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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aladin who wrote (81480)	3/12/2003 2:55:54 PM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We will see what FL does there, Am I taking a quiz? --fl

To: aladin who wrote (81480)	3/14/2003 1:10:51 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

in fact calls anyone supporting a war (and Frank specifically) a child killer. The remark was directed to me. I get the feeling other folk were more incensed than I was. There will be civilian losses in Iraq if the invasion takes place and I think folk have a right to be concerned about it. I think also that some of their conclusions, like S3's, are wrong, but that's a different matter. I sometimes write about these things in rather a bloodless way and I imagine this could get under folks' skins a bit. Ethical or moral arguments about foreign policy are often specific to a given situation and are easy to spoof ("we can't blow up all the bad countries," "why Iraq and not Iran or N Korea," or "why not Saudi Arabia since the 9/11 bunch came from there?" The answers are usually complicated but normally boil down to it's possible in one case and not possible or desirable in the other cases for the reasons.... Also it leaves the ethical/moral arguer such as myself open to charge of hypocrisy. I was rather looking forward to S3's response to me. However the value of an ethical or moral base for foreign policy, in the long term, is that it gives a country respect. I am of course, prejudiced. I believe a foreign policy which relentlessly promotes modernity is an ethically clean one because modernity leads to democracy, justice, freedom of religion, science and prosperity. It is also leads to conflict with those who believe in primacy of rulers, and religion, and who desire to move to forms of earlier times or even imaginary times. No countries are very good at promoting modernity but the US and Britain have been the most consistent. I think since the Cold War the US has fallen down in this area in by ignoring or blurring practical details and by supporting dictatorial regimes there's no longer a necessity to do it. A practical detail example is in the area of domestic subsidies and tariffs. Lifting US argricultural subsidies and tariffs on 3rd world countries would do an enormous amount to grow prosperity and middle classes in underdeveloped places. (And incidentally, be good for the US economy). US support of dictatorial regimes is anti-modern and leads to very hard feelings about the US on the part of citizens in countries that don't have political headroom. The EU can be criticized on the same basis. In many ways its behaviour is worse.