Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Annals of Additional Words

Some Kagan:

Would such an action violate Pakistan's sovereignty? Yes, but nations should not be able to claim sovereign rights when they cannot control territory from which terrorist attacks are launched. If there is such a thing as a "responsibility to protect," which justifies international intervention to prevent humanitarian catastrophe either caused or allowed by a nation's government, there must also be a responsibility to protect one's neighbors from attacks from one's own territory, even when the attacks are carried out by "non-state actors."
Uh-huh. And what if there is no such thing as a "responsibility to protect"?

70 comments:

Justin said...

Then we'll find something else

Aaron said...

Why then, the entire family of nations drifts apart! Or at least needs a new godfather.

Anonymous said...

Uh-huh. And what if there is no such thing as a "responsibility to protect"?

Why no problem. Some other justification is always near at hand...just like Wall Street can produce an infinite amount of "product" at a moment's notice.

erin4iraq said...

How shallow do you have to be not to acknowledge that the freedom of speech you regularly exercise was bought and is maintained at an enormous price by others who believed they had a responsibility to protect you and that freedom? Perhaps a more appropriate response is to just say thanks for sacrificing to provide me what I regularly take for granted and would not get off my ass to give to others.

Anonymous said...

How shallow do you have to be not to acknowledge that the freedom of speech you regularly exercise was bought and is maintained at an enormous price by others who believed they had a responsibility to protect you and that freedom?

Does this mean that Kagan got off his ass for something other than the last of the shrimp dip? That's kind of a "right to protect", isn't it?
-- sglover

cthulhu's mom said...

How shallow do you have to be not to acknowledge that the freedom of speech you regularly exercise was bought and is maintained at an enormous price by others who believed they had a responsibility to protect you and that freedom?

If I guess right, I want a pony.

IOZ said...

Our basic freedom, dude! Come on, man. This affects us all!

Mr.Fundamental said...

Lady, I got buddies who died face-
down in the muck so you and I could
enjoy this family restaurant!

alansmithee said...

...up hill...both ways...in the snow...blah blah blah...

mlr said...

If Pakistan has no power to end attacks from its territory, then it has no responsibility to blah blah what-have-you. Power IS responsibility, mais non?

And so if it has no power to end attacks from its territory, it is not sovereign over that territory. QE-frackin-D...

Pakistan... not sovereign... imagine that...

... oh, somehow I'll find a way to go on...

Mr.Fundamental said...

they're gonna kill that poor woman!

Montag said...

i don't think Kagan goes far enough in the quote above (i didn't click through.)

here's someone who takes it a bit further:

...sovereignty has to be earned. And after decades of exorbitant American aid being repaid with expansive state-supported jihad, it can be said that Pakistan has failed to make the grade.

though i disagree somewhat. sovereignty isn't earned.
it's made.
by force.

no sovereignty for you!

la Rana said...

I'd totally back Erin against Kagan in a non-sequitor competition.

Liberto Capudenda said...

So, if a terrorist attack occurs on U.S. soil, as described, then America must also give up it's sovereignty?
Si?
Mr. Kagan has simply described how tyranny comes to Americans from "international intervention."

erin4iraq said...

why, thank you la rana

it's about time i won something around here

Mr.Fundamental said...

I have involuntary twitches! I no longer have sovereignty over my very tissue! synapse fail!

just whose governing whom, here? I s`pose.

and I fail to see how I've been tyrannized (tyrannasauricized) by the big bad terrists. come an get me!

Phillip Allen said...

So, according to Kagan, if a given country allows a terrorist group to train on its soil and launch attacks against another country from that soil, then the 'host' country, but not exercising its "responsibility to protect" has surrendered its sovereignty and any other country or group of countries would be justified in intervening both to prevent the terrorists and enforce correction on the no-longer-sovereign host.

That means that the US Government, by harboring anti-Cuban terrorists who have attacked Cuba from training grounds in the US, has surrendered its sovereignty and has no right to complain if some entity were to come in to suppress and correct. When do the Blue Helmets arrive? The EU troups? The Russians, or the Chinese? Can't happen soon enough.

Mr.Fundamental said...

you've neglected the glue that holds it all together - American Exceptionalism.

c`mon, don'tyewwannadewtherightthing?

erin4iraq said...

I am going to go out on limb here and argue that the US is in fact exceptional in the world. This is self-evident to all but those who lurk around here and wish it were not true so they wouldn't have to be bothered with any troubles but their own, and who imagine that a safe and peaceful world will somehow erupt if everyone just thinks the same snarky thoughts.

Name Withheld said...

oh please do elaborate on what makes the US so exceptional, erin.

was it our verdant conquest of the native american population in the name of manifest destiny? our enshrining of slavery in our constitution with the 3/5 rule? the 260,000 confederate soldiers who died in the name of maintaining the right to own those slaves?

all too far in the past?

how about the 47 million americans without health insurance right now? the 13 million children living in poverty? one of the lowest life expectancies and highest infant mortality rates among western nations?

how about the aerial bombings of afghani weddings that keep happening? the support for israel's stranglehold on the gaza strip? the attacks on pakistani, somalian and syrian villages that have resulted in scores of dead civilians?

you're right in at least one respect. the US is exceptional in the world, in that it is the only country where you were born.

other than that, let's just say that exceptional assholes are still just assholes.

Brian said...

Name Withheld-Why do you hate us for our FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM?
Why don't you just move out of the country, huh?

Seriously, Erin4Ain'tWeSpecial?. You're just mouthing the same old white man's burden stuff that was ancient in 1900.

Anonymous said...

"who imagine that a safe and peaceful world will somehow erupt if everyone just thinks the same snarky thoughts."

What do you mean by "erupt," exactly? Why would a "safe and peaceful world," presumably made safe and peaceful by Exceptional Ol' America, do that? Why would people want it to? I just... don't get it. I'm thinkin' it's 'cos you don't know what erupt means. Also, why qualify said "eruption" with a "somehow" if you're attributing the eruption to people thinking "snarky thoughts." Somebody fucking unpack this before I go nuts.

Aaron said...

America isn't even exceptional in thinking it's exceptional!

erin4iraq said...

And this is what I love about the Land of IOZ - you can say a perfectly reasonable thing like America is exceptional in the world and set everyone in a tizzy.

It makes me giggle.

Montag said...

a safe and peaceful world is about to erupt... in my pants!

"somehow."

Montag said...

erin4iraq, do you really think when someone makes snark about American Exceptionalism that they are arguing the US isn't exceptional?

everything is exceptional when you really look at it.

Cüneyt said...

Land of IOZ. Like Oz. It's funny.

What I like is how you can call people out on their mockery and totally ignore the actual questions they ask, Erin. Engage us. Be nice, be thoughtful. Talk... It's easy. Why is America special again? Why would, say, a preeminent Belgium be sooooo much worse?

LA Confidential Pantload said...

So..whenever terrorists appear, they create, like, this anti-sovereignty, like, field-thingie, an' it kinda glows 'n shit, an' anybody who's got bombs 'n shit should just kinda, y'know, bomb the living FUCK out of 'em, 'an..

Damn. Gotta lay off the mushrooms.

mlr said...

Lay off the mushrooms, indeed...

America is exceptional because it is powerful. Apologies to Phillip Allen, but there will be no blue helmets or PLA in the US over the issue of Cuban "terrorists" because the US has the power to deny such a presence. Boo-fuckin' hoo for Cuba.

Silly Phillip, a country either has or does not have sovreignty - ala Hume, it's an "is," not a "should." There is no "surrender" of the sovreignty along some moral axiom (there is none). Facts are facts, and the US IS strong enough to repel blue helmets and the PLA.

Deal.

mlr said...

...anybody who's got bombs 'n shit should...

LA ConPan

You're getting your "is" and your "should" all confuzzled... poor thing... accept what is. If you're worried about "should"s a world away, maybe you... ahem... shouldn't...

It hurts less that way...

erin4iraq said...

Ok now that I'm finished giggling I will tell you some of the reasons why the US is exceptional. All this seems so obvious that it hardly feels necessary, but here goes.

Just about everyone here is an immigrant or the son\daughter of an immigrant in one sense or another. We come here because we think there is something here that cannot be found at home. Usually it's opportunity or freedom or just hope for a new life. Generally,anyone can run for an elected office and maybe even win if they bring the right stuff. We decide who will lead us. Men and women risk their lives everyday to protect the freedoms we have. When we win wars we help our conquered foes rebuild. We regularly help other countries when they suffer natural disasters. Over time and often because we exercise our freedom of speech, things improve and we learn from our mistakes. We are free to argue and complain all we want. We opposed the Nazis, ended slavery, invented the internet and rock music. The rest of the world looks to us as a standard and points out when we don't fulfill the promise of all we should and can be. I can keep going but it's tough typing on my blackberry so I will have to finish later.

mlr said...

the promise of all we should and can be.

OK, my turn to giggle now.

You IS what you IS. This 'should' nonsense is really pervasive, innit?

Aaron said...

Hmm. Our turn to chuckle I guess.

> Just about everyone here is an immigrant or the son\daughter of an immigrant in one sense or another.

Haiti?

> We come here because we think there is something here that cannot be found at home.

Like, every migratory destination ever?

> Usually it's opportunity or freedom or just hope for a new life.

See above

> Generally,anyone can run for an elected office and maybe even win if they bring the right stuff.

Belgium comes randomly to mind.

> We decide who will lead us.

See above

> Men and women risk their lives everyday to protect the freedoms we have.

This may be true of other nations, but it's an awfully vague bit of rhetoric! If you're referring to the recent adventures of the U.S. Army, you might want to double-check your oughts and ises too.

> When we win wars we help our conquered foes rebuild.

Try every conqueror ever! They all gots building contractors, you know.

> We regularly help other countries when they suffer natural disasters.

Um, Pakistan? As a matter of fact, I think the Lashkar-i Taibe is really into helping after natural disasters.

> Over time and often because we exercise our freedom of speech, things improve and we learn from our mistakes.

This thesis kind of hard to support after the last 8 years. But what the heck -- Sweden?

> We are free to argue and complain all we want. We opposed the Nazis, ended slavery

Norway!

> invented the internet and rock music.

Okay, that's exceptional. But England invented Wimpy's and cricket, so it may not be such a big deal.

mlr said...

Maybe I should expound a bit, eh?

You IS a country that stifles most dissent, and uses its Official Press and Acadamy to push the religion of democracy (get ye to the voting booths, and let the priests put the little wafer - with an X on it, natch - on your tongue); you IS a country that IS governed by its unelected judges and civil service 'experts' (and a damn good thing, too - if it were up to the filthy masses, women would be government incubators, and visible minorities would still be second class citizens); you IS a country that uses its power to effect wealth redistribution, at home and abroad, in the interests of the classes that prop up the ruling class.

Finally, it IS only because the US has essentially won dominance over the world, and spread its pwoggie ideals thither and yon, that the conquered world looks back and berates America for not being as American as they are.

But I'm sure you Obamaphiles will work on that. My my, Erin, your tone has changed so much since early November... you're sounding so... bellicose...

How fitting...

LA Confidential Pantload said...

mlr, dood, I SO have my isses and shouldses together. Got myself an online certificate in Zen Blogwanking. As Roshi Rumsfeld said, you wank on the blogs you can, not on the ones you want. Or something. Can somebody here tell me the difference between mezcal and tequila? I'm pretty sure it isn't American Exceptionalism, but I'm also pretty fucked up at the momen.

erin4iraq said...

Well, aaron, where else can you find all this in one place?

mlr said...

LOL erin4, you assume we want "all this" in another place? I think one USA is enough, kthnxbai.

erin4iraq said...

ah mlr - you make my point

mlr said...

Ho ho, predictably simple mind that yours is, you think I'm referring strictly and exclusively to the USA right now? Oh, my dear Erin, no no no... I mean your lofty, "all that we could be," Christian-esque-now-with-a-new-Pwoggie-flavour, Heaven on Earth vision that can only be brought about with lots of violence and ends looking something like Detroit or Zimbabwe. I mean that USA.

Naturally you'd agree that the US now is bad - and you and your fellow Puritans are intent to cleanse it (indeed, us) of all sins.

It's the sinless future US you picture and strive for in your fevered brain, iterated all around the world, that creeps me the hell out. It's the Puritanical striving that threatens to waste and damage so much that is good and worthwhile.

erin4iraq said...

Nice save mlr but I have no idea wtf you are talking about. I maintain and you affirm that the US is exceptional in the world which you then extrapolate means I want to somehow maniacally force the rest of the world to become like the US or something to that effect. I suggest you are more to be feared.

mlr said...

Ahh, pleading ignorance, eh? I suppose it's been awhile since Calvin's dictatorship in Geneva

http://www.schismata.com/html/calvin.html

Back then, women were banned from having "high hair;" nowadays its immoral to... what? Drive an SUV? Be a racist? Not voting and/or orgasming for Obama? Do tell, my Pwoggie crusader, righteous Erin: what's the latest target among your set? What sin will you next purge us lowly mortals of? So that we can be closer to "all we can be!"

Anonymous said...

Erin, you're advocating for two separate sets of standards: one for your country and one for the rest of the World. Although it is very likely that a US citizen finds that enormous example of hypocrisy reasonable, I can assure you most people outside the US finds it laughable, all US propaganda notwithstanding. I guess you believe you can claim exceptionalism regarding Cuba (and Nicaragua, don't forget) because your acts of terrorism are what? good terrorism?

"We ended slavery?, you say?". Whose slavery did 'you' end, Erin? The one you yourselves started? Do you deserve a pat in the back for that 'achievement'?

God, can you possibly be more full of shit? (this is a rhehorical question)

Pepito

LA Confidential Pantload said...

IOZ, you do host an interesting marriage of salon and circus here.

erin4iraq said...

Only in America...

mlr said...

Only in America...

Which you carry around in your hot little hands like a steaming pile of shit, INSISTING to all and sundry that it's actually Tinkerbell, and indignantly DEMANDING that we all clap for it, otherwise the magical turd might DIE!

And then who will think of the CHILDREN, eh!? Who!? Tinkerbell!?

No! She's DEAD: you tepid IOZites KILLED her!!

Everyone LOL @ the silly Calvinist on her righteous crusade to save Tinkerbell!

erin4iraq said...

Umm okee...mlr, is there someone we should call?

The Promiscuous Reader said...

erin4: "We opposed the Nazis, ended slavery ..." In that order? The Soviet Union also opposed the Nazis and ended slavery.

But at most, "we" only "ended slavery" in the US. And in order to do that we had to fight a war against ourselves. (Abraham Lincoln killed half a million of his own people! That's even worse than Saddam Hussein!) And we were neither the only nor the first country to abolish slavery within its borders: England, for example, beat us to it by a few decades, without having to fight a bloody civil war to do it. And -- probably because our Civil War was not fought in order to end slavery -- slavery was succeeded by debt peonage and white racist reaction in an attempt to keep the substance of slavery in the US without the name.

Our armed forces are not fighting to preserve our freedoms. Nor have they done so in my lifetime, nearly 60 years now. Our freedoms are not endangered from outside, but from within, by the government whose orders our fighting men and women must take. And have you really not noticed that -- as usual during war -- our rights and freedoms have been whittled away during this "war on terror," in the name of national security?

But I think the real problem is that you don't understand what "American exceptionalism" means. (Or maybe I don't. Someone will perhaps correct me if so.) As I understand it, "American exceptionalism" as it's used in this thread means the belief that when the US bombs children, tortures people, invades countries that didn't attack us first (which is aggression, a war crime), and so on, it doesn't count, because we are the Good Guys, the exception in the rule that such deeds are evil and criminal. When other countries do them, it shows how wicked they are, so we'd better bomb them; when we do them, they are at worst regrettable lapses from our Total Wonderfulness. But usually American exceptionalists only concede that after denying fiercely that we are doing such things to begin with, and anyone who says we are is parroting Hate-America-First propaganda.

I think most of the people commenting here would agree that America is exceptional in a broader sense -- we are the richest country on earth, the most powerful, possibly still the freest. But none of that affects the question of whether we therefore have the right to commit atrocities. It doesn't even matter, as so many American exceptionalists declare, whether our virtues outweigh our defects. What matters is that we need to work on those defects instead of pretending they aren't there.

erin4iraq said...

Oh shit I think you may be right about the eceptionalism thing prom, so... never mind. (But it was fun while it lasted, wasn't it?) Now stand back while mlr's head explodes.

Justin said...

Erin,
I'll bite.

First, let's define the term exceptionalism. Usually this term is used to refer to the U.S.'s right to not adhere to the same standards or norms of international relations as other countries because of our exceptional national character - we stand taller and see farther than others, that we alone meddle in other countries not for self interest, but because we are benevolent and wish to help others. This is what is normally meant by exceptionalism.

All of the points you raise could more or less be accurate but it doesn't address the point here, which is that because of our domestic freedoms, histoy of immigration, people who fight for our freedoms every day, etc. does it then follow that when we meddle in other countries affairs using our military we alone do so out of benevolence and are therefore exempt from any criticism of aggression or imperial interest?

I'll let the work of Chris Floyd, Ioz, Arthur Silber, Noam Chomsky, even Glenn Greenwald, etc., etc. etc. refute that this is the case. We may be "exceptional" in the manner you describe (and that is debatable, but I'll concede the point), but that is not really relevant in the context of exceptionalism at is commonly understood... unless I am failing to see the obvious connection.

mlr said...

LOL Erin, I don't hafta get high, I make Christian fundies like you look ridiculous. You + sputtering = my buzz.

mlr: fucking with the heads of Calvinist crusaders (in their fundy and Pwoggy flavours) since 1996.

Dunc said...

I am going to go out on limb here and argue that the US is in fact exceptional in the world. This is self-evident to all but those who lurk around here and wish it were not true

As a citizen of the rest of world in general, and the former exceptional nation in particular, I have to say that it is not self-evident in the least. Your subsequent list of things which apparently make the US exceptional merely makes me suspect that you have (a) never left its borders for any length of time, and (b) absolutely no knowledge of world history. All of the good stuff you point to is at least equally true of most of the rest of the industrialised world.

There are some things which do make the US exceptional, however (at least amongst industrialised democracies): the largest prison population in the world, the execution of the mentally handicapped (hell, most of the civilised world has abandoned the death penalty entirely, regarding it as barbaric), the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, more military spending that the rest of the world put together, and over a thousand garrisons (sorry, military bases) in other people's countries, for starters. You are the exceptional hegemon, just as we Brits were when the sun never set on our Empire (of which you upstarts were a part). We spun all the same bullshit to justify it, too.

Anonymous said...

Erin, you dumb ass - free speech is the kind of right that is achieved through courts and legislation, often after decades of social activism, not won on a fucking battlefield against a comic-book enemy who exist solely to force everybody else to live in abject misery while cackling maniacally. And in fact, it's usually your fellow reactionary fuckstains right here in the good ol' You Ess of Ay who are doing their best to limit that right. You'd think a supposed lawyer would understand that much.

IOZ said...

America didn't invent rock n' roll. America done stole it from its black non-citizen laborers, and it took a bunch of Brits to make it worth listening too. For the record.

erin4iraq said...

I thought Prom had cleared up what we were arguing about last night, but I stand corrected. OK, ya'll -America is just one big unexceptional bag of shit. Perhaps we should put up signs on the border that say this to save would-be immigrants from disappointment.

Anonymous said...

Well, no, Erin. The Promiscuous Reader carefully explained to you what American Exceptionalism is, and you yielded. But, the rest of your laundry list of America's Gifts to the World still needs to be dismantled, which is what posters above are doing. Every other country did it before the US, did it better than the US, and did it all with a lot less fuss. THAT is thieving America's contribution to humanity: being boisterous. The cads. Oh, and the Interweb.

Anonymous said...

"Now stand back while mlr's head explodes."

Don't you mean erupt?

IOZ said...

Uh, listening "two". Whatever. She kidnapped herself.

Mr.Fundamental said...

Justin, you forgot that you have to extrapolate Erin's version of exceptionalism to infinite, and beyond!

Erin: open the borders, let anyone in. we have such a standard of living because of our empire. how can I sit here behind the walls of this empire and ignore the blatant fact that life is pretty damn good? all you say is true, it's just accompanied by immense power, and the ugliness and (dare I say) sin inherent with the wielding and application of that power. you've gotta take it all into your picture: the good with the bad. the anklebiter's just want to tear America down and show you how lousy America is and criticize America yadayada. that's not what I'm about here. it's fun to refute and object to the evidence and claims by nationalists, but it does get old after a while. you can't refute positive nonsense with negative nonsense. it's still just nonsense.

America is what it is. America is going to do what it's going to do. I'd rather turn away from the entire project the best I can and not pay any mind to the arguments, the rationale, the games, the gamesmanship, the awe of our first black President, the conjecture, etc. what say do I have about whether the empire jigs this way or that way? which pile of idiocy do I want to jump on, the Dem's or the Repub's? you must be kidding. the only answer that has brought me any solace is: sigh. go on, do what you must.

certainly I'm not going to stop you, am I? little ole me (on the Internet, no less!) is going to get in your way? do you really require my approval? why must I be forced or persuaded to love this silver coated bowl full of shit of an idea?

now will someone please explain to me what the fuck an America is.

what does that even mean, man?

IOZ said...

America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

G said...

Mr. Fun:

Are you sure you didn't mean "we have such a standard of living in spite of our empire"?

Canada seems to be doing all right without it, to take one example. Also seems to meet most of the points on Erin's list.

Mr.Fundamental said...

sorry G, I'm not a socialist. gov't metrics are just more nonsense to me.

IOZ said...

Yo G, you are clearly misinformed.

Thomas Daulton said...

American Exceptionalism is one of those jokes that some people just can't get no matter how elaborately it's explained -- explaining makes the problem worse. Funny enough, just a couple days ago I picked up a book in my mom's garage ("Mystery Religions in the Ancient World" by Joscelyn Godwin) where the back cover says, "As in our own day, the people of ancient Greece and Rome enjoyed unprecedented religious freedom and pursued their spiritual quest..." Ummmmmmmmm, if the peoples of two different countries enjoyed the same religious freedom as we do two millenia later, then perhaps our own religious freedom was... ummmmm, precedented?

O said...

IOZ said...

Yo G, you are clearly misinformed.


Hey now! Don't go dragging me into this. I have poutine to horde.

G said...

Ok, how about Belgium. They've been mentioned earlier in the thread.

....THEY are in crisis too?

Shucks.

Mr.Fundamental said...

I like waffles. and cyclocross.

Mr.Fundamental said...

and Westmalle Dubbel.

Phillip Allen said...

A small reply to mlr, who took me to task for an obviously unrealizable desire to see US exceptionalism dealt a military blow. I agree there are no external 'shoulds' and 'oughts' that have any meaning. I was indulging a fantasy.

My hope is that something worthwhile emerges from the steaming wasteland the US will become when things fall apart in earnest. For various reasons I have no expectation to survive until that happens. For entirely illogical, sentimental reasons I harbor a bit of affection for sentient beings of a number of species, my own included, and still hope something may be salvaged.

g-nome said...

Come on now, cynics. Don't get in the way of erin's desire to fantasize and then celebrate the way America Spreads Its Golden Wings and Sails on Freedom Things Across the Sky...

It's important to consider all the ways that "America" is actually a pavilion at EPCOT.

almostinfamous said...

america spends as much dough on their military as the rest of the world put together.

THATS the reason why they(you) are so goddamn exceptional.

also, most number of operational nuclear warheads on ICBMs.