Monday, July 23, 2012

More examples of they are two peas in a pod....

The left-right dichotomy in our political process is nothing more than show on the whole. Both sides agree with each other on policy but only quible if a Republican president does something then the left caterwhauls for all to hear. And if Obama does it it's justified because he is a man of the left.

Yes, Osama was allegedly taken out by our guys but I would have much more enjoyed a public trial and execution for mass murder but we wouldn't want to upset the "peacefull Moslems", would we? 

International Law Is Made By Powerful States | ThinkProgress

That’s not to say one can raise no objections to this. Viewing terrorism as a primarily military problem is a mistake that led the United States into a lot of policy errors. I hope we’ll turn away from this. And of course if you’re Pakistani you might look at this series of events and say that international law looks kind of bogus. They didn’t even get a vote on the Security Council! What kind of sense does it make for the US, China, and Russia to get together and tell the world which countries may and may not be subject to SEAL raids? This would also be a very valid point for a political radical like Chomsky to raise. But it is what it is. International law is made by states, powerful states have a disproportionate role in shaping it, and powerful states have obvious reasons to not be super-interested in the due process of suspected international terrorists or the sensibilities of mid-sized countries. Many people are pacifists and/or strong critics of western military power, and that’s fine. But it’s simply not the case that international law is identical with these policy preferences. On the contrary, one of the main functions of the international institutional order is precisely to legitimate the use of deadly military force by western powers.

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