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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (219548)	2/19/2007 2:50:37 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Considering what busy bees we've been with covert ops I hope not... But my logical and restrained views on when to declare war are not going to be followed by everyone. Clearly.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (219548)	2/19/2007 3:17:14 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If we sent Marines into Tehran to help Iranian rebels blow up some mullahs, would that be an act of war? Of course! But only by your standards. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the obverse would be true. If they kill off our Marines, take over our Embassy in violation of the most sacred principles of international law, and defile it further by taking diplomatic hostages, you must understand that they are merely playing by different cultural rules which you don't seem to comprehend. We are not to be guided by objective rules which apply to all nations across the board because the possibility of confusion and mistake is too great. It is best to abide by the rules to which the particular state adheres. Do that and, pooof!, no problem. If your culture is sanguinary, if you and yours think an Embassy is nothing but a "nest of spies", then cultural instead of legal norms should prevail, and our failure to appreciate theirs is simply our problem and not a cassus belli. Ipse dixit, ipso facto. If blowing up priceless Buddhas in Afghanistan is simply a reflection of the prevailing fundamental Islamist ethos, then the rest of the world should understand. And while I'm on the subject of art, if head hacking takes place on video, maybe they are just boning up for film school and a bit of harmless performance art. Ditto blowing up buildings. How can you blame them for simply doing what they do? It would be like asking a scorpion not to bite or a dog not to bark. Surely international law can accommodate these realities. If stoning an adultress is the norm, lump it. She should have stayed faithful and in that black sack. If antisemitism is the way to go, it's the way to go. Heck, Hitler's bit of performance art should be celebrated, not denigrated.