Sunday, June 11, 2006
"Diplomacy," American Style
I haven't posted about the Iran "crisis" in a bit. But there's been much talk recently about Bush's efforts at "diplomacy." What does that mean? Well, here's the offer: you meet all of our demands, and THEN we'll meet with you to discuss whether or not you will meet our demands. This is simply de ja vu all over again, and I CANNOT BELIEVE that anyone can take these mad fools seriously after the Iraq debacle.
Remember that long letter from the leader of Iran to the U.S. Administration? Ignored. Dismissed. Might as well not exist.
A few years from now the pundits and war-mongers will be saying "everyone thought Iran had nuclear weapons -- you're revising history!" "Everyone had the same intelligence, and unfortunately it turned out to be wrong." "We tried to negotiate with Iran, but they refused! We HAD to go to war! They left us with no choice -- don't you remember? Don't try to revise history!"
And Orwell rolls in his grave.
Until the U.S. complies with the NPT, it is in no position to demand compliance from anyone else. Furthermore, Iran is not in violation if they are merely seeking nuclear energy -- which is explicitly allowed in the NPT (in fact, the nuclear states are required to help the non-nuclear states with nuclear power development). So unless Iran is in fact seeking nuclear weapons, they have done nothing wrong; and even if they ARE developing nukes, they are no more in violation of the NPT than the U.S. (Or Russia, or Britain, or France, or China, etc.) Not to mention the nuclear countries who won't even sign the bloody treaty -- such as India, Pakistan, Israel, . . .
Beyond the fact that the U.S. is maintaining its stockpiles and even building new nuclear weapons which it fully intends to use, it has refused to vow not to use nuclear weapons -- even against non-nuclear states. The U.S. is also actively involved in militarizing space, and will soon have the capability (if it does not already) to launch missiles (including nuclear warheads) at any target on the face of the planet.
So much for support of the U.N., Treaties, International Law, etc. Who is the "Rogue State"?
Given all this, Mark Malloch Brown's comments (full text here) were overly polite and understated -- but then, he's actually a diplomat, unlilke the rabid dragon John Bolton.
There was a decent debate on "Left, Right, and Center" recently about the larger issue of nuclear non-proliferation. Listening to Tony Blankley try to justify utter hypocrisy, ethnocentricity and exceptionalism, I kept thinking about Chomsky:
"
Among the most elementary of moral truisms is the principle of universality: we must apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others, if not more stringent ones. It is a remarkable comment on Western intellectual culture that this principle is so often ignored and, if occasionally mentioned, condemned as outrageous. This is particularly shameful on the part of those who flaunt their Christian piety, and therefore have presumably at least heard of the definition of the hypocrite in the Gospels.
"
—ungeziefer
Remember that long letter from the leader of Iran to the U.S. Administration? Ignored. Dismissed. Might as well not exist.
A few years from now the pundits and war-mongers will be saying "everyone thought Iran had nuclear weapons -- you're revising history!" "Everyone had the same intelligence, and unfortunately it turned out to be wrong." "We tried to negotiate with Iran, but they refused! We HAD to go to war! They left us with no choice -- don't you remember? Don't try to revise history!"
And Orwell rolls in his grave.
Until the U.S. complies with the NPT, it is in no position to demand compliance from anyone else. Furthermore, Iran is not in violation if they are merely seeking nuclear energy -- which is explicitly allowed in the NPT (in fact, the nuclear states are required to help the non-nuclear states with nuclear power development). So unless Iran is in fact seeking nuclear weapons, they have done nothing wrong; and even if they ARE developing nukes, they are no more in violation of the NPT than the U.S. (Or Russia, or Britain, or France, or China, etc.) Not to mention the nuclear countries who won't even sign the bloody treaty -- such as India, Pakistan, Israel, . . .
Beyond the fact that the U.S. is maintaining its stockpiles and even building new nuclear weapons which it fully intends to use, it has refused to vow not to use nuclear weapons -- even against non-nuclear states. The U.S. is also actively involved in militarizing space, and will soon have the capability (if it does not already) to launch missiles (including nuclear warheads) at any target on the face of the planet.
So much for support of the U.N., Treaties, International Law, etc. Who is the "Rogue State"?
Given all this, Mark Malloch Brown's comments (full text here) were overly polite and understated -- but then, he's actually a diplomat, unlilke the rabid dragon John Bolton.
There was a decent debate on "Left, Right, and Center" recently about the larger issue of nuclear non-proliferation. Listening to Tony Blankley try to justify utter hypocrisy, ethnocentricity and exceptionalism, I kept thinking about Chomsky:
"
Among the most elementary of moral truisms is the principle of universality: we must apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others, if not more stringent ones. It is a remarkable comment on Western intellectual culture that this principle is so often ignored and, if occasionally mentioned, condemned as outrageous. This is particularly shameful on the part of those who flaunt their Christian piety, and therefore have presumably at least heard of the definition of the hypocrite in the Gospels.
"
—ungeziefer
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