Quote: (i)I am bemused by the moral calculus that produces the conclusion that the United States is morally obligated to use its military might only at the behest of, or with permission of, nations that do not wish it well. These are nations that "do not share America's values, and that affect neutrality between a wronged America, a Gulf War coalition betrayed, and affronted international law on the one side, and the evil of Saddam Hussein on the other."
(ii) Three of the greatest strategic errors of modern times ---
a) Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917
b) Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor
c) the Soviet refusal of postwar U.S. aid in exchange for liberality in Eastern Europe
---involved underestimating the dangers of provoking America. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the authors of the fourthgreat error, the Sept. 11 attacks, may have belatedly understood when, before dawn on a Saturday past, he stood in his underwear, facing the drawn guns of the men who told him America would like to ask him some questions.
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U.N.Analogy: As a parent of several children, several times I have resorted to the "forfeiture of allowance" threat if the bedrooms were not tidied...If the bedroom was not tidied, no amount of whining or sibbling lobbying could succeed in causing withdrawal of "allowance forfeiture"...The children always were offered a choice: tidy the room or forfeit the allowance...(Certainly I wished to avoid the unhappy situation (i.e household crisis) that would accompany my withholding of an allowance, but, if the children chose to ignore my "reasonable" demand of a tidy bedroom, then the children by so doing, chose to forfeit their allowance.)
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Comment: It is beyond any logical reasoning with which I am acquainted why Hussein would not put forth a cohesive disarmament plan rather than put at risk the many innocent lives of his people...(Rather, in terms of the foregoing analogy, Hussein seems to have chosen to hang up one shirt from the heap of clothing on the chair in the corner while choosing to hide the remaining mass of clothes under the bed.)
Just my perspective!!! |
