----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 12:57 AM Subject: Re: Rhetorical Questions RE: Removing Dictators Re: Peaceful change L3
> Dan, et al, > > OK, I wrote the whole message below, then realized that I'm getting way > too much into argumentation and not nearly enough into being simple and > clear. > > So go ahead and read and tear apart the message that begins with "Dan > Wrote:", but consider this my reply: > > The main thing that promted me to reply to JDG was the phrase "there are > simply no good options." I worry when I hear language like that. I can understand that, but if you look at the preface (now that N. Korea has nuclear weapons) I think it is clear that JDG now considers military options less attractive than they were before. I think this is fair, with capacity for 6-8 atomic bombs, as well as a decent delivery system, N. Korea's government's ability to drag people down with it has increased from roughly a quarter million to roughly 2.0-2.5 million. Plus, with the fuel that can be extracted during the present shutdown, there should be an additional capacity for 6 more bombs....allowing N. Korea to obtain a good deal of money from the right sources by selling these bombs while maintaining the deterrent of 6-8 bombs. >It triggers the "desperate times call for desperate measures" meme, in which > people and nations often become careless about the relative goodness or > badness of options, and start just "killing 'em all and letting god sort > 'em out." That's really my point: I don't want to stop trying to find the > least bad options that are left. I agree with that. I interpret "no good option" as indicating that the demonstration that the proposed path is an extremely unappealing option is not sufficient to reject the path. Rather, it most be compared with the other extremely unappealing options to see which is best to do. The real risk of the US going into a "killing 'em and letting God sort 'em out" mode is a very significant attack on the US. By very significant, I'm referring to something that will kill multiple tens of thousands of people. The main worry for me is a shielded A-bomb in a shipping container, sent to a US address. It hits a major port, such as NY, LA, or Houston and is set off before or as customs inspects it. > -- And now, my "not-as-good option" in replying -- > > Dan Wrote: > > >> On Apr 24, 2005, at 4:03 PM, JDG wrote: > >> > >> > Now that we've let the DPRK gain nuclear weapons, > >> > >> Assuming, that is, that the US rules the world, and therefore is in a > >> position to "let" or "not let" nations like the DPRK gain nuclear > >> weapons. Perhaps we might consider other nations as adults, instead > >> of recalcitrant children that pappa America needs to discipline. > > > > That's an easy rhetorical point which I've never found useful. The mob is > > filled with adults. A police force that looks the other way lets them run > > a city. > > OK, and yours is a rhetorical device that I don't find particularly > useful, either, especially given this administration's disregard for > international legal systems. OK, you don't like the analogy...the point is that one often lets adults do things by not setting up boundaries. But, given the track record of the international legal system with regard to genocide...in particular the fact that international law required government to step aside in the Balkans, I'm not sure that always abiding by it is called for. I asked an unanswered question about the past and potential for future genocide in Sudan. 1) Is the African violation of international law by temporarily stopping the genocide in the Sudan wrong? 2) Would it be wrong for NATO to help them if called upon? > (Almost) nobody in those communities questions the right of the police to > act on their behalf. > What law is the DPRK violating in building nukes, and what "community" > employed the US as its police force? The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is the obvious one. The North Korean government letting their own citizens starve to death is clearly acceptable under the UN; I won't argue that point. >These are not (just) rhetorical > questions. If the DPRK is the mob, then of what community's laws is it in > violation? Would the US would subject itself to that same authority? In > what community would (almost) nobody question our right to act on their > behalf? I wasn't > > One can let adults do damaging things in relationships too...its often > > associated with codependancy. > > I'm glad you brought up codependency. A common -- in fact, almost defining > -- facet of codependent behavior is trying to solve someone else's > problems when they didn't ask you to. Like invading a country to rid it of > a dictator. How sure are you of this? My wife is a psychotherapist and the key for her has been enabling behavior. Letting one's drug addict son have free room and board without consequences is co-dependant. Covering for the mistakes of an alchoholic boss is co-dependant. Denying the bottle under the sink, and saying Mom doesn't really drink that much is co-dependant. Doing an intervention with a friend or relative who is showing an increasing addiction problem is not considered co-dependent. Hearing abuse in the apartment upstairs and intervening is not co-dependancy. We are lucky in that we can collectively, within the nation, intervene with professionals by calling 911 in those cases or reporting suspected abuse to authorities. But, in the world, legal international intervention in, say, the case of genocide, can be and is stopped by governments who benefit from the continued genocide. So, there is no real world mechanism for dealing with this through legal channels. If going through legal channels is critical, one must then regularly accept that genocide will happen from time to time, with the only solice being that some of the weaker perps will eventually be punished. > >> > there are simply no good options. > >> > Are you defending John's statement, "there are simply no good options" > with this history lesson? If Clinton had chosen to do nothing, that would > go some way towards demonstrating that there were and are *no* good > options. But, as you point out, Clinton did chose an option. Is the jury > still out as to whether it is a "good" option? No, it is clear it was not a good option. I think it was the best of a bad lot, but not a good option. North Korea did not collapse, as was considered likely at the time. It still was increasing it's potential for mass destruction, even with the payments. >Did he choose the only remaining "good" option? What is your criteria for a "good" option? Having a reasonable likelyhood of an outcome that poses only modest risk and relatively few deaths. The criterion for good depends on the situation, but I think paying N. Korea to not build more bombs while we know we may only be slowing the build rate down, and while we have to subsidize the N. Korean army in order to keep millions of N. Korean peasants from starving is not a good outcome. > > At the time the North Korean government was willing to starve millions of > > its own citizens to death as an acceptable price for not just changing the > > government, but not changing how the government was run. If Clinton > > wasn't given a third "half loaf" option at the last minute, > > [digression] > I see this a lot in your messages: paragraphs that just sort of trail off > in the middle of a sentence. Is it something technical, or do you start a > paragraph, think of something else to write, and never get back to > finishing the one you left off? I'm genuinely curious. > [/digression] sorry, I thought I finished it. he would have had to choose between 200k South Koreans dead, or a North Korea that was an unconstrained military super power. By unconstrained, I mean that there was no indication that the North Koreans were not willing to risk all as it was collapsing. > > Inexcusable by whom? The UN? Like we care. International courts? Don't > make me laugh. This gets back to the point I made earlier about global > entities to whom the US would subject itself. By moral people. The US will not for the forseeable future subject itself to submission to outside agencies. It's wrong to sit back and let Japan be obliterated by N. Korea if we could stop it. It's also very much against the interests of the US. Combining the two, we have compelling reasons to not allow N. Korea this capacity. > > We have a government that's willing to starve millions of its own > > citizens for some principal. Why wouldn't it be willing to bring down the > > whole region instead of giving up that principal? If we don't stop it, > > when we can, are we not somewhat responsible for that result? > > Without getting too tautological, we can take responsibility for whatever > we choose to consider ourselves responsible. This gets back to your > earlier invocation of codependency. Preventing someone from causing grave harm to us and our allies is not codependant behavior. > Why do we not consider ourselves responsible for the starvation of > millions of N. Korean citizens? Ah, we did. The US led the relief effort to feed North Korea from '94 to '02. It did this, knowing that this action would increase the risk to the US by a N. Korean government that was propped up by our actions. We now know that a lot of this food was diverted to the army, bolstering the military program. >Are we making plans to do something about > that? Why is the /potential/ future nuclear annihilation of millions of > Japanese or S. Koreans worse than the /actual/ starvation of millions of > N. Koreans? In fact, isn't the /actual/ starvation a higher priority, a > greater good? Well, we did intervene before....saving millions while increasing the risk to the US and it's allys. Now, that risk is facing us while we are facing this question again. But, the problem is that the North Korean government is more willing than we are to have its citizens die en mass. Thus, it holds it's own citizens hostage....demanding more money for it's military > We could choose to be in a position to stop all kinds of mass death. How > much of it do we choose to be responsible for? At the very least, when we have a treaty obligation to defend a country in return for considerations in our benefit (defending a demiliterized Japan for 50+ years seemed like a pretty reasonable deal during that time frame). >How much are we willing to give up in order to maximize life? I don't think giving up our liberty is worth it, for example. Although I think Clinton's deal was the best of a bad lot, paying off the N. Korean government so we can feed it's citizens is more problematic now. If we do that while they are increasing their nuclear arsonal, it seems reasonable to assume that they think they can push us further again. The more I think of North Korea, the more pessimistic about the world's future I become. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
