a fellow citizen of the world

[larvatus]

“In Berlin, Obama made exactly one point with which it was possible to disagree.” According to David Brooks, it was not this one:

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
    We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.
    So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.

Thanks, but no thanks. Touting fellow citizenship of the world is this century’s ladylike complement in stupidity to Woodrow Wilson’s fatal fixation on self-determination as an imperative principle of national action, the principle indispensably and preponderantly responsible for incessant warfare tearing apart the Old World throughout the past century. Today, we Americans could scarcely do worse than forswear our tribal loyalty to the founding documents that circumscribe the walls of our nation. We owe no duty of citizenship to those unwilling or unable to abide by our mandate. On the contrary, to affirm such duty is to undermine the compact that created this nation and continues to maintain it to this day. Our nation is unique in being held together by nothing but its founding principle. It has welcomed the worthiest and the worst off at the cost of renouncing all prior allegiances. It cannot stand without sustaining the boundaries defined by this renunciation. Nor can it go forth tearing down the boundaries between hidebound races, fanatical faiths, and complacent cultures.

On 20 November 1858, while supporting himself as a surveyor, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal: “Who are bad neighbors? They who suffer their neighbors’ cattle to go at large because they don’t want their ill will,—are afraid to anger them. They are abettors of the ill-doers.” Obama’s alignment with cosmopolitan clastics recalls the prophet of neighborly love, said to have united Jews and gentiles by breaking down the middle wall of partition between them. But the world that defines its commons by disparate commitments to creeds and traditions, must be served by policies that embody bullish insularity of Thoreau, not by fantasies that abet the ill-doers through capturing ovine inclusiveness of Jesus. And that is the neighborly policy that America perpetually renews in virtue of her Constitution, with each turn at mending walls refusing the sufferance of our neighbors’ cattle going at large. And our best foreign policy would commit to a like mending by all neighbors, everywhere in the world.

Comments

[tristes-tigres.livejournal.com]

Our Congress gave legal power to our President to go to war against Iraq

Based on consciously falsified evidence, as is amply proved by now. If the US had functioning democracy and rule of law, somebody would have been held responsible.

But beyond that, waging war against country that had no intention of attacking the US is a war crime, if that term has any meaning at all.

That enforcement fully justifies the invasion of Iraq under international law.

I am sure the Chancellor of Germany obtained all required authorization before endeavoring to defend legal rights of Sudet Germans, persecuted by Poland. It was humanitarian intervention, too.

From my private standpoint, Saddam’s genocidal domestic policies and sponsorship of international terrorism had the same effect.

In that case, I assume you are going to speak out in favour of bombing Saudi Arabia (financing Sept. 11) and Pakistan (creating the Taliban and selling nuclear weapons blueprints)

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

The threat of Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs was a minor component in the House Joint Resolution 114. Saddam’s refusal to accommodate weapons inspectors constituted a necessary and sufficient casus belli. I am all in favor of aggressive diplomacy backed by a big stick. All the better if it complies with international law, in contradistinction to Hitler annexing Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and Putin Medvedev invading Georgia to protect the rights of South Ossetians freshly minted Russian citizens. Looks like you could benefit from remedial instruction in history and geography concerning these matters.

[tristes-tigres.livejournal.com]

The threat of Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs was a minor component in the House Joint Resolution 114. Saddam’s refusal to accommodate weapons inspectors constituted a necessary and sufficient casus belli.

It is a real shame to see the resort to such threadbare lies. Anyone with attention span longer than a gnat remembers, that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors to do their work, and that they were pulled out on the eve of the invasion so as not to be killed by the US humanitarian bombs.

Your secretary of state climbed atop the tribune of the UN and delivered to the world sombre presentation of the Iraqi WMD programs, backed by satellite photos, "proving" the existence of the same. Presentation, that has since been revealed to be known to Powell at the time to be a pack of bald-faced lies. Far from a "minor component", the non-existent WMD program and equally false allegiations of Saddam's ties to al-Qaeda were the rationale for invasion.

It is litle wonder that Percentage (http://harpers.org/archive/2008/09/0082149) of Britons and Canadians, respectively, who say the United States is a “force for evil”: 35, 34


All the better if it complies with international law, in contradistinction to Hitler annexing Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and Putin Medvedev invading Georgia to protect the rights of South Ossetians freshly minted Russian citizens.

US-backed Gerogia attacked South Ossetia, bombarding Tskhinvali with MLRS artillery, killing Russian peacekeeping troops and Ossetian civilians, in violation of agreements that it signed earlier. All the while, UKUSA blocked the UN resolution, proposed by Russia, that demanded the cessation of the use of force. That was before Russian army moved into Ossetia.

International law makes no provisions for safe heavens for the aggressor. Did the US and its "democratic leader" Saakashvili expect that they can level a city, and then retreat and declare ceasefire, like nothing had happened ? That would be a lot like demanding that the Red Army in 1943 stopped its advance upon reaching the border of the Soviet Union. Looks like it is you who stands in need of some instruction.

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

I am heartened to witness your embrace of manly logic in the wake of kvetching like a bitch. “Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq’s part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections,” Villepin said. In other words, given the choice between A and B, we must choose C.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s good to see you posturing like any kind of man, even a Frenchman. We must do our best to oppose terrorism, both foreign and domestic. Even so, your patriotic agenda are ill served by citing Britons who regard your country UK’s biggest threat after al-Qaeda and Iran.

[tristes-tigres.livejournal.com]

So, after the project to instruct me in the matters of international law and history was grounded by the defects of your factual base, you decided to switch to instructing me in the skill of being a man ? I do not a priory object to that, just like I don't object to being taught any other useful skill. But I would expect that an instructor has its own competence in the matter beyond question. What are your qualifications, - menacing corporate employees with your handguns ?

Tell you what, prove yourself in one of the theaters of military actions that you so strenuously defend. I hear that the US army is experiencing manpower shortages. Show that you can wave a gun at someone who can wave right back, and then we'll talk.

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

You misunderstand the point of this conversation. I am not claiming any kind of qualification for instructing you in any subject. I do submit that you would be much happier in a more open society, so if you are still open to instruction, I suggest another term of study in the U.S. Let me know if you need a letter of recommendation.

As regards my willingness and ability to wave a gun at someone who can wave right back, the traditional venue for its exploration is a challenge to a duel issued on rec.arts.books. Then again, since your government doesn’t trust you with sidearms, perhaps you would be better off waving something else.

[tristes-tigres.livejournal.com]

Another term at a graduate school ? Man, you must really hate me. Was it something that I said ?