That's just the reality, and idealistic or politically motivated posturing won't change it. (I am not accusing you of posturing - not even close.)

I don't recommend visiting Haiti without a sponsor, one with clout. But it is absolutely the norm, as I say.

About the baby of investment. That is precisely the problem, the investment, or more exactly, the loans and the debt. You are mistaken again to imagine that the result would be less investment. The result is coup, assassination, or intervention; the investment continues without check. That's the result of local authority enforcing any sort of pollution or labor law, not a mere reluctance to invest. You have to remember where you are.

These men go directly to the palace and demand to know what the meaning of this is. Complaints come back North. More visits are paid to the palace, and the process of coercion, attack, and replacement begins. And all this is happening, slower or faster, throughout the places which the empire can reach. Certainly in this hemisphere to the south. It is not only pervasive and normal, it is clearly policy. I think it is a venal policy. I detest the whole thing. I find myself resenting your earlier ideas that the poor victims of this policy require an almost hopeless 'education' before it can be relinquished. That is a very arrogant statement, right there, about people who can muster more courage in the defense of their freedom that you and I will ever be called upon to do.

I join your salute to the courage of the Haitian people. And yet, somehow courage is not enough, is it? They know what they are against, but they don't know what to be for. Often times this plays out as opposing the current "strong man" in favor of a different "strong man."

Again, I remind you of the utter unreliability of the calumnies you will hear about the elected popular leaders in these places. And the lies are much more over the top the closer to the action you get. In Haiti, stump speakers claimed Aristide had sacrificed a cock for its blood, for a vodou ritual, on the floor of the Haitian parliament! We didn't hear that one up here, we heard horror stories about burning tires.

I said above, "My favorite recent foreign policy formulation was GWB's in the Al Gore debate, when he spoke against "nation-building" and said we need to be "humble" in our estimation of our capabilities on such things."

Okay, but I think you might have had a different formulation if you knew what the policy meant on the ground in more detail.

With that in mind, probably the best thing the U.S. government can do is to first do no harm by butting out. Private institutions have a better chance to do the work that needs to be done there.

Butting out? Quitting empire altogether? Letting the investors in Haiti and places like it fight their own battles with city halls down there? That might be something like halfway fair. You must be thinking of something else.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I believe that the picture you paint is a caricature of the overall picture, and I distrust your sources for some of the specifics, but I do not doubt that very bad things happen in those parts of the world where the rule of law does not hold, or is weak. You and I will not agree about the big picture, so there is no point in beating that dead, er, Shang might drop in sometime - you know what I mean.

That said, as fellow liberals, classic sense, there are many things upon which we can and do agree, and I am glad to join you in discovering what those may be.

 

[cantdog]

So what about self-determination, as a concept? Banning torture? These are classical liberal ideas.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

So what about self-determination, as a concept? Banning torture? These are classical liberal ideas.

Cant, self determination is the only way the middle east is going to work. If they choose a totalitarian government, so be it. The Iraqis chose Saddam, so why did we even go there?

As far a banning torture, the U.S. signed the Geneva Convention fifty years ago. At that point we agreed not to use torture. If a "Prisoner of War" is captured, regardless of his status as a militia, soldier or simply a citizen protecting his homeland we may not torture him.

When the Geneve Convention was signed this didn't seem to be a controversial issue. So why is it now?

These are no "liberal ideas".

 

[Pure]

roxanne,

you say,
I'm still waiting for your reccomendations regarding what our policy will be regarding Pakistan.


P: i gave an opinion a couple days back, on pakistan:

P: //as to my opinion, i'd say the US was closer to a sensible approach when it, in 1998, banned transferring highlevel military stuff to Pakistan, because of its nuclear armed belligerance with India,//

IOW if you have to deal with them, sell 'em potatoes rice; basic medical supplies-- and rifles of wwii design, if you must, not F-16s.

Please note that the 'deal with the devil' idea didn't work so well with Osama, did it? (giving him lots of weapons, helping set up hide outs, etc.

It's all very well to keep saying, "yes, take Stalin as partner to defeat Hitler," but these tired WWII analogies have severe limits.

--
And in today's news, Mr. Karzai called for the closing or restricting of Pakistan's madrassas. Mr. Bush, following Mushareff [who makes HIS deals the devil] has not done anything about this, or even brought up the issue. VERY ODD. In the war on terror, ignore the situations where kids are schooled to hate the US. The 'war on terror' is not only inept and foolish, it's half hearted. The US government benefits, one might observe, from continuing low level terrorist attacks.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

roxanne,

you say,
I'm still waiting for your reccomendations regarding what our policy will be regarding Pakistan.


P: i gave an opinion a couple days back, on pakistan:

P: //as to my opinion, i'd say the US was closer to a sensible approach when it, in 1998, banned transferring highlevel military stuff to Pakistan, because of its nuclear armed belligerance with India,//

IOW if you have to deal with them, sell 'em potatoes rice; basic medical supplies-- and rifles of wwii design, if you must, not F-16s.

Please note that the 'deal with the devil' idea didn't work so well with Osama, did it? (giving him lots of weapons, helping set up hide outs, etc.

It's all very well to keep saying, "yes, take Stalin as partner to defeat Hitler," but these tired WWII analogies have severe limits.

--
And in today's news, Mr. Karzai called for the closing or restricting of Pakistan's madrassas. Mr. Bush, following Mushareff [who makes HIS deals the devil] has not done anything about this, or even brought up the issue. VERY ODD. In the war on terror, ignore the situations where kids are schooled to hate the US. The 'war on terror' is not only inept and foolish, it's half hearted. The US government benefits, one might observe, from continuing low level terrorist attacks.

OK. By the power invested in me, the F-16 contract is hereby canceled, and the repo man has been discpatched to reclaim the ones there already.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

So what about self-determination, as a concept? Banning torture? These are classical liberal ideas.

OK. I'm easy.

~~~

 

[Pure]

Rox OK. By the power invested in me, the F-16 contract is hereby canceled, and the repo man has been discpatched to reclaim the ones there already.

P: yes, it's amusing, isn't it. almost trivial whether to arm the military and police of a country which threatens nuclear attack on its neighbor, where dissenters are tortured, rape victims are punished.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It is trivial, actually, or at least the F-16s are. They are presitigious status symbols for the generals that have little if nothing to do with the real situation there.

 

[Pure]

sure, trivial indeed,

since it's just tax money from the US, involved.

how about shipping a few thousand of the lastest version Stinger missles for the boys in Pakistan--you know, to defend the borders against the bad guys.

 

[cantdog]

Cant, self determination is the only way the middle east is going to work. If they choose a totalitarian government, so be it. The Iraqis chose Saddam, so why did we even go there?

As far a banning torture, the U.S. signed the Geneva Convention fifty years ago. At that point we agreed not to use torture. If a "Prisoner of War" is captured, regardless of his status as a militia, soldier or simply a citizen protecting his homeland we may not torture him.

When the Geneve Convention was signed this didn't seem to be a controversial issue. So why is it now?

These are no "liberal ideas".

I was speaking historically. The 'cruel and unusual punishments' mentioned in our constitution's bill of rights predate the Conventions. The notion of banning them is one of the flowers of classical liberal thought.

And it is controversial now because, I believe, of Korea. POWs returning from Korea were quite changed, and the process the Koreans had developed came to be known in the press as 'brainwashing.' Needless to say, we found it ugly and reprehensible.

We also found it, in military circles, and especially in intelligence circles, to be a new technology, a new set of techniques, very effective, which the enemy had and which we did not. We set about closing the technological gap with a vengeance. Soon we had an even better set of 'brainwashing' tools of our very own. We experimented with various drugs and various psychological techniques until we felt we really had something. Of course, under our own laws, it would have all been illegal to use in most cases.

So we trained a lot of covert agents in the techniques, and some other sorts of folk, and we used it. We also taught them along with other torture methods in the School of the Americas, when it was in the Canal Zone.

Because we have this wifty toolbox, we naturally would feel very frustrated if we never got to employ any of the tools.

That's why it's controversial. There are many people who have made a career in the field.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

since it's just tax money from the US, involved.

how about shipping a few thousand of the lastest version Stinger missles for the boys in Pakistan--you know, to defend the borders against the bad guys.

Is that your foreign policy recommendation, Pure?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I was speaking historically. The 'cruel and unusual punishments' mentioned in our constitution's bill of rights predate the Conventions. The notion of banning them is one of the flowers of classical liberal thought.

And it is controversial now because, I believe, of Korea. POWs returning from Korea were quite changed, and the process the Koreans had developed came to be known in the press as 'brainwashing.' Needless to say, we found it ugly and reprehensible.

We also found it, in military circles, and especially in intelligence circles, to be a new technology, a new set of techniques, very effective, which the enemy had and which we did not. We set about closing the technological gap with a vengeance. Soon we had an even better set of 'brainwashing' tools of our very own. We experimented with various drugs and various psychological techniques until we felt we really had something. Of course, under our own laws, it would have all been illegal to use in most cases.

So we trained a lot of covert agents in the techniques, and some other sorts of folk, and we used it. We also taught them along with other torture methods in the School of the Americas, when it was in the Canal Zone.

Because we have this wifty toolbox, we naturally would feel very frustrated if we never got to employ any of the tools.

That's why it's controversial. There are many people who have made a career in the field.

Once again, your description is a caricature of reality, based on dubious sources promoting partisan agendas. Which is not to say that there are are not kernels of truth there which represent reprehensible exceptions to the norm.

 

[Pure]

a message from my favorite foreign policy analyst,

and an excellent idea to be applied with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and so on:

Genuine freedom lovers of all political stripes should speak out loudly and uncompromisingly. This is not a time to adopt a "the enemy of my enemy ...is my friend" position. That is a cynical, unprincipled thing to do when real tyranny is afoot, and is detroying the lives and life chances of real people in large numbers.

----
another little vignette from the US State department report. quite amusing, Roxanne?

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61710.htm

US State Dept Report on Human Rights:

[Pakistan]
Security force personnel continued to torture persons in custody throughout the country. Human rights organizations reported that methods included beating; burning with cigarettes, whipping the soles of the feet, prolonged isolation, electric shock, denial of food or sleep, hanging upside down, and forced spreading of the legs with bar fetters. Security force personnel reportedly raped women and children during interrogations. [...]

Court rulings mandate the death sentence for anyone blaspheming against the "prophets."

 

[cantdog]

Once again, your description is a caricature of reality, based on dubious sources promoting partisan agendas. Which is not to say that there are are not kernels of truth there which represent reprehensible exceptions to the norm.

I'm terribly sorry, Roxanne, but I was there after Korea. I heard the news reports. Many of the experiments with truth drugs and others are completely public knowledge now. Members of our armed forces undergo a course in how to be a POW, and how to combat psychological methods while in captivity. I have talked about those courses with many people who went through them.

So the toolbox is real. The use of it in the cold war spy and counterspy world was also real.

I saw some of the filmed and videoed propaganda releases that captors of men using these tools produced, and so have you. In them, the prisoners seem to be willingly reading statements repudiating the powers which sent them. Much as the 'brainwashed' ones out of Korea did. My sources for most of this amount mainly to my own experiences. Also, some declassified reports of drug experiments, uniformly carried out after Korea was over.

I would have thought all this entirely uncontroversial. It's ancient history, most of it. You hardly imagine that all of a sudden, after developing all this, we would wilfully forget it?

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Cant, self determination is the only way the middle east is going to work. If they choose a totalitarian government, so be it. The Iraqis chose Saddam, so why did we even go there?

As far a banning torture, the U.S. signed the Geneva Convention fifty years ago. At that point we agreed not to use torture. If a "Prisoner of War" is captured, regardless of his status as a militia, soldier or simply a citizen protecting his homeland we may not torture him.

When the Geneve Convention was signed this didn't seem to be a controversial issue. So why is it now?

These are no "liberal ideas".

Jenny, I like you and all, but the notion that the Iraqi people "chose" Saddam is laughable. As for self-determination, well, it's all well and good up to a point. We only fight and attack people who attack us or back those who attack us or whom attack our allies. Well, that SHOULD be the case. As a model, it would mean defending Kuwait and helping the Northern Alliance, but would also mean continuing to rely on the Iraqi people themselves to deal with Saddam.

The truth is that Saddam's regime was already in bad shape. There's a very good reason he didn't have WMDs: he couldn't afford them. There were Kurds in open revolt in the North and Shiites in the South. He had no-fly zones all over the places, and a country on the verge of collapse. He was no real threat. It was an old score for Bush to settle and a chance to expand his war powers.

Chavez is evil, too, though I don't favor armed intervention. In time, with enough discontent, he'll be a thing of the past. Either he will be voted out of office, or he'll reveal himself as an undeniable tyrant by refusing to step down when voted out of office, at which point even his staunchest friends will be forced to admit that he is a dictator. Then, of course, his support will evaporate.

Armed intervention should be limited to purposes of true defense, not to oust all dictators or to install friendly regimes. As John Quincy Adams said, "We must be the friend of liberty everywhere, but the guarantor and provisioner of ours alone."

If being a dictator was enough to warrant Marines and Army Regulars marching through and ousting a leader, there's always Castro or Mugabe, not to mention Kim Jong Il. Any one of those is even worse than Chavez.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I'm terribly sorry, Roxanne, but I was there after Korea. I heard the news reports. Many of the experiments with truth drugs and others are completely public knowledge now. Members of our armed forces undergo a course in how to be a POW, and how to combat psychological methods while in captivity. I have talked about those courses with many people who went through them.

So the toolbox is real. The use of it in the cold war spy and counterspy world was also real.

I saw some of the filmed and videoed propaganda releases that captors of men using these tools produced, and so have you. In them, the prisoners seem to be willingly reading statements repudiating the powers which sent them. Much as the 'brainwashed' ones out of Korea did. My sources for most of this amount mainly to my own experiences. Also, some declassified reports of drug experiments, uniformly carried out after Korea was over.

I would have thought all this entirely uncontroversial. It's ancient history, most of it. You hardly imagine that all of a sudden, after developing all this, we would wilfully forget it?

Cant, it would be foolish to deny that abuses have occurred, sometimes on a large scale, and I am not a fool. What I do not accept is that such things are the norm, at least in the U.S. services. This is not due to Americans having any monopoly on virtue, but for the following reason: Given the explosive political nature of such events if revealed to the American public by the press or in other ways, and the fact that in general people can't keep their mouths shut (the reason I don't believe in conspiracy theories, aliens in Roswell, etc.), if such things were the norm there would be a constant stream of news stories. The fact that when such an even occurs it's big news (Abu Graib) is to me a strong indication that it is not the norm. This does not apply to societies that aren't open like ours, and in which the population takes for granted that their military and security forces do such things.

On the other side, there is a tremendous incentive for those with certain particular political agendas to inflate or even make up "evidence" that such things are commonplace in the U.S. services. Such sources lack credibility. I add these things up and conclude that, yes, bad things happen in the world more often than any humane person can tolerate, and on occasion Americans are responsible, but the examples of the latter are not commonplace. Call me naive and pollyannish if you insist - I don't believe I am.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Jenny, I like you and all, but the notion that the Iraqi people "chose" Saddam is laughable. As for self-determination, well, it's all well and good up to a point. We only fight and attack people who attack us or back those who attack us or whom attack our allies. Well, that SHOULD be the case. As a model, it would mean defending Kuwait and helping the Northern Alliance, but would also mean continuing to rely on the Iraqi people themselves to deal with Saddam.

The truth is that Saddam's regime was already in bad shape. There's a very good reason he didn't have WMDs: he couldn't afford them. There were Kurds in open revolt in the North and Shiites in the South. He had no-fly zones all over the places, and a country on the verge of collapse. He was no real threat. It was an old score for Bush to settle and a chance to expand his war powers.

Chavez is evil, too, though I don't favor armed intervention. In time, with enough discontent, he'll be a thing of the past. Either he will be voted out of office, or he'll reveal himself as an undeniable tyrant by refusing to step down when voted out of office, at which point even his staunchest friends will be forced to admit that he is a dictator. Then, of course, his support will evaporate.

Armed intervention should be limited to purposes of true defense, not to oust all dictators or to install friendly regimes. As John Quincy Adams said, "We must be the friend of liberty everywhere, but the guarantor and provisioner of ours alone."

If being a dictator was enough to warrant Marines and Army Regulars marching through and ousting a leader, there's always Castro or Mugabe, not to mention Kim Jong Il. Any one of those is even worse than Chavez.

I pretty much agree with all of this. I'm a bit less optimistic about the ability of Venezuelans to throw this guy over when he reveals beyond any question his true nature, though. The instrumentalities of oppression are very effective once the dictator has consolidated his power, and this situation is made worse by the curse of oil - he will have all that loverly money, just like Sadaam and the Arabian despots.

I am not saying "send in the Marines." I wouldn't shed a tear if he woke up one morning with a 9 mm headache, though - right between the eyes. Delivered by a Venezuelan patriot, of course.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I pretty much agree with all of this. I'm a bit less optimistic about the ability of Venezuelans to throw this guy over when he reveals beyond any question his true nature, though. The instrumentalities of oppression are very effective once the dictator has consolidated his power, and this situation is made worse by the curse of oil - he will have all that loverly money, just like Sadaam and the Arabian despots.

I am not saying "send in the Marines." I wouldn't shed a tear if he woke up one morning with a 9 mm headache, though - right between the eyes. Delivered by a Venezuelan patriot, of course.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Pure]

9mm

It appears Reason sometimes dictates--or approves--assassination.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

It appears Reason sometimes dictates--or approves--assassination.

Why not? Wouldn't killing Hitler have been a moral act? How about Julius Caesar? Were Brutus and Cassius wrong to slay him, in the defense of the Res Publica? How about Nero? Caligula? Domitian? Was it wrong to slay those tyrants? What about Marat, who called for the slaughter of over a quarter million dissidents?

 

[Pure]

same old-- note to cant

Rox On the other side, there is a tremendous incentive for those with certain particular political agendas to inflate or even make up "evidence" that such things are commonplace in the U.S. services.

P: It occurred to be some time ago that the Right does not have the same reality as others. What would normally be evidence is not.
Try to get agreement on any newspapers or books, even the most mainstream, as reliable sources. Listen to GWB on looking through the eyes of faith. (I don't have the quote in front of me.)

It's particularly ironic that those Rightwingers who talk of 'objectivity' 'reason' and facing reality are the least able to deal with facts. Theirs is a kind of faith; if you show a fossilized dinosaur bone to a Baptist, it's not evidence of a dinosaur, rather, "This is a test of God, something made to look old, a fake, to test our faith."

The training of Latin American police forces in torture is unsettling to a few of the honest Republican, the Chuck Hagels; but accepted by most of the center and left. To the mainstream Republican, the Rightist, like Reagan, it's a non-fact.

From Roxanne and co you only hear, in these cases, where the facts seem literally to scream to others, talk of motives, slurs on patriotism etc. "That picture of torture is likely a fake; but, on the one is a million chance it may be a picture of some isolated incident, you have a left agenda and hate America." Amicus is blunt; Roxanne insinuates.
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R Call me naive and pollyannish

P: No, rather a Woman of Faith.

 

[Pure]

sev, have you ever noticed that when a right winger is asked an embarrasing question or faced with such a fact, the talk turns to Hitler?