[lit-ideas] Re: On the prospect of World Peace
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 07:47:21 -0700
No, you aren't serious. Who is proposing what you say the US is proposing?
No one. You are making it up. What good does it do you to make those
things up? No one believes you? Well, I shouldn't say "no one." You have
Andreas. I could also add Irene, but I am busy trying to convert her to
reason; so I'll leave her name off for now.
You obviously missed the flap about Iran. The US and the USSR during the
Cold War agreed that it would be very bad if nuclear weapons proliferated
among nations less responsible than they were. There is a UN edict against
the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I looked it up a few years ago. It
isn't hard to find as I recall. Nevertheless nations are being added to the
list of those nations possessing nuclear weapons. Pakistan has them; so
Pakistan drew a lot of attention from the Bush administration after 9/11 and
as you may recall, Musharaff gave convincing evidence that Pakistan would
cooperate with the U.S. in combating Militant Islam. That was quite a
change for Pakistan because it had exported Militant Islam to Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, Bush accepted Musharaff's proffering of friendship and
cooperation. Libya also indicated a desire to move out of the camp opposing
the US and did so.
Wars will continue until there is no further need for them. Fukuyama and
Barnett may not be right. There may be no end to history, no unification of
the world because all nations have become Liberal Democracies. Samuel P.
Huntington may be right. Wars may continue because Civilizations will
always find reasons to disagree and to war. But assuming Fukuyama and
Barnett are right then we have only the Rogue States to war against.
Furthermore, since Liberal Democracies are slow to go to war, it will take
something extremely provocative to elicit a Liberal Democracy's warlike
response. At the present time, Iran may be engaging in just such
provocative behavior. We are having to decide whether we can risk
tolerating a Rogue State hostile to the West, resolved to "kill the
infidels," with nuclear weapons. No one is talking about blowing up a
nation to save it. That's nonsense. Only rogue states present a danger to
the West and only Rogue States risk war with the U.S.
Then again you seem to be missing the nature of the Arab "Honor System."
Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and a host of others saw the restraint
being exercised during the Clinton administration as cowardice. Kill 241
Marines in Beirut? No Arab-type revenge for Clinton. Pull everyone out.
No doubt you approve of Clinton's action, but the Arabs saw that as a sign
of cowardice and were encouraged, the Militants among them, to even bolder
actions against the U.S. A pacifistic response to Militant Islamic attacks
only worsened the situation. Surely you can see that now.
But in regard to the basic issue, I asked if there were any pacifists who
had a plan to achieve world peace. None indicated any such plan. That
didn't surprise me because I'm convinced that pacifists have no such plan.
They have no plan that follows steps a, b, c, and leads up to world peace.
All they have is wishful thinking. I then presented two writers who did
have plans leading to World Peace, Fukuyama and Barnett and asked the
hypothetical question, if these plans would lead to world peace would you
support them even if it meant warring with a few Rogue States from time to
time. I got no straight answers: only comments twisting the works of
Fukuyama and Barnett. Why anyone would do that escapes me. I have read
Fukuyama and Barnett; so no one can make up stories about what they say and
expect me to be convinced. Why would a pacifist feel a need to lie about
what Fukuyama and Barnett say? Can it be that they don't really want to
engage in the hard-work of a process that might actually lead to world
peace? Do they prefer the nebulous but comforting dream to the concreteness
of reality?
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Geary
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 7:04 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On the prospect of World Peace
LH:
>>In case any pacifists are treating this discussion train seriously, they
>>should understand that Fukuyama and Barnett both advocate processes that
>>would result in world peace.<<
OK, I'm serious now. I admit I've never taken you seriously before, but now
I'm serious. World peace is serious stuff.
>>I asked a question that thus far no pacifist has answered. If (a
>>conditional word) world peace can be achieved by means of the spread of
>>Liberal-Democracy, shouldn't it be favored by pacifists even if it means a
>>few wars here and there to prevent Liberal-Democracy from losing ground <<
Destroy the village to save it? Sure, why not? In fact, we have enough
nuclear weapons to de-populate all of Asia and Russia -- it makes damn good
sense to go ahead right now and de-populate all the non-Liberal-Democracies
plus Mexico and Venezuela and maybe France to prevent Liberal-Democracy from
losing ground. A great point, Lawrence. I can see that I should have been
more serious about this all along.
>> Pacifists like to tote up the dead. Surely there would be fewer dead
>> with a few wars to keep Liberal-Democracy on the expansive straight and
>> narrow than if all wars regardless of their merit were to be resisted
>> willy nilly -- given the fact that Pacifists merely impede and
>> obfuscate.<<
Kill the pacifists! Willy nilly bastards! Impeders! Obfuscators!
>>They [pacificists] never succeed in actually stopping wars. In fact their
>>efforts seem to encourage such people as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein
>>and Ahmadinejad. They hear about all that opposition to the
>>administration's policies, and they think they don't need to take the Bush
>>administration seriously.<<
And boy oh boy, did Bush ever show them a thing or two! Let that be a
lesson to all you pacifists: Bush is serious.
I don't think you take your own argument seriously enough, Lawrence. We
need to kill everybody not like us so that we can live in peace. So stop
talking and start killing. For God's sake, man, there are people out there
who want to kill us.
Mike Geary
NO MORE PEACE. PEACE NEVER AGAIN.
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