Home | Hegemony | Archives | Blogroll | Resume | Links | RSS Feed | subscribe by email    

Flagrancy

to Reason

 

blog roll


    Loose cannons to the left, loose cannons to the right..., 2003-04-04 18:25:38 | Main | Support the troops, don't give them nightmares..., 2003-04-07 15:03:03

    Nader, Gore, again:

    The problem with comments like: "Thanks, Ralph. Thanks for making 90,000 voters in Florida believe that there was no difference between Bush and Gore." [link refers to a sign at an anti-war protest] is that Gore was on the wrong side of this issue, just as much as Bush was, at least before 9/11 when he altered his foreign policy program from one of neo-oligarchic isolationist protectionism to one of wild expansionist imperialism (doubleplus neo-oligarchic protectionism). The differences in foreign policy were still one of more style over substance.

    The infant mortality rate in Iraq in 2000 was more than double that of 1990 - because of the war and the sanctions regime - and was causing at least as much suffering for the Iraqis as the latter period of Saddam's regime. If we had elected Gore this would have almost certainly continued ad infinitum: in human terms this wouldn't have been much better than the present war so far as Iraq is concerned. I have yet to see any anti-war Democrats - nevermind how few there are in congress - address that problem in all their whining about Nader, nevermind that a) if they'd persued instant run-off voting reforms while they had the chance a vote for Nader would have been a vote for Gore, and b) Gore lost because Katherine Harris shrugged the minority vote off the voter roles.

    "And we have maintained the sanctions. Now I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and I know there are allegations that they're too weak to do it, but that's what they said about the forces that were opposing Milosevic in Serbia, and you know, the policy of enforcing sanctions against Serbia has just resulted in a spectacular victory for democracy just in the past week, and it seems to me that having taken so long to see the sanctions work there, building upon the policy of containment that was successful over a much longer period of time against the former Soviet Union in the communist block, seems a little early to declare that we should give up on the sanctions."

    Without ending Iraqi dependence on the state for survival this policy could never have worked - for one thing Milosevic was ousted because he miscalculated his own popularity and was voted out of office, and didn't resort to violence to retain power. The situations really aren't comparable unless through reinforcing a sanctions regime that had brought Iraqis to within literal inches of their lives it would magically change their situation from one of debilitating weakness to overpowering non-violence. Niether of the Parties offered any solution, which was to take our boots off their necks, and continue to fail so now. Hardly surprising since they're not really all that different.

    Thbbb.


:: posted by buermann @ 2003-04-04 19:49:41 CST | link





    go ahead, express that vague notion
    Name:
    Email:
    Homepage:
    Comment

    your turing test:

journals, notes,
and
other curmudgeonry

Enforcing
American
Hegemony
- A Timeline -

Oil for Nothing:
US Holds On Humanitarian Supplies
Iraq: 1997-2001


the good book
and other cultural
artifacts


The Autobiography
of
Mother Jones


Contact Info:
buermann@mastodon