Another reason why the UN is a joke...

[Drake Tungsten]

Do you think the deaths we visited upon the people of Vietnam was somehow morally right?

If you're looking for morality in war, you're going to be disappointed. The deaths of millions of innocents in WWII wasn't morally right either, but that doesn't meant that the cause we fought for was unjust. America went into Vietnam to protect the people from communism, a laudable goal. The fact that the whole enterprise went to **** doesn't negate the fact that America had good intentions.

Do you think we really had any right to tell sovereign nations who should run them?

Sovereignty has never been absolute and is certainly not in the modern world. Human rights abuses trump concerns over national sovereignty, for example. Do you really think that sovereignty is absolute, Boris? I don't think you want to be in the same boat as Jesse Helms and David Floyd...

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Libya is certainly less objectionable than, say, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc.

I know that Syria has been a member of UN human rights organizations. I bet some more of these countries have been as well. The UN has a track record for this type of thing.

Because the UN can't dictate to a region who they can and can't nominate.

Making Libya chairman of the UNCHR is just the latest bit of insanity...

See above.

The African delegation is making Libya the chair, not the entire UN. Again, it's a question of rotation. Do I want to see Libya as the head? No. Do I prefer Libya over Zimbabwe? Modestly.

There are going to be countries whose policies we object to in situations like this. But I see NO rationale here for disengagement from the UN. As I said earlier, I see it as proof we need to be there more than ever.

And we should pay our damn dues, too.

[1]

Boris, "an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere." I don't give two sh!ts what country it happens in. Just because its "sovereign nation" doesn't make it immune to morality. We're the big brother on the block, and we have every right in the world to stand up against oppressive governments. A "nation" is a label given to a pile of dirt. If people are being gased and mass murdered "over there", I honestly think it does not matter who's territory it is, attacking the oppressors is the only right thing to do.

[Drake Tungsten]

You act like Zimbabwe was the only other option. There are many African nations with better human rights records than Libya. Tunisia, right next door to Libya, would've been a good choice.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Do you think the deaths we visited upon the people of Vietnam was somehow morally right?

If you're looking for morality in war, you're going to be disappointed. The deaths of millions of innocents in WWII wasn't morally right either, but that doesn't meant that the cause we fought for was unjust. America went into Vietnam to protect the people from communism, a laudable goal. The fact that the whole enterprise went to **** doesn't negate the fact that America had good intentions.

This opens up a whole new debate, which is the intentions of the United States in Vietnam. They were not as laudable as the official line you seem eager to swallow.

Just because the cause is just does not excuse the methods. The ends never justify the means. I certainly do not object to America's participation in WWII (don't forget war was declared on us first), but I certainly object to the methods of war waged in some instances, such as Dresden or Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Would my criticizing such tactics somehow mitigate the crimes of the Nazis? Of course not.

Sovereignty has never been absolute and is certainly not in the modern world. Human rights abuses trump concerns over national sovereignty, for example.

If the United States is willing to be consistent here, you'd have a point. But we're not, which can only mean we only care about human rights abuses when stopping them promotes our national self-interest. We certainly didn't care about the atrocities of the Taliban until it was in our self-interest. We didn't do a thing in Rwanda. We've let human rights abuses go on around the world.

In fact, we reinstated a regime with a horrendous human rights record (Kuwait). We're currently allies with Saudi Arabia, where homosexuals are sentenced to death and women are chattel. Consistency?

Do you really think that sovereignty is absolute, Boris? I don't think you want to be in the same boat as Jesse Helms and David Floyd...

Absolute, no. But something that should only be tread upon VERY lightly. Certainly not to the degree the United States has in the past. Certainly not to the degree of invading a country that is currently not posing any direct threat to us for the purposes of "regime change."

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by 1
Boris, "an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere." I don't give two sh!ts what country it happens in. Just because its "sovereign nation" doesn't make it immune to morality. We're the big brother on the block, and we have every right in the world to stand up against oppressive governments. A "nation" is a label given to a pile of dirt. If people are being gased and mass murdered "over there", I honestly think it does not matter who's territory it is, attacking the oppressors is the only right thing to do.

Lets imagine that the US is the second strongest nation in the world. How would you feel about the stronger nation invading the US and (for example) freeing all the inhabitants of your prisons?

Doesn't feel good, does it? I imagine 90% of the 3rd world feels the same way about the USA, now.

All governments are oppressive. That's what government is for. You just want the US gov't to decide how much oppression is OK. Quite frankly, given the US government's record on morality, they shouldn't have that right.

[Drake Tungsten]

If the United States is willing to be consistent here, you'd have a point. But we're not, which can only mean we only care about human rights abuses when stopping them promotes our national self-interest.

This is an utter lie. Please explain how intervening in Bosnia was in our national self-interest. Or in Kosovo. Or in Somalia. Or in East Timor (mostly the Aussies, but we played a role).

Stop spouting off propaganda as though it were fact.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
You act like Zimbabwe was the only other option. There are many African nations with better human rights records than Libya. Tunisia, right next door to Libya, would've been a good choice.

http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/tunisia?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall

[Dr Strangelove]

One way to look at this turn of events is that Libya's current human rights practices will certainly be placed within the limelight. Libya may find itself embarassed, it may take action to correct somne of these problems, who knows?

[Drake Tungsten]

Every country has human rights violations. Doesn't change the fact the Tunisia is light years ahead of Libya in that department...

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

If the United States is willing to be consistent here, you'd have a point. But we're not, which can only mean we only care about human rights abuses when stopping them promotes our national self-interest.

This is an utter lie. Please explain how intervening in Bosnia was in our national self-interest. Or in Kosovo. Or in Somalia. Or in East Timor (mostly the Aussies, but we played a role).

Stop spouting off propaganda as though it were fact.

So please explain U.S. inconsistency in policing the world on Human Rights? Why didn't we invade Rwanda or Zimbabwe or etc.?

You seem pretty eager to swallow propaganda, though, since you think Vietnam was just a heroic struggle to stop communism.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Every country has human rights violations. Doesn't change the fact the Tunisia is light years ahead of Libya in that department...

Here comes that moral relavatism again. So which is it...we stand up for all human rights abuses, or we adhere to relavatism? Clearly Tunisia is an oppresive regime, albeit somewhat better than its neighbors. Why aren't we invading?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
One way to look at this turn of events is that Libya's current human rights practices will certainly be placed within the limelight. Libya may find itself embarassed, it may take action to correct somne of these problems, who knows?

One point to bring up is that Quadaffi has increasingly been trying to move Libya into the mainstream of the world affairs. I think this presents the best opportunity to improve human rights there--diplomatic and peer pressure. I am willing to bet it will work better than sanctimonious bullying.

[Drake Tungsten]

Here comes that moral relavatism again. So which is it...we stand up for all human rights abuses, or we adhere to relavatism? Clearly Tunisia is an oppresive regime, albeit somewhat better than its neighbors. Why aren't we invading?

Are you really this stupid? You don't put a person in prison for life for a misdemeanor or even a minor felony. You save the worst punishment for the worst crimes. The same concept applies to human rights violations. You don't invade a country unless the violations are particularly heinous. You can call it "moral relativism", but I call it common sense.

Even if the crimes are heinous, you have to actually be able to build support for the intervention and carry it out. In Rwanda we couldn't build support. And we aren't powerful enough to intervene in China. There go the two most used examples of American "inconsistency".

You seem pretty eager to swallow propaganda, though, since you think Vietnam was just a heroic struggle to stop communism.

Vietnam was a struggle to stop communism. I never said that it was heroic. Most struggles aren't.

[Shi Huangdi]

Alright Boris:

"(1) relies on its courts to suppress domestic opposition"

Even had Gore gotten the vote count he had requested, he still would have lost. Bush clearly got more legal votes.

Moreover, were the US supressing domestic opposition the way Libya does, you and many other people who ***** and moan about the US would be thrown in jail. While posts like the ones you made on this thread would make that tempting, the fact that people like you, Michael Moore, Chomsky et al are allowed to preach your anti-US filfth does more to discredit the shrieking that this is a police state.

"(2) uses torture to interrogate and punish prisoners"

There is no evidence that torture has been used against the detainees at camp X-ray. They are provided with regular meals and treated decently.



"(3) arrests and detains its citizens arbitrarily and often holds prisoners incommunicado for years;"

I disagree with the holding, but the detainments we have made been far from arbitrary, and in most cases for camp X-Ray it has been people on the battlefield.

" (4) refuses prisoners the right to a fair public trial. "

Zacarias Moussaoi anyone?

A few selected, even if improper, harsh moves against terrorists does not equate to a systematic police state such as Libya.



and (4) refuses prisoners the right to a fair public trial. In addition, the report says, Libya “restricts freedom of speech, press, assembly, association and religion.”