The Warpfish Chronicles

"28 years on the planet, and I still haven't figured out what's going on."

The Great Power Moralist -- September 10th, 2002

However, I have done some reading, and I've done some thinking, and my reading and thinking have taken new urgency in the light of 9/11, and the attacks on the World Trade Centre. However, not as much urgency as some people are now feeling, for, I've always felt that the wolf was always at the door.

Tom Clancy likes to talk about what he calls the "Chavez Premise" (this is somewhat paraphrased): International Relations consists of two countries trying to f*ck each other over. Or, put more politely, countries will almost always act in their best interests. If it's in their best interest to compromise, they will compromise; if it's in their best interests to go to war, they will go to war.

Of course, part of the problem is that nations are lead by flawed human beings, and may not see what the actual best course of action is; they will only percieve and act on what they think is the best course of action. Thus, predicting what a country is going to do becomes problematic at best, and fortune-telling at worst.

However, all that being said, a country has no obligation to act morally. I've mentioned this before in various chronicles, but I'm going to mention it again -- a country has NO obligation to act in a moral manner. Absolutely none. So, when we look at the United States, we see that, regardless of the problems its had, it also has a relatively decent record compared to other great powers. Yet, we continue to hold the US to a higher standard.

This is folly. The US could very well adopt the attitude (and, is currently very close to adopting the attitude, now that the country itself is under threat), that, "if everybody's going to hate us, why should we bother trying nice, and we'll just go nuts." I don't think people outside of the United States truly understand the magnitude of 9/11 to the US -- for this generation, the US has been attacked on home soil, and views itself under threat. The last time this happened, the US entered World War II, and dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. (Perhaps only those in countries at war, like Northern Ireland, or Israel, or, most of Africa, can understand.)

People who espose the view that the US has some obligation to be 'nice', I call Great Power Moralists. Interesting views, and the way we would like things to be, but, in the end, absolutely useless in forming foreign policy toward the US, and in analyzing the foreign power of the US.

If we wish to moderate US response, we must first understand that the US government believes it has no alternative but to utterly destroy the threats against the US. And we must also remember that, regardless of US provocation, it was Bin Laden's men who crashed their planes into the WTC. Thus, we deal with a Superpower who believes this group can do great damage, and a group who is ruthless enough to commit suicide and kill several thousand people in the process, just to make a point.

Great Power Moralists will even be more offended in this conflict, because it will be extremely dirty. The al-Qaeda network is disperesed, hiding among populations with the implicit support of several nations-states. This is Vietnam all over again, a guerilla war, except being waged on a global scale. It will have an uncertain results, and it can never really be resolved, as the US is pursuing a negative goal. (Never allow this to happen again.) And every nation in the world is trying to figure out how to use this conflict to their best advantage.

I stated before in these chronicles that I don't want peace -- I just want the dying to stop. Nothing would make me happier if the world can decide that the killing must stop. But, that ain't going to happen. We can't live in a fairy tale world -- we must live in this one. In this one, the US believes it is at war, and will use whatever it can get away with to win. We, as the international community must first accept that, before we can hope to moderate the response.

And as we moderate the response, we must also remember that there is a group out there that wishes to destroy everything that is not Islamic. I do not even begin to believe that all of Islam believes this; but, I do believe that this group must be stopped.

Even if it means an enraged US must lash out with all its power and fury. If push comes to shove, I choose us over them. I have no desire to bury my parents after somebody detonates a nuclear weapon in Detroit, or to cry over the graves of my friends after they've been caught up in a gas attack in a New York airport. Before we say the US has no right to act, we should consider what the eventual price may be. Are you prepared to trade your loved ones for peace?

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