Portrayed simple and flawed

While our Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are making oversimplified assertions about Iraq and the US occupation (one side arguing the war was completely wrong, the other making similarly simple argument that the war was right and our occupation should continue), international law scholars are examining the real complexity of the issues. Their conclusions are sophisticated and derive from knowledge of international law concepts. While they acknowledge that under the formal international law parameters the invasion of Iraq was unlawful, they also are beginning to admit that it had some collateral positive effects (as well as negative, of course) ultimately. They have tried to trace and acknowledge some transformative trends in Iraq as a result of the US occupation. Their views may collide with mine or yours, but I encourage everyone to examine them more closely and understand how both political camps, Democrats and Republicans, are flawed in their assertions... It is because their views stem largely from the standpoint of 'national security', not international law. And 'national security' in their eyes unfortunately is composed of many dogmas and ideologically flawed assumptions which are diametrically in opposition to the philosophy behind international law... They also simplify things to get votes of many uninformed people... Sadly, even those who are pretty informed fall into the trap of oversimplification...

Click here for more information regarding a Symposium at Loyola Law School on this subject.

Click here for an article by Peter Danchin on this subject.

Hope?

People, especially politicians talk about 'use of force' and 'war' as some abstraction, as a normal human endeavor. Well, who pays for the political failures of a country? Who actually goes to the war and puts his/her life on the line? It is the soldier, not the generals, not the political leaders. And with the regular soldier who dies at war, it is the people who pay the costs of that inhuman and abnormal 'adventure.' The Soviet Union in Afghanistan (1979-1989), the US in Vietnam (1959-1975) and today in Iraq... Where can we find some sort of hope when the list is simply not ending?...

Listen to LUBE (ЛЮБЭ)"Behind the fog"...

Sun setting?

I would like to bring to everyone's attention a brilliant article on US foreign policy and role in the world in Le Monde Diplomatique by Philip S. Golub (here). It is a short but insightful expose of the underpinnings of the Iraq war, the failure, the loss of hegemony in the world and possible scenarios for the future. A comparison with the history of the British empire once more supports my position that history is the lighthouse for the future, for it gets repeated over and over again... Needless to say, most people in the US would have a difficulty of agreeing with the author, because of institutional and historic reasons. Also because unfortunately our public is largely misinformed and misled by the pundits about the reality. Even the media, with some rare exceptions, has been coopted by the politicians and has learned to puppet those in power... Of course, that happens everywhere in the world. But since the US poses itself, quite justifiably, as a strong functioning democracy, it is quite distressing when it does not walk the walk in foreign policy and acts as a despot (historically benevolent until the 9/11) abroad... Clever commentators, such as this author have been alerting to the weakening of the US hegemony...

As expressed by this author, "History is moving on and the world is slipping, slowly but inexorably, out of US hands." It is time for the US to understand that search for absolute world hegemony is suicidal and the best means for survival is to share the crown with others and often keep a low profile... There are other powers in the world who would be pleased to share in the responsibilities of a 'world policeman.'

It must be remembered, no one single country in the world is destined to dominate over the rest. World domination is inconsistent with the very existence of Earth that belongs to all peoples from all continents, countries and units inhabiting it... While we will always choose leaders-- with willpower, courage and moral character to lead, they will always be bound by the collective will of the international community...

Iraq and Failed Export of Democracy

I hope by now people have recognized that democracy cannot be exported. Iraq at least is a living example. Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote in his book "Concord and Liberty," "Here we begin to understand that each authentic insitutiton is untransferable. Suppose we wanted to lift it out of its native soil, where should we cut it? Where begin and where end those political entities which language, owing to its magical power of creating phantoms, puts before us as independent and self-sustaining objects, calling them by the definite names of 'tribunate of the people,' 'parliament,' 'freedom of the press'? None of these institutions terminates in a clear-cut line. They all reach back into the particular collective life where they originated and whence they receive their indispensable supplements, their strength and their control. He who wishes to transplant an institution from one people to another must bring along with it that people in its veracity and reality. Laws of foreign nations may serve as incitement and even as guidance-- Rome not infrequently took her bearings from the juridical conceptions of Greece-- but in the last instance every nation must invent for itself. Invitation of alien political institutions betrays a pathological state of society. A people cannot take its institutions from the manifest surface of foreign nations: it must discover them in its innermost beeing if it wants to lead a life in freedom. Freedom cannot be achieved by proclaiming a few random liberties. Life in liberty presupposes a perfect continuity of circulation throughout the collective body, from the heart of its common beliefs to the skin which is the state, and back from the skin to the bowels of faith."