Comments Posted By Drongo
Displaying 61 To 70 Of 246 Comments
"Is it your position that a coup by a combination army and extremist parties is out of the question?"
No, it is that the idea of Bin Laden being in charge of Pakistan is laughable. Sure, it is possible that extremists might stage a coup (an unpopular coup, it is worth noting) but the idea that they would hand over their nukes to Bin Laden is absurd.
"The point is simple; the more power the extremists get the more dangerous for Pakistan."
Undoubtedly true, but not all extremists are the same.
"And all bets are off if we invade in order to deal with the Taliban ourselves."
That would certainly be madness.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 23.03.2008 @ 14:00
"Just out of curiosity, what’s to prevent a coup? "
The fact that the army does not seem to want Al-Q to run their country? Elements of it also obviously do not want a pro-American government, of course.
"And what does “popular opinion” have to do with anything when it comes to an AQ-Taliban takeover?"
It just illustrates what rank paranoia the idea of Bin Laden running Pakistan is. It is never going to happen. Everytime Al-Q has come close to having any form of formal political power, it has so revolted the populace at large that they rejected them. The same would happen in Pakistan.
Is it your position that a coup by a combination army and extremist parties is out of the question? Check out some of the bozos who were in Musharraf's "coalition" during the last election. What dragged them down more than anything else was hatred of Musharraf. Those parties won a majority in the elections of 2004 (rigged of course and with the some other parties boycotting).
The point is simple; the more power the extremists get the more dangerous for Pakistan. And all bets are off if we invade in order to deal with the Taliban ourselves.
ed.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 23.03.2008 @ 13:07
"But in the long term, any agreement signed by the government will only strengthen the extremists and bring them closer to Osama Bin Laden’s goal of taking over the Pakistani government – a government that possesses the ultimate weapon against cartoons that insult Islam and those who publish them."
But the recent elections have shown how feeble the poular support for the Islamic extremists is in the country. I don't see how this goes;
1) Agreement with Taliban in Waziristan
2) ...
3) Population of Pakistan decides that extremist Islam is the way to go.I consider the idea of a nuclear armed Al-Q to be as apocalyptic as you do, and they would almost certainly use it if they could, but where does popular opinion fit in with the "Pakistan run by Bin Laden" scenario?
PML-N is not "moderate" by any means. There are elements of Sharif's party that are sympathetic to the Taliban. And the vote does not reflect that sympathy for the Taliban and AQ in the ISI or in the lower ranks of the army for that matter.
Just out of curiosity, what's to prevent a coup? And what does "popular opinion" have to do with anything when it comes to an AQ-Taliban takeover?
ed.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 23.03.2008 @ 03:21
"It appears from where I’m sitting that the American people are completely willing to sell their birthright of liberty for the ease and comfort of government serfdom. The liberals have trained us monkeys very well. Vote for them and out pops a banana treat. No need to take responsibility for your own life. Not when there are so many in government eager to run it for you."
Out of interest, could you show me which of the Republican candidates (not to mention current president) advocate leaving the subprime mess to work itself out on its own?
Apart from Ron Paul, of course.
I agree with you in the main, and don't fancy my taxes going to bail out people who made bad decisions that I deliberately avoided. However, when looking for whose fault the whole thing is it is worth remembering that the customers are basically uneducated herd-followers, while the lenders are running according to practices derived from trained and experienced economists. One side knew what it was doing and didn't care, the other side should have known what it was doing but didn't.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 12.01.2008 @ 04:29
"We should not torture because of who we are not because of what the Geneva Convention says, or the left says, or the hypocritical third world moralists say. It is wrong for Americans to do it. And yes, waterboarding is torture. Putting a prisoner in stress positions is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture."
With all due respect, this is the basic position of almost everyone on the left that I have spoken to, a simple moral absolute that torture is always wrong no matter what the situation. Bring on the situational ethics say the Pro-Torture crowd.
It helps if you regard the whole thing as a very, very black comedy.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 7.12.2007 @ 10:50
THE TRIUMPH OF THE PARANOID LEFT
"Are we to believe it was part of the plan that George Bush would sink to historic lows of approval by the American people? Are we to believe that the fall of the Republican party was foreseen by the plotters?"
While I respect the general point of the piece, this is not a difficult question to answer. Obviously the plot failed because, rather than becoming a willing protectorate of the US, Iraqis had other ideas about nationalism. If all had gone well (as, if they are to be believed, the most senior planners assumed they would) then the lack of WMDs would be irrelevant compared to the glories of liberation and vindication. This isn't conspiracy, or guesswork, this is just reading what the leading players said at the time.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 24.11.2007 @ 19:04
THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO COLUMBIA
"They see no objective moral truth that would allow them to judge the two sides equally."
For that to be true, in this case of homosexual rights and prospective war, this is obviously not true. The speaker obviously does not think that the situation of homosexuals in Iran is acceptable, nor do they think that America treats homosexuals in a way that is even on the same scale as Iran. They think that
(a) the greater moral outrage of a proposed war with Iran demands that the prevention of this is a higher moral requirement, and that the advancement (or lack thereof) of the rights of homosexuals in Iran is a lesser concern than avoiding war with the country
and
(b) That they might have a chance of changing the behaviour of America wrt war, but they have little chance of changing the behaviour of Iran wrt homosexuals.
"Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth;"
I would doubt very much that the person does not believe in an objective right for homosexuals not to be persecuted for their sexuality.
"Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences…"
For this to be the case the speaker would have to be OK with the situation of homosexuals in Iran which they are pretty obviously not.
A moral relativist is not someone who puts certain moral demands above others for reasons of expediency or efficiency, they are someone for whom the persecution of homosexuals in Iran was morally good, since it conforms with the cultural mores of the society in question.
Is that honestly what you think they meant? It seems very clear from a cursory reading of the text that they are simply saying that the priority must be opposing upcoming war and that other concerns must be subordinate to that. This is a perfectly rational position based on practical considerations and not in any way a suggestion that Iran's record on human rights is acceptable.
But that is irrelevant. The thing that you ought to grasp is that a moral relativist would think that the oppression of homosexuals in Iran was morally good. Obviously this is not the case here so you are not looking at moral relativism.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 24.09.2007 @ 18:03
"What is so difficult to understand there? The left would rather their political enemies lose than Iran lose in the PR battle. That is selective morality, i.e. relativism.
Duh."
Selective morality isn't relativism. It is hypocricy, a completely different thing.
In this case they think of "their political enemies lose" as meaning "The chances of a destructive, risky and criminal war being started are lowered", and consider this a goal which is more important than any other.
Of course, they're wrong. Hilary is just as likely to push the trigger on Iran as any Republican, but you've got to keep hope alive, haven't you?
Comment Posted By Drongo On 24.09.2007 @ 07:18
"You’re kidding, right? Ahmadinejad threatens the peace of the world and the liberal loons are concerned lest protests against him be seen as helping neocons?"
Actually, and quite literally, Ahmadinejad (need shorthand for that I think) hasn't threatened war with anyone. You can interpret his Anti-Israel language in a avriety of ways of course, but he has certainly never said that Iran has any intention of doing anything active to help the end of Israel.
(Now, of course, you can suggest that he isn't saying what he means, but threats really have to say what they mean or else they aren't threats)
On the other hand (and no, this isn't relativism, merely observation. I don't think that relative ethics means what you think that it means) the US has and continue to threaten open war with Iran with monotonous (even tedious) regularity. It is, as far as I can tell, official US policy to pursue regieme change in Iran, and to pursue it actively. It certainly isn't Iranian official policy to pursue regime change in the US.
Just out of interest, a relative ethicist could suggest that such threats from the US were acceptable, because such actions were considered fair and reasonable given the underlying assumption in the US that it is acting in the interests of humanity as a whole. Someone who holds that there are fundamentals to ethics beyond cultural norms would be forced to conceed that, if threatening war is a bad thing, then the US is as guilty if not moreso than Iran in this matter.
I have a feeling that, when you say "relative ethics", you mean something more like "Ignorant, uninformed ethical comparisons which don't use the full context". That's not relative ethics, it is just bad ethics. The idea of comparing the ethical situation between two societies actions is outside of relative ethical calculations as, by definition of the school of thought, since the two cultures are radically different, there could be no meaningful comparison. To compare you have to either;
1) Have an absolute standard to measure them against
or
2) Declare one of them to be the absolute standard and judge the other against that.
Hope this clears that up for you. It isn't like it is important, as there are vanishingly few relative ethicists around to get upset about it, but I know that you like to be accurate.
" There are other means for engagement with Iran than war, and other means for disagreement with Ahmadinejad than the planned protest. We call on those who do not support a war with Iran to be wary of the vilification of Ahmadinejad, to avoid Monday’s rally, and to express vocally their opposition to military intervention.
Now here is relativism writ large. "
Here in your writing is a great example of this error. The writer of the piece obviously does not think that it is OK to kill gays because they are in Iran, it is just that in a calculation of practical behaviour, in which is included a weighing up of various ethical demands, a certain course of action is calculated to be less harmful, or more productive than another. Do you see the difference here?
The true moral relativist would have no problem with the execution of Iranina homosexuals because they are in Iran, and should therefore conform to the prevailing society's ethos. They would also consider gay-bashing in the US with abhorrence, as it is clearly against the prevailing ethos of the society at large.
This absurdity is why, of course, there are very few true relativists around. It was more of a handy way to enable anthropologists to watch the savages killing each other while avoiding the need to actually stop them. Kindof went out of fashion with the Pith helmet.
To sum up, you disagree with the translation of ethical pressures into action performed by this person. You do not (I assume) actually disagree with any of her ethical pressures (War is bad, killing is to be avoided if possible, and homosexuality is acceptable), just how she puts these into action.
And the reason you disagree with this translation is because;
"Plus a dash of laughable ignorance about the nature of the Iranian regime. "
While you agree (I presume) with her ethics, you disagree with how those ethical pressures should be translated into action, because you consider her context for making such a translation to be flawed.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 24.09.2007 @ 07:12
DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIND ANYONE TO HELP THEM SURRENDER
"Why not buy some time with a dependable oil supply provided by (yet another) client state in the Middle East while we develop alternative energy sources?"
Indeed.
Why not kill hundreds of thousands of people to ensure our fuel supply?
Comment Posted By Drongo On 19.09.2007 @ 15:24
