Eccentric Flower:199812/bombs and the mirror

seventeen twelve thirteen

bombs and the mirror

I have sworn off Clinton, as you'll recall, so I can't write about him. If I were writing about him - if I could work up the proper level of fervor - then I would write this. Except that I probably wouldn't have done it as well.

Let's talk about Iraq instead, and leave Clinton out of it.

It is counter to my nature to wish death on anyone. I can't even wish death on my evil ex-stepfather anymore or any of the other people I despise. They're busy making their own hells, wherever they are - any further venom from me would be excessive.

Nonetheless I do sometimes think that the only way Hussein is going to cease being a bad itch in a sensitive place is to kill him. If he isn't killed, then he needs to be reined in very closely indeed.

However - and here's the point - the United States is not the proper party to do that reining-in. It's not our job. We fancy ourselves the world's policeman. What we really are is the world's meddler. We are just as big a bully as Hussein is, except that we don't have a dictator and are therefore more quasi-respectable.

(Did you know that one of the conditions of EU membership is that you have a democratically elected government? Did you know that there have been good, well-run monarchies and plutocracies? Not many, but some. A monarchy is only as good as the monarch. This means dangerous instability if the monarch is nuts, but it means that the government can also act efficiently and with lightning speed. Pros and cons. Never mind.)

The reason the US shouldn't be doing this is because it makes us no better than them. We have an obvious agenda and we're indulging it at someone else's expense. The job of giving someone an international spanking needs to be done by an international coalition, one presumed unbiased. We have one of those. It's called the United Nations. But, alas, the UN has no teeth. And do you know why? Primarily because of the US.

The US has systematically short-sheeted the UN's enforcement arm for years, the same sort of thing they're presently trying to do to the establishment of a world court for crimes against humanity, a court for the Hitlers and the Pinochets and the Jim Joneses of the world. Do you know why?

Because the US is the world's meddler. The US government is scared - justifiably - that if they give the UN strong enforcement, some other nation will file charges against us. Oh, poor dears.

I love my country - despite this rant - but I have long since grown tired of the national assumption that we can get away with behavior, on the global scale, that we would never tolerate from others. That the rules don't apply to us, just because we're biggest.

This run won't get Hussein either - a bomb will never kill him, the man is classically paranoid and takes all the precautions. If he's smart, the next thing he'll do is recruit a few people to come over here and put cyanide in the water supply or much worse things. He can't bomb us back, but who needs missiles? You can carry a nuke in a briefcase. And our domestic anti-terrorism defenses are a joke. So much for biggest.

Our relations with the other Muslim nations, never great, will become even more strained. We will never get along perfectly with the Muslims, because each side is too willing to believe the other eats babies for breakfast, but this isn't helping - they point out that Israel has far greater capability for mayhem than Iraq, that Netanyahu is at least as crazy, and that we do nothing about Israel. They have a point.

We are making a mistake. The mistake is not in the actions - I believe the bombing was an okay idea, but not if we're the ones doing it.

Remember, when the consequences begin, that we did it to ourselves. I don't believe in liberal guilt, but this is our own fault.

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