BleedBurgundy
08-15-2008, 01:37 PM
I think that concept eludes closer to 100% of Americans (and everyone else around the world for that matter). ;) Even those who champion the virtues of the UN want the U.S. to use its power unilaterally when the mood so strikes.
Take Kosovo and Bosnia as an example. For years, the left had talked about the need to work through international organizations to accomplish our foreign policy objectives because, after all, one day we would no longer be top dog. Then along came the breakup of Yugoslavia and some horrific crimes against humanity. The left wanted to take action but, alas, Russia threatened to veto any UN Security Council resolutions authorizing the use of force against their Serb allies. So what did the left do? They told the UN to go f' itself and bombed the Serbs without UN approval.
I don't mean to pick on the left. The right tends to care even less about the UN and international law.
My point in agreeing with saden1 is that you never hear the end of individuals in this country talking about how we should just "turn that desert into a sheet of glass" and how we could/should take down anybody that disagrees with us. But let some other country exert that same self-granted moral authority over another and we as citizens tend to get up in arms.
I'm not saying that Russia is right or wrong with their present course of action, but I think that if you look at the situation objectively, the conflict between Georgia and Russia is, from a very simplistic standpoint, fundamentally similar to the one we have with Iraq. Both countries (Russia and the US) are using a perceived injustice to justify their larger goal of regime change in another country. We can hide behind western morality all we like but the simple fact is that we have customarily used our superior military force to make changes to governments with views contrary to our own.
Were i able to read in Russian, I have no doubt that state-backed Newspapers/Media talk about how it is important to crush the terrorists (or whatever buzzword the Russian govt has chosen to identify those with whom it disagrees). I'm sure the drumbeat throughout Moscow right now is remarkably similar to the one heard in Washington during May of 2003. But because the aggressor in this case is ANYONE other than the United States, Great Britain or Israel, they are of course wrong.
I'm not being unpatriotic, I'm merely pointing out the extreme irony of the pot calling the kettle "black."
Take Kosovo and Bosnia as an example. For years, the left had talked about the need to work through international organizations to accomplish our foreign policy objectives because, after all, one day we would no longer be top dog. Then along came the breakup of Yugoslavia and some horrific crimes against humanity. The left wanted to take action but, alas, Russia threatened to veto any UN Security Council resolutions authorizing the use of force against their Serb allies. So what did the left do? They told the UN to go f' itself and bombed the Serbs without UN approval.
I don't mean to pick on the left. The right tends to care even less about the UN and international law.
My point in agreeing with saden1 is that you never hear the end of individuals in this country talking about how we should just "turn that desert into a sheet of glass" and how we could/should take down anybody that disagrees with us. But let some other country exert that same self-granted moral authority over another and we as citizens tend to get up in arms.
I'm not saying that Russia is right or wrong with their present course of action, but I think that if you look at the situation objectively, the conflict between Georgia and Russia is, from a very simplistic standpoint, fundamentally similar to the one we have with Iraq. Both countries (Russia and the US) are using a perceived injustice to justify their larger goal of regime change in another country. We can hide behind western morality all we like but the simple fact is that we have customarily used our superior military force to make changes to governments with views contrary to our own.
Were i able to read in Russian, I have no doubt that state-backed Newspapers/Media talk about how it is important to crush the terrorists (or whatever buzzword the Russian govt has chosen to identify those with whom it disagrees). I'm sure the drumbeat throughout Moscow right now is remarkably similar to the one heard in Washington during May of 2003. But because the aggressor in this case is ANYONE other than the United States, Great Britain or Israel, they are of course wrong.
I'm not being unpatriotic, I'm merely pointing out the extreme irony of the pot calling the kettle "black."