Alright, so Colin Powell gave his speech to the UN. Nothing particularly unexpected. In general, I think it's solid evidence that Iraq's trying to hide its weapons programs. Saddam's a big fat liar, which we all knew from the start. The question is still do we need to go to war, though. Is that the only way to keep him from getting WMD capabilities operational? I still don't think so.
I think keeping the inspectors in country is going to be far more effective. If we need more inspectors, so be it. Send them in. We can afford to send in a 250,00 man army but not, say, a several-thousand man inspection team? Put that in country, and Saddam's paralyzed. If he complains, tell him to shut up. I read a proposal that makes sense to me: keep the inspections going, and back it up with bombers. Any site that we can't get into exactly when we want to gets wiped off the map. If what we want is disarmament, this way is going to get a lot less people killed on both sides, make a lot less people hate us, and cost the US taxpayer a whole lot less. Plus, we could actually get the UN to agree to it.
Someone's going to say "but the UN has to put its foot down. Iraq's been provoking it for too long. If it's not war now, the world won't respect the UN's mandate." Not true. It's not a sign of strength to retaliate at offenses, it's a sign of weakness. The sooner an entity turns to violence, the less confidence it has in itself. Think of it this way. Imagine a policeman confronting a criminal. The cop suspects the criminal is armed. The cop has two choices. First, he could just shoot him, and be done with the problem right there. Second, he could draw his own gun but not fire it, advance on the criminal, cuff him, search him, and take him downtown where he can't hurt anyone else. Which one is the appropriate response? I vote #2. Now, let's say that as the cop advances, the criminal starts cussing him out, spitting at him, and otherwise provoking him. Again, the cop has two choices. One, he could get pissed off and shoot the criminal as a warning to other criminals to respect the police, or two, he could ignore the provocation and go about his job. Again, I vote #2 as the correct response. The only reason the cop would ever be justified in firing would be if he were in imminent danger of being attacked himself.
Now, I think this is an apt analogy. The UN is the world's policeman. Iraq is a criminal state. But invading would serve the same purpose as the cop shooting the guy. It only proves that the cop has no confidence in his ability to subdue the criminal by other means. Now, if Iraq is the criminal here, he'd be a 115 pound totally wasted junkie, and if the UN is the cop, we're talking a 6'5" 220 pound block of muscle named Bruno. If the UN can't handle this without a war, then I would say THAT proves it's lost its effectiveness.
As for the respect issue. If the cop shoots the guy, then some criminals will be more likely to surrender without a fight to save their own skins. On the other hand, a lot of law abiding citizens will be appalled. Who's going to trust the police anymore? The police on the street will notice the citizens aren't cooperating they way the used to. If the police department has to take the role of occupying army instead of benevolent protector, it's going to find its job just got a whole lot harder. Similarly, if the UN (or any individual nation) launches an attack here, it will scare the bejeezus out of friend and foe alike. I venture that it will find its relations with its member states quite strained. Furthermore, if the UN proves it's no longer dedicated to keeping the peace, but to keeping the world in line, it could damage its effectiveness permanently. No one signed the UN charter with the expectation that if they wanted to embark on a "righteous" war, the world would follow them. They signed the charter with the expectation that their membership would avert future wars.
Maybe what this is is a game of Good Cop/Bad Cop. The question is, do we have the Bad Cop to scare the crook into submitting to the Good Cop, or is the Good Cop there to distract the crook while the Bad Cop beats his head in with a nightstick? I hope, for the world's sake, that the UN is still a good cop at heart.
posted by Mr. Ripzaw at 5:24 PM
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The ass-faces at Hotmail deactivated my account for some reason, even though I hadn't met any of the conditions for them to do that. It's back now, and hopefully will stay that way, but anything that was in there is gone. Microsoft bastards.
posted by Mr. Ripzaw at 1:49 AM
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According to my statistics, yesterday, February 1st, 2003, some guy actually read my blog. This is a moment that will be remembered in history. Or something.
posted by Mr. Ripzaw at 1:46 AM
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