On Dec 12, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Milo Velimirovic wrote: > > On Dec 12, 2008, at 9:08 AM, Chris Gehlker wrote: > >> >> On Dec 12, 2008, at 6:05 AM, Stefano Mori wrote: >> >>
>>> >>> Still, old Saddam might have just choked on a date one day and >>> dropped >>> dead. Then who'd be to blame? (for the ensuing tribal warfare?) >> >> Isn't that essentially what happened in Yugoslavia when Josip Tito >> died? Didn't the whole Western world feel some responsibility to stop >> the violence and genocide? > > Not really. Josip Broz Titio died in May 1980, fully a decade before > the 'govno' hit the fan in the Balkans. It took years for Slobodan > Milošević of Serbia, Franjo Tudjman of Croatiato stir up latent > nationalism to the point where it turned into warfare. It didn't have > to happen that way. Once the dissolution of Yugoslavia occurred in '91 > it was obvious to anyone familiar with the region what could, and > eventually did happen. The tragedy is that it took so long for NATO > and the UN to do anything beyond hand wringing. Point taken. Still there seems to be a continuum running from 'nations have an obligation to intervene whenever they can prevent violence and genocide' through 'nations have an obligation to prevent violence and genocide in their conquests' to 'nations should never intervene in the internal affairs of other countries'. Then there is the Rudy Giuliani view that 'Iraqis have an obligation to constantly express gratitude to the US for the "gift of freedom". Any undesirable consequences of said gift are solely the fault of the Iraqis.' --- Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
