The announcement two days ago that the US is prepared to use nuclear weapons has a many-fold purpose. 1) It said to the Iraqi people that they should really think twice before supporting their ruler in a war against the US. There are a host of reasons to have the Iraqis believe that. 2) It told Saadam that attacking Israel will not work. Iraq no doubt thinks that if it is attacked by the US it will attack Israel to 1) kill Israelis and 2) to gain broad Arab support. It is an old ploy that all Arab leaders know. You can oppress your people to death as long as you are perceived as fighting the Israelis. (Hence, the perpetuation of anti-Isrel as a national priority in all Arab countries.) 3) It told Israel to stay out of the war in the only way they will listen, by assuring them that there will be nuclear retaliation for an attack on Israel's soil using WMDs.
What Saadam was no doubt thinking is that if something happens he will attak Israel and will be able to keep his regime. What the US said is that if he attacks Israel, the US will attack Iraq with nuclear weapons. Remember Saadam cannot fire WMDs in his own country against US troops without shooting himself in the foot (by destroying his own army) at the same time. He does not have the capability to attack the US. We are too far away. He would not attack neighboring Arab countries for fear of loosing more Arab support among now friendly Arab countries.
So the only country left for him to attack is Israel. So that is what the US was refering to. The US wants Israel to stay out of the war, for the same reason Saadam wants them in it. Both the US State Dept and Israel have announced publically and repeatedly that Israel will likely use nuclear weapons if attacked with WMD.
So what the US is saying is that now Israel knows to stay out of the war because the US will do Israel's job for her. The US will nuke Iraq just to prevent Israel from doing it. The hope is that this treat will stop Saadam from starting in the first place.
This is however a dangerous bluff. I assume that if the US is not prepared to follow through, Israel is. So I hope this ploy works.
Friday, December 13, 2002
Why only the US should have Nukes
For all you fans of game theory out there, here is an argument for why only the US should have nuclear weapons.
Assume that very stable democracies want to stay stable democracies. Also, assume that one of our important goals is to avoid having anyone use nuclear weapons.
Weapons of mass destruction are hard to make. This is actually an empirical fact, but for an argument, if they were easy to make then we never would have evolved as far as we have as a species.
To make WMD you need a large number of people to cooperate in many and varied ways. We need universities and large amounts of funding, and people who are able and willing to work together for long periods of time under conditions of various governments and economic, social and political conditions. From all the cooperation literature we know that cooperation generally implies a peaceful socitey. A peaceful society, if it is a democracy, wants to stay that way. So it will not use WMD if it can avoid it, on pain of loosing their peaceful status.
Non cooperative countries, that is, countries that have not developed sufficient internal cooperation to build WMD have less need to stay stable, because they are not stable to begin with. Moreover, non-democracies have less insentive to avoid using WMD because they are not all that interested in not killing their citizens, because their power does not derive from the people whose lives are in danger. That is the nature of non-democracies. So getting in to nuclear conflict is not the big destabilizing factor that it would be in a stable democracy.
So the upshot is that coutries that 1) are stable democracies and 2) developed the resources and technology on their own, and did not purchase it from others should be the only ones with nuclear weapons. Of course it is preferable that that non have it. However, as long as there are other countries and this is the most effecient way to maintain the stability then it it moral. Moreover, for the same reasons, it is imperative that those countries who are morally justified in having WMD, ought to prevent those who are not morally justified from having it.
Assume that very stable democracies want to stay stable democracies. Also, assume that one of our important goals is to avoid having anyone use nuclear weapons.
Weapons of mass destruction are hard to make. This is actually an empirical fact, but for an argument, if they were easy to make then we never would have evolved as far as we have as a species.
To make WMD you need a large number of people to cooperate in many and varied ways. We need universities and large amounts of funding, and people who are able and willing to work together for long periods of time under conditions of various governments and economic, social and political conditions. From all the cooperation literature we know that cooperation generally implies a peaceful socitey. A peaceful society, if it is a democracy, wants to stay that way. So it will not use WMD if it can avoid it, on pain of loosing their peaceful status.
Non cooperative countries, that is, countries that have not developed sufficient internal cooperation to build WMD have less need to stay stable, because they are not stable to begin with. Moreover, non-democracies have less insentive to avoid using WMD because they are not all that interested in not killing their citizens, because their power does not derive from the people whose lives are in danger. That is the nature of non-democracies. So getting in to nuclear conflict is not the big destabilizing factor that it would be in a stable democracy.
So the upshot is that coutries that 1) are stable democracies and 2) developed the resources and technology on their own, and did not purchase it from others should be the only ones with nuclear weapons. Of course it is preferable that that non have it. However, as long as there are other countries and this is the most effecient way to maintain the stability then it it moral. Moreover, for the same reasons, it is imperative that those countries who are morally justified in having WMD, ought to prevent those who are not morally justified from having it.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
New Novel
This just in from the in-case-you-needed-another-reason-to-hate-the-French department: There is a new novel out in French that you will not see anywhere near my reading list this winter break. The novel is being published by Flammarion ( really large French publisher).
The novel is called Rever la Palestine and the Simon Weisenthal center is urging the publishers to stop the presses. They are not. Apparently they flew off the shelves in Paris just after the release. The novel is aimed at teens, and its author too, is 15.
From what I am gathering, the novel protrays some kid who grows up and dreams of becoming a suicide bomber. Eventually he does become one. I mean what the hell kind of f%#$ed-up culture produced this stuff? And who the heck in france is confusing this with Harry Potter? The book is supposed to contain the usual tirades about blood-thirsty Jews who deface mosques, rape arab women (God, like anyone would want to do that), and kill arab children BEFORE they become suicide bombers. At some point one of the main characters calls for a Jihad against the Jews and annihilation of Israelis.
This undoubtedly is a great text of sufferring and hope. One day perhaps all Palestinians can aspire to suicide bomberdom and get exonerated by pop-culture. For now, sadly, it is only the French-speaking ones.
The novel is called Rever la Palestine and the Simon Weisenthal center is urging the publishers to stop the presses. They are not. Apparently they flew off the shelves in Paris just after the release. The novel is aimed at teens, and its author too, is 15.
From what I am gathering, the novel protrays some kid who grows up and dreams of becoming a suicide bomber. Eventually he does become one. I mean what the hell kind of f%#$ed-up culture produced this stuff? And who the heck in france is confusing this with Harry Potter? The book is supposed to contain the usual tirades about blood-thirsty Jews who deface mosques, rape arab women (God, like anyone would want to do that), and kill arab children BEFORE they become suicide bombers. At some point one of the main characters calls for a Jihad against the Jews and annihilation of Israelis.
This undoubtedly is a great text of sufferring and hope. One day perhaps all Palestinians can aspire to suicide bomberdom and get exonerated by pop-culture. For now, sadly, it is only the French-speaking ones.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Nut on the F train
I was on the F train tonight and there was this guy is a really gay looking hat (though you could make a similar case for my hat) who just pushes me for no apparent reason (except perhaps to be standing closer to the door when it would open at Delancy street. So I gave the guy some dirty look and continued talking to a friend who was also getting off at Delancy. I was not getting off at that stop. So then the guy says "I can't believe you have a problem with me pushing you." So I think to myself that this guy is just a real a-hole, and I say something like "a55hole" to no one in particular. Then the door opens up and the guy says "F--- you" so I say "F— you. You could be civil" and then he stands there by the door till the train leaves saying over and over "you want a piece of me?" Like, what is up with that? He looked normal, but apparently was just some sort sort of psychotic animal who had a bad day.
Monday, December 09, 2002
A parable on evil dictators
Let us say that there was a poor child in our community. We found out that this poor child and his friends were mugging people and breaking in to our homes, and vandalized our property. So once in a while we tried to punish him. But finally we realized that our punishments were cruel and we tried a different approach.
Completely out of our desire to stop the vandalism and muggings, we decided to give this child some money. We paid for an education, bought him his own laptop, clothing, and made this child a lot better off in many ways. The child goes through college and leaves college with a number of skills. One of those skills is the ability to maliciously hack in to computer systems.
One night this person goes on line to his home computer and steals money out of the bank accounts of those who have been supporting him for the past few years.
Who is to blame here for this child's behavior?
(For those who do not get the moral here, it is as follows: For all those people who blame the US for funding Saadam/bin Laden/Fidel/... and say that we deserve whatever we get because we funded these people to start with, I ask you what the difference is? All it means is that in addition to being depraved murderers, they are also ungrateful poster children for abortion.)
Completely out of our desire to stop the vandalism and muggings, we decided to give this child some money. We paid for an education, bought him his own laptop, clothing, and made this child a lot better off in many ways. The child goes through college and leaves college with a number of skills. One of those skills is the ability to maliciously hack in to computer systems.
One night this person goes on line to his home computer and steals money out of the bank accounts of those who have been supporting him for the past few years.
Who is to blame here for this child's behavior?
(For those who do not get the moral here, it is as follows: For all those people who blame the US for funding Saadam/bin Laden/Fidel/... and say that we deserve whatever we get because we funded these people to start with, I ask you what the difference is? All it means is that in addition to being depraved murderers, they are also ungrateful poster children for abortion.)
Sunday, December 08, 2002
Went to a Hanukaha party on Friday night in Brooklyn. "J" made some good food, and there were some nice people there. I got home at some crazy hour in the morning on account of the messed up Q train on the weekend.
Went to a few birthday celebrations last (Saturday) night. I met "J" in the Library on ave A and 1st for beer. Then "L" and I went off to Kush on Orchard Street, which was crowded, but it would have been nice. So we moved two doors down to this other place where I got completely wasted and forgot the name. Then some of us went to Sarafina on Lexington, and then off to Sugar in TriBeCa for more drinking. Sarafina and Sugar were so-so. We grabbed a limo on the street to travel around. A good time was had by all, and again I got home at an insane hour. (Yawn!)
Went to a few birthday celebrations last (Saturday) night. I met "J" in the Library on ave A and 1st for beer. Then "L" and I went off to Kush on Orchard Street, which was crowded, but it would have been nice. So we moved two doors down to this other place where I got completely wasted and forgot the name. Then some of us went to Sarafina on Lexington, and then off to Sugar in TriBeCa for more drinking. Sarafina and Sugar were so-so. We grabbed a limo on the street to travel around. A good time was had by all, and again I got home at an insane hour. (Yawn!)
Saturday, December 07, 2002
Parable about the UN
Imagine that the Unites States formed a Commission on Wife Beating. This commission was to be the main committee for the United States that would oversee arrests, information, education, and punishment for men who beat their wives. There was no other major organization that did this. This committee was made up of representatives from all the states, and was founded on the principle that all wives everywhere should be safe from abusive men.
That all sounds pretty noble, right?
So far, so good.
Now, this commission is working hard, and having lots of meetings, and working closely with law enforcement in the attempt to slowly curtail this national problem.
Then, a few months after the committee was formed blocks started emerge, and the political machinery starts to move. The southern states start to stick closely together. They refuse to let an investigation go on in their state because it would make them look bad as a a huge powerful voting block they can seriously impede any work in their states. So they focus all their energy and allow all the resources available to the committee to be used in making sure that all the attention goes to the northern states. No one can get any enforcement procedures going on in any other state.
But they are making some progress in some northern states.
Then a few months later there are rifts and other alliances that form. Some of the alliances are cultural, some racial, some religious, some economic, and some geographic. Before you know it New Jersey and California are the only states who are really under scrutiny. Because of this scrutiny the level of wife beating goes down. Not so much, because the commission is not all that powerful, but somewhat.
Wives are being murdered in Wyoming, and there are even special beaten-wife hospitals in Nevada. There is a sport that evolves in Texas whose main point is to see how many of your wife's fingers you can break with one hit of a baseball bat. But that gets ignored because of various racial and political wranglings.
And California is a rather large and powerful state, so nothing really happens there either. But New Jersey is tiny and no one really likes them anyway, so all of the committee's energies go in to attacking problems in New Jersey. Every husband in New Jersey, guilty or not, is under a microscope. When the committee is bored it just issues a warrant for some random husband in New Jersey.
Nothing really happened to the New Jersey husbands. But the state looks bad, and no one really wanted to marry men from New Jersey. Other states refused to do business with New Jersey based companies, and they all cited the overwhelming "evidence" the committee has to justify their discrimination against people from New Jersey.
After a while (to feminist screams of mysogeny) someone points out that there is something unfair going on. There are a lot of wives getting killed in other states who are getting ignored, while the New Jersey men are getting all the hassle. Moreover, doesn't this all point to a genuine problem? Should we not suspect that there is more going on then a desire to help wives? Doesn't this look like a way to get those loosers from New Jersey. After a while you would think that the point is not to help wives. If it was then they would be trying to help wives all over. More than that, you would start to doubt the veracity of any of their evidence. They seem to be just gunning for Jersey guys. Any incident in New Jersey is magnified so out of proportion because the committe has little to focus on and needs a constant outpouring of examples. Eventualy they even drop their pretexts and in a resolution declare that "living in Jersey makes men rapists".
Is an organization like that worth your trust? Would you, if you were interested in real justice, join such an organization?
That all sounds pretty noble, right?
So far, so good.
Now, this commission is working hard, and having lots of meetings, and working closely with law enforcement in the attempt to slowly curtail this national problem.
Then, a few months after the committee was formed blocks started emerge, and the political machinery starts to move. The southern states start to stick closely together. They refuse to let an investigation go on in their state because it would make them look bad as a a huge powerful voting block they can seriously impede any work in their states. So they focus all their energy and allow all the resources available to the committee to be used in making sure that all the attention goes to the northern states. No one can get any enforcement procedures going on in any other state.
But they are making some progress in some northern states.
Then a few months later there are rifts and other alliances that form. Some of the alliances are cultural, some racial, some religious, some economic, and some geographic. Before you know it New Jersey and California are the only states who are really under scrutiny. Because of this scrutiny the level of wife beating goes down. Not so much, because the commission is not all that powerful, but somewhat.
Wives are being murdered in Wyoming, and there are even special beaten-wife hospitals in Nevada. There is a sport that evolves in Texas whose main point is to see how many of your wife's fingers you can break with one hit of a baseball bat. But that gets ignored because of various racial and political wranglings.
And California is a rather large and powerful state, so nothing really happens there either. But New Jersey is tiny and no one really likes them anyway, so all of the committee's energies go in to attacking problems in New Jersey. Every husband in New Jersey, guilty or not, is under a microscope. When the committee is bored it just issues a warrant for some random husband in New Jersey.
Nothing really happened to the New Jersey husbands. But the state looks bad, and no one really wanted to marry men from New Jersey. Other states refused to do business with New Jersey based companies, and they all cited the overwhelming "evidence" the committee has to justify their discrimination against people from New Jersey.
After a while (to feminist screams of mysogeny) someone points out that there is something unfair going on. There are a lot of wives getting killed in other states who are getting ignored, while the New Jersey men are getting all the hassle. Moreover, doesn't this all point to a genuine problem? Should we not suspect that there is more going on then a desire to help wives? Doesn't this look like a way to get those loosers from New Jersey. After a while you would think that the point is not to help wives. If it was then they would be trying to help wives all over. More than that, you would start to doubt the veracity of any of their evidence. They seem to be just gunning for Jersey guys. Any incident in New Jersey is magnified so out of proportion because the committe has little to focus on and needs a constant outpouring of examples. Eventualy they even drop their pretexts and in a resolution declare that "living in Jersey makes men rapists".
Is an organization like that worth your trust? Would you, if you were interested in real justice, join such an organization?
Friday, December 06, 2002
I caught the last few minutes of an interview on CNN this morning with an important looking Saudi. I am not sure who he was, but I think he was being interviewed (I think by Wolf Blitzer). Anyway, he said something that struch me as typical of the way Saudi's see themselves, and I think offers a new definition of the word "chutzpah".
He was being asked about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, and he said that 1) bin Laden's original target was Saudi Arabia (which is true), and therefore Saudis and the Saudi Government deeply did not like him or his aims or goals (whcih cannot be true). Moreover, he claimed that there is no real evidence that Saudis had anything to do with flying planes in to the Twin Towers. But 15 of the 19 hijackers are saudi, Blitzer asked. To which this bujum responded: there were 15 saudis on the plane, but we have no evidence that they were at all responsible. Anyone on the plane could have done it. Why should we suspect that it was the Saudis?
It is the American prejudice that makes us assume this.
He was being asked about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, and he said that 1) bin Laden's original target was Saudi Arabia (which is true), and therefore Saudis and the Saudi Government deeply did not like him or his aims or goals (whcih cannot be true). Moreover, he claimed that there is no real evidence that Saudis had anything to do with flying planes in to the Twin Towers. But 15 of the 19 hijackers are saudi, Blitzer asked. To which this bujum responded: there were 15 saudis on the plane, but we have no evidence that they were at all responsible. Anyone on the plane could have done it. Why should we suspect that it was the Saudis?
It is the American prejudice that makes us assume this.
Thursday, December 05, 2002
Israel's president recently told an Italian newspaper that those behind the Mombasa bombing will have the same fate as Munich Olympic terrorists. Now operation wrath of God was pulled off really well. However it used to be Israel's style not to announce this stuff till AFTER it happened. Now we are going to have to listen to all these stupid human rights groups while about how terrorists are technically human, and as such they deserve better than extra-judicial assinations by Israel. I am still of course waiting for the pronouncements against the extra-judicial assinations of the victims. But I suspect AI has more important things on its plate then the fate of a few Jews in Kenya, who really can't be helped because they are already dead. So why advocate for them? The terrorists are still alive, and under pursuit, and thus in desperate need of shelter from all forms of punishment.
Extremists in Berlin have won approval to hold a demonstration in Berlin when Israel's president comes to visit next week. Germany is really starting to worry me these days. Germany really is trying to make up for the last 50 years of Israel making Germany feel guilty about that genocide that they committed during world war II. I fear that things will become much worse for Jews in Germany. I suspect that Germany will once again become one of the world's leading exporters of anti-semitism.
Though this did not get all that much press, there was mustard gas found in Iraq. It was expected, and known to be there. The inspectors were looking for signs of tampering and stuff. The lack of any big to-do suggests to me that all is in order so far. The UN really downplayed the significance, and so did the western press.
What should be completely unsurpirisng to students of Arab politics is when at the same time that all this was found there was some standard Iraqi damage-control. The spin doctors get up and do exactly what one would expect them to do when there is potential trouble. They attack The US and Israel. The attack in this case came in the form of a pronouncement that the UN is really a proxy for the US and the Zionists. The way to get the arab world to forget that you may have mustard gas that you will just as likely use on one of them is to claim that it is Israel's and the US's fault that it is there is the first place.
This is exactly what Iraq did during the gulf war. While under attack, it attacked Israel. As if to say "You see, we are just fighting Israel, why are you all worried about Kuait?". The palestinians believed him then, as did much of the arab world. This is no different.
The saddest thing is that this works.
What should be completely unsurpirisng to students of Arab politics is when at the same time that all this was found there was some standard Iraqi damage-control. The spin doctors get up and do exactly what one would expect them to do when there is potential trouble. They attack The US and Israel. The attack in this case came in the form of a pronouncement that the UN is really a proxy for the US and the Zionists. The way to get the arab world to forget that you may have mustard gas that you will just as likely use on one of them is to claim that it is Israel's and the US's fault that it is there is the first place.
This is exactly what Iraq did during the gulf war. While under attack, it attacked Israel. As if to say "You see, we are just fighting Israel, why are you all worried about Kuait?". The palestinians believed him then, as did much of the arab world. This is no different.
The saddest thing is that this works.
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
I am listening to the Saudi press conference about terrorism by Adel al-Jubeir. These are my notes.
I am now listening to the Saudi press conference talk about what a big victim Saudia Arabia is. Apparently that they have been the victim of at least four terrorist attacks since 1960. They also claim that they have been fighting terrorism since the beginning. They have also been unfairly maligned over the years. He is amazed that people can say with a straight face that "Saudi Arabia" is a breeding ground for terrorism".
This guy is amazing!!! He is really full of it.
He calims that all terrism by Qaida is against the US, Saudia Arabia, or a common interest. I wonder if he will still assert this if they discover a Qaida link to Kenya.
They have created sophisticated banking laws to be able to trace money.
He used the words "evil doer".
There are also new regulations requiring charities to be audited. Charities are part of their faith. And it would be very bad if the givers discover that their money is going to be spent killing Israelis.
He also just revealed that Saudis do not pay taxes. So what is their system for getting government revenue.
He used the word "Merciless" three times.
The guy is not a bad speaker though.
He blames everyone for 9/11, execpt Saudi Arabia. The soudis were "used for this". Pointing fingers and assigning blame is unproductive.
I am now listening to the Saudi press conference talk about what a big victim Saudia Arabia is. Apparently that they have been the victim of at least four terrorist attacks since 1960. They also claim that they have been fighting terrorism since the beginning. They have also been unfairly maligned over the years. He is amazed that people can say with a straight face that "Saudi Arabia" is a breeding ground for terrorism".
This guy is amazing!!! He is really full of it.
He calims that all terrism by Qaida is against the US, Saudia Arabia, or a common interest. I wonder if he will still assert this if they discover a Qaida link to Kenya.
They have created sophisticated banking laws to be able to trace money.
He used the words "evil doer".
There are also new regulations requiring charities to be audited. Charities are part of their faith. And it would be very bad if the givers discover that their money is going to be spent killing Israelis.
He also just revealed that Saudis do not pay taxes. So what is their system for getting government revenue.
He used the word "Merciless" three times.
The guy is not a bad speaker though.
He blames everyone for 9/11, execpt Saudi Arabia. The soudis were "used for this". Pointing fingers and assigning blame is unproductive.
Monday, December 02, 2002
So England releases a dossier outlining a lot of brutality perpertrated by Saadam Heussain in Iraq, and instead of the applause you might expect from our good friends at Amnesty International, the first question they had: So why are you releasing this right now? They start accusing Britian of cold and calculating manipulations. There is no pleasing those barbarians who work for Amnesty. Where the hell were they all these years with information on Iraq? If they had said something (which they claim they did before the last war) then it would be common knowledge by now, and England wouldn't have to. It is too bad that they soft-petal the news that is too inconvenient for them. If they didn't then they should appreciate someone else doing it. The fact that they do not just tips their real agenda. They are just your average run-of-the-mill anti-American types. They just want control the rhetoric so that only THEY get to decide when there are human rights abuses and who is doing it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
