Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy jack
In regards to North Korea testing nuclear weaponry I don't believe it's the United States job to do something about it. Now if they actually hit waters (or darwin forbid it land) of one of our allies and our allies chooses playtime is over for North Korea and they ask us for help that would be valid. The United States going in on Bushian grounds right now and assassinating Kim Jong Il is an entirely different scenario.
I didn't bring up Iraq to discuss the Weapons of Mass Destruction angle; you're the one who brought that in. I brought up Iraq from a humanitarian perspective. Saddam was doing many atrocious things to the citizens of Iraq; including murder but not limited to that. You're doing something which I think is dirty which is choosing one of Saddam's cruelties and saying "well at least it's over fast Kim Jong Il's starving people to death isn't." That's disingenuous. Saddam was torturing people, imprisoning them (I doubt he fed many of those people either) and coercing them. He was a deeply evil man who do deeply evil things - many things that are on par with starvation considering starvation was a factor in some of his acts. Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. He didn't neglect them he killed them. I wouldn't consider a country that does that to be "stable." But that's irrelevant; this isn't about stability it's about humanism.
Now despite Saddam being a mass murderer you accused Kim Jong Il, because of his cruel negligence, of being genocidal and said that was justification for assassinating him...but you're still against United States intervention in Iraq? It's hypocritical. I don't think Il has killed nearly as many people as Saddam did. I hate discussing things like that I don't particularly want to say who is worse through quantifiable means or think it's necessary.
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I'm sure you'd be shocked by this, mainly because you say things like "darwin forbid" (is that cool these days?) but people can say "i wish we'd just take the guy down" and not actually advocate for it to be our foreign policy or to make it our national position legally.
But I was a young activist once too before I grew up and dealt with the world so i'll indulge the argument.
You said
"Now despite Saddam being a mass murderer you accused Kim Jong Il, because of his cruel negligence, of being genocidal and said that was justification for assassinating him". At no point have I justified anything.
I brought up the point that you're in favor of action with Darfur, and not with North Korea. The simple question here is, why one and not the other?
I think its because one was suggested by Bush (North Korea) and one has been the talking point for George Clooney (Darfur) and thats the only difference. Are you in favor of a country (any country) defending Tibet from Chinese Imperialism?
I have a tough time going forward here because I never presented any serious position. You made a couple terrible comparisons; North Korea and Iraq, and North Korea and the United States as far as who should own intercontinental weaponry, and I responded to them.
My problem with your positions is that you're hedging your bets. You want to say that these guys are horrible people, but we shouldn't do anything because we don't have the right.
Most people aren't in favor of doing
nothing while other people die. Myself, i'm an advocate of severe divestment and unilateral diplomacy to deal with these people. But in the end, if people are still starving, the world needs to say that we're better than that.
Having a non-interventionist policy period is ghastly. It means that no matter whats going on in any country, you don't feel a need to get involved. We can't solve the worlds problems, thats certain, but don't you think theres a time to step in eventually?
On the micro-level, how much don't you get involved? So maybe you don't take a bat to someone’s knees when he beats his wife, fine. But do you still hang out with the guy, or pretend nothing’s wrong.
And yes. it is exactly the same thing philosophically.