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“some of the most God-awful, backwards, misogynistic, bigoted, and misanthropic leaders”

What groups are you referring to exactly? Because I know of noone except those on the far left fringe who do that. No one on here or at some of the leftist blogs believes that way. Most Democrats are not supporting Bush or his policy- but that doesn’t mean they support Chavez! Are you talking about celebrities like Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte? They represent the Democrats the way Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson represent the GOP.

I used your reference to the US support of tyrants to tee up my point about the Left and their current willingness to associate with those that philosophically should be among their greatest opponents, but I made sure not to specifically put you personally on the right hand of the equation.

There was no intent to claim you support “Ahmadinejad and the like’. Your language stated nothing of the sort, and I fully understand what you were trying to say; I simply disagree with you. And I don’t have a problem with you, just your views on these issues, for which it is both my right and yours to disagree.

That last thing is the part that I have the biggest problem understanding. You rail against the US support of tyrants, but right now I see just about every Liberal and left-wing group lining up with some of the most God-awful, backwards, misogynistic, bigoted, and misanthropic leaders

minus the ‘just about every’. To parahprase Churchill, the west has the worst policy except for everywhere else.

That last thing is the part that I have the biggest problem understanding. You rail against the US support of tyrants, but right now I see just about every Liberal and left-wing group lining up with some of the most God-awful, backwards, misogynistic, bigoted, and misanthropic leaders and governments in the world just to try and heap scorn on Bush.

You mistake my criticism of Bush for support for Ahmadinejad and the like? Well, if you think that then I can understand why you’d have a problem with me. Luckily I’m not trying to whitewash the crimes of any side.

I just think that for any Iranian crime you can point to, you can point to an American crime on a larger scale. Hell, we had our hands in most of their crimes to begin with. We helped spur on the Islamic revolution.

And I don’t believe our intentions have been benevolent, they’ve been totally and understandably self-centered. We’re trying to secure control of the worlds largest oil reserves. That means controlling the Middle East. We do it by supporting Middle East dictators and by using military force.

I know I’m all over the place with this comment, but it’s late

Last comment on this thread for me.

Go read history. We did not ‘attack’ Vietnam; we were invited in by the Vietnamese government (after the French bailed on them, what a surprise). And it was a slow escalation over many years. And then WE bailed on them.

I do not accept, approve, or even believe the stated reasons for many, if not most, actions by my government, or any other government. The art of International Relations and national public relations ensures that no administration gives out the real reason most of the time. It is literally giving up your bargaining position. It is like the old joke that upon hearing about the death of the British Ambassador, the Secretary of State commented, ‘Yes, it is tragic news, but what does he REALLY mean by that?”

I do believe that we invaded Iraq to hopefully kick-start a long-term process towards Democracy and Liberalism in government throughout the Middle East. By long-term, I mean generations, by the way. Why? Because of both oil, which is a key strategic resource, and fears of Saddam going completely unstable, and our desire to attempt to control the make-up of the regime that would replace him. Our intelligence was spotty, but at the time most experts believed SOMETHING was going on in the area of WMD’s, as did previous administrations.

Do I think Bush handled the post-overthrow properly? Hell no; I do have a working cerebrum and cerebellum. But what was done, and the effects, will not be known for 30 – 50 years. It could turn out every bit as disastrous, or worse, as Operation Ajax, or it could turn out as well as the occupation of Japan (which lasted 7 years, although without in internal insurgency (civil war) ongoing).

If it does work, the world will be a safer place, we will have a firmer grip on access to an oil source, and the people of the region will have a higher quality of life.

That last thing is the part that I have the biggest problem understanding. You rail against the US support of tyrants, but right now I see just about every Liberal and left-wing group lining up with some of the most God-awful, backwards, misogynistic, bigoted, and misanthropic leaders and governments in the world just to try and heap scorn on Bush. Those should be the natural adversaries of the left, but they are so blinded by BDS they embrace the enemy of my enemy philosophy. It, to me, is the real moral relativism going on right now.

We were discussing whether judging the actions of nations without considering intent is even valid.

Why do we accept the intentions of our government but not those of others? Do you really think our intent in Iraq was to create democracy or self-defense? How about when we attacked Vietnam?

In a related topic what annoys me most about the worst things that the U.S. has done in what the government has perceived to be the interest of the nation is that apparently no one is learning from it. Has it dawned yet on any of these “realists” that every time we’ve supported tyrants or insurgents it’s come back to bite us on the posterior? Come on, folks. Surely somewhere they can add a line item in that huge budget to buy a clue!

Hypothetical situation that’s completely dissimilar.

Well, you can argue the dissimilar part alright, because I never intended to claim similarity. We were discussing whether judging the actions of nations without considering intent is even valid.

As for hypothetical, sorry, but no. That is exactly what the English High Command decided to do to try and stop the German strategic bombing of factories, (as radar and adequate air coverage wouldn’t come until much later in the war) and why they decided to do it they way they did.

Hypothetical situation that’s completely dissimilar.

Especially when you consider we’re more similar to 1939 Germany than 1939England, when you consider the relative power of the nations.

What amazes me is how a legitimate thought experiment becomes some avowed evidence that we hate our country and need to move to Tehran.

Nothing could be further from the truth. But try telling the blind to see or the stubborn to think.

find me the county that subject to the same type of analysis of actions in a vacuum of intent looks good.

Maybe that’s why there have always been wars. I still think thinking like Chomsky in that quote (not necessarily in general) is a good thing for anyone who wants to be effective in foreign policy.

The WWII example. Valid, but I think you need to say to yourself, ‘what did England want from Germany?’ In many ways, it was a much simpler goal. They simply wanted them to stop invading other countries, specifically their allies. A good, but bloody way to do that is to bomb the heck out of them.

We, on the other hand, want Iran, which is mildly or indirectly hostile, to become a peaceful member of the international community. That is a much tricker, more nuanced goal that it’s counterpart in WWII, and should have accordingly more nuanced tactics.

If all we cared about we the nuclear facilities themselves, they would be gone tomorrow, and I would think it was a pretty good idea, but there is a much larger context here. If we simply wipe the facilities out, Iran won’t respond with overt military action, but they would probably cause many problem for us including increased funding of terrorist groups, and playing havoc with the world oil supply. Then you would have to consider the indirect effects this action would have on other countries. Even our allies in the region might rethink their association with the US.

Were their actions morally justified? Were they more morally justifiable than the Rape of Nanking, for instance, or the killing fields of Cambodia? Or, do we ignore intent, and call them equally evil?

My point is that we should evaluate intent or good vs evil separately from actions vs reactions. We don’t call them ‘equally evil’ because we don’t even address the question in this context. We simply say these actions were effective in achieving ‘x’, and other actions were not. In a whole separate debate we can decide (and probably agree) on what goals are morally acceptable.

If there’s any problem with my flavor of relativity is that it can lead to a bit of the ends justifying the means. If we evaluate the two completely separately, we can use an ‘effective’ means to get to a ‘moral’ end, and still cause some problems. In this case however, I think the effective means happily are the peaceful means, and I think Chomsky very well shows that aggressive means in this situation would be horribly ineffective.

Your points seem at first blush valid, but please, find me the county that subject to the same type of analysis of actions in a vacuum of intent looks good. And no fair picking their good actions, you have to pick their bad ones, too.

Examining action without intent is almost the definition of relativism – all actions are moral equivalent, because intent is ignored.

Should England have surrendered to Germany rather than start the bombing campaigns against Munich and Berlin civilian centers? They had no direct military advantage; the goal was to enrage and distract Hitler from his very efficient bombing of English production, and goad him into bombing the English’s own population centers, especially London, so the factories could be rebuilt.

Ignoring the intent, then, there could be no defending the British High Command’s decision to both kill German civilians, and try to entice their enemy into targeting their own population. But, the intent was to allow England to recover the capabilities required to win the war.

Had they not done so and lost the war, would the English have been better off (morally or materially)? Were their actions morally justified? Were they more morally justifiable than the Rape of Nanking, for instance, or the killing fields of Cambodia? Or, do we ignore intent, and call them equally evil?

grrr

The kicker is the nations and people respond much more strongly to actions than intent. If someone wants to save your life, but tries to do it by yelling at you angrily, you are much much less likely to listen than if someone wants to manipulate you but does it with a silken tongue. This is just basic psychology and sociology.

Therefore, if we want to understand and shape the actions of a nation like Iran, it is immaterial to talk of our intent (or another way to phrase it, the indirect effects of our actions, or as you put it our “net effect”).

This doesn’t mean that we need to “become a nation of Buddhist Monks that refuse to harm even a flower” but rather that we should shape our actions to elicit the most favorable response from the target of those actions. The Chomsky quote is an excellent thought experiment which allows you to see that, when considering actions alone, the US foreign policy course over the past 20 years has very little chance of producing favorable results with Iran.

This doesn’t mean we need never talk about intent or net effects, but here we are dealing with a very specific case, so direct actions alone are best.

You don’t want to think that bad and sometimes evil things are being done in your name. But they are.

You are wrong. I fully know that our government does bad things. I also accept that we should try to ensure we only do them under exigent circumstances. I am just not foolish enough to believe that we can be an Utopian Idealist State.

It just doesn’t fill me with hatred or loathing towards my country, as it appears to do so for you and definitely does for Chomsky, to find out we have had to do ‘bad things’ in the cause of (hopefully) a greater good. What THOSE definitions are can and should be topics of vigorous debate and oversight, but to believe that we can conduct Foreign Policy and International Relations under a guise munificent benevolence is the height of naivety.

What do you suggest, we become a nation of Buddhist Monks that refuse to harm even a flower?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to limit our military engagements to those of a defensive nature. Which would rule out our involvement in Iraq, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Cuba and the Philippines to name a few.

It’s easy and more comfortable to ignore or gloss over the crimes and inhumanity of your own government. You don’t want to think that bad and sometimes evil things are being done in your name. But they are. Torture, murder, theft. It’s happening every single day; it’s your tax dollars at work. It’s happened under Presidents, Democratic and Republican and it’s not going to stop, until as a nation we demand the same things from our government that we demand from Iran and Iraq. Namely a commitment to human rights and peace.

My point is that we are, overall, an engine for good in the world, not bad, when you look at our contributions to the world as a whole.

What do you suggest, we become a nation of Buddhist Monks that refuse to harm even a flower?

That we should try to do the best we can goes without saying, but to hang the US for every transgression, while simultaneously ignoring both the good we do and the bad that others do, is what I am railing against.

You are out her quoting Chomsky, and avowed hater of the United States and all Western culture, claiming we are as bad as the Iranians (worse, actually). I am saying that is a crock of shit.

I will quote myself again, “over the past 50 to 100 years, yes, while we are far from perfect, we have been a much more net positive on the world and the world’s population and peoples, by many orders of magnitude. The same cannot be said for Iran.”

Want me to help you pack? Do you need help filling out Visa papers for Tehran? Surely you can not stand another day in this Gawd Awful country of ours.