Quote:Heh...first, I should note that I actually agree with you, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here. Kinda. I personally think the Iraq War was a huge mistake, and attacking Iran would be a worse one.
It's also the exact same case every country in the world could make to justify attacking every other country in the world. Because if the richest, most powerful nation in the world is so terrified of random Third World pissholes that it must unilaterally attack them to safeguard themselves, EVERYBODY can justify attacking whoever they want.
But...just 'cause I disagree with something doesn't mean I don't grok the reasoning behind it. I dislike the Bush administration, but I can't say I don't feel...certain sympathy here. They had to make tough choices. I'm not fond of Bush and his cohorts, and I'm certain they're the wrong people to be making those choices. But I don't deny the choices are difficult.
Unilateral pre-emptive action makes sense from a certain point of view. You're right. It's a very, very, short-sighted approach.
Unfortunately...historically speaking, unilateral pre-emptive attacks are how nations operate. You speak if "60 years of a world united on the front that "attackers in war are the bad guys"". True, but unfortunately that's a blip on the historical radar. World War II was undoubtedly a war with Germany, Italy, and Japan as the aggressors. But the First World War was a conflict where, well...Germany and Austria-Hungary may have ended up starting it, but a lot of historians believe the French and Russians, at least, wanted it just as badly. In a way, both sides were aggressors. And most of history's been like that - Empires and conquest. We haven't really lived up to the ideals of Westphalia until the modern age. And even the Treaty of Westphalia, which forwarded concepts like state sovereignity...was only meant to apply to the European nations, they cared bugger-all for sovereignity in the rest of the world.
It would really, really suck for us to go back to that international system, and with nuclear weapons, we'll all be screwed. It'd REALLY suck. But...I think it's inevitable that humanity's going to doom itself, that way. Meh.
On a side note:-
Quote:You're quite correct. I apologise.
every single reputable scientific study that hasn't been paid for by a biased party has concluded that global warming is a fact. (...) but there's "not enough scientific evidence", huh? It's amazing when laymen think that they somehow know better than people who have actually studied scientific subjects all their lives.
I should have phrased it better...'s not exactly what I meant. Sorry, I tend to be imprecise. I'm definitely not a scientist. I also tend to overgeneralise, since I used to do radio work...bad media-writing habits, seriously, even if it was just Army radio. What I said was:
Quote:Emphasis added. See, I was talking about the early 90's, not now. We've been living with environmental issues as part of politics for over a decade now, but really, environmental issues only started to become a part of mainstream politics in the late 80s and early 90s. Before then...well, the subject was largely eclipsed by the Cold War.
...back in the early 90s, when scientific evidence was even more sketchy...people decided, hell, we gotta do something about pollution now.
So...when the problem first really hit the global political landscape, it was a new and puzzling thing. Governments didn't know what to make of it, or whether to really trust what the experts told them. A lot of people had never heard of the problem...and now they were being asked to make major decisions on it. Now, again, it's easy to condemn governments for dragging their feet. But leaders of nations have other concerns. Pledging to, say, cut greenhouse gas emissions...that means a bit hit to the economy. And all those industrial concerns and corporations, they're gonna complain.
The US, I think, deserves to be kicked in the ass about this. Sure. But many countries which did sign up to Kyoto have still been condemned by environmentalists for not doing enough. But the way I see it, at least they're doing something. These decisions are tough.
-- Acyl