Heidegger

“Serious US journals” are political animals with their own agendas. Daily, through out the web, you’ll find remarks on where they have distorted the facts, especially the NY Times. When Colin Powell presented the evidence the UN, we didn’t hear responses that the evidence was faked. Now, of course, everyone’s an expert. Saddam was walking a tightrope, trying to tell inspectors that he didn’t have weapon programs, while at the same time trying to make his generals and neighbors think that he did, and preparing to rebuild them when the inspectors left. He gambled, and bungled, again.

Regarding the fatwas and islam, what matters is not Islam but the Taliban, what they were saying (and not solely to the media) and the deals they cut. They sponsored on their territory a group that vowed to perpetrate violence on the USA. After 9/11 extemporizing about extradition treaties couldn’t save them. I’m not aware of any international law that specifies that the USA cannot defend itself after it has been attacked.

I don’t understand what Leo Strauss, a decades dead professor of political philosophy, has to do with the USA defending itself in the XXIst century. Has Bush or anyone in the current administration used a passage from Strauss’s texts to explain current policy, or anything of a similar nature?

I also don’t see how you can claim to be neutral and also claim that the US violated international law, “against any precedent”. What international law did it violate? Did it violate some treaty it signed, or is this someone’s personal moral international law?

Tudor Georgescu wrote:
> Saddam’s generals each believed the other had been assigned chemical
> weapons, which were intended for his troops if they did not perform. So
> who fabricated the data?

Serious US journals have reported that the British and the American
information services had no evidence that Saddam had any WMD. I think New
York Times has put it like this: US/UK leaders had good intelligence (about
Saddam) but they decided to ignore it and go their own way.

> There are many precendents, like the war against the Barbary Pirates–
> criminal gangs hiding behind the rhetoric of Islam. Afghanistan was
> controlled by a one gang harbouring another gang wanted for casus
> belli. They declared a fatwa/war against the USA and the cavalry showed
> up.

In general, any Muslim clergyman is able to declare fatwa on anything he
thinks it is against the Quran. This does not means that it is the
standpoint of all Muslims or that it is the viewpoint of his government. In
fact, fatwa against US was pursued by some extremist leaders whose Islamic
revolution failed, in Egypt and Algeria. I don’t think that such fatwa
represented the viewpoint of the Taliban government.

> It’s simple and straightforward.
>
> What’s sad is reading the contrived excuses for barbarism. It’s your
> “freedom” to hate the USA, but don’t waste your time trying to
> rationalize it here.

Generally, I don’t waste my time having hate feelings. In this matter, I am
neutral, and my hobby is to count who many goals and penalty points each
side has. Not that I would be a referee of any sort.

> “Time to catch this suspect and extradite him”?
> Just how stupid do you think the readers of this list are?

I don’t deny that the Strauss’ philosophy is a noble thinking, which sought
the solution to rescue US from decay and I don’t deny that Bush’s side of
the story has its own logics and its own chunk of truth, and its own
justification, which makes as much sense as its anti-thesis. These being
said, what the Bush administration did goes against any precedent in
international law and it contradicts the values which made America great.

I would put it like this: “Straussiani boni viri, neoconservativum mala
bestia”. Leo Strauss would have never approved the rehearsal of the Vietnam
failure. His wizard apprentices did precisely what he would have abhorred.

Greetings,

Tudor

Posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
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