With Iraq sliding off a cliff, and now tugging another 20,000 young Americans along as well, it’s worth wrestling with a larger question: Why are we so awful at foreign policy?

Stumbling Around the World - New York Times

Perhaps, in other words, it’s time to merge the military Plan B — the surge — with a political Plan B — flexible decentralization. That would mean using adequate force levels (finally!) to help those who are returning to sectarian homelands. It would mean erecting buffers between populations where possible and establishing order in areas that remain mixed. It would mean finding decentralized governing structures that reflect the social and psychological facts on the ground.

the partitioning of Iraq may be inevitable but i'm reminded of my country's involvement in the partitioning of Ireland, the partitioning of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh and the problems of Cyprus
the seeds of India and Pakistan developing nuclear weapons were sown in 1947
partition may be inevitable
it may damp down the escalating internecine warfare
but don't be fooled it's the easy solution
i don't have an alternative reality simulator that might allow me to weigh the comparitive death tolls of different approaches but history suggests that partition doesn't cool the sides off rather they brood and plot revenge from a position of safety and yet Rwanda pops into my head *sigh*
i'm so glad i'm not in charge

Making the Surge Work - New York Times

It’s against the backdrop of both the Hussein video and the Ford presidency that we must examine the prospect of that much-previewed “surge” in Iraq

The Timely Death of Gerald Ford - New York Times

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said his government could review relations with any country which criticised the execution of ex-leader Saddam Hussein.

followed by that he'll throw all his toys out of the pram

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraq PM warns over Saddam hanging

flynn23 wrote:

adam wrote:

flynn23 wrote:

adam wrote:

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

I completely oppose the death penalty even for Saddam

Would you rather that we spend inordinate resources guarding and imprisoning him? Is this the best use for humanity of these resources? Always with the threat that he may escape or worse, that his rantings might incite a movement in his name? Would you have supported keeping Hitler alive? Stalin?

in short yes, even Hitler and Stalin, in supplication to a higher notion of morality
i do not believe the correct punishment for taking human life is to take human life
i believe we should display a higher reverence for human life than the killer (any killer)

I think that's a quaint notion that I wish I could support. But given the society that we live in, where enlightenment is at best a verb instead of an adjective, I think it's impractical for such a situation. Maybe if we spent more on education and less on the war on drugs we might be able to progress to a place where murder was all but eliminated. But I doubt it. I understand Decius' feelings but this guy deserved to die. How he was nabbed and brought to justice is another crime unto itself, but that's a different story.

You may also note that countries that still support the death penalty have far less violent crime. And some countries which abolished it have gone back to supporting it due to a rise in violent crime. Contrast this with rich nations that don't support the death penalty, which have less violent crime than the US per capita, but have just as much larceny and other minor crimes per capita. People do think twice about committing crime if they know that they will be swiftly and appropriately punished. One of the failings of our justice system is that it is neither swift nor appropriate and people know this. Hell, some of the criminals that I know of were HAPPY to go to prison because it was a better situation than the one they were living outside. Three square meals, a roof over your head, and a free education. Not bad.

But the biggest reason why I would support Saddam's execution is that this is saving far more lives than taking. Even if we hadn't done a pre-emptive military campaign to remove Saddam from power, and just did our usual CIA toppling from the inside, there would most likely be sectarian violence in Iraq. Just like there was in Latin America in the 80's when we tried it there and Indo-China when we tried it there in the 60's and 70's. It's arguable which approach has the smaller death toll or which is more 'effective' for regime change, but it's obvious which one is less costly in terms of resources and political capital.

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RE: BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq

flynn23 wrote:

adam wrote:

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

I completely oppose the death penalty even for Saddam

Would you rather that we spend inordinate resources guarding and imprisoning him? Is this the best use for humanity of these resources? Always with the threat that he may escape or worse, that his rantings might incite a movement in his name? Would you have supported keeping Hitler alive? Stalin?

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

in short yes, even Hitler and Stalin, in supplication to a higher notion of morality
i do not believe the correct punishment for taking human life is to take human life
i believe we should display a higher reverence for human life than the killer (any killer)

RE: BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

I completely oppose the death penalty even for Saddam
On Earth he received more justice than he gave
If there is a next world may he in it receive more mercy and forgiveness than he gave

blood begets blood
death begets death
revenge begets revenge
to break the negative spirals with positive ones
mercy begets mercy
forgiveness begets forgiveness

it takes strength to break the negative spirals

justice begets justice (this is neither wholly justice nor injustice)

may some of his victims and their families take comfort from the closing of a chapter

RIP a twisted and ultimately pathetic human being

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq

Whether the name of the game was liberation or dominion, Iraq was a crucial test case. Iraq's transformation into the first Arab democracy — or (depending on your point of view) its conversion into a compliant protectorate — promised to validate the Bush administration's concept of global war.

Victory in Iraq would also affirm key assumptions underlying that concept: that U.S. forces are invincible and unstoppable; that preventive war works; that the concerns of other major powers or the absence of a UN Security Council mandate need not constrain American freedom of action.

In short, Iraq constituted step one. Success there would pave the way for the Bush administration to proceed along similar lines to steps two, three and four.

The disappointments and frustrations resulting from that first step now leave the entire project in a shambles. If the United States cannot democratize Iraq, then to imagine that democracy will emerge from the barrel of an American gun in Iran, Syria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia is simply fanciful. If U.S. troops cannot pacify Iraq, then only the truly deluded would court a further military showdown that could oblige American forces to pacify Iraq's neighbors as well. The United States already has too much war for too few soldiers.
...
As if tacitly acknowledging that they have spent all their ammunition strategically, Bush and his lieutenants now preoccupy themselves with operational matters that ought to fall within the purview of field commanders. Will sending another half-dozen combat brigades into Baghdad secure the Iraqi capital? How about if we make it 10? That issues like these should now command presidential attention testifies to the administration's disarray. It's as if Franklin Roosevelt had tried to manage the Battle of the Bulge from his desk in the Oval Office.

Fighting the Battle of Baghdad does not qualify as presidential business. Devising an effective response to the threat posed by Islamic radicalism does. On that score, however, the most pressing question is this: Does open-ended global war provide the proper framework for formulating that response? Or has global war, based on various illusions about American competence and American power, led to a dead end?

Bush's illusions - Opinion - International Herald Tribune

On Nov. 15, the Russian Interior Ministry and Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant, announced three new senior appointments. Oleg Safonov was named a deputy head of the ministry. Yevgeny Shkolov became head of its economic security department. And Valery Golubev was appointed a deputy chief executive at Gazprom.

All three men had something important in common beyond the timing of their promotions: backgrounds as KGB officers and experience working directly with President Vladimir Putin when he was a KGB operative himself in Germany or later, when he was a rising presence in the local government of St. Petersburg, his home town.
...
"According to persistent reports, the FSB is responsible for running the computerized system that processes and reports elections results," wrote Mikhail Tsypkin, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, in the July issue of the Journal of Democracy. Control of the computerized election system had been a FAPSI function.

the tale of the boiling frog episode xx

In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens - washingtonpost.com

Islamic militants are using a recent peace deal with the government to consolidate their hold in northern Pakistan, vastly expanding their training of suicide bombers and other recruits and fortifying alliances with Al Qaeda and foreign fighters, diplomats and intelligence officials from several nations say. The result, they say, is virtually a Taliban mini-state.

Taliban and Allies Tighten Grip in North of Pakistan - New York Times