BJ - Your take on the differences between Iraq and it's neighbors is interesting. I'm not sure I agree, but it makes sense what you said about the precarious consolidation of power in the hands of one man. I'm still thinking about this.
As for the US only exercising military force if authorized by the Security Council I'll say that the US can do anything it wants if the country is in imminent danger of being attacked. Now of course we can argue about what imminent means. But I'm imagining a pretty high standard. Clearly nothing like what we had in Iraq. And if we do strike first I'd like to see the secret intelligence that confirms the imminent threat be submitted to congress beforehand in some sort of time release capsule so that after the thing is over the people get to see a non doctored version of what the administration thought was "imminent." In other words I'd like some safe guards in place so that we can't be dragged into a war without any revelation as to the specific nature of the threat.
Short of this sort of imminent danger to the country I'd like to see everything go through the UN. And short of that I'd *at least* want NATO on board.
Acting against our own allies seems very costly (in terms of future security) in such a tightly coupled world. We need our friends more than we need one less bad guy.
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As for the US only exercising military force if authorized by the Security Council I'll say that the US can do anything it wants if the country is in imminent danger of being attacked. Now of course we can argue about what imminent means. But I'm imagining a pretty high standard. Clearly nothing like what we had in Iraq. And if we do strike first I'd like to see the secret intelligence that confirms the imminent threat be submitted to congress beforehand in some sort of time release capsule so that after the thing is over the people get to see a non doctored version of what the administration thought was "imminent." In other words I'd like some safe guards in place so that we can't be dragged into a war without any revelation as to the specific nature of the threat.
Short of this sort of imminent danger to the country I'd like to see everything go through the UN. And short of that I'd *at least* want NATO on board.
Acting against our own allies seems very costly (in terms of future security) in such a tightly coupled world. We need our friends more than we need one less bad guy.
- jim 9-24-2003 5:34 pm