tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post114650636632964857..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: hurray for the swinish multitudeRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1146669301646646182006-05-03T17:15:00.000+02:002006-05-03T17:15:00.000+02:00Brian, I wonder if "answer" is the right metaphor....Brian, I wonder if "answer" is the right metaphor. It seems to me that these are problems that aren't answer structured, or at least the answers tend to become problems. You can kill the killers, becoming a killer oneself, and death is definitely a quietus, and in many cases I'd be all for killing the killers, but ... I'd be delegating that work.<BR/><BR/>So, on the one hand, an organized force that protected the Southern Sudanese people would be great, and it would be greater if the organized force was African; on the other hand, I know behind that protection there would be a political agenda, and that agenda has long been driven by the desire to make Southern Sudan a separate state, and not a democratic one either, but your usual military dictatorship. It is best not to be naive about that. <BR/><BR/>Interventions don't help for a pretty simple reason, actually: the intervening powers have no desire to give up the vast and continuously accumulating asymettries in wealth. To really do something for Darfut is to really address who gets, for instance, the oil wealth in Southern Sudan. And we all know how itchy the great powers get when the wealth balance tips towards the state that accidentally sits atop the natural resources. Combining the welcome wagon with the mafia has been the tradition in intervention, and it will continue to be unless there is an honest assessment of, and mechanism for dealing with, state interest. States should have interests, and states will have interests, and the identification of those interests with the higher morality is ludicrous. That doesn't mean that a state can't be a bearer of morality, it just means that it is always also a bearer of its material interests. <BR/><BR/>Anyway, enough with my Humpty Dumpty pontificating!Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1146595597143831692006-05-02T20:46:00.000+02:002006-05-02T20:46:00.000+02:00I will grant Raimundo one thing: he is consistent....I will grant Raimundo one thing: he is consistent. I will also grant him this: how will the itnervention really help?<BR/><BR/>Still...it's awful there. And the places you describe. Should we be intervening everywhere? Why here and not there-especially if many of the interventions (most? all?) end up disastrously? I don't have the answer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1146586712470026092006-05-02T18:18:00.000+02:002006-05-02T18:18:00.000+02:00Brian, I'm sure you are right that there is no eas...Brian, I'm sure you are right that there is no easy solution. I'm also sure that I am no keeper of the keys to the sweep of history, as Raimondo apparently thinks he is. I have serious doubts that the interventionist urge in D.C. has really targetted Darfur - in the case of Liberia, which the U.S., by every historical tie, should have intervened in (since we had intervened, in effect, in elevating Charles Taylor), the Bush administration chose not to. <BR/><BR/>I don't have any pocket map of principles that tells me here is a good case and here is a bad case for using military force. Is it a good case to help Uganda fight against the Christian guerillas? Or to intervene more strongly in the various wars in the former Congo (undoubtedly the greatest human rights disaster in Africa)? these are all parts of a whole, I think.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1146521573522105522006-05-02T00:12:00.000+02:002006-05-02T00:12:00.000+02:00Interesting, roger. Somewhat (but only somewhat, ...Interesting, roger. <BR/><BR/>Somewhat (but only somewhat, 'cause our next intervention to spread democracy and peace will cost MONEY, lots of money-which means taxes on the little folk or debt for future little folk's progency).<BR/><BR/>I found the antiwar.com essay on Darfur disturbingly realistic about the real results of an invasion in Sudan for "humanitarian" reasons. I want to believe that we need to "Do Something," but...<BR/>http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8922<BR/><BR/>Is Justin Raimoundo right? I fear so, which means no "easy" solution to the mess.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com