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Subject: 
Re: Right on the money
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:20:31 GMT
Viewed: 
248 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
   Some will be too quick to dismiss this article as farce, but the underlying story is worth reflection.

You say “farce” like it’s a bad thing...

It’s farce all right, but farce based on the truth, and that’s the best (or worst, depending on whose ox is being gored) kind.

Realpolitik is just a bad idea. Always was.

Better to be principled even if it takes longer. Better to be less entangled in alliances even if it gives less apparent “stability” (1) Better to be friends with the worthy, not allies with the regional powers. Better to name the bad guys as bad guys and trust the State Department and their circumlocutions less. (2)

1 - “stability” == keeping dictators in power so they can keep oppressing and the multinationals can keep their contracts with them in force, none of this messy repudiation of debts question.

2 - the Kuwait quote came from a State Department official, after all, and they seem to be notorious for playing their own game regardless of what the Administration wants, or of what principles might need to apply. Having principles apparently interferes with the free flow of diplomacy! How inconvenient!

++Lar



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Right on the money
 
(...) I was trying to preempt objections along the lines of "that's ridiculous, Hussein didn't really say that." But you're right--my phrasing was a little unclear, and I am in fact I'm all for farce. So farce so good, I say. Dave! (21 years ago, 16-Dec-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Right on the money
 
Some will be too quick to dismiss (URL) this article> as farce, but the underlying story is worth reflection. Dave! (21 years ago, 16-Dec-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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