On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 22:40:04 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote > ... virtually no one > thought that inspections were working _before_ the > war.
No one? No one? What is your definition of "working" here? Certainly no one saw Saddam stepping down immediately and no one thought he was particularly cooperative, but are those the only measures that inspections are working? > > And what about South Africa and India? Are they not > > examples of regime > > changes that were accomplished without war? Today, > > are we open to such > > possibilities, which seemed impossible to most > > people before they happened? > > Well, first, no, India is _not_ an example of a regime > change without war. Not at all. India is an example > of a country gaining independence without war, which > is a different thing. Different in a way that matters? India was being run by a group of elites who mistreated and took advantage of the majority of people. Those people were British, rather than locals, but how does that make the situation significantly different from Iraq? Why couldn't the same justifications for the Iraq war have applied to India? > South Africa reformed under > F.W. De Klerk. Are you saying that it was led by De Klerk? Seems to me that without Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, De Klerk wouldn't have budged. Are you saying that this was an example of an oppressive leadership leading itself out of power? > Neither of these regimes had much in > common with Saddam Hussein's. What are you saying? That the British in India were much nicer than Saddam, and apartheid was nicer than Saddam, thus war was the only answer in Iraq because he was a nastier guy? Are you open to the idea that these changes came about without war because of the nature of the leaders of the peaceful revolutions? If the Brits were nastier, do you think Gandhi would have failed? They got pretty nasty, didn't they? Same for the white minority in South Africa. It seems that you look at the oppressors and say they're too powerful to take down without war, while I'm looking at the liberators and saying they're too powerful to be resisted. No empire has ever survived and they're usually brought down by their own arrogance, despite superior military strength. > they didn't > pretend that there was some magic option which could > provide all good things. ... > What's wrong is pretending that _not_ going to war > didn't also have costs. Are you saying that you hear me using make-believe arguments? > Like in Korea? What is the historical parallel for > such a police action? Can you provide _one_ example > of such a thing ever occurring? Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, Haiti, Yougoslavia, Cambodia, Mozambique, and even Somalia... with varying degrees of success, of course. > Neither of which are even vaguely similar situations. > He's not arguing from his conclusion, he's arguing > from reality. Are you saying that I'm arguing from fantasy? I prefer to call it hope and faith. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
