Pavel
Posts: 308
Joined: 1/10/2005 From: Washington Status: offline
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I initally had planned to make this an intelligent post, but given the 30 odd pages I've written for my poli sci 400ish classes in the last 4 days (yeah, I know, I'm sure someone out there has written much more, but not useing my brain), I'm not sure I'm going to make a whole lot of sense. Anyways. As to the original post. The United States is hardly the most moral nation in the world. Before some smug bastard out there decides that grants his/her nation some kind of higher moral ground, it doesn't. There are no countries without dirty laundry. (and as an aside, before someone suggests Vatican City, read up on the Papal States please.) Time and time again we support people who are nasty evil folks because they're our nasty evil folks, or they're somehow useful to us for the short term. Why? Because it's often a realistic solution to a realist world. Idealism is fine, idealism is great, idealism wouldn't stop an angry old lady at your gates. What has idealism done? I'm sure when the Kellog-Briand pact was signed, it made lots of sense, but what value did that piece of paper have once someone decided it didn't matter? Did that lil piece of paper actually make war illegal? It might have, but did that matter when the rubber hit the road, or as the case was, did that paper stop the Panzers at the Polish border? We use nasty evil people because they are useful tools sometimes. The squeeky clean upstanding moral sort rarely has the skills and contacts we need for our own nasty work. I suppose what I'm getting to is this, nations only act within moral rules and standards if they either stand to gain from that compliance, or the consequences of violateing those standards are so dire that it's not worth the effort. Anyways, I'm certainly not a fan of keeping an airline bomber as a guest of the US. I do think we should have deported him once we'd used him up.... And ok, my paper on globalism and strategy has sapped my will to continue typing. bleh.
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