--- Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As Nick (I think) noted already, a 'moral > imperative' > should be essentially unimpeachable, because it is a > softer reason than, say, the other guy has missiles > pointed at your capital.
Yeah, but his argument didn't make any sense, because it was just a wholesale abrogation of moral judgment to other people - people who have an interest in acting in an immoral fashion. All of the arguments you and he make _completely ignore_ that fact. We have many, many examples of different ways in which the countries whose sanctions you advocate us seeking have showed that moral concerns have little or no claim on their stated beliefs. Ignoring that fact doesn't make it less true. > As others have pointed out, he _is_ calling for > action > WRT Darfur, which is laudable. From what I've > learned, it is not possible for the US alone to > intervene there militarily, as our forces are > stretched too far elsewhere. Getting ANC (?) > countries to be major participants in such an > intervention would probably be morally better than > going it alone, as it shows respect for and > confidence > in their abillity to police their own continent. > But > because the Rwanda massecres (sp!!) happened so > quickly, sole intervention then would have been > justifiable to me. > > Debbi But, in fact, whether or not our forces were stretched thin, other countries won't really be helping much, because they don't have the military capacity to engage in a wholesale intervention. The complete collapse of deployable European/Japanese military capacity since the end of WW2 has been one of the untold, and most interesting, stories of international politics. Anyways, yes, getting them to intervene is good, but their intervention has been illegal and unapproved by the UN. You can be in favor of intervention to stop genocide in Rwanda/Darfur _or_ you can say that intervention on moral principles is contingent on international consensus. You _cannot_ do both. They are fundamentally inconsistent positions. The French government, which has veto power in the UN, _aided_ in the Rwandan genocide and denies that there is a genocide happening in the Sudan. As long as they do that, UN approval is impossible, therefore legal intervention is impossible. You can either stand on international law or on the necessity of humanitarian intervention. You cannot do both. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
