Aftenposten's Per A. Christiansen is no friend of terrorism. But do we really have to use all those big words to describe it? Words with meaning, words that sear, that raise eyebrows, impolite words:

[Bush and Blair] are the foremost international representatives of a view which makes [the war on terrorism] into a moral war, a struggle of good against evil. Blair just spoke of the "evil" terrorists in Istanbul represented. And Bush underlined the two countries' will to "fight and defeat this evil, wherever it may exist".

President Bush in particular has a habit of phrasing him self in this Old Testament way. It is no coincidence that it was he who presented the expression "the axis of evil" about the presumed enemies of the US. And he keeps using the word "evildoer" about both Saddam and other enemies.

Evil is such a strong word. How much better to say merely that we disapprove of terrorism, that we shall "fight and defeat this nuisance, wherever it may exist". We're not at war with terrorism. We're having an argument. Blowing up random strangers on the street is not evil, it's rude. That whole "moral" way of speaking is so out of fashion, haven't you heard? People keep telling me that "killing people is wrong", that "terrorism is evil", and I'm like "Hey, you, go thump your Bible on somebody else's head, ok? Am I thumping my books on your head? Stop oppressing me!"

Unless Bush and Blair convert their moral language into diplospeak real soon, Christiansen fears a holy war:

It is one thing to fight terrorism, a fight which deserves the broadest possible support. It's something else to use military force to fight the world's evil. Then you're quickly in something that reminds of a holy war. Or a jihad, as Osama bin Laden would have said id.

I don't buy into the "Europe is doomed" argument popular with some Americans. Seems to me they rather enjoy turning Europe's anti-Americanism on its head, ("you're depraved and doomed", "no you are"), and that explains a lot of it. But this op-ed is evidence for the prosecution.

Don't forget: This is written the day after a major terrorist attack against Muslim and European interests, and it's one of few op-eds in Norway to even mention the attack. Christiansen dedicates one paragraph to condemning what he refers to as a "misdeed", and nine to criticizing George W. Bush and Tony Blair for their choice of words in fighting these "misdeeds". He picks this day to (implicitly) defend the terrorists from the charge that what they do is evil. Why? And why today?

Bush and Blair do not speak the language of holy war. They speak the language of fighting a specific threat to the world, which they correctly refer to as evil. They do not claim to fight in the name of the Christian God. They do not speak of preserving the purity of Western culture against Islamic corruption. But the mere use of that single word, evil, to describe their enemy, is enough to ring all alarm bells in the head of Per A. Christiansen, even trigger an association to bin Laden himself.

Now let me ask a question: If terrorism is not evil, why are we fighting it? Perhaps we shouldn't? Perhaps Christiansen will address this some other day.

Cultural relativism disallows judgment statements regarding another person and his/her beliefs, actions, etc. Your beliefs are not bad, just different. This is a good thing in a culturally diverse world.

What if, however, your beliefs intrude on my my beliefs? Then, within the boundaries of cultural relativism, we can discuss the problem (assuming you are also a cultural relativist) and come to a solution. This is a good thing in a culturally diverse world.

What if, however, your beliefs are repugnant to me in a manner that is unbridgeable? We can (since we are both cultural relativists) decide not to be a part of each other's lives. It's a shame, but there is no real harm done.

At no point is it acceptable to say, "I'm right and you're wrong." Cultural relativism does not allow for that. Nobody is wrong. We're just different.

What if, however, your beliefs cause you to murder innocents, subjugate and entire class of people, and wreak havoc on the world? Is it still the right thing to say, "Nobody is wrong. We're just different."?

This is where cultural relativism breaks down and the lunacy of the language and attitude that many people want to use in this context, as you point out, Bjorn - becomes laughable.

This is not a cultural issue that can and should be resolved with a nice sit down discussion. Neither should the language adopt a tone that evokes that idea.

Until people like this fellow can unequivicollay say, "We're right and they're wrong", we'll continue to see this futile attempt to bring this back to the table of cultural relativism, where we all just need to tone down the harsh language and undertsand each other.

Cultural relativism has one important exception: if it can be construed as being anywhere right of center, it's fair game, i.e., "evil," "terrorist," whatever.

Just ask Noam Chomsky (or for that matter 1/Noam Chomsky, Ann Coulter).

I guess the basic question should be asked: is anything evil? Is everything permitted? Can I just stick in pencil in the eyes of a little child on the playground if I feel like it?

I'd love to hear some opinions by people who think that terrorists aren't evil-- they're just unfortunates who haven't had the same chances in life that us privileged Americans/Jews/Christians have had.

How do we define evil? Is everything permissible? Where does one draw the line? If I feel like it, can I go to a playground and stick a pencil in a little child's eyes? If not, why not?

Calling people "Old Testament" is yet another way to sneer at them. Maybe Mr. Aftenposten would feel differently if he were blown up while at work, and he were left to vegetate blinded and missing two legs and an arm.

I'm afraid that many of the people who see no evil are people with a lack of imagination. They need to see the body parts of their friends and family strewn about the room before they think things through.

Sorry to be so morbid, but a foul wind is blowing, and the "smart set" is too in love with its own smug and hackneyed views.

Sorry for the double posting. I first tried to post around 4:00 PM, but it didn't seem to go through. Now it's after 7:00 PM, so I thought I'd try again. I did not mean to repeat the same idea twice!!!!

However, since I did repeat myself, I hope some people who think Bush is too "Old Testament" will take up the challenge and respond to my questions.

Aftenposten's Per A. Christiansen latest piece is truly pathetic, and sadly representahle for the sad state that Norwegian journalism is in.

Again, I find it amazing that what used to be a "conservative" Norwegian newspaper, is now in bed with the International Socialist type-protestors in London.

Cultural relavtism and political correctness has posined any debate in Norway, and don't see it getting better any time soon.

The word evil is not inappropriate when describing terrorism. However, it is not a good term for being specific about the problem we are trying to solve. “What’s this war all about?” “Oh, don’t worry we are just fighting evil!” “OK.. sure, go on then.” It does not make much sense. Most terrorist methods are truly evil, but if we do not try to look beyond the “evil-label” our understanding of terrorism will be imperfect, and consequently the countermeasures taken will often be inappropriate. I am not sure if the Bush administration has any kind of insight into why terrorists hate America so intensely. I am not at all saying that the USA deserves terrorism. My point is that the USA does not seem to be interested in why terrorism occurs, and why so much of it is aimed at the USA. I am not happy with the argument. They are evil. Find them and kill them. Persecute every member of Al Qaeda, I have no problem with that. But don’t fool yourself into believing that they are crazy, irrational, inhumane people “who hate freedom”.
The efforts against terrorism must take into consideration preventive countermeasures. Overreacting is actually counterproductive. Chop one head of the hydra and two new heads emerge! I strongly recommend this column from the NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/index.html

Friedman actually supports the war in Iraq, so he is not dovish. The op-ed “The way we were” is among the best short pieces I have read on terrorism. It relates to our earlier discussion on “hiding”, being open and not letting terrorists shape who we are. Another op-ed from NYTimes the same day (Maureen Dowd) describes the US thusly: “A nation motivated by fear and ready to lash out at any country it defines as the source of a gathering threat. Instead of a shining city, we have a dark bunker.”
To create fear is a goal in itself for terrorists. Regrettably, they are successful. How do you deter a suicide bomber? Ask the Israelis, they have tried it for some time with no success. It can’t be done without seriously violating the full spectrum of human rights. Executing the families of suicide bombers might stop it. Stalin would have succeeded in a war on terrorism but sometimes the cured get worse than the deceased.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/opinion/23DOWD.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists

"I don't buy into the "Europe is doomed" argument popular with some Americans."

Dare I ask you to explain why you don't, Bjoern? I'd like to believe it - I have a big soft spot for "Old Europe", but there's much to be pessimistic about, it seems to me.

Ian

Anders,

Maureen Dowd (aka MoDo) is not a serious columnist.

For a sense of how the problem is viewed in the US, here are a few things to try:

Michael Scott Doran, "Somebody Else's Civil War"
http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/papers/76.html

Paul Berman, "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/23GURU.html?ei=5070&en=46a4c0a290d9b812&ex=1069822800&pagewanted=all&position=top

ibid, "Terror and Liberalism"
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/18/berman-p.html

Demosophia's review of Berman's book.
http://demosophia.typepad.com/demosophia/2003/09/a_review_of_pau.html

Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim Rage
http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith//courses01/rrtw/Lewis.txt

Daniel Pipes, "The Western Mind of Radical Islam"
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/273

Here's a paragraph from an amazon reviewer on this book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815716885/qid=1069678268/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-9487997-2504730?v=glance&n=507846

"Dick Cheney experienced a transformation after September 11, 2001. He immersed himself in studying Islam and the Middle East, meeting with the top scholars on the subject: Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami. These scholars argued that toppling Saddam would send a message of strength and enhance America's credibility throughout the Muslim world. Having spent time with such tutors, the vice president became the chief advocate of the neoconservative position. Thus, if one can argue with Dick Cheney's position on Iraq; surprisingly, one can't argue he had not consulted the top minds on the subject. With 20/20 hindsight, it is easy to rebut the Administration Iraqi policies. However, it is more challenging to navigate the quicksand of foreign policy. Nevertheless, the book does an excellent job of clarifying one's hindsight on such matters."

For a better sense of what that means, do some googling for Fouad Ajami and Bernard Lewis or, better, read their books.

See also _The Age of Sacred Terror_, by two members of the Clinton administration's NSA team.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812969847/qid=1069678651/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-9487997-2504730?v=glance&s=books

Sam Tannenhaus's interview with Paul Wolfowitz is also interesting:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html

Also, if you have a fast connection, see this video with US foreign policy types (including Ajami) about a week after 9/11:
http://www.cspan.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=ajami

Ian, here are two books which look optimistically towards Europe's future:

Calleo, _Rethinking Europe's Future_

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/069111367X/qid=1069680162/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-9487997-2504730?v=glance&n=507846

Elizabeth Pond, _The Rebirth of Europe_

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815771584/qid=1069680230/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-9487997-2504730?v=glance&s=books

TM -

Maureen Dowd is no less serious than any other columnist. I find her annoying, but disagreeing with her is different from disparaging her as not being serious.

And although I am an avid reader of Pipes, Lewis, and the others you mention, they are not emblematic about how things are viewed in the U.S., nor are these an exhaustive list of experts in the Middle East. The State Department is full of Arabists who also can claim expertise, and it's pretty clear Cheney doesn't give them much consideration.

This week's New Republic has an interesting article on Cheney's radical perspective on U.S. foreign policy, which is based on the premise that the best long-term source of security for the U.S. is to ensure that there are more democracies in the world. Anyone who paid attention will know that the real reason for the war in Iraq was to destabilize a whole block of dictatorial Arab regimes in the hopes that democracy will break out instead. It's a radical idea the merits of which don't get nearly enough attention in Europe, but let's be clear that it isn't a watertight case, either. Occupying a country to introduce autonomy has been done, but it's really hard to do.

I think the administration would be better off explaining that this is a noble experiment borne out of unassailable strategic interests, rather than a no-brainer.

Anders,

In regards to: "...the USA does not seem to be interested in why terrorism occurs, and why so much of it is aimed at the USA."

I think you are correct at some level, but many in the USA do investigate, and do try to understand the root causes.

Those in the USA that do investigate the causes of terrorism find that it is almost always boiled down to two things:

1. American support of Israel. The only acceptable Israel to terrorist muslims is a destroyed and non-existant Israel.

2. Misinformation from their own tyranical dictators, who place blame for their people's poverty and suffering at the feet of the USA and Israel. While they enjoy living like a king (literally), they have somehow convinced their own people that it is the USA's fault that they live in squalor.

Niether of these things is actually a policy that we can fix. According to the terrorist apologists we could end terrorism if the USA would simply

1. stop supporting Israel and let them be overrun by Syria, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Iran , etc. and,
2. stop the oppression of the people of the middle east.

Point one is impossible becuase we won't abandon an ally to be overrun.

Point two is immposible becasue it is actaully their own leaders that are oppressing them, not the USA.

Anders,

In regards to: "...the USA does not seem to be interested in why terrorism occurs, and why so much of it is aimed at the USA."

I think you are correct at some level, but many in the USA do investigate, and do try to understand the root causes.

Those in the USA that do investigate the causes of terrorism find that it is almost always boiled down to two things:

1. American support of Israel. The only acceptable Israel to terrorist muslims is a destroyed and non-existant Israel.

2. Misinformation from their own tyranical dictators, who place blame for their people's poverty and suffering at the feet of the USA and Israel. While they enjoy living like a king (literally), they have somehow convinced their own people that it is the USA's fault that they live in squalor.

Niether of these things is actually a policy that we can fix. According to the terrorist apologists we could end terrorism if the USA would simply

1. stop supporting Israel and let them be overrun by Syria, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Iran , etc. and,
2. stop the oppression of the people of the middle east.

Point one is impossible becuase we won't abandon an ally to be overrun.

Point two is immposible becasue it is actaully their own leaders that are oppressing them, not the USA.

Anders: I agree - we're not fighting terrorism merely _because_ it is evil, but has anyone ever said that? Has the US said that it will now dedicate itself to uprooting evil, wherever it may be found, and that terrorism is merely one form of evil they will fight, or has it said that it will now dedicate itself to uprooting _terrorism_, and underlined this by pointing out how evil terrorism is? The latter, obviously. There's no confusion on the part of Bush here - only among those who object to presenting the war on terrorism in a good-evil perspective. But speaking of good and evil is not the same as justifying the war on terror as a "war on all the world's evil", which truly would be scary. Even when the phrasing has been unfortunate (like Bush's one-time "crusade"), the meaning has been clear.

So I do not see a problem with using "evil" fairly often to denounce terrorists. Terrorism is evil. We need to be reminded of this, because political realism (our enemy's enemy is a freedom fighter) is still with us, in various forms. Not just among old Cold War fighters, but among supporters of the Palestinian cause, who have become very skilled at tolerating and rationalizing terror in a good cause, and more recently among peace movements after 9/11. How else can we describe the belief that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's regimes should be preserved, merely because their enemy was the US, than as a paranoid form of political realism? The US, too, paid lip service to human rights as it made alliances with anti-communist dictators. How are today's peace friends any different? And they don't even have the threat of any greater evils to justify themselves with.

I wouldn't be surprised if we can attribute some of the current American foreign policy idealism to the role of national conscience played by the left during the Cold War. Now the peace movement has lost its conscience, and needs some reminding of what is important and what is not. Cutting through the neutered diplospeak many now speak in is part of this. We should beware not to overstate our case for rhetorical effect, but in this we're just speaking clearly: Terrorism is evil. Al-Qaeda is evil. Saddam Hussein is evil.

Ian: Somebody else asked me about that too. Have to think it through first. Might write a post about it.

Bjørn, Your response is good. However, I don't fully agree. Is the Al Qaeda group evil? Yes. Why are they evil? Because they are terrorists. Are the separatists in Chechenya evil? Are they terrorists or freedom fighters? Not a clear cut case. Russia labels them terrorists, many others would label them legitimate freedom fighters battling oppression. Personally I do not know what to label them. The people who took hostages in the theatre are terrorists, but the people targeting Russians in Chechenya is a more complicated matter.

My point is that the usage of 'evil' is contributing to a lack of precision in terms. All of a sudden all non-state groups that take up arms are labeled terrorists. And terrorists are evil. Evil must be fought, and states seize the opportunity to strike down very hard without the scrutiny of the international community. Tell the US that you are dealing with terrorists and your hands are free.

We get caught in our rhetoric when we are not carefully selecting our terms. Give me a good definition of evil!! And if such a defintion were possible, who is to determine what is evil in this world and what is not? Abstract terms of morality are not specific and lead us into a maze. Terrorism is a form of evil, as you state, but evil is not a form of terrorism.

Houston: Israel is spot on. This is a place where it would be an exaggeration to claim that the US has followed a pro-Islam policy. The US supports Israel regardless of what Israel does. Israel is combatting terrorism. (There is no doubt about that.) And consequently their hands are free.

Poverty, on the other hand, is another issue. There is no direct link between poverty and terrorism.

Bjorn, you made an excellent point via the American tendency. There is a rather acute form of schadenfreude in the American response to European nastiness now.

I fear this will be permenant now. There has always been anti-Americanism in Europe, but there has only been desultory and sporadic anti-Europeanism in America. This is all changing now due to the connectiveness of the internet, which is putting anti-US feelings constantly to the fore in the American intelligentsia's hands.

Simply put, anti-Americanism quickly disseminates now. And it reinforces because while the attention initially comes from the American intelligentsia, it filters down into popular prejudice. I fead at this point we have something that has never been had in US history: a permenant constituency of anti-European, anti-EU, anti-Central Europe bias.

There are signs it's become deeply felt, as well. I've been noting that even Leftists in the US take cheap shots at Europeans, which is a bad sign that anti-European feelings are running deep.

This is more damaging than you might think. Baseline prejudices are going to be hard to dislodge, and Europeans are among the few groups of people not protected by the polite dance of political correctness, which means that Americans can unload with both barrels.

Anders: Maureen Dowd is not a serious columnist. She's a "pundit" in the worst sense of the word. The New York Times has been very weak in understanding the War on Terror. You would be much better off reading the writers on the suggested reading list in the comments section on this website, the National Review Online, or the Weekly Standard.

The so-called "neoconservatives" are doing the real thinking these days. The so-called "liberals" are lost in time, somewhere around 1975.

Re the question of evil: I know some Europeans find it hard to believe that Americans have any brains. Unlike many "intellectuals," the people who do the thinking about U.S. foreign policy do not sit around all day trying to find definitions of "evil" so they can fight and destroy it. No, what is motivating U.S. foreign policy is the understanding that the non-Islamic world is under threat by the Islamists, or Islamofascists, who have barbaric goals and the ability to deal death to thousands or millions because of the nature of modern WMD.

Now, I suspect you will want to argue about what is "barbaric." Feel free to argue. Meanwhile, I hope the U.S. goes about the business of destroying the evil that is upon us. If "Old Europeans" want to opt out of the world of problem-solvers, well, that's their choice.

However, if the Islamofascists win, civilization as you know it will not exist.

In a much earlier comments section I mentioned a book that helped me understand much about U.S. foreign policy. It is Walter Russell Mead's Special Providence, c 2000.

I recommend it because it analyzes the many threads in U.S. policy, and it also explains a lot about the differences between the U.S. and various European countries. It's a lot to read, but well worth it. You can skim much of it.

Leif,

You write:

"I think the administration would be better off explaining that this is a noble experiment borne out of unassailable strategic interests, rather than a no-brainer."

This brings us back to Bjørn's point that there are "reasons," and then are "justifications."

Do you believe the Rummy-Cheney gang misjudged the ability of a significant portion of the U.S. citizenry, and of course most of the chattering 4th Estate and much of "world opinion," to handle the unvarnished "reasons" for our emergency intervention in Islamdom.

Were Rummy-Cheney and kid brother Dubya mistaken to assume that a spoonful -- or perhaps a bucketful -- of "justifications" were mandatory in order to help the medicine go down?

In this vein, how does one, I wonder, have a serious discussion with Peace Now folks (bless their hearts) when they insist on maintaing they've been "lied to." It looked to me that the "reason/justification" approach in the build-up to the Irak intervention was transparent, almost guileless.

How can anyone seriously claim to have been beguiled?

Who could _not_ know that this was swamp drainage, urban renewal, a pyromania pre-emption project?

They HAD to know!

No?

Og K . . .

Yes, they (the so-called peaceniks) HAD to know what the swamp-draining plan is.

The U.S. government still has to move carefully. It can't say everything in plain English.

For example, I can say in plain English that the Saudis are our enemies. Surely that is obvious to anyone who reads a newspaper. But the U.S. government can't come out and say "You're next, motherfu...rs," even though they're thinking it and planning it.

Og K, I reread your post and note that you are rather contemptuous of Bush. I too was a Bush-hater during the fight over the 2000 election, but slowly gained a lot of respect for him. Check out a fairly recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly for an article entitled "The Mind of President Bush." You may reevaluate him too, as I did.

Totoro: However, if the Islamofascists win, civilization as you know it will not exist. This may be true. However, I also believe that the world as you know it does not exist. You seem to be deep into a religious war between Islam and Christianity already. That is not the case. But you may eventually be right. Especially if the USA continues to pursue its imperialistic ambitions in the Arab world. Imposing democracy militarily is nothing short of empire building. Think more closely about the terms: Unilateralism, overreaction and Exceptionalism and constructive engagement. We create the world we live in to some extent. Sneer at others and they will sneer at you. I am not saying that one should underestimate real threats in the real world. My point is that one should not overrate the significance of “a few very bad men”.
For whom is the world safer after the war in Iraq?? Turkey?? England?? The USA?? Israel was alleviated of a threat. I will also agree that US civilians have become more safe inside the USA, the contrary outside of the USA. Because now everyone who wants to shoot at Americans can do that in Iraq! Where are we heading when Bush and Powell hardly dare to visit London!!! I don’t feel safer now. Because the USA has demonstrated that it neither cares about nor needs the support of the UN or its traditional allies.
One should not only seek out consonant information. The WORST piece I have read for a long time on foreign policy was recently in the mentioned Weekly Standard. In my opinion, David Gelernter, Professor of Computer Science at Yale should continue studying computers. It was called “Bush’s rhetoric deficit”. This does not provide me with a better understanding of what foreign policy is, however it was truly disturbing reading this. His cardinal argument was:
“A bloody tyrant is overthrown that fact dominates all others. “I told you so” is our line”
You have to keep in my mind that the NY Times is one of the major newspapers of the world. It ranks among Le Monde, Frankfurter Algemeine, The Times and the Washingon Post. The Weekly standard has no place on such a list. Do not denounce too easily the view of the majority. Does that mean that NYTimes is good and WS is bad? Not necessarily. But the fact that the views you are expressing are close to non-existent outside of the USA should be a reminder. Is the rest of the world wrong, or am I wrong? Is Bush always right?

Regarding Maureen Dowd. Is the Pullitzer Price an award for journalists who are so unsuccessful that they need some kind of relief? I thought it was for distinguished commentary? Her writing skills are phenomenal. However, her constant ridicule of politicians will make her opponents lose sight of her arguments. She is preaching to the congregation.

I haven't taken the trouble looking back at all the newspaper articles, speeches, etc. before the war started, but I remember vividly that the Bush administration gave *several* reasons why it was necessary to invade Iraq. One was related to WMD; another was a more or less vague tie between Al Qaeda and Saddam; a third was an even vaguer notion of Pax Americana; and the fourth - mostly articulated by the neocon wing - was that a democratic Iraq would create a kind of benign domino effect in the Arab world.

As it turns out, the WMD argument wasn't as strong as people expected (hence, people feeling misled); the Al Qaeda tie may have been more real than previously supposed, though perhaps not that persuasive; Pax Americana was mostly a left-wing projection; and the neocon view is the one that's being brought out now.

I was kinda convinced by the neocon argument. I think the Arab dictatorships present a huge threat to world peace for many reasons, and I think it's depriving a population of more than 200 million people of basic rights. Saddam was probably the worst despot still in power, and his WMD program presented - at least in the long run - a real threat to the West. Weapons inspections weren't the least bit helpful. Etc. Etc.

But I think there were only a few who paid attention to the neocon argument, and even fewer who bought it. And in any event, it's a radical, risky strategy - many things can go wrong with it. It's like Desert One - the leaders look like heroes if they pull it off, idiots if they don't.

Thanks for the book suggestions, tm - I'll have a look at them. And Bjoern, I hope you do post on this topic - I'm always keen for good news.

Ian

& PS, seeing this is my first post here - keep up the good work. I enjoy your blog a great deal.

I wouldn't characterize Maureen Dowd as a serious columnist. Just as Paul Krugman is clearly not a serious economist.
Both of these individuals are driven by extreme partisan politics and have made countless factual errors in recent coulumns.

In todays media picture, I have far more respect to the Blogoshere and the Weekly Standard than New York Times or Aftenposten.

Leif,

Yes, you're right about "the view in the US." I didn't put that well but what I had in mind was Anders' doubt about the Bush administration having any kind of insight into the problem. The views of Ajami, Lewis, and Pipes are listened to. Berman's a different case but in view of Bush's rhetoric about the failed ideologies of the past in relation to the present crisis there's a definite parallel. And the Doran piece is a good articulation of the view that it is best to see this, in the first instance, as a civil war within the Islamic world.

But I do think that Dowd is not a serious columnist. Here's an explanation from Josh Chavetz of Oxblog:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/741snfel.asp

The Belgravia Dispatch has also given her an appraising glare.

Johan,
Paul Krugman, however, is a serious economist, one of the best. His columns are a different genre.

Totoro,
The Weekly Standard and the National Review both advance an ideological line, and I don't think they should be treated as authoritative sources. Sometimes they can be quite polemical and even downright propagandistic. I think it works better if you also read from other parts of the spectrum: The New Republic, The American Prospect, The Nation, Mother Jones, and The American Conservative.

Better still, stuff like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and New Perspectives Quarterly.

Gee, where to begin, anonymous??

--You seem to be deep into a religious war between Islam and Christianity already. That is not the case. But you may eventually be right. Especially if the USA continues to pursue its imperialistic ambitions in the Arab world. Imposing democracy militarily is nothing short of empire building--

You're not paying attention or listening to what is being said. We are. I'd rather impose democracy militarily than Islamofascism by nuke, bioweapons and car bombs, which BTW, might be on the way to America.

We're not talking about a "few bad men." We're talking minimum low millions, if not at least 20 million.

Is the world safer?? In a way, YES - we're more aware of the possibilities of attack and we're paying attention.

The UN is nothing but a thugocracy, look at the breakdown. It's a USELESS interfering organization, trying to make itself relevant so those who work there won't have to get real jobs in the real world. How well are they doing in Kosovo? East Timor??? Where'd the UN's cut from the oil-for-palaces go?

As to "traditional allies" those are the anglosphere. We welcome New Europe, they get it. Old Europe is still fighting their wars of history. Frankenreich is trying to do by law what it couldn't do by hundreds of years of war, rule. Yet the laws it agreed to aren't to be followed (budget busters).

The NYT is not the paper of record anymore, they're too biased. The world holds on to the has-been because it reflects their thinking, not America's. It's resting on its' laurels.

And yes, the world is wrong. It's not the first time, it won't be the last, but this is going to be deadly. Our traditional allies have learned nothing, hoping to feed America to the alligator so it'll be fed last.

--Johan,
Paul Krugman, however, is a serious economist, one of the best. His columns are a different genre.--

hahahahahahahaha - not any more, he's a partisan political hack. There's at least 3 bloggers who monitor Herr Doktorperfessor.

Sandy P., a great post! I agree with everything you said above. I also enjoy your posts on Europundits and Little Green Footballs.

I've noticed that so many people who are against Bush's policies are not really paying attention to what's going on. It's as if these issues are theoretical, rather than actual. For example, so many seem disappointed that WMD was not found. However, there is abundant evidence that Saddam's regime had the capability to create a dangerous program as soon as the sanctions were lifted.

Life is not a James Bond movie. This is real, folks. Can you imagine what life would have been like 10 years from now if Saddam had his bomb, his long-range missiles, and his anthrax or other diseases?

And what about Iran? Everyone seems pretty relaxed about that new nuclear power.

The car bombs in the U.S. have been predicted. We'll see if that occurs. I, for one, often think about bus bombings on the route I take--it would be so easy.

What kind of disasters will it take for the o-so-sophisticated to take the dangers of Islamofascism seriously?

Totoro, they know what's coming, who would want to face it? But face it we must, we're not going to be surprised.

I read a story a blogger posted after 9/11 - a Jew (prominent, I think) was interviewed either right after being released from a camp or around 1947, can't remember which. He said this, "When someone tells you he intends to kill you, believe him."

1998 - OBL stated his terms of American surrender.

July (?) 2003 - AQ printed it's manifesto.

Surrender terms are coming from Indonesia, Malaysia, sermons, even London. They refuse to listen and take what is being said seriously.

After all, the ultimate goal was printed in the Koran, wasn't it?? Something about the world will be at peace under Islam (hah, what a joke, whose interpretation)? And now they're trying to obtain the weapons to make it happen.

The terms of surrender are unacceptable. Europe had better get used to the idea. Unconditional surrender for the other side.

The ultimate goal is peace, we're just discussing the terms.

Sandy P, Totoro: I strongly disagree. (By the way I accidentally posted the anonymous post.) There is only one alligator in the world Sandy. Guess who that is? Let me put it this way: you are the only ones who do not need to worry about being eaten by it :-)

I think that your perception of the world resembles a James Bond movie. I am somewhat shocked over the "Find them and kill them mentality" and also the ridicule of the "intellectual approach". Action now against whatever comes in the way is not the way to peace. "A little less conversation a little more action" is the Elvis approach to foreign policy.
"What is this? It looks evil...let's kill it. It might launch a nuke on us within the next 200 years"
I wish you the best of luck in your war against approx. a quarter of the world's population. I will now leave for Geneva to attend a conference organized by the world's most annoying and "interfering organization" (What a give away!!). The title is "Crime and technology". I assure you that the WMD terrorist nexus will be discussed. (Probably a theoretical waste of time)I will therefore not throw anymore torches into this blog this week. :-)

What is very interesting about the media discussion is that "The new Republic" is not slandered about. This is rightly deserved as it is an excellent publication with quality material ranging from the far-right to the far-left in US politics. (By international standards there is no far-left in the USA, if so it would be one economist which has already been mentioned).

I have a major beef is with this quote:

***********************
"Imposing democracy militarily is nothing short of empire building. "
***********************

This is nothing short of absurd. Let's deconstruct it. First of all, the people who are being imposed upon in Iraq is the Saddam regime.

And it seems to me that instituting democracy is logically incompatible with imperialism. You can't have democracy without autonomy, and autonomy is in direct contradiction with imperialism in any meaningful sense of the word.

What we're left with is the notion that democracy is a "bad" (evil?) Western idea, which is precisely what Al Qaeda believes. I don't think so. Arab states may develop their own form of democracy, but I think they're better off living in democracies than in theocracies. And I think we're better off too.

Victor Davis Hanson has a terrific column in today's Nation Review Online (Nov. 26). He talks about various aspects of multilateralism and unilateralism that fit with the general discussions on this blog.

--I think that your perception of the world resembles a James Bond movie. I am somewhat shocked over the "Find them and kill them mentality" and also the ridicule of the "intellectual approach". --

You can jaw-jaw til the cows come home, Anders, it's what Europe is good at. Well, that and killing multimillions. But, hey, gotta break a few eggs to get socialism right, correct? Or make sure frankenreich rules......

Oh, and the intellectual approach worked well in Iraq for the past 12 years, didn't it? That severe finger-wagging worked wonders.

Doesn't change what's in the Koran and the big hole in NYC.

I'm w/in 90 miles of approx 13 nuke reactors and my water supply is from the largest body of fresh water in the world. Poison it and good-bye middle America and the world's breadbasket.

And here's something from Vodkapundit. Maybe your intellectually-oriented brain will get the point:

Hey, kids! It's History Trivia Time!

Wait -- come back. The questions are easy and the answers are even provided for you, so everyone can feel all smart and stuff. Today's topic is Modern Warfare. Here we go:

Q: When did the Civil War end?
A: When the South was burned, occupied, and crying uncle.

Q: When did World War I end?

A: It didn't really end until World War II ended.

Q: OK, Mr. Smarty Pants, when did WWII end?

A: It ended when Germany was burned, occupied, and crying uncle. And when Japan was burned, occupied, slightly radioactive, and crying uncle.

Q: Well, what about Korea?

A: That war is still on, too.

Q: Oh.

A: Did you have another question?

Q: Yes. When did Vietnam end?

A: It ended when South Vietnam was burned, occupied, and crying uncle.

Q: And Iraq?

A: I'll get back to you on that one. We didn't burn a whole lot, and some crazies just don't know when to cry uncle.

---

It's history, Anders. And you'd better hope that western civ is not on the "crying uncle" end.

It's not September 10, it's September 12.

Especially when one reads things like this via LGF:

"Follow the money" is an old adage, and it means that economic interest will eventually explain much human behavior. That France opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein because he owed millions to French banks is proof of this. Less well known, but much more troubling, are key French financial links with other U.S. enemies. They raise the belief that the Franco-American conflict over Iraq was just one slice of the action. For France was not just Baathist Iraq's largest contributor of funds; French banks have financed other odious regimes. They are the No. 1 lenders to Iran and Cuba and past and present U.S. foes such as Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam.

This type of financing is shared by Germany, France's partner. German banks are North Korea's biggest lenders, and Syria's--and Libya's. But France is the most active. In Castro's sizzling gulag, French banks plunked down $549 million in the first trimester this year, a third of all credit to Cuba. The figure for Saddam's Iraq is $415 million. But these pale in comparison with the $2.5 billion that French banks have lent Iran. The figures come from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, and were interpreted by Iñigo Moré for a Madrid think-tank, the Real Instituto Elcano. As he says, "one could think that Parisian bankers wait for the U.S. to have an international problem before taking out their checkbooks." French banks seem to be almost anywhere U.S. banks are absent. They lend in 57 such countries, and are the main lenders in 23 of those. (His report can be read at www.realinstitutoelcano.org.) The report offers reasons why Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin really ought to stop using the phrase "our American friends" every time he talks about the U.S.

Anders, USS Clueless has a timely post.

Read it and imprint those words in red into your brain as well.

Sandy: I read the first post and thought there wasn't much more to debate about here. I read the second one and had my suspicions confirmed. However, your second reponse suggests that you want some kind of answer.

We live on different planets. I can assure you that if you kill everyone else on the planet, no one will pour poison into your drinking water.

It was a shame with all those nukes, chemical, and biological agents Iraq whipped out on the world during those "12 years of finger-wagging". I must agree with you there. If Uncle Sam hadn't cleaned up that lethal kitchen in Baghdad right away, civilization as we know it would have been exterminated by now.

Who do you think should be next? How far down the list is Frankenreich? They must be stopped as they are constantly getting in the way of companies like Halliburton. Maybe the US should re-establish the United Fruit Company?
(history lessons once again)

Sometimes people shoot themselves in the foot, sometimes they even shoot off both their feet...
This discussion is not really going anywhere. Remember that extremism can cut both ways.

Anders,

As most of the Iraqies themselves seem happy with the US ouster of Saddam, why do you think it was wrong? What about all the lives that are saved?

Your comparison with France is way off, Chirac doesn't support terrorist (like Saddam did with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and possibly al-Qaida), torture and (mass-)murder his fellow frenchmen (Saddam: kurds, shias and any other opposition), threaten other countries with destruction (Saddam: Israel, Saudi-Arabia) or invade his neighbours (Iran, Kuwait).

From Anders "..don’t fool yourself into believing that they are crazy, irrational, inhumane people “who hate freedom”. "

I can only judge by their actions and words, and they do seem to fit that description. To quote an old USA saying that you may or may not be familiar with, "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then just maybe it is a duck."

Lars Ruben: The war was wrong because it is about breaking international rules: (No UN-mandate, no self-defense) and about breaking international norms regarding "just war" (there is no just cause, in this instance.) It also violates generally accepted conceptions of legal justice. It involves punishing someone for something they might do in the future. Have you ever seen anyone sent to the electric chair because "they might end up with killing someone" in the future??

The results of all this is very depressing. The precedent created is abysmal. It's called exceptionalism. The strong do as they please. The weak must shut up in order to hope not to be on the receiving end the next time the strong decide to invade somebody. The international order is on the verge of collapsing. Was this necessary after 9-11? Collapse of all international norms would indeed be a victory for the terrorists. They wanted this!!!

RAY G: Do you seriously believe that "Crazy, irrational" people could organize such a complicated and highly sophisticated attack?? Jerold Post is a researcher and renowned analyst who does psychological profiles of terrorists for the CIA. Terrorists are not prone to psychopathology. An abstract of his paper on the "Root causes of terrorism" conference is available on the link below:

http://www.nupi.no/English/Research/Knowledge_base_on_terrorism_and_int._crime/External_resources/News/

Jerold Post says: "terrorist groups regularly exclude emotionally disturbed individuals, who represent a security risk."

I am not a Saddam fan. Can anyone be? But, since when did it become the responsibility of the USA to remove bloody tyrants? The main argument/justification/official reason for the war was the bogus WMD claims. "Special Providence" is arrogance and misunderstood exceptionalism. Of course there was a hidden agenda other than the official reasons. Should we then just sit back and say: "well they probably had their reasons even though they had to lie and spin in order to persuade us for this war"??

He walks like an islamist, he talks like an islamist, he looks like an islamist...
When is the Duck hunting season anyway??
He can not be a friendly, non-violent Moslem..!!??

TURBAN = TERRORIST and
TERRORIST = CRAZY, IRRATIONAL EVILDOERS

This is an argument I would NOT support. Would you? The comparison with France was ironic. I was just curious about how far down Sandy's hit list France was.

Anders: Some would say that the war was mandated by resolution 1440 and a dozen resolutions before it, but I'll grant that many the members of the UNSC didn't see it that way. But so what? I don't mean to shrug off the importance of diplomacy and international relations, I would just like you to be more precise about what horrible damage Bush has done to international relations, and what the _practical_ effects of this will be. "International law" has become a buzzword, and when something becomes a buzzword you need people to stop and ask "what's the big deal about this thing anyway?", even if it's just to remind ourselves what we're talking about. I also wonder if not your own connections to this world make you think international relations are more important than they really are.

"Do you seriously believe that "Crazy, irrational" people could organize such a complicated and highly sophisticated attack??" I don't believe that al-Qaeda are crazy and irrational. They have a crazy worldview and crazy goals, but they're rational about reaching them. Like in other totalitarian ideologies, radical Islamist thinkers are very intelligent, and have blinding visions of a pure and perfect future, which can only be achieved with rational craziness. The analogy may not be perfect, but we should approach them like we would approach Nazi's - on the assumption that they have the same crazy hatred and contempt of what we stand for, the same rationality about how to destroy us, the same _faith_ in their vision, the same appeal to mostly-normal human beings, and that they live in the same millennarian fantasy world.

I believe this is worth fighting, and it's worth fighting at the source, which is the Arab world. The Iraq war was a part of that. It's simply not true as you say that

"Of course there was a hidden agenda other than the official reasons. Should we then just sit back and say: "well they probably had their reasons even though they had to lie and spin in order to persuade us for this war"?? "

because this "hidden" agenda was not very hidden. It was obvious to anyone who paid attention to the American debate about the war on terror. To claim that the Iraq war was supposedly only about wmd's is to say that you didn't pay attention, that all you knew about the American motivation for going to war was what NRK told you. I hope that's not so.

As I've written before, 9/11 taught Americans and many other people two things, that 1) the Arab world is in deep shit, and that 2) their problems are now our problems. This was clear from week one. If you're surprised about the direction American rhetorics have taken, don't blame Bush. Go back two years in the archives of political magazines and blogs, and _start reading_. Pay attention to what people actually say, pay attention to the mood, to the sudden and total shift in attention. It should be rewarding.

Anders,

From what you say I can only interpret that you would rather have seen Saddam still in power - as that would be the only realistic outcome if the US had _not_ gone to war.

And BTW, turbans are primarily used by Sikhs, although Hindus and some Muslims use them too.

Bjørn: I am very surprised about one thing in your post. I have already been precise several times in this forum about what damage is done to international order. I will therefore cut and paste:

“The precedent created is abysmal. It's called exceptionalism. The strong do as they please. The weak must shut up in order to hope not to be on the receiving end the next time the strong decide to invade somebody.”
“Who do you think should be next? How far down the list is Frankenreich?”

“the USA has demonstrated that it neither cares about, nor needs the support of the UN or its traditional allies.”

“states seize the opportunity to strike down very hard without the scrutiny of the international community. Tell the US that you are dealing with terrorists and your hands are free.”
“The maxim goes: If the US (falsely) believe that a nation has WMD, and that at some point in the future this nation may pose a threat to security in a region far from the US, it is OK to invade them, as long as they are ruled by a ruthless dictator.”
Maybe you consider unbridled American unilateralism and exceptionalism to be a positive and fruitful way to organize the world? In that case we just have different opinions on the matter.

I am also a bit baffled by the way you insinuate that I am not aware of the shift in US rhetoric after 9-11. It’s what I study. I am not surprised by the USA lead invasion of Iraq. I strongly oppose it. I analyze all major speeches Bush has held following 9-11. I am fairly informed regarding their content.
Now let’s have a look at Afghanistan. The UN was positive. The USA had a “just cause” because there was enough evidence suggesting that Bin Laden was given a safe haven to supervise atrocities in the NYC. Al Qaeda had committed grave crimes and in effect declared war on the USA. Legal principles were therefore not ignored. That’s the way to do it! Afghanistan was one step in the right direction. Iraq was three in the wrong! Why do you think a large number of the states in the REAL coalition (Afghanistan) were opposed to the war in Iraq?

Lars Ruben: Difficult question. We will never know what would have happened if the war in Iraq never had occured. Saddam had been in power for decades. He has been supported by the USA to balance Iran. The world is not that much better without him and it would not have been that much worse if he had stayed on another five years. The order of international society would have been better without the war in Iraq in which Saddam was ousted.

Anders: "I have already been precise several times in this forum about what damage is done to international order." Perhaps, but what I wanted to know was why this is bad? Why are good international relations between the US and other countries important? And how important are they in relation to for instance international security and other things? These are what you might call stupid question, except the last one, but that's intentional, as I explained.

"The precedent created is abysmal. It's called exceptionalism. The strong do as they please. The weak must shut up in order to hope not to be on the receiving end the next time the strong decide to invade somebody." That's not an answer. The strong always do as they please, unless there's something stronger to hold them back. In this case, there's nothing stronger than the American people. So they do what they please, in this case liberate Iraq, at the price of strong criticism from other countries. (That doesn't mean they'll do _anything_. Their options for the foreseeable future are limited by the major lines of political thought.)

When the US falls from power, other countries will do as they please, (China might invade Taiwan, for instance). Perhaps a genuine global power will eventually emerge from the UN. But it will always be like this. The strong do as they please, unless there's someone even stronger to hold them back. A democracy ruled by law is not an exception to this, it has just organized power in a clever way, so that there's always someone stronger than you. But the world is not a democracy, and it is not ruled by law. If it were, the US would not have been _able_ to go to war in Iraq, or at least it would have been severely punished.

I'm not saying that international law is pointless - on the contrary. But it's perhaps better to talk about international agreements than international law, which implies the _rule_ of law. It's very good that we have international agreements on how to make war, for instance, but they're laws only in a primitive sense. And because these agreements are made in only a pseudo-democratic way, there's little _inherently_ wrong in violating them. Each case must be judged by itself. I believe it was right to attack Iraq, and whether it was also "legal" is relevant only to the _practical_ side of this. Ie. because it possibly violated written and unwritten agreements with other countries, and certainly was against their will, it damaged relations with them. What I want from you is an explanation of why this was bad - and why it was so bad that the whole war should have been avoided.

"I am also a bit baffled by the way you insinuate that I am not aware of the shift in US rhetoric after 9-11. It?s what I study." I'm sorry - and I'm glad that you're paying attention. But then I fail to understand why you seemed to take the wmd claim at face value, ie. that it was _the_ only major reason for going to war. Or did I read you wrong? Leading up to the war American pundits and intellectuals, including neoconservative ones one could assume thought in similar ways to the administration, did speak of other reasons. Bush stuck mostly to what mattered to the UNSC - Saddam's violations of wmd resolutions - but others spoke of Arab democracy, and of countering Saudi Arabia. The nuclear threat probably was a major reason, not _just_ a justification, (and a good reason too), but I find it odd if you expected it to be the only one. It was certainly not the only reason people supported him.

"The world is not that much better without him and it would not have been that much worse if he had stayed on another five years. The order of international society would have been better without the war in Iraq in which Saddam was ousted." And the quality of life for Iraqis would have remained hellish. Saddam's nuclear aspirations aside, that's a rather big price to pay for good international relations. You talk like an idealist, but your valuation of international relations at any cost is more like that of a cynical realist - except that where realists sacrificed other peoples for their own national interest, you're sacrificing them to some transnational ideal. During the Cold War, the US would have installed an anti-communist puppet dictatorship in Iraq, rather than risk a pro-Soviet democracy or a communist takeover. You would rather preserve Saddam than risk a few bad words between diplomats. I'm not sure I see the improvement.

Bjørn,

Don't concede the point about the Iraq intervention being illegal.

IT WAS FULLY LEGAL!

Article 51 of the UN Charter:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of the individual or col-lective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of theSecurity Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary inorder to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

What does this mean?

> Senator Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the committee that drafted Article 51, governing self-defense, later told the Senate, “If the omission [of the right of collective self-defense] had not been rectified there would have been no Charter. It was rectified, finally, after infinite travail, by agreement upon Article 51 of the Charter. Nothing in the Charter is of greater immediate importance and nothing in the Charter is of equal potential importance.”

> In a 1949 speech to the Inter-American Bar Association, Senator Vandenberg emphasized that the fact that Security Council action could be blocked by a veto was a major factor in the decision to adopt Article 51. “If the Security Council fails to act — or is stopped from acting, for example, by a veto —A rticle 51 continues to confound aggression. The United Nations is thus saved from final impotence. So is righteous peace.”

How does this relate to the Iraq intervention?

> The legal presumption must be strongly against anticipatory self-defense. However, in a setting like that of the Middle East in 1967, a victim of imminent aggression should not be forced to absorb the first blow. I submit the same holds true when a “repeat offender” like Saddam flagrantly rebels against Security Council resolutions in preparation for aggression. This is all the more important in an age when the first attack could involve the slaughter of literally millions of innocent people. There is not the slightest reason why Saddam Hussein should be permitted a “free kick” with weapons of mass destruction against the United States or any other peace-loving country. He faces no present military threat that is not directly tied to his violation of Security Council resolutions, a fact that supports the conclusion that he intends to use such weapons again. Article 25 of the UN Charter requires that all members “accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.” What Saddam is doing is illegal and threatens the security of the United States and the world community. http://slate.msn.com/id/2091988/
Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003
The Literal Left
Have opponents of the war been vindicated? Not so fast.

For a good discussion of the well-known & generally accepted reasoning re self-defense and Article 51, see:

"Military Action Against Iraq Is Justified"
Robert F. Turner
Naval War College Review
Autumn 2002, Vol. LV, No. 4
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2002/autumn/pdfs/art5-a02.pdf

Og K: I didn't say the war was illegal. I said it might be. Many people have claimed it was, including, (if he was quoted correctly), Richard Perle, and I'm not qualified to consider the evidence. But this does not matter much to me. It may matter to some countries, but I rather doubt it - what matters to France and Russia is that the US did not do what they wanted it to do. I also believe that there are very few in the peace movement who would have supported the war had it been clearly legal, (for instance if charter 51 had spoken of preemptive self defense). So it's really a proxy issue.

[what follows is rambling... sorry... hope you can understand the gist...]

Bjørn writes:

"I didn't say the war was illegal. I said it might be... I'm not qualified to consider the evidence."

Au contraire, mon ami!

With knowledge of the legislative history of Article 51 of the UN Charter, you're now in the top 99.999 percentile in the blogosphere to consider the subject of the legality of national self-defense, and to develop your own fully qualified views on the subject.

You do me the wonderful favor of running this blog. Please allow me to reciprocate and permit me the honor of presenting you with an emic/etic arrow or two to add to your arsenal of arguments. :)

You also write:

"But this [question of the legality of the war] does not matter much to me. It may matter to some countries, but I rather doubt it - what matters to France and Russia is that the US did not do what they wanted it to do. I also believe that there are very few in the peace movement who would have supported the war had it been clearly legal, (for instance if charter 51 had spoken of preemptive self defense). So it's really a proxy issue."

True but incomplete.

True that the "regimes" in question are not motivated in the least by the ideals of law.

True also that the peace-fakirs would drop the "illegal war" trope like a hot potato if it no longer served their ulterior agenda.

BUT there's at least one important "constituency" you may possibly be overlooking:

Those who share _our_ views!

And especially those who share our views, but may be wavering.

You accurately describe the "illegal war" objection as a "proxy" for unspoken underlying concerns. But the term "proxy" may be be somewhat misleading in that it deflects attention away from the dynamic use to which the "proxy" is put -- namely AGIT-PROP.

The "illegal war" trope is a magnificent concept for agit-prop; it is so oft repeated precisely because it so effectively boosts the morale of the appeasers, while instilling doubt in those of us who might otherwise have the gumption to look the devil in the eye and stare it down.

This WHOLE damn weblog of yours, Bjørn, is dedicated to exposing agit-prop in the Norwegian media.

So why bend or budge even a micron when it comes to the favorite agit-prop lie of the supposed "illegal war."

Don't do it, lad! :-)

Let 'em bite steel when they come snapping at you with this tired old retread.

Do I exaggerate the central importance and utility of the "illegal war" meme?

Well... not according to our friend Anders.

Anders boils his anti-Americanism down to one word -- "Exceptionalism."

And what does "Exceptionalism" signify?

It meams MY way. The rule of man over law. The law of the jungle. A descent into pernicious chaos.

Here's Anders' longer version:

"The war was wrong because it is about breaking international rules: (No UN-mandate, no self-defense) and about breaking international norms regarding "just war" (there is no just cause, in this instance.) It also violates generally accepted conceptions of legal justice.... The international order is on the verge of collapsing. Was this necessary after 9-11? Collapse of all international norms would indeed be a victory for the terrorists. They wanted this!!!"

Hence America is the Great Satan.

I would deny Anders and his fellow appeasers the agit-prop high ground. Deny them, moreover, the satisfaction and vindication of witnessing our erroneous acknowledgement or acquiescence to the charge that allegedly we do not revere the civilized principles of international law and equity.

The force (of international law) IS with us.

It may be a force of little concequence in the world of real-politik, narrowly considered. But broadly (and more accurately) considered, real-politik must also take into account morale... and the question of morale plunks us down right smack dab in the middle of the psychological & spiritual magic of "proxies" and "symbols"... of which the socratic ideal of reverence for law is fundamental!

"International law" is one of our sacred "proxies." We ignore or dishonor it at our peril. But it is we who hold this banner, so let us hold it high!

Og K: Good points on the importance of proxies - as long as we remember that this is what they are. But let's discuss Article 51. It does not literally support preemptive wars. That's your interpretation. So I don't see how you can say that it _clearly_ supports the war on Iraq. Was preemption an _intended_ meaning of self-defense? That would surprise me, as preemption has always been a popular justification for aggressive wars. So an article that approves of preemption would in effect be an article that approves of _any_ war, as long as you use the correct rhetorics to justify it.

The most valid way I can see Article 51 applied here is by seeing the second Iraq war as a continuation of the first Iraq war. But that's a stretch too.

In any case, the danger with proxy debates is that you risk investing credibility in a lost cause. Even if it is a rhetorical advantage to be able to say confidently that this war was legal, or for the peace movenent to say that it was illegal, there's a similar rhetorical disadvantage if the facts aren't on your side. And I'm not convinced that they are.

Og K: The War is illegal according the UN charter. These discussions remind of the OJ trial.

Bjørn: You are also struggling a bit here. Because you have already stated the truth, which is that the threat was not imminent. Pre-emptive wars can ONLY be justified when a threat is imminent and it gives you a tactical advantage to attack first in a war that is inevitable. The war in Iraq was never inevitable.

The war in Iraq was what is defined as a preventive war. This is in breach with all norms and rules the UN has ever stood for. Preventive war is to KILL OFF anyone which has wherewithal to eventually become a threat. You do not need a pre-text just a possible future threat. It is a primitive warfare waged by those who trust no one and those who ONLY care about themselves. "A beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East....YEAH RIGHT. Everyone knows that Palestine would be the place to start for that. If stopping oppression and mass murder was important: GET THE HELL DOWN TO CONGO AT ONCE!!!!!!!! I am sad to say that I kind of miss isolationism.

Your argument should be: The UN is dead. The terrorists are alive. They break every possible rule, so consequently we should respond in kind.

This argument has some coherence although I would not agree, especially to the last part. Fight for a just cause with dignity!! Jus in bello and jus ad bellum.

Anders: I agree, the fact that the threat was a longer term one reduces the urgency required for preemptive self-defence. On the other hand, the non-imminent threat was very real, and aborting the war this year might have delayed this conflict for four years or more. Governments are slow, especially a democracy like the US. We have no idea when Saddam would have had nukes, but we know that he would have kept trying. And we know that by the time a preemptive attack in your strict sense could be justified, it would already be impossible, because of MAD.

"Your argument should be: The UN is dead. The terrorists are alive. They break every possible rule, so consequently we should respond in kind." Now you're arguing like a Christian. If God does not exist, then everything is allowed. Nonsense. The US should not be bound by international agreements, not if they're wrong and dangerous agreements. But it should be bound by morality. Al-Qaeda is evil not because they violate international agreements, but because what they do is evil. What the US has done possibly also violates international agreements, but it was also good.

The lesson is more fundamental than it might seem, because all laws must pass this test. Right and wrong is independent of law. Morality is not caused by law, but law is sometimes caused by morality. It is usually not right to murder, and it is usually not legal to do so, but it is not wrong because it is illegal. We've made it illegal because it is wrong. Living in a democracy where most laws are just encourages the fallacy that laws are inherently just. They're not, and the less democracy the more this is true. What particular agreement you think the US violated was not good enough to deal with Iraq, and so it was right to break it.

This ties in with my original question to you, which you haven't answered, ie. why international relations are important.

International relations are important because they have the potential (at least partly) to save us from the Hobbesian world you describe. I may talk like an idealist, but that's because I am a realist when all the chips are down. The world ultimately has the potential of degenerating into a dog-eat-dog inferno. I hoped the USA would not encourage this...
Aleinegang has a price: Nobody likes you. You make everyone feel unsafe, skeptical of your next unpredictable move.

IR are important because now a viable strategy for Europe, China and the rest of the world is to balance the USA. No superpower has ever managed to constrain itself and consequently someone else will have to do it. So by spitting Europe, Arabia and other parts of the world in the eye, the USA are grabbing short term security gains at the expense of a more democratic international order. Do keep in mind that "democratic = US national interest" is a fallacy.

You may accuse me of arguing like a Christian but your argument of breaking any agreements whenever you feel is utterly DECEITFUL. This is the essence of the worst feature of US foreign policy. ABM-NPT-Kyoto-ICC are among the darkest chapters in US history. "Pacta sunt servanda" is an ancient principle you seem to be unfamiliar with. Treaties are signed for a reason. Only children run away from all obligations.

Anders writes:

"The War is illegal according the UN charter."

Not so fast, senor.

Article 51 states:

"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations Nations..."

Does the Charter at Art. 51 or elsewhere therefore IMPAIR the inherent right of self-defence IF an armed attack has NOT yet taken place - that is, before the "first kick"?

Does "impair" mean "abrogate," even in the face of an "imminent threat"?

How about if the threat is less than imminent, say, a "grave and gathering" danger?

Would the U.S. have been justified in exercing its "inherent right of individual self-defense" by means of pre-emptive intervention in Afghanistan had it learned in advance -- at the "grave and gathering" stage -- that the Afghan regime's very own STATE SPONSORED TERRORIST organization, namely, Al-Q, was planning 9-11?

In the case of Saddam, clearly a STATE HOST OF TERROR MASTERS and FINANCIER of fine organizations such as Hamas, was the U.S. truthfully legally obliged UNDER THE UN CHARTER to postpone the coalition's Iraq intervention until the guest terror masters, like cuddly Abu Nidal, had been definitively reactivated to the all-systems-go operational stage and equipped by their Baathist STATE SPONSOR with devices or vials produced only in the second half of 2003 to 2007 or so, with which to inflict vast harm on Dar-al-Habr?

Cutting it a little close, no?

[ I refer you to "Why the war couldn't wait," the latest essay (5 Dec 03) by the great British sage, Allistair Cooke. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/3300545.stm ]

Even the most simplistic interpretation of Art. 51, whereby "impair" = "abrogate," does not settle the question. Lincoln was faced with a similar conundrum in the context of his suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War:

"... the legality and propriety of [this measure is] questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' should not himself violate them... To state the question more directly, Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it?"

Y2003 translation: the UN Charter is not such an ass that it demands national suicide.

For an excellent discussion of Article 51 and Preemption, see:

"International Law and the Preemptive Use of Military Force"; Anthony Clark Arend:

"The language of the UN charter clearly admits of two interpretations about the permissibility of preemptive force. Given this state of affairs, it is logical to explore the practice of states in the period after the charter was adopted to determine if recent customary international law has either helped supply meaning to the ambiguous language of Article 51 or given rise to a new rule of customary international law in its own right that would allow for preemptive action."

The Washington Quarterly (Spring 2003) • 26:2 pp. 89–103. http://www.cfr.org/pdf/highlight/03spring_arend.pdf

See also:

Preemption and International Law
Steven C. Welsh, Esq.
December 5, 2003
Center for Defense Information (CDI)
http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?

On the Legality of Preemption
Abraham D. Sofaer
Hoover Digest, 2003, No. 2,
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/032/sofaer.html

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Anders writes:

"The War is illegal according the UN charter."

Not so fast, senor.

Article 51 states:

"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations Nations..."

Does the Charter at Art. 51 or elsewhere therefore IMPAIR the inherent right of self-defence IF an armed attack has NOT yet taken place - that is, before the "first kick"?

Does "impair" mean "abrogate," even in the face of an "imminent threat"?

How about if the threat is less than imminent, say, a "grave and gathering" danger?

Would the U.S. have been justified in exercing its "inherent right of individual self-defense" by means of pre-emptive intervention in Afghanistan had it learned in advance -- at the "grave and gathering" stage -- that the Afghan regime's very own STATE SPONSORED TERRORIST organization, namely, Al-Q, was planning 9-11?

In the case of Saddam, clearly a STATE HOST OF TERROR MASTERS and FINANCIER of fine organizations such as Hamas, was the U.S. truthfully legally obliged UNDER THE UN CHARTER to postpone the coalition's Iraq intervention until the guest terror masters, like cuddly Abu Nidal, had been definitively reactivated to the all-systems-go operational stage and equipped by their Baathist STATE SPONSOR with devices or vials produced only in the second half of 2003 to 2007 or so, with which to inflict vast harm on Dar-al-Habr?

Cutting it a little close, no?

[ I refer you to "Why the war couldn't wait," the latest essay (5 Dec 03) by the great British sage, Allistair Cooke. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/3300545.stm ]

Even the most simplistic interpretation of Art. 51, whereby "impair" = "abrogate," does not settle the question. Lincoln was faced with a similar conundrum in the context of his suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War:

"... the legality and propriety of [this measure is] questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' should not himself violate them... To state the question more directly, Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it?"

Y2003 translation: the UN Charter is not such an ass that it demands national suicide.

For an excellent discussion of Article 51 and Preemption, see:

"International Law and the Preemptive Use of Military Force"; Anthony Clark Arend:

"The language of the UN charter clearly admits of two interpretations about the permissibility of preemptive force. Given this state of affairs, it is logical to explore the practice of states in the period after the charter was adopted to determine if recent customary international law has either helped supply meaning to the ambiguous language of Article 51 or given rise to a new rule of customary international law in its own right that would allow for preemptive action."

The Washington Quarterly (Spring 2003) • 26:2 pp. 89–103. http://www.cfr.org/pdf/highlight/03spring_arend.pdf

See also:

Preemption and International Law
Steven C. Welsh, Esq.
December 5, 2003
Center for Defense Information (CDI)
http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?

On the Legality of Preemption
Abraham D. Sofaer
Hoover Digest, 2003, No. 2,
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/032/sofaer.html

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

OJ Trial once again. Iraq was not self-defense. I have been accused of meddling too much with definitional issues in this forum. Now I think the hairsplitting activities have caught on. :-)You are not in your right mind if you claim that Iraq was self-defense. To use the Bush administration favorite: Sport allegories. Your offensive line is on the pitch and you claim that you don't have the ball. You have a baseball bat in your hands and you claim that you are the pitcher.

SELF-defense is not defense of others.
Self-DEFENSE is not attacking other nations first.
Self-defense is not imposing democracy.
Self-defense is not removing brutal dictators.

By the way, I love American sports and a lot of American culture. I am no Anti-Americanist, I have good American friends. I have, however, become very critical of US foreign policy over the two last years. Remember: I was still on board in Afghanistan. I put a candle up outside the American embassy on 9-11. One year later demonstrants returned equipped with rocks!!
I don't do demos, but I actually understood their arguments. And I had to walk past the demo as I happen to live two minutes away from the embassy. No administration in history has ever CARELESSLY WASTED such amounts of good will as the Bush administration has. How did that happen?? It's not called good leadership...
The USA can not be labeled a benign hegemon.

Anders: "International relations are important because they have the potential (at least partly) to save us from the Hobbesian world you describe." A potential, yes. I support that potential, if it leads to a limited world democracy with rule of law. In such a world, tyrannic regimes like Saddam's would not be allowed to exist, and the world would have the power to enforce this. There would be a minimum set of standards for all countries - democracy and respect for basic human rights. We should try to reach this.

But we're not there yet. And we have no guarantee of ever reaching it. What we have today is not really a "Hobbesian" world, where everyone distrusts everyone. There are steps between rule of law and total anarchy. What we have is something between a (mythical) Wild West one and a gathering of chieftains. There are ideals and laws of sort, but it's often up to individuals and communities to enforce them. There is corruption everywhere, and local strongmen, and the lawmen aren't always good, and good men walk on both sides of the law.

I don't mean to go off into fantasy here, just to point out the danger of setting up a false dichotomy - that we either obey the UN or we have total anarchy. For one thing we shouldn't idealize the UN. It was not there against the Soviet Union - for good reason. It was not there for Rwanda - for no good reason. It is not there for the people of the Arab world - for an understandable but unacceptable reason.

We should work towards global rule of law, but we won't get there if scores of petty dictators are allowed to oppress their peoples and destabilize their regions. Nobody wins if the US adheres to international law today, in the interest of some vague and uncertain future, only to have Washington and New York hit by a nuke in 2013. Nobody wins if the good guys obey international law but the bad guys violate it unpunished. Nobody wins when the UN General Assembly, a gathering of tyrants, criminals, corrupt officials and democrats, is thought to be a moral authority. The same goes for the Security Council, also a gathering of tyrants, criminals, corrupt officials and democrats, but mostly just the very powerful ones.

"IR are important because now a viable strategy for Europe, China and the rest of the world is to balance the USA." China and Russia would do that anyway. Ie. to the extent that the US does not use its power, they will be happy, and to the extent that it does, they will want to counter it. But as America stops using its power, they will use theirs more, and towards what ends? Certainly not the installation of democracy in faraway countries. A power vacuum can not be filled with words, only with other forms of power. Currently the world power is a liberal democracy. If we can encourage the growth of liberal democracy in other parts of the world, we may one day see a global rule of law, but the keyword here is "liberal democracy", not "international law". Rule of law can't be built through agreements with dictators.

"ABM-NPT-Kyoto-ICC are among the darkest chapters in US history." Really? As dark as slavery? Have some perspective. I don't recognize the acronyms ABM and NPT, but the US did not violate the Kyoto agreement - it never ratified it. It did not violate any ICC agreement - it never supported it. Is this what you mean by the US violating international law, ie. not signing agreements you think it ought to sign?

"Treaties are signed for a reason. Only children run away from all obligations." Agreed. But is it also true that only children run away from _any_ obligation? What if one obligation conflicts with another? Breaking treaties has consequences. Actions have consequences, (as Joe Straczynski - creator of the partly "UN in space" series Babylon 5 - would put it.) But not acting also has consequences. The US won't be powerful forever, but as long as it is, I'm glad when it uses its power to protect and spread liberal democracy. It hasn't always, but it did now, and to me that matters a lot more than the displeasure of some other countries. Most of them wouldn't like the US anyway, and have a very good reason to fear the spread of democracy.

You want a better world than this one. So do I. But there are a lot of world leaders who don't share our ideals, and we have to deal with them at the same time we build a future with no room for such people. This can't always be done within international law. So if we can't build rule of law within current international law, which of them do you think we should discard?

Bjørn: Your post is good. I still disagree with parts of it, but your argument is coherent and provides answers to some of my questions. Of course there is a middle way between chaos and harmony on the international arena. My point is that the USA which has such a MASSIVE reliance on rule of law within its borders should not promote the opposite outside of its borders. This will not set a good example for the "bad leaders" you refer to. Must all "bad leaders" be removed by force? Must democracy be spread by the Marines??

Joseph Nye has introduced a term called soft power. Sadly, it has been erased from the Bush administration's vocabulary. An excellent scholarly article on this topic is Michael Mastanduno's "Preserving the unipolar moment" from "International Security" three or four years back. His precsription is to diminish antagonism and avoid controversies if possible. If you're on top of the Iceberg don't do the Cha-cha-cha, don't rock the boat too much. The way down is slippery... And if everyone wants you down, you will go down eventually. Clever diplomacy, trust building...what happened to that??

Slavery was a shameful chapter of humanity. Most nations did it. Refusing to sign good treaties and scrapping the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty and weakening the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a feature the USA are infamously leading the Western "civilized" world in. It's a disgrace!!
Roosevelt, Wilson and Kennedy are aching in their graves over this disrespectful attitude towards international society. Maybe even Abe!!??

By the way, it seems that your idea of reaching world order has elements of the "Kantian perpetual peace tradition". However, this does not correspond very well with your consequentialist ethics. I am not a deonthologist or legalist but I do think it may be wise to follow a few rules every now and then. This is why I am more interested in the principal consequences of the Iraq war than if most Iraqis wanted the war or not. I am frightened of the idea of what's next. Maybe justifications go completely out of fashion?? A step towards dog-eat-dog society.

Bjørn: Your post is good. I still disagree with parts of it, but your argument is coherent and provides answers to some of my questions. Of course there is a middle way between chaos and harmony on the international arena. My point is that the USA which has such a MASSIVE reliance on rule of law within its borders should not promote the opposite outside of its borders. This will not set a good example for the "bad leaders" you refer to. Must all "bad leaders" be removed by force? Must democracy be spread by the Marines??

Joseph Nye has introduced a term called soft power. Sadly, it has been erased from the Bush administration's vocabulary. An excellent scholarly article on this topic is Michael Mastanduno's "Preserving the unipolar moment" from "International Security" three or four years back. His precsription is to diminish antagonism and avoid controversies if possible. If you're on top of the Iceberg don't do the Cha-cha-cha, don't rock the boat too much. The way down is slippery... And if everyone wants you down, you will go down eventually. Clever diplomacy, trust building...what happened to that??

Slavery was a shameful chapter of humanity. Most nations did it. Refusing to sign good treaties and scrapping the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty and weakening the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a feature the USA are infamously leading the Western "civilized" world in. It's a disgrace!!
Roosevelt, Wilson and Kennedy are aching in their graves over this disrespectful attitude towards international society. Maybe even Abe!!??

By the way, it seems that your idea of reaching world order has elements of the "Kantian perpetual peace tradition". However, this does not correspond very well with your consequentialist ethics. I am not a deonthologist or legalist but I do think it may be wise to follow a few rules every now and then. This is why I am more interested in the principal consequences of the Iraq war than if most Iraqis wanted the war or not. I am frightened of the idea of what's next. Maybe justifications go completely out of fashion?? A step towards dog-eat-dog society. "We invade you." "Why?" "You don't need to know...It's none of your business, we do as we please. Bend over!!"

Anders: "No administration in history has ever CARELESSLY WASTED such amounts of good will as the Bush administration has. How did that happen?? It's not called good leadership..." I believe you if you say you're no anti-American, (though this should be understood as the belief that the US is a constant negative influence on the outside world, not as _hatred_ of the US. In fact most anti-Americans have an image of a _real_ America they really do like, a reflection of the internal American origins of anti-Americanism.) But don't transfer your own disappointment with American unilateralism onto the rest of the peace movement. Bush merely played into a stereotype that already existed, the image of the shady, right-wing hawk who sends kids off to meaningless wars, who deceives the public, abuses his powers, and controls the media. This stereotype dates back to Vietnam and Nixon. It was created by the American peace movement, and exported to the outside world where it became today's anti-Americanism. Bush did not cause this stereotype to be created - he just woke it up after eight years with a relatively Europe-friendly Democrat.

Carelessly wasted? I find it hard to imagine how he could have preserved the sympathy of 9/11. Bush was the "idiot president" in European media from the moment he was elected. Do you really imagine that he would be respected if he had abandoned Iraq? Do you imagine that the peace movement would have died off if he had managed to get that second UNSC resolution? Of course not. He would still be a dangerous right-wing moron. It was his _essence_, and all that followed merely a confirmation of what everyone already knew.

Anti-Americanism is the driving factor here. It's an intellectual disease that survives on ignorance, groupthink and national chauvinism. It's the worst kind of ignorance, not an intuitive ignorance like xenophobia, but the kind that is based on _some_ knowledge, just enough to increase confidence, but not enough to really learn anything. I recognize it because I've been there myself, several times, (and possibly still am). I recognize how easily this form of ignorance takes root when it is not confronted, and anti-Americanism is not confronted in Norway today. This should have been the task of the media, to provide a battleground of ideas where nothing is holy or taken for granted. Everyone ought to be able to open a newspaper and have one of their favourite beliefs assaulted. My own background is with the mid-90's BBS community, where people with all kinds of weird beliefs met to fight them out. Most of us were pretty ignorant, but we weren't allowed to be lazy. The media culture in Norway today is both. The result is one big, national echo chamber, where even most politically interested people think of the outside world in terms of ready-made thoughts.

The problem goes deeper than anti-Americanism, (as far as I know, Norwegian media unity on foreign policy dates at least back to the pro-American post-war years), but that's the most visible form it takes today. Bush is just a trigger, a justification. The problem is on our side.

Hmmmm... Are you suggesting that maintaining a decent level of good will and popularity is impossible for Bush?? He has never been popular in Europe, but I think he did better right after 9-11. I think your attitude here is utterly defeatist. Of course he could have done better than he has regarding popularity in Europe. And that goes for the entire administration. They squandered it. They crawled into their own shell. They have actively created a large part of the anti-american sentiments around the world. This is not just a ghost from the 60's... Anti-americanism is now ranging from left to moderate right in politics. Is this only due to the evil leftist journalists in the world or could it have some sort of explanation also in the arrogance, indifference and egoism conveyed in US foreign policy???

No one is listening in Washington and it shows, and naturally that pisses people off!!!!

The new barring of nations for contracts is another great accomplishment of Wolfie (evil in persona). The move was predictable and in a way understandable. It's called tit-for-tat. However, this could have been done without making everybody angry. Just give the contracts to those you want to spoil!! Don't rub it in and underline that the economic reasons for going to war were important. It's so arrogant and unwise that you wonder how these people have made it into the high positions they regrettably possess!! Does no one else in the US want to be deputy secretary of defence???? Pentagon diplomacy you just have to love it!! Shoot first and if someone asks questions....shoot them too!
Where's the general in state gone?? He used to do a bit of talking, now he has shut up...

Anders . . .

You make a lot of interesting points and seem very well read. One of the threads of your arguments concerns the rule of law vs. lawlessness. I won't try to respond, because it seems to me that that is a continuum, and it is a matter of opinion as to where an action like self-defense fits along the line between the two extremes.

My main point to you is that you seem to have far more faith than the Bush administration or the average American in the good intentions of France and Germany during the run-up to the war. I suggest that you reconsider their goodness.

France and Germany have very specific reasons for opposing the United States--not because it is "hegemonist," but because they were selling arms and other banned materials to Saddam's Iraq. Russia also belongs in this group. (In the U.S. we tend to forgive Russia for a lot of things because we're so happy they're not dedicated to our destruction these days.)

One book that I have been recommending to many people is Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm, written around 2000 (before 9-11). He was a military analyst during the Clinton administration and has a very detailed account of U.S. policy towards Iraq, especially during the 1990s. He discusses the imminent breakdown of the sanctions imposed by the UN, the no-fly zones, etc. I'm surprised that this book hasn't received more publicity--it is essential reading. I think it will put the UN veto in perspective. I found Pollack's book the single most important book that I've read on the subject, except for Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear (1989?), which opened my eyes to the murderous Saddam regime.

Totoro: I generally agree with most of what you say. However, when it comes to dealing weapons to states and non-state actors without prudence the US should not be pointing too much at others. It's like Charles Manson telling people that thou shalt not kill. Practice what you preach! The reasons for stressing the legalist position are less important than the reasons for breaking it. Pacta sunt servanda again.

For those of you who read Norwegian I strongly recommend a recent chronicle by the director of NUPI on this topic. At NUPI we don't have any official opinion on issues, but this is as close as it gets. I believe there are very few here at NUPI who don't subscribe to the core content of this.
http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/article.jhtml?articleID=692730

I fully support Lodgaard's argument that small states have to pursue rule of law. I call it the Shylock syndrome, named after the famous rigid rule-following jew in "The Merchant of Venice".

Anders: "For those of you who read Norwegian I strongly recommend a recent chronicle by the director of NUPI on this topic. At NUPI we don't have any official opinion on issues, but this is as close as it gets."

I'm sorry to hear that. And what I thought about that article is fairly close to this: http://www.document.no/weblogg/archives/001020.html

And if this is correct .. "I believe there are very few here at NUPI who don't subscribe to the core content of this" .. then the first priority for an organization as important as NUPI should be to increase your political diversity. Get in some new people with unusual points of views, to stir up trouble. Hire some neo-conservative speakers, the smartest you can find, talk to them, try to bring them to your point of view. Anything to escape the feedback loop that has done so much damage to Norway's intellectual life. This isn't about me being right and you being wrong, it's about exposing your views to criticism, so they can become better views. This applies to everyone, everywhere. All ideas have flaws, but in the wrong culture the flaws turn invisible. Flaws in ideas only stand out when they're put to the test, and if almost everyone at NUPI subscribe to the core content of this axiomatic belief in international law, then I don't think you're putting them to the test. At least not from within, and certainly not from the Norwegian media. Ideas that aren't put to the test rot and die. Always. They only look alive because they're artificially animated by intellectual feedback loops. The implied consensus in that article is frightening, and a strong indicator of just that.

Well... I fully agree that arguments have to be exposed to critiscism. It's healthy, and believe it or not it is done at this institution. One of the academic books I have been strongly recommended in this forum is "Special Providence" by Mead. Today there was a one hour meeting dedicated exclusively to discussing this book and improving understanding of it. We read a lot of the publications of the PNAC which is the hatching arena for the bulk of "neo-con" thinking.

So Bjørn, we are (at least partly) doing what you ask us to do. You can not require me or anyone else here at NUPI to agree with you. That is undemocratic. And basically that is what America does on the world stage. You can not disagree with the US on security issues. That is not tolerated. Then you're aiding terrorists. It's almost like knitting Bin Laden's turban! This is a development which I find very disturbing and its figure head is PNAC. Aggressive, confronational, "no-talk-all-guns" tactics are not a favorite of mine.

I believe we read a lot of the same material, the thing is just that we interpret it completely differently. I was accused of having too much faith in the nobility of France and Germany. I accuse you of having too much faith in the Bush Administration and the "neo-cons". Imperialism is a primitive exploitative phenomenon that should be in the scrap-yard of history. Do you agree that what's happening in Iraq is cultural imperialism?

Anders: "We read a lot of the publications of the PNAC which is the hatching arena for the bulk of "neo-con" thinking." That's a start, but there's a difference between studying the enemy and engaging the enemy. Think of it from a military point of view. Defenses that look strong on paper crumble on first touch, and there are often hidden reserves behind what looks like a weak line. The only way to know for sure is meet the enemy head on.

"You can not require me or anyone else here at NUPI to agree with you. That is undemocratic." And I don't. I'm sort of trying to help you here. For _your own sake_ you should increase political diversity at NUPI. If everyone at NUPI agrees with Lundgaard's ideas about international law, then that's bad for _your ideas_. From my short-term selfish point of view that's great. It means those ideas will be easier to kill off in the near future. Then again, from my long-term selfish point of view I want your ideas to be strong and survive, so that one orthodoxy isn't merely replaced by another. A perpetual war of ideas, like the Red Queen arms race of evolution, that's my vision. If my own ideas took over as completely as the current orthodoxy has done, if they got to a position where they were more or less accepted by everyone who matters, and were never seriously challenged anywhere, they would rot and die within a decade.

I have a half-written post on this subject I might finish later, but what I'm trying to say was said pretty well by Dean Esmay a year ago. The subject is American conservatives and liberals, but it applies to any worldview and idea:

http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/000261.html

He quotes John Stuart Mill: "Lord, enlighten thou our enemies...; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom: their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength."

Amen to that.

Anders: "I accuse you of having too much faith in the Bush Administration and the "neo-cons". Imperialism is a primitive exploitative phenomenon that should be in the scrap-yard of history. Do you agree that what's happening in Iraq is cultural imperialism?"

Not in the usual meaning, and not in your sense of a "primitive exploitative phenomenon". There's something else at work here, some combination of selfishness and idealism. A very explosive mix, which we should be glad is used for something good.

I don't have faith in the Bush Administration specifically. I believe I understand how they think about Iraq and the war on terror, and how Americans who support them think about Iraq and the war on terror, and I agree with that. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, but we don't have to speculate. We can just watch what is happening. If I'm right that the US wants Iraq to be independent, prosperous and democratic, then we will see an attempt to establish a democratic system and transfer sovereignity to it. Some troops may be stationed for a long time, but they won't play a political role. And the oil will be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Same with everything else. I for one am very interested to see if there is a change in the relationship with Saudi Arabia. I believe there are many Americans who want this, but I haven't decided about the Bush administration. Again, we'll see. What we have here are a lot of hypothesises that are both testable and disprovable: "The US wants to establish democracy and sovereignity in Iraq", "Bush is/isn't fooled by the Saudis", "A democratic Iraq will inspire similar change in neighbouring countries", "The new Iraqi government will be stable", "Syria/North Korea/France will/won't be next", etc. They will all be tested, some of them very soon.

Merry Christmas to y'all!

Bjørn: I am afraid you might be fooling yourself if you believe that American troops stationed in Iraq "won't play a political role." If Big Daddy has a viscious cane it will play a role even when it is not used. The American troops will make sure that things don't get out of hand politically. All military operations have a political side in the old Clausewitzian sense. War is normally an extension of politics.

I am glad to read that you don't see any altruism at work in Iraq. Self-interest is the name of the game, and as you suggest a twisted kind of idealism.

Remebmber that the Soviet Union forcefully installed communism in countries who did not want it. Today there is only country which forcefully installs a form of government.
The tendency is disturbing because what we see is the abolition of the principle of state soverignty. Meddling in the internal affairs of another country is a difficult path to choose.

However, .......(drum roll please)........
It may be necessary to confront the threat of international terrorism with such measures. We can't just sit on our hands and hope the thunderbolt strikes somebody else. The sad thing is that american politicians are like other politicians, they seize a good opportunity to score points and legitimize their actions. The war against Iraq should have been "sold" as just that... and not as "a phase in the war on terrorism". Saddam was not a terrorist. The war on terrorism started in Iraq only AFTER Baghdad had fallen.

Btw..It brings me joy to know that the dictator is now a prisoner, but why depict him as a horse having his teeth checked? Don't fight "evil" with evil means. No means "mala in se" as Michael Walzer would probably say.

Anders: "If Big Daddy has a viscious cane it will play a role even when it is not used." Yes. And there are forces in Iraq who needs to keep that cane in mind. They're not the democratic forces, whatever they may be, but the religious extremists and the wannabe tyrants who are positioning themselves for a quick takeover once the Americans are gone. I have no doubt there are Iraqis who are planning just that. So the Americans better use their cane well, or the attempt will fail. But I do not think they will use that cane for other purposes than what they set out to achieve, ie. a stable, peaceful democracy. They've done this before, in Germany and Japan.

"I am glad to read that you don't see any altruism at work in Iraq. Self-interest is the name of the game, and as you suggest a twisted kind of idealism." Not twisted as in depraved. And I do think there's altruism at work, not in the decision to remove a dangerous piece from the board, but in the risky decision to replace it with an experimental and potentially unstable piece, ie. Arab democracy. Rhetorics bind you. When you speak the language of democracy, even if at first only to cover your selfish motives, you eventually start to believe in it, and if not you, then your predecessors who grew up on your rhetoric. I don't mean that this exactly has happened to the US, only that it is very difficult for a country to use the rhetorics of democracy in its foreign policy for 60 years and for none of that idealism to actually make its way into the seats of power. That would require a conspiracy. So in an open society like the American, we should see the public image various ideologies create of themselves as at least a reliable guide to their actual thinking. In this case that means that most likely the White House believes both that 1) removing Saddam increases American security, and 2) this is a good opportunity to push the Arab world towards democracy, even if more control would be safer.

And I don't see anything wrong with "forcing" democracy on other peoples. Sovereignity is the ultimate realistic cynicism, the belief that some bandits have a right to continue their banditry, just because they do it beneath a flag, and don't disturb the territory of the other bandits. That's how the world works, and we usually have to accept that, but it's not _wrong_ to violate the sovereignity of a tyranny, only impractical and dangerous. What the Soviet Union did to Eastern Europe was wrong because the governments it installed were tyrannies, and the governments it replaced were sometimes democracies. That's what made it wrong, not the act of violating sovereignity itself. That's why it would be wrong for Norway to invade Sweden, but not to support opposition groups in tyrannies, as Norway did when it supported ANC during the apartheid. This was a clear violation of South African sovereignity, but would you argue that it was wrong?

"It brings me joy to know that the dictator is now a prisoner, but why depict him as a horse having his teeth checked?" Why does it matter? I don't care what happens to him myself, as long as he's kept away from power. And if he's treated bad, (which I doubt), I can think of many people you and I should have sympathy for before we spend it on him. The reason for the public humiliation of Saddam was probably local, as a service to the Iraqis. He symbolized the destruction of Iraq, the torture and murder of millions. Showing him like an old beggar, a cow or a horse, helped to remove his shadow from the Iraqi mind. That's a good thing. Of course, if the Iraqis get their way, he'll face worse than that. Perhaps the Americans will have to step in on his behalf, to reduce the sentence from a colourful to a regular execution.

Bjørn:
I don't have sympathy for Saddam. I just react negatively to suspect propagandistic expoitation of what inarguably was a fine catch anyway.

Your argument regarding sovereignty is very moral. Democracy is good and communism was bad, and Saddam was evil so war was ok. The thing is that it is close to impossible to work with such moral judgements, if we are going to have any kind of common principles of what is tolerable behavior on the international stage. Who is to decide who is "the good, the bad and the ugly?"

Regarding ANC. Support and military intervention are to different things. Supporting a group like ANC is not violating sovereignty. If you start sending guns you are moving towards it. But I still think that would be a borderline case. When you "end states" (A slip of the tongue from Wolfowitz early on :-)) you have violated the principle of state sovereignty. I donæt have a problem woth Norway's support of ANC.

Is this bad? Yes, because it is a bedrock in the international order that until now has existed. If the order is gone anyhow we might have to adjust. A bad side of this is that only the superpowers of the world have the capacity to do this kind of thing. And justice for all is consequently difficult to achieve.

How would you react to French troops in Texas to free a prisoner on death-row?? Capital punishment is a violation of human rights, and state sovereignty is not worth anything to you. Exceptionalism you dislike so why keep the military guest apperances abroad to the lucky few?
We could all have a lovely supper and debriefing at Crawford ranch afterwards!! :-) I'm in.

Finally, define democracy/democratic. It's impossible. George Orwell noted this in the fifties. And then the deconstruction of this term had only just started. In US vocabulary it roughly translates 'good'/'likeable'. I believe in democracy, even though I don't know what it is anymore...-

Anders: "I don't have sympathy for Saddam. I just react negatively to suspect propagandistic expoitation of what inarguably was a fine catch anyway."

I think the Iraqis needed to see Saddam humiliated, to see that he was only a man. I'm not sure propaganda is the word, but they did exploit their catch, and they did it right. He was humiliated just enough to show that he was mortal, but not cruelly.

"The thing is that it is close to impossible to work with such moral judgements, if we are going to have any kind of common principles of what is tolerable behavior on the international stage."

It's usually practical to respect sovereignity, but that's all it is. It's practical to respect sovereignity for the same reason it's practical not to pick a fight with random strangers who may be stronger than you. You could get hurt. In most cases it's also immoral to pick fights with strangers, but it's important not to confuse what's moral with what's practical. If someone starts beating up his girlfriend right in front of you, the distinction between moral and practical suddenly becomes very important.

And what you're doing is to give sovereignity a moral element it never had and never will. It's not by itself immoral to violate the sovereignity of a tyranny. It can be, depending on why you do it and how, but a tyrant has no moral right to stay in power.

"Supporting a group like ANC is not violating sovereignty. If you start sending guns you are moving towards it."

I don't think the apartheid regime saw it that way. We gave money to an opposition group which had the explicit aim of removing the white minority regime. And they succeeded, with our help. It was moral, allright, but the South Africans probably saw it as foreigners meddling with internal affairs. If we had asked them, "are we violating your sovereignity?", I believe they would have said yes. And what good is a concept of sovereignity if the _interfering_ country is allowed to define violations of it? Money isn't just paper, it's weapons, propaganda, and full-time employees.

But I'm glad you think that was okay. Then I'm sure you won't mind if the US decides to achieve regime change in Iran by openly giving vast amounts of money to democratic but revolutionary opposition groups.

"Is this bad? Yes, because it is a bedrock in the international order that until now has existed."

The rock's still there. Only in the paranoid fantasies of radical Islamists and Western leftists is the US a hungry giant, eager to devour yet more countries when it's finished with Iraq. The message to the non-democratic regimes of the world is not that "you're next", but that sovereignity carries obligations, one of which is not to seek nuclear weapons. At least that's the message Libya heard. If Libya had thought that the "bedrock" of international order had disappeared, don't you think they would have sped up their programme instead of shutting it down? The US can be trusted, and they know that. We have order, and a more stable order than if Iraq had been left alone.

"How would you react to French troops in Texas to free a prisoner on death-row?? Capital punishment is a violation of human rights, and state sovereignty is not worth anything to you."

Sovereignity by itself is worth little, but democracy and rule of law is valuable. I'm neutral on capital punishment when applied to very bad cases, and through functioning legal institutions, but if it's a violation of human rights, it's a small one, and does of course not justify war. Are you unable to see the difference between a tyrant who tortures and kills houndreds of thousands of his own people and a democracy that executes a small number of convicted criminals? Of course not, so don't play slippery slope with me.

"Finally, define democracy/democratic. It's impossible. George Orwell noted this in the fifties."

I don't recall that, but if he did, it was probably in the fourties when he was alive. And for someone who explicitly believed in democratic socialism as opposed to communism and fascism (and capitalism) he probably had some idea of what democracy meant. Democracy is sometimes _used_ in the vague sense of good/likeable, but it does have a definition. The strict definition is of a country where the rulers are elected by the people. In common usage it also implies that the state reaches certain related standards: rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of speech, etc. The definitions are inaccurate, but that's not very relevant here. There's no doubt that the communist states weren't democratic, and that most of the Western states were.

Bjørn: I have to say that the entire paragraph of yours starting with “The Rock’s still there” is way off in my opinion. I disagree with all of it. Do you seriously think that the enemies of the USA think: “Hmm... that illegitimate war proves we now have world order. Let’s cooperate with the USA they can be trusted” Tell that to the people in south Iraq who relied upon US support for their rebellion against Saddam in 1991. FEAR is the keyword here. You know just as well as I do that if Libya had sped up their program now Gaddafi would have been Wolfowitz’ thanks giving turkey next year!!! Stick your head up now and Uncle Sam chops it off! That paragraph was FOX News level.

A problem with your (mis)understanding of the importance of state sovereignty is that you (just like Bush in Iraq) do not seem to have any kind of idea of what will come after its removal. What is the world like following the abolition of the principle of state sovereignty? What will happen if there should be a power shift in the world after the demise of the UN and all the norms and principles it stands for? The USA is after all not the worst country to emerge as the world’s leading superpower. Imagine China moving the wrong way and in the position of the USA in 50 years with a UN as dead as the League of Nations.

What happens after pax/belli americana? No rules, no norms no international justice. Once the UN order is gone we won’t get it back. And since the USA won’t sign any agreement that limits their room to move and flexibility even microscopically, we aren’t likely to get anything like it for a long time.

Order is practical. Order is moral if it prevents an immoral organizational structure of society. Order is superior to chaos. State sovereignty is the one cardinal principle that contributes the most to international order between states. So it has been since the peace in Westphalia 1648 (hope that one’s correct since Orwell died in January 1950 :))
A flaw with state sovereignty is that atrocities within states are easy to get away with. Does this mean that the USA should benevolently guarantee for world order since it seems eager to undermine multilateral attempts?? Must the USA have global jurisdiction?

To add consistency to my cynical position. I didn’t like the war in Kosovo too much either. Mainly because I expected the precedent created to be misused and exploited for what it was worth. A hard case, but without Kosovo the War in Iraq would have been less likely. BTW: Money for opposition groups in Iran sure beats marines and cluster bombs.

A final question for you: Who should decide when its right to wage war on a state because of internal issues, without any pretext or transgressions to legitimize self-defense? Fighting fire with fire. Let’s kill the killers before they kill. Sounds good but is it doable?

Anders: The way Bush Sr betrayed the Shiah's was shameful. I don't mean that the US can be trusted in every way, at any time, during any administration. But right now, under this administration, they can be trusted on this: If you don't look for nukes, don't support terrorists, and don't do anything else that is outright horrible, you won't be invaded. The opposite is not true, that if you _do_ all these things you _will_ be invaded, but with two quickly won wars in as many years I think the message is clear and strong. And I think that's a good message to send.

"What happens after pax/belli americana? No rules, no norms no international justice." There's a big confusion here. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that American power may decrease sometime this century, opening the way for a new and malevolent hyperpower, for instance China. And to the degree that the US goes against the UN today, China will too in the future, and vice versa.

I can only think of two ways for this to work. One is for China to voluntarily follow the precedence set by the US. But if we assume, for the sake of the argument, that this future China is malevolent, why would they do that? Why would decades-old policies of a fallen superpower influence their interest in, say, annexing Taiwan?

The alternative is that a UN fully supported by the Americans will grow in power, so that, even when the US is no longer a superpower, it will be impractical (ie dangerous) for China to go against the UN. For this to happen, the UN must gradually become used to and willing to wield a large amount of power. Power can, after all, only be countered with power, not paper and good intentions. (This is true also for the clever power structures of democracy, but I think it's too soon to imagine anything like that on the global scale in this scenario.)

What will this new and powerful UN look like? It will need a different Security Council, because all the super power candidates have veto powers on the current one. This new UNSC must to a larger degree be willing to enforce its resolutions as laws, thus creating a minimum standard for international behavior that everyone knows _will_ be enforced. It must be willing to step in over petty border wars and genocides, but also to reign in powers that intend to confront the UNSC. This would include a ban - an enforced ban - on nuclear weapons. If it does not do these things, we're back in scenario 1, where even malevolent super powers behave nice _voluntarily_. It's either voluntarily or by threat from a greater power, and in this scenario that greater power is the combined will of a large coalition of smaller countries.

Unless you believe this can be done without the aid of the US, the first step from here to there would have to a close cooperation between the UN and the US. It would be vital that when the US acts, it acts in the name of the UN. It would also be vital that the US perceives this cooperation to be to its own advantage, as the plan depends on the US gradually but voluntarily signing over power to the UNSC. As American power wanes, other countries will cooperate to provide the manpower in its place, providing a seamless shift from a US dominated world to a UNSC dominated world. And don't forget the reform - this UNSC must be able to _act_, even against the most populous country in the world.

Now look at what took place in the UN a year ago. We had the chance to make this first step. The UN had a chance to enforce its many resolutions against Iraq. It had the chance to cooperate with the current super power, mixing American power with UN prestige. The smaller powers had the chance to act. If this had happened, the UN would have come out more powerful than before. The opposite happened. It would be a mistake to blame this primarily on the US. If the US had submitted to the will of the UNSC, there would have been no resolution of the conflict with Iraq, and it would not have brought us any closer to scenario 2. It might have preserved the _illusion_ of potential for a few more years, but at some point a choice between action and inaction would have had to be made, and why not now? The road to scenario 2 went through Iraq, and the UNSC chose not to take it.

Considering that all these scenarios stretch many decades into the future, it would be ridiculous to expect the US to abandon a path with several concrete, short-term payoffs. We're left with a scenario 3, in which the US uses its power for what it's worth, while it has it, under the following assumption: A future with many wealthy, liberal democracies in it will be more safe than a future with few. This requires that the US plays an active role in removing threats and promoting capitalism and liberal democracy, preferable with UN approval, but if necessary without. And unless you can convince me that scenario 2 is feasible, I believe the US should follow scenario 3. Unless it can preserve its current power beyond this century, this will be risky, but it will be even more risky to submit to UN inaction.

Bjørn: A very interesting post.

In my opinion the real message the Bush administration is sending to its enemies is: “Do all you can to acquire nukes undetected, because if you get nukes the USA won’t dare to touch you again.” How about regime change in North Korea? How about Pakistan?? Did you notice how quickly General Pervez Musharraf was acknowledged and given support by the USA? Why did that happen? Because he’s such a nice guy? Or was it a very democratic military coup he led? Bottom line: regime change in nuclear states is awe-inspiring and never done.

This brings me back to my earlier point on the NPT-treaty and the ABM-treaty. Because there is a VERY bad hypocritical process going on in the USA. I see the good benefit of scaring states of nukes as you describe it. (again... it’s fear motivated more than good companionship)
But the US are experimenting with what is called mini-nukes. The argument is that ""the conventional MOAB is more powerful and devastating than some of the mini-nukes the US Military has developed. Why not use them instead?""
If that Rubicon is crossed there is no return. That would make all the previous blunders of the Bush administration so far look like a mere spilled glass of milk. Hiroshima’s return.

Regarding reform of the veto-powers in the UNSC. I think that is close to impossible to achieve. Can you imagine France, Russia or the USA not vetoing such a suggestion? I am really not a UN-fan. The UN is regrettably inappropriately designed to be a truly effective security provider. It is only because we have nothing else, and nothing to replace it with, that I have reluctantly become a UN-“legalist” by a process of elimination. Also I think the USA is such an aggressive superpower that any kind of bridling and containment is appreciated. Sadly I agree that scenario 3 of yours is the most likely. If only it were done with a tad of multilateralism, diplomacy and soft power----

One thing I disagree with is that the UN would have looked better if it had yielded to American pressure. That would have been effectively resigning and abandoning what the UN is for. This goes back to our discussion of the legitimacy of the Iraq war. As previously stated: IT WAS IN BREACH of the UN charter. The UN would have become the USA’s loyal puppet if it had abandoned its own charter to keep Bush happy. Then they would have been IRRELEVANT. The Iraq war was legally wrong the UN knew it (everyone knows it) and therefore they could not support it. Was it convenient for France and Russia to block it: YES. But they were in their right to do so, they had many of the little guys such as Norway behind them. In your version of International politics small states are only parenthesis which must
1: shut up
2: lay low
3: obey
4: hope for the best.
The sad irony is that this version may be correct-

Anders: "In my opinion the real message the Bush administration is sending to its enemies is: “Do all you can to acquire nukes undetected, because if you get nukes the USA won’t dare to touch you again.” How about regime change in North Korea? How about Pakistan??"

That's a strange thing to say. Of course this is an option for a wannabe-rogue state, and it always were. If you get nukes you're safe, and that's how it must be. Once you have nukes it is no longer practical for the US to invade, except as part of MAD. But that doesn't mean that taking this chance is safer than not taking it, (at least not safer than it used to be), because there's a possibility of being discovered and invaded before you have the nukes. Think of the "do you feel lucky"-scene in Dirty Harry. Bad guy's on the floor with Harry's gun aimed at him, and his own a bit away. He doesn't know if Harry has any bullets left, but he knows what will happen if he does. Do you go for the gun or not? "Well do you, punk?" That's the situation here. Iraq went for the gun and Harry fired, in one 12 year long slow motion scene.

North Korea possibly has the gun already, and that's why they can't be touched - that and the massive army it has stationed at the border with South Korea, and the thousands of artillery guns aimed at Seoul. It's not practical to invade or threaten with invasion, so another solution must be found. As for Pakistan, I don't know what Musharraf is up to. He's not the worst leader they might have - that would be an extreme Islamist like Haq. And Pakistan's attempts at democracy haven't worked very well. Perhaps they should reach for some other essential features of liberal democracy before the election part, such as free, transparent markets and the rule of law. (Pakistan already has a high level of press freedom, btw.) And perhaps Musharraf intends to push in that direction. Or perhaps he's just another third world dictator, interested only in power. I don't know. Do you believe that he should step back? Do you believe that the US should work actively to remove him? What worries me is the risk - a nuclear power in the hands of radical Islamists. And with all the attempts on Musharraf's life recently this may happen soon enough.

"But the US are experimenting with what is called mini-nukes. The argument is that "the conventional MOAB is more powerful and devastating than some of the mini-nukes the US Military has developed. Why not use them instead?""

If there's a lower treshold for using mini-nukes than ordinary nukes, then I'm against them. Is that quote genuine and representative, or is it what you fear they will think? But if the treshold is the same, wouldn't it be nice to have the option of killing 20 000 people instead of 200 000? That wouldn't have worked during the Cold War, because the whole balance rested on both sides knowing that nuclear war would lead to total destruction. But in, say, a nuclear war with Iraq in that alternative reality where Saddam's still in power, why would it be better to destroy all of Baghdad than just the government centres? Btw, I don't really know what the capabilities of these weapons are, so the figures are just guesses. But having the option of doing damage to a smaller area seems like an advantage to me, _if_ it's only as an alternative to a full-sized nuke.

"Regarding reform of the veto-powers in the UNSC. I think that is close to impossible to achieve."

Yes. And that's why I don't believe in the UN. I believe it could be done if enough countries wanted to, but they don't. And that's also a major reason why many Americans (especially conservatives) despise the UN. It's not about the US being too "aggressive" to be contained. It's about many being reluctant to sign their own power over to people they believe are much less qualified to use it. You're confusing cause and effect. I believe even conservatives would be glad to work through the UN if they thought it could be done without sacrificing security. The idea of internationalism is attractive, and if it could be united with the American sense of mission (city on the hill, world safe for democracy, etc) and their willingness to act, the mix would be very powerful, and probably beneficial. We might call it interventionist internationalism as opposed to diplomatic internationalism, power-UN vs paper-UN.

"The UN would have become the USA’s loyal puppet if it had abandoned its own charter to keep Bush happy. Then they would have been IRRELEVANT."

On the contrary, _now_ it is less relevant than ever. The Americans despise the UN, and the major UN powers despise their only super power member. So what sort of power does the UN represent? Only that of voluntary cooperation, which is important, but not very relevant outside the democratic world.

And if we're to imagine an alternative route this could have taken, why place the branching at just before the voting on the second resolution? The branch would have had to occur no later than the months after September 11, with a conscious acknowledgment also in Europe that Iraq represented a threat. If France and Germany had been sympathetic from the start, the UNSC would have appeared as cooperative, like Britain, not obedient. (The neo-pacifists would have revived the "puppet" rhetoric anyway, of course, as they have with Britain, but there's no rational basis for this.) France and Germany were obviously against a war in Iraq from the start, so a change of mind would have appeared as weakness, but _only_ in light of their recent opposition.

As for it being illegal for the UNSC to approve the war, I don't think that's very relevant, unless the illegality was completely obvious to everyone, and we know that it wasn't. There were different opinions about it, so I don't think UNSC support would have struck people as hypocritical only on that basis. So it wouldn't have threatened the existence of the UNSC. And if the UN is to take over the American role, it _must_ become interventionist, it _must_ enforce resolutions on nuclear research. Now you're saying that there is no way this UNSC could ever do that without violating its own charter. Then how do you suggest that Iraq should have been handled? What is the purpose of the UNSC when not only does it not want to enforce its resolutions, it's not (according to you) even allowed to? Then what alternative are you offering to American power?

"In your version of International politics small states are only parenthesis which must 1: shut up 2: lay low 3: obey 4: hope for the best."

Nah, only on the really important issues - nuclear research, wars and civil wars, genocides, etc., perhaps extendable to basic human rights but not very far. I don't want a full-scale glocal democracy yet, (or maybe ever). Everything else must be voluntary, and sovereignity respected. But to turn it around, why would you expect that a country like Norway would have a significant influence on the security affairs of major powers? Luckily we live in a world where the major powers (currently) don't control us, so we had a free choice on whether to join the US in Iraq. But that's all we had, and that's all we will ever have in any plausible configuration of the world, (especially a democratic one). That said, Norway should have spoken clearly about Iraq in the UNSC in 2002. The power we had was temporary, limited and mostly illusional, but the way we deferred to the decisions of the same UN we were speaking on behalf of was cowardly. We do have a right to speak up, (a right protected not by the UN but by the actual power structure of the world), and we should use it while we can.

Bjørn: I agree that the UN is increasingly looking like a paper-power. Much of this is courtesy of USA bulldozering most attempts at effective multilateralism. Without the USA on board the UN is feeble. So it becomes a paradox when the USA claims that the UN is not working. That’s right!! It’s not working...and part of he reason is that you won’t engage actively within the UN system and rather want to go it all alone. A parallel is to lock Arafat up in a house and tell him to deal with the massive security problems in the Palestinian territories. (He probably wouldn’t have made it anyway....but that’s another story)

Regarding Musharraf, I don’t think he should be removed. Pakistan at present is probably better off with him than without him. My point is that when he overthrew the previous regime militarily, the USA were quick to say: “OK you’re in, but we will keep a keen eye on what you’re doing.” This is VERY VERY different from how they have behaved in other instances were the “freedom and democracy bla-bla” is preached and aggressive steps are taken. “We love to install new governments when and where we feel like it, and we support dictators and brutal regimes (Saddam 80’s, Saudi now) when that has enough practical value to us.” This is not a coherent strategy and BAM!!!... there goes part of your altruistic and idealistic explanations of the war in Iraq. This is also why I claim that WMD was the real issue for the war, because the “democracy and freedom bla-bla” is only preached when it is convenient. Hypocrisy??

I’m glad you agree regarding possible first use of mini-nukes. This has to my knowledge only been trifled about but the development so far is not encouraging. Regarding UK foreign policy I will only restate what I publicly stated in Dagbladet the 8th of May: “The shaping of UK security policies have been outsourced to Washington.” You say jump...How high?? The main difference between the two security policies is that one of them is fronted by en exceptionally eloquent speaker and the other is not.

“What is the purpose of the UNSC when not only does it not want to enforce its resolutions, it's not (according to you) even allowed to? Then what alternative are you offering to American power” The UNSC has every right to give mandate for missions that go beyond self-defense. The thing is that members of the UNSC thought this threat wasn’t as bad as was claimed by the war-mongers. The UN felt that inspections were making progress (also thanks to the war-mongers) and did not rule out the use of force at a later stage. Germany almost did, but they don’t have a veto. The war could have come if inspections had gone badly again. Looking back, we must agree that the weapons inspections were more successful than the USA thought. (I hear Kay’s people are starting to leave Iraq :-)). Maybe his next report will be REALLY HOT STUFF! Maybe he’ll report a pack of strange looking aspirin found in the toast machine of an Iraqi rocket scientist-.

Anders: "I agree that the UN is increasingly looking like a paper-power. Much of this is courtesy of USA bulldozering most attempts at effective multilateralism. Without the USA on board the UN is feeble."

I suppose it's a question of what you think is the goal here: A united UNSC or world security. It's obvious that both the US and UN could have cooperated with the other, so in a sense they are both guilty. But if so you can never say that one party is primarily to blame for a conflict, because both sides always have the option to give in to the other's demands, even when they are ridiculous. So it's a question of goals: If a united UNSC is your goal, then the US was to blame for going against UNSC veto powers. If world security is your goal, then the UN was to blame for not wanting to uphold its resolutions. In the same way there are two ways to solve this. One is for the US to start thinking more like Europeans, the other for Europeans to start thinking more like Americans. That's as "neutral" a way I think I can put it. Of course I think the first would be a disaster. Look where European thinking got us with Serbia.

"This is not a coherent strategy and BAM!!!... there goes part of your altruistic and idealistic explanations of the war in Iraq"

That or your strawman version of it. But are you suggesting that if it is often practical for a country to cooperate with dictatorships, that country can not at other times be motivated by noble ideals? I don't see a connection. When you must, you play by the rules of others. When you can, you play by your own rules. During the Cold War, the West must (at least in general) support dictatorships to counter the Soviet threat. We often still do - for different reasons, like nukes, or similar reasons, like the need for allies against radical Islamism. But in the case of Iraq, we did not have to play by Saddam's rules. We had the option of playing by our own, the liberal and democratic rules of the West. And that's what the US did.

I'm not suggesting that the US was primarily motivated by altruism and idealism, btw. There were both pure national security concerns, pure idealism, and security concerns _mixed_ with idealism. The security concerns came of course from the awakening to Middle Eastern threats on 9/11, and from Saddam's nuclear programme. (It may not have been operating at the moment, but there's little doubt that Saddam _wanted_ to revive it, and would have done so when it was safe. Say, 3-5 years?) The mix of security concerns and idealism is visible in the American self image as a promoter of liberal democracy across the world, which in turn will be beneficial to the US in the future. The purer idealism was evident in the risky decisions to introduce democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even someone who believes that liberal democracy should be promoted in _general_ might have balked from attempting it in Iraq. The fact that they're not doing that, that it even would be _unthinkable_ to the American public to hand Iraq over to a pro-American dictator, tells us a lot about the role of idealism in current American foreign policy.

"Regarding UK foreign policy I will only restate what I publicly stated in Dagbladet the 8th of May: “The shaping of UK security policies have been outsourced to Washington.” You say jump...How high??"

I'm sorry, but the puppet argument is pretty weak. It's weak because it's primarily a slur, designed to shame two parties into stopping their cooperation, by focusing on their relative strengths. It ignores the other reason why Blair might support Bush: that he simply agrees. It also ignores the long tradition of angloamerican cooperation that goes back to WW2. There's no way I can take that argument seriously, unless you show me that Blair actually didn't want a war, and show me which particular other reasons he has for cooperating.

"The UN felt that inspections were making progress (also thanks to the war-mongers) and did not rule out the use of force at a later stage."

Not officially, but I don't see under what conditions for instance France would have agreed to a war short of Iraq boasting of having nukes, at which point it would be too late. Iraq had violated UNSC resolutions for 12 years. It clearly did not cooperate with 1441. The US did not prove that Iraq had a nuclear programme going, but it did prove that were good reasons for suspecting it, and that Iraq did not cooperate with the UNSC. Set the bar any higher than that, and there would have been a very high risk of Iraq's next grab for nukes going unnoticed and unpunished.

So the reasons were more basic than that. Anti-Americanism played a major part, and so did the diplomatic internationalism you believe in, which is related to neo-pacifism. The UNSC did not act responsibly about a major potential threat. It acted foolishly, a consequence of a foolish ideology.

Must the USA cooperate with the Saudi regime? Don’t they have a choice in that particular situation? I think you are confusing cooperation with exercising power. Robert Keohane has contributed much to defining what international cooperation means. He requires that an active policy-coordination is going on from both sides. If no coordination is required we have ‘harmony’. If only one side is adjusting its policy to accommodate the other side we are not talking about real cooperation.

Power, according to Robert Dahl, is to be able to make someone do something they would otherwise not have done. The way you want the UN to operate is deep-rooted in political realism. You want it to be an arena where the USA can exercise its power, not a forum for encouraging true multilateralism. To be precise: My impression is that (to you) the UN is ok as long as it does what the USA wants it to do and it is irrelevant if it refuses to do so.

A united UNSC would be a nice goal on the way to world security. The dichotomy you propose between these goals here is not very useful. It’s not an either or question. Success on one goal is important in order to achieve success at the most important goal. (world security) I don’t blame you for making this “mistake”. It’s the same one the Bush administration is making so you’re in good company :-)

Now I think you should take the argument regarding UK’s puppet-role more seriously. When was the last time you saw Blair do anything or say anything that didn’t make Bush smile? On the other hand he frequently pursues security policies that the British people do not want. There is total uniformity between the two and there is no question about where the center of gravity is: Washington (or Pentagon to be more precise). Blair’s reasons for cooperating are obvious: He’s the best boy in the class. He’s safely hiding under the skirts of the Statue of Liberty. A break with the “Yes Boss” approach would also of course have attracted enormous attention, and consequently led to a more problematic relationship with Washington. This is part of the reason why I don’t hesitate to criticize Blair publicly. He is the only one Bush might listen to. If Blair were to abandon the all-guns-tactics something might actually happen with US foreign policy. Blair is Bush’s loyal alibi.... and the annoying thing is that he speaks so well that he is a helluva good alibi. Without Blair on board I believe there would have been no war in Iraq. I admire him although he’s a real American hero (to use Fox News terminology).

“The UNSC did not act responsibly about a major potential threat.”
A major potential threat....very good. You see the UNSC does not support war against potential threats. The world is full of potential threats, and if you want to go after them you have a formidable task before you- We are back at preventive warfare which is not exactly kosher in just war theory or UN terminology. We are back at Hobbes and dog-eat-dog society if we design a world in which everyone attacks what they regard as potential threats. The USA is an extremely dangerous potential threat to North Korea. Is there exceptionalism going on here or is it also ok for North Korea to deal with their potential threats too? By attacking Iraq the USA has also proved that they are willing to start wars without being attacked first, not good news for North Korea. BTW: I don’t have sympathy for North Korea. It’s a reckless regime. The prospect of a "new North Korea" in Iraq was important in the build-up to war.

"Must the USA cooperate with the Saudi regime? Don?t they have a choice in that particular situation?"

They do, and I've never defended that cooporation. There is some necessity involved, because Saudi Arabia is extremely important to the world economy, but it has gone way beyond that. The question is whether Bush is wise to the Saudi game, or still dazzled by the mostly phony prospect of a reformist pro-Western oil-rich elite. I honestly don't know.

"To be precise: My impression is that (to you) the UN is ok as long as it does what the USA wants it to do and it is irrelevant if it refuses to do so."

When have I ever argued that something is right because the US supports it? On the contrary, it's because the US is in the right here that I support them. The moment Bush gives up the war on terror, or, say, Iraqi democracy, I give up on Bush. The UN is okay as long as it does what is right, and it is not okay when it sits by and lets nations like Iraq turn nuclear. The UN has a responsibility to prevent war and instability, and promote human rights and other liberal ideas. (And unless you're a pacifist you'll agree that a small war now can sometimes prevent a bigger one in the future.) It's that responsibility I measure the UN against, not whatever the current US administration happens to believe.

"When was the last time you saw Blair do anything or say anything that didn?t make Bush smile? On the other hand he frequently pursues security policies that the British people do not want."

Irrelevant. The whole argument of Blair as a puppet is dishonest. What exactly does it mean to be a puppet? Please give me an exact definition. Does it mean to usually agree on a particular issue? If so, yes, Blair is Bush's puppet, and Schröder was Chirac's puppet, or perhaps Chirac was Saddam's puppet. Everyone's a puppet! We can't discuss politics like this. "Puppet" is just a clever way of saying "he cooperates with someone I disagree with".

The fact that Bush and Blair never disagree in public does not mean, btw, that they never disagree in private. There's nothing suspect about two close allies putting up a united front against a massive opposition. They clearly agree on the fundamentals, and it's tactically wise to play down any disagreement over details. Or how would you interpret a public statement by Jan Petersen criticizing Bondevik? As proof that he's not a "puppet" of the PM, or a warning sign for the coalition?

It is also widely speculated that it was Blair who convinced Bush to go through the UN. Perhaps at that particular moment Bush became Blair's puppet?
"A major potential threat....very good. You see the UNSC does not support war against potential threats."

Then there's no way to deal with states that look for nuclear weapons. The moment they change from potential into actual threats, it's already too late to deal with them.

Bjørn: “Then there's no way to deal with states that look for nuclear weapons.”

You have forgotten that there are other means in the political tool-box than war. This is another reason why the war in Iraq was not just. War should always be a last resort. Other means were not exhausted. A time might have come in the future when other nations would have sided with those looking to invade Iraq and put massive pressure on France not to block a resolution. Or we might have been sitting here in 2025 saying: I don’t know if those inspections are going all that well, but we haven’t been hit by a ICBM yet.

When I use the puppet label it means that someone’s preference structure is decided by factors outside the actor. The question is not only: What is good for the UK. Blair also seems to ask: What does America want? Of course, it is good for the UK to do what America wants. America is the big boy who can (and frequently does) beat up the bad boys in the street. But when this pleasing the USA has become to dominant in your policy you may be ridiculed as a puppet. I respect Blair, although I am very disappointed with this particular tendency in UK foreign policy.

“Or how would you interpret a public statement by Jan Petersen criticizing Bondevik? As proof that he's not a "puppet" of the PM, or a warning sign for the coalition?”
This really supports my argument. Bondevik is Pettersen’s superior so he should not, and does not, criticize him publicly. Bush apparently has become Blair’s superior so consequently he does not criticize him publicly. Bush has no need to criticize Blair, because Blair always does what Bush wants him to. It’s all very easy! Blair has written some very good stuff about international politics which does not correspond too well with the politics from Washingon. I’m sure he tries to persuade Bush at times, but I can see very few instances where it seems like he’s succeeded. Going via the UNSC for a mandate is the most striking case.

Anders: when you state that the Bush Administration has "wasted a lot of good will" , you are being very dishonest. You and I both know that anti-American bigotry has been rife in Europe, even throughout the Clinton era, and before.

The "good will" of Europe, after 9/11, was from a collective psychological point-of-view quite unbearable for Europeans to hold for any length of time, because of the long history of European bigotry against America. Therefore, Bush's politics serve as a lightning rod for the real hatred Europeans have against America, releaving them from the essentially racist and xenophobic stance of blaming the American people, who are the actual targets.

I'm glad there has finally been a break between America and Europe, and I hope it widens. The eyes of the American people have finally opened to see the very real evil within Europe.

Markku:
Circular argumentation. You see, there is a real split going on within American society too. Is the reason for this hatred that the "American people" hates the "American people" and blames them?? My counterargument here relies on the presumption that the hatred in Europe and the USA has the same source: could it be American foreing policy? That's at least where my animosity derives from.

As long as American security policy is out of sync with the UN, traditional allies, even many American citizens and based on primitive preventive warfare, I also hope that Europe will choose a different path. In that we agree ! :-)

"The real evil within Europe". Please elaborate on this interesting highly abstract description... Is it the good ol':

Saddam is evil.
Europeans in genral do not support war against evil Saddam.
THEY MUST BE EVIL TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
??
"Racism and xenophobia"......come on.....check your dictionary.
Giving the rubber-glove treatment to those few Moslems allowed into the USA, and treating people who want to get in as war-criminals (fingerprints and who knows what's next... welcome to Camp Ashcroft!!))

Whatever happened to the
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," mentality?? Was it replaced by...you guessed it.. Xenophobia and racism??

Anders: "You have forgotten that there are other means in the political tool-box than war. This is another reason why the war in Iraq was not just. War should always be a last resort. Other means were not exhausted."

12 years of hide-and-seek with UN inspectors sounds pretty exhausting to me. Yes of course there were other options, and some of them might have worked. Let's take a look at one of them: Prolonged inspections backed up by occasional muxle flexing. In this scenario, the branch into the alternate universe occured after the Americans began to build up their force in Kuwait. Without this, Saddam would not have accepted new inspections - I hope you agree. So let's say Bush stalls the war, and forces Saddam to accept a reasonably intrusive inspections regime. This goes on for a while, the US withdraws from Kuwait, Saddam stops cooperating, the US builds up in Kuwait, the inspections go on, the US withdraws, Saddam stops cooperating, etc. This goes on until Iraq is no longer considered a wmd threat. Saddam dies or is otherwise replaced by a tyrant who isn't insane, perhaps his son Qusay, (who was evil, but not from what I understand erratic). Iraq moves back onto the less noisy track the Syrian Baathists took with Assad, and while the horror continues inside Iraq, the new leader tries to keep his head down internationally. Is this a plausible scenario?

Under this scenario, there would be times when inspections were at their most effective, (US forces in Kuwait or some other credible threat), and times when inspections were at their least effective, (Iraq off the radar, inward-looking US president). As we know from the 90's, inspections at their _most_ effective weren't all that effective. Saddam actively worked against the discovery of his wmd facilities at all times, and the success of the inspections often depended on _luck_, such as intelligence data gathered from exiled high-ranking Baathists. There's little doubt that inspections had an effect, but we can be equally certain that the effect was limited, not total. And here we're talking about inspections at their _most_ effective. At other times they would be ineffective, or maybe even called off entirely, as they have been since 1998. So under this scenario, there's a good chance that Saddam would develop nukes anyway, which would be a very bad thing.

It could work, but this scenario is unacceptable to me. Let's say the chance of failure is 5-10%. That may not sound like much, but imagine if air travel had those risks. Would you step into a plane? But perhaps you had another scenario for how this might work in mind, one that would reduce the risk of failure to much lower values. I'd like to hear it.

A related point: Do you agree that it was right of Israel to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, or should they have worked through the UN? Some background: The reactor was intended to go operational a month later, and would have significantly boosted Iraq's nuclear bomb research. It is plausibly that Iraq would have built a nuke before the end of the war with Iran, and given that the war quickly turned against Iraq, and that Saddam resorted to chemical weapons against Iran, it's also plausible that he would have also used those nukes. He would at least have threatened with it, enabling him to secure a very favourable peace treaty, and giving him a good starting point for invading the Gulf states to the south. Also relevant is the fact that the reactor was French, and that the Soviet Union had half-heartedly supported Iraq a few years earlier, which makes it likely that a UNSC proposal of intervention would have been vetoed. So, again, was it right of Israel to attack?

"When I use the puppet label it means that someone’s preference structure is decided by factors outside the actor."

Decided or influenced? If the former, that requires a pretty hefty amount of evidence. It means that if Blair believes that doing A is right, all his colleagues believe that A is right, but Bush tells him to do B, then he'll almost always do B. In this sense, a puppet is an employee without pay. If the latter, if you meant influence, that refers to all of us. We're all influenced by factors outside ourselves. How much do we have to be influenced to be called a puppet? And what evidence does this require? You do have evidence? As I said before, agreement is not evidence. Agreement does not tell you whether Blair is dominated by Bush or whether they just share the same basic outlook on the world, and agree publicly on the details for political reasons. And it does not tell you who dominates who. Unless you believe that the US has threatened Britain with, say, economic measures, the psychology of Bush and Blair is more important to understanding their relationship than the respective power of their nations. If Blair fawns over Bush, that's a psychological characteristic of Blair, not the natural reaction of minor leader when he faces a major leader. Again, more need of evidence.

"This really supports my argument. Bondevik is Pettersen’s superior so he should not, and does not, criticize him publicly."

Bondevik is Pettersen's superior only in title. In reality, Pettersen represents more power than Bondevik, and I think we can be pretty sure that they disagree internally on far more issues than we ever hear about on the outside. You rarely see signs of this at their level, but pay attention to what people say in the party grassroots. What we have here is a situation fairly analogous to the Bush-Blair partnership. Bondevik and Pettersen cooperate because they agree on the basics. On the issues where they do disagree they work out their differences internally, and present a united front to the outside. So unless you believe that Pettersen is Bondevik's puppet, what you need to present is evidence that enables us to place Bush-Blair in the master-puppet category, and Bondevik-Pettersen in the coalition-partners category. I don't see how you can do that, (but you may try), and so I suspect that you use puppet as a slur. You disagree with Blair's decision to support Bush, that's the essence.

My point isn't just that Blair is no puppet, but that the whole label is meaningless. I've never seen it used in a way that makes sense except as a slur.

"Circular argumentation. You see, there is a real split going on within American society too. Is the reason for this hatred that the "American people" hates the "American people" and blames them??"

Markku can defend himself, (welcome back, btw!), but I'd just like to point out that there's nothing circular about speaking of American anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism in its modern form is as I see it an American invention, invented in the 60's and exported through the global Vietnam movement. Anti-Americanism is the belief that the US is a constant negative influence, economically, culturally and politically, on the outside world, and that's a good summary of what much of the peace movement and counterculture believed. In Western Europe this view merged with an older strain of anti-Americanism, and was wholeheartedly adopted by the generation that today dominates the public sphere in for instance Norway.

The best exposure of the _nature_ of anti-Americanism was written 60 years ago by George Orwell in the essay Notes on Nationalism. It barely mentions anti-Americanism, but the psychology of global competitive prestige is the same, no matter what form it takes. (http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/nationalism.html )

I'm not saying that Americans who disagree with Bush are anti-Americans, btw. But there is correlation, and it is not circular to point this out.

Regarding puppets; I meant decided ultimately, not influenced. I agree that puppet is a label that is always used negatively. It is a way of indicating weakness and powerlessness in an actor. It belongs more in political journalism than in research. I like the expression. Leaders who wage controversial wars must always be exposed to caricatures and ridicule :-)
The puppet claim can not be proved easily. Neither can your position. We do not know the inner tensions in the UK-US relationship- We are both left to speculate. I believe that Blair has had to make serious concessions to Bush in the security policy field. You believe that he hasn’t. That’s as far as we’ll get. Prove that he hasn’t :-) What we know is that he has had his chief spin doctor sex-up intelligence material to add weight to the argument for war in Iraq. 16 words and bogus Niger yellow cake.

Regarding meaningless labels: This is an absolute favorite of mine. And I will just quote a common favorite (Orwell) from 1946. Politics and the English language.

“The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.”

Guess who’s using democracy in a dishonest way nowadays?? The meaning of democracy has not become clearer during the last half century. Recognize a few other Bush favorites in here: Freedom, patriotic and justice.

“inspections often depended on _luck_, such as intelligence data gathered from exiled high-ranking Baathists.” You are more or less quoting Cheney. It’s a message with quite a lot of bias. Many oppose this. Especially (and naturally) Rolf Ekeus who lead the inspectors for some years. General Hussein Kamel defected in 1995 and said the inspections were actually quite effective. I don’t know who to believe. I neither trust Iraqi generals or Cheney. Both communicate strategically to enforce their own agenda in this situation. Many interrogated prisoners’ main objective was to get a liberation war of the country they had fled.

I can’t comment on the Israel issue. What is bad is that Israel themselves broke the NPT-treaty and acquired nukes, possibly with the use of material from Norway. No one wanted regime change then, and rightly so. Once again nukes and regime change go separate ways.

Anders: "I believe that Blair has had to make serious concessions to Bush in the security policy field. You believe that he hasn’t. That’s as far as we’ll get. Prove that he hasn’t :-)"

No - you're making a positive claim here, (Blair is a puppet). The burden of proof for that claim is on you. Let me be clear: I don't know what relationship Bush has with Blair. I believe it's a cooperation based on basic agreement, where minor disagreements are glossed over for tactical purposes, but I only believe that because (and this is _my_ positive claim) that's the usual way politicians cooperate, when neither of them have direct power over the other. There are many examples of this. And the circumstances political puppets usually are found in aren't here, as far as I know. We don't know that Bush is blackmailing or threatening Blair. We don't know that Blair follows an ideology that tells him to submit to a higher (earthly) authority. So I don't think you can call him a puppet, unless you want to hide behind the relaxed standards of "political journalism". But why would you do that, unless your claim has failed the higher standards?

"Guess who’s using democracy in a dishonest way nowadays?? The meaning of democracy has not become clearer during the last half century. Recognize a few other Bush favorites in here: Freedom, patriotic and justice."

That's my other favourite Orwell essay. But Orwell wasn't saying that democracy, patriotism and justice were meaningless words. He often described himself as a patriot and a democrat. What he said was that there was no commonly accepted definition of those words, and that sometimes they were deliberately abused. The people he most likely was thinking of were the communists, but also Western powers that preached democracy but practiced imperialism. But this doesn't mean that anyone who talks about democracy, patriotism and justice is being dishonest, or even wrong. At least Orwell isn't saying that, so if that's what you believe, you can't base it on him.

"You are more or less quoting Cheney. It’s a message with quite a lot of bias. Many oppose this. Especially (and naturally) Rolf Ekeus who lead the inspectors for some years. General Hussein Kamel defected in 1995 and said the inspections were actually quite effective."

Wasn't Kamel also one of the defectors who provided the inspectors with data about facilities the inspectors wouldn't otherwise have found? And what does it mean for inspections to be "quite effective"? 90-95% certain to prevent nuclear research? If so, that's the same numbers I used in the example above to show that inspections were too _risky_. We agree that the inspections (at their best) did good, and eventually halted Iraq's wmd research. That's not the issue here. The issue is whether we can afford to take such chances, when the consequences of failure are so big.

Btw, Rolf Ekeus made som interesting statements about Saddam's wmd programmes in July: http://news.uriasposten.dk/2003_07_20_archive.html#105911902793021835

"I can’t comment on the Israel issue."

Why not? I believe I've given you the relevant facts, but you can look it up yourself. The situation wasn't completely analogous to the war in 2003, but that's sort of the point: The case for Israel's unilateral and illegal bombing of Iraq is much _stronger_ than the case for the war last year. So if we can't even agree on that, there's not much point discussing the finer details of the Iraq war. In 1981 there were no inspections, and no hope of any. Was it right of Israel to go against the international community, (most of which supported Iraq at some point between 1975 and 1985)? If not, is it _ever_ right to violate international law?

Bjørn: 90-95% is taken out of thin air. Why not operate with the number zero in some of your calculations? After all, that is roughly how much WMD ready to be used Iraq had. Your advice is to follow the Maxi-min rule for rational choices. This rule has flaws. Its object is to eliminate the possibility of the worst outcome. By doing that you also often eliminate the possibility for some quite good outcomes (Like for instance a mulitlateral UN-mandated mission promoting some rule of law on the international arena. and uniting the world against rogue states). Apply your logic to North Korea. There is a quite minor chance that they at this very moment are planning a nuclear strike on a major city in the US. If they are attacked preemptively this terrible outcome is avoided. Iraq was not a big threat, neither did they at this stage have the wherewithal to become one rapidly. It is hypocrisy to talk about 95% effectiveness when Kay’s team has gone home with only dirty laundry in their bags (note the double meaning:-)).

I won’t comment on the Israel case. Because I don’t know much about it, and I don’t have the time to look it up at the moment, and I want to search out information on it on my own before discussing it.

“But this doesn't mean that anyone who talks about democracy, patriotism and justice is being dishonest, or even wrong.” True. But war in the name of freedom, in the name of democracy...is a bit bizarre. Because when there is no fixed meaning to these words, the message is very difficult to decode. Bush isn’t merely talking about these words. He is killing for these words, and in the name of these words. Reasons for war should not be expressed in such abstract language. “ BUSH: “The war in Iraq is really about peace” Orwell wrote this in the eighties ;-) 1984: “War is peace”. Who wrote that speech??? David Frum’s replacement?? I got this great idea guys...let’s make Bush resemble Big Brother.

I call Blair a puppet, because I believe he is a puppet. I can not prove that he is a puppet. Your negative claim is impossible to falsify. My judgment is based upon the fact that the UK historically generally have followed an ideal of multilateralism. With the war in Iraq this line was abandoned. We know that the Bush administration put enormous pressure on the members of the UNSC before they decided not to put the follow-up to 1441 up for voting. I believe that such pressure was put on Blair at an earlier stage too, and that he and his cabinet chose a line that was different from what they otherwise would have done. Another circumstantial evidence here is the way members of his administration resigned in a protest against Blair’s handling of Iraq. They were surprised to see this change in policy. They could not be a part of his cabinet anymore. These people probably didn’t recognize what had been agreed and discussed during prior party and cabinet meetings, if they did they probably would have resigned then instead. No smoking gun...(No mushroom cloud either :-)) but this is part of the explanation for why I publicly criticize Blair. On Friday the ambassador of the UK here in Oslo will speak about UK foreign policy. I am looking very much forward to hearing her views.

Anders: "90-95% is taken out of thin air. Why not operate with the number zero in some of your calculations?"

Okay, let's. I don't see how we could do that, but let's assume that as long as inspections are being carried out, Saddam is unable to produce nukes or other wmd's. But you didn't respond to the rest of my scenario. What happens when the Americans have left Kuwait, and Saddam becomes tired of the inspections again? What happens when there's a new, more internationalist or isolationist president in the White House? What will happen is what happened in 1998. I find it difficult to imagine inspections with 100% certainty of preventing nuclear research. I find it impossible to imagine this when there are _no inspections_. We don't know for certain if or when Saddam intended to revive his nuclear research, but I don't think a permanent change of policy (/personality) is more likely than a temporary policy intended to end the sanctions. Without inspections and sanctions I believe the chances would have been very high of an eventual revival of the programme. This has to be factored in, and it weighs heavily even against your supposed 100% efficiency of inspections.

"Apply your logic to North Korea. There is a quite minor chance that they at this very moment are planning a nuclear strike on a major city in the US. If they are attacked preemptively this terrible outcome is avoided."

Yes it is. And another terrible outcome is ensured with a very high probability - the destruction of Seoul, and the death of millions of South Koreans. There's no way to compare a state that probably wants nukes with one that probably _has_ nukes. Methods that work against one won't work against the other. I don't know how we can deal with North Korea, but I do know that a preemptive attack would be a disaster. I would oppose it despite the certainty of eventual success - North Korea would loose, Kim Jong Il would fall, but at a horrifying cost. But the threat needs to be dealt with. I suppose the best solution is a combination of keeping up the diplomatic/economic pressure while never giving in to blackmail, and encouraging a coup by a sane tyrant. I remember blogger Steven den Beste once proposing that North Korea be turned over to China. I've heard worse ideas.

"True. But war in the name of freedom, in the name of democracy...is a bit bizarre. Because when there is no fixed meaning to these words, the message is very difficult to decode. Bush isn’t merely talking about these words. He is killing for these words, and in the name of these words. Reasons for war should not be expressed in such abstract language. “ BUSH: “The war in Iraq is really about peace” Orwell wrote this in the eighties ;-) 1984: “War is peace”. Who wrote that speech??? David Frum’s replacement?? I got this great idea guys...let’s make Bush resemble Big Brother. "

Now you're just being glib. You're speaking like a neo-pacifist, one of those who believe that some wars are necessary, but only those wars that have already been fought and justified by history. Think about what you're saying. A "war in the name of freedom, in the name of democracy" - what's bizarre about that? You're speaking on general terms, so here's a general counterexample: Sweden turns into a tyranny, starts threatening Norway, and declares war when we refuse to bow to their demands. We decide to fight back. Now, would it be correct for us to speak about a "war in the name of freedom, the name of democracy"? If not, why not? If it is, there's nothing bizarre about it _as such_. There may be in this particular case, but so far you've only used Orwell against Bush on _general_ grounds.

"The war in Iraq is really about peace" vs "War is peace". Oh please. Did I mention that while I'm very fond of Orwell, I've never heard his fiction novels quoted sensible? The one big message of Orwell's non-fiction is to never stop thinking. And almost every time anyone uses an analogy from 1984 or Animal Farm, they're using it precisely as an excuse _not_ to think. They take out their handy little Orwell toolbox, and throw out some ominous buzzword (Big Brother! Doublethink!) or quote, and believe this settles the issue. It doesn't. These analogies fall apart when you look closer _every_ time - but looking closer is exactly what they're designed to discourage. I respect you Anders, but please stop butchering Orwell.

About war and peace - think about it. _Why_ can't a war promote peace? This is just an elegant way of saying that some deaths today can prevent many deaths tomorrow, which anyone but a pacifist will agree with. Would a French and English war against Hitler in the mid-30's have promoted peace, by saving the lives of 50 million people a few years later? Probably. So why is it wrong to say that? Because it is superficially similar to a quote from some novel? Even if Orwell meant it in your sense, it wouldn't stand up. If reality contradicts Orwell, who wins?

I have not heard any analysis with respect to a now declassified CIA/Navy Seal operation in Libya called "Operation Rat Hole" which began in February of 2003.

Apparently, a U.S. Navy special ops team was sent in to do surveillance on a meeting at a villa in Libya between a group of terrorists and the Iraqi secret service. The meeting was taped and recorded while being sent to CIA headquarters in real time. The CIA ordered the Mukarbarrat agent and terrorists killed when the Iraqi agent ordered terrorist several attacks on U.S. targets in the U.S. as well as in Europe. All of the terrorists and the Iraqi agent were killed at the villa and the seal team confiscated a treasure trove of documents, cell phones and computers. They also uncovered plans to assassinate a Shia cleric in London. After warning the cleric two CIA agents shot the suicide bomber in London moments before he could detonate the bomb.

Does this not prove that Saddam was a real and growing threat to the U.S. and Europe ?

Does this not prove not only a link between Saddam and terrorists, but also that they themselves are engaged in terror against the U.S. and Europe ?

Why has the press not covered this and other such stories? The heroism and competence of the Special Ops troops is itself is news worthy.

Most people in America, and Europe don't know that Saddam's own brother in law (who was by the way in charge of the WMD concealment program) while under interrogation in Jordan in 1995 after his defection, reluctantly told his interrogators that Saddam's planned to obtain at least two nuclear warheads to put on tractor trailers and detonate them in Kuwait City and Haifa.

Where is the coverage of these undisputed facts?

Why have the European leaders who were against the war, and Democratic presidential candidates in the U.S.not been asked to comment on these well documented and alarming facts?

It is now a well established fact that South Korea has been trafficking in missile as well as enrichment technology, and is in desparite need of cash (Kim can't feed his own cabinet officials). It is also well established that Saddam's kleptocracy has stolen and stashed in foreign banks more than 50 billion dollars. Is it a streach given Saddam's intent to use WMD, and his past practice of actually using them, that he would attempt to at some point "buy one off the shelf" from cash strapped South Korea and use it?

The "press" only reports what they think will not seriously damage the Democrats chances for success in the next Pres. election.
It is my belief that certain Middle Eastern leaders desperate for Pres. Bush to leave (them and their Islamofascist nations sans Democracy) gave some large "donations" to the DNC for Kerry's election, but you will not only never hear about it; they will not even investigate it.
Haven't you noticed that at soon as one sleazy lie against Pres. Bush seems to back fire, the Dumocraps then come with with something else sleazy (now it's using the dead bodies of American soldiers, i.e. the "press" is in cahoots with the anti-warriors EXACTLY like it happened in Vietnam-I watched the whole thing unfold). Also, the "press" refused to divulge the book Kerry had written in the seventies or the fact that BOGUS US Vets were used to testify to Congress.
We also heard nothing from the "press" about exactly how Kerry's minions got rid Dean out of the way. They were just like a coiled snake when the time was right they bit and bit hard.
The obviously stunned CNN anchors and staff practically cried (jaws wide open and teary eyes) ON AIR when Gore couldn't use a CLEARLY unconstitutional Florida Statute and deprive serving military members of their votes to steal the election in 2000. Years after all but one of the recounts PROVED Pres. Bush one (even with paid votes and double voting of the poor, homeless and others by the Dumocraps)some of them still claim "Pres. Bush stole the election".
Those that believe the budget can be balanced by cutting the taxes of 98% of Americans as the liar Kerry claims; I have a mansion in CT I'd like to sell you for a measly half million (of course site unseen only applies).

The "press" only reports what they think will not seriously damage the Democrats chances for success in the next Pres. election.
It is my belief that certain Middle Eastern leaders desperate for Pres. Bush to leave (them and their Islamofascist nations sans Democracy) gave some large "donations" to the DNC for Kerry's election, but you will not only never hear about it; they will not even investigate it.
Haven't you noticed that at soon as one sleazy lie against Pres. Bush seems to back fire, the Dumocraps then come with with something else sleazy (now it's using the dead bodies of American soldiers, i.e. the "press" is in cahoots with the anti-warriors EXACTLY like it happened in Vietnam-I watched the whole thing unfold). Also, the "press" refused to divulge the book Kerry had written in the seventies or the fact that BOGUS US Vets were used to testify to Congress.
We also heard nothing from the "press" about exactly how Kerry's minions got rid Dean out of the way. They were just like a coiled snake when the time was right they bit and bit hard.
The obviously stunned CNN anchors and staff practically cried (jaws wide open and teary eyes) ON AIR when Gore couldn't use a CLEARLY unconstitutional Florida Statute and deprive serving military members of their votes to steal the election in 2000. Years after all but one of the recounts PROVED Pres. Bush one (even with paid votes and double voting of the poor, homeless and others by the Dumocraps)some of them still claim "Pres. Bush stole the election".
Those that believe the budget can be balanced by cutting the taxes of 98% of Americans as the liar Kerry claims; I have a mansion in CT I'd like to sell you for a measly half million (of course site unseen only applies).

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Solomonia: Bjorn Staerk: "The axis of rudeness", November 22, 2003 06:38 PM

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Solomonia: Bjorn Staerk: "The axis of rudeness", January 5, 2004 07:57 PM

Bjørn Stærk finds a certain Norwegian columnist...misses the point... Columnist: [Bush and Blair] are the foremost international representatives of a view which makes [the war on terrorism] into a moral war, a struggle of good against evil. Blair just ...