Robert Barry, politics should be governed by rationality.
Because character is not a governing factor for
politicians, and never will be, it is only possible to
trust your neighbour when you:
1. know his vital interest, 2. can trust in the rationality of his
politics, i.e. that he goes to war against you only over vital
interests.
This system came to be known in Germany as a Bismarck
type balance. It worked quite well (when we only regard
the time AFTER this criminal attack of the Germans
against France in 1870), although it had the
disadvantage there sometimes needed to be a scapegoat
around. When Bismarcks followers gave up on this
idea, trying to get a bigger share of the pie by claiming it
in speeches laden with emotion and heavenly justification,
they effectively disbalanced the system, makeing it more
and more fragile, and in the end lay the ground for WW I.
A rationalistic politics of interest is a base for lasting
peace.
This is one reason, why in history nations didn't
go on war for parts of their neighbors' population.
They shouldn't have done. It is called breaking
international laws. The idea of current international
laws is that states can be seen similar to
autonomous persons, doing crimes against
other states (but not against themselves), and
being judged for their behaviour by a legal body,
a global tribunal.
A person who cuts off one of his own fingers or
even arms will not be indicted by a legal court.
The legal body of wars faught for humanity must be
the UN, not NATO.
NATO taking action without the UN can claim
international law is on their side just as much
as a lynching group of farmers in a wild west film.
You may claim this is inhuman, cynical, formalistic in
view of hundreds of thousands of refugees and
atrocities being done. You would be right. But you
shouldn't claim anymore that international justice was
done by NATO.
Also, to take a bad example from history, the Germans
went to war against Poland in 1939 ON THE PRETENSE
OF ATROCITIES DIRECTED AGAINST ETHNIC
GERMANS IN POLAND.
Ok, those atrocities were only pretended, but are
you still sure it would be a good idea to anchor
something similar in international law, makeing
possible legalised tyranny of nations over other
nations, once the propaganda has been used
well enough?
The difficulty of introducing a consistent scheme
of international laws for international reaction
on "internal affairs" of one country cannot
and will never be overcome. "International justice"
will stay in the political will of the UN. Or it could
be dumped altogether (never hope so).
MNI |
