Not Sovereign by a Long Chalk

The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries,
working together in a friendly, civilized society

--Franklin Roosevelt (1941)

________

Afghani President Hamid Karzai repeats the same plea each time the U.S. and NATO kill civilians, as they did recently in Kandahar Province: Please consult with us prior to attack, and please conserve Afghan life. Always the same. Always ignored.

A group of Afghan and foreign aid agencies--the Coordinating Body for Afghan relief--recently echoed the thought: "Excessive use of force and abusive raids and searches are undermining support, not just for foreign and Afghan militaries, but those involved in humanitarian and development work."

The Nation recently ran a nice piece outlining the problem--the removal of sovereignty under a Pax Americana and the loss of the concert of powers idea ("For Liberal Internationalism.")
Following are some excerpts:

"[Woodrow Wilson's] world safe for democracy need not be a democratic world. It need only be a world in which democracies like the United States are not forced by recurrent world wars to turn themselves into armed camps.

"If global peace is the goal of liberal internationalism, the means to this end are the self-determination of sovereign peoples and a global concert of power. Why sovereignty and self-determination? A world of many, mostly small and nonaggressive nation-states will be less dangerous than one of a few empires battling to carve up the world.

Why a concert of power? World peace is possible only if the great powers are not locked in dangerous, expensive power struggles, hot or cold. The ideal of liberal internationalism therefore is a world organized as a peaceful global society of sovereign, self-governing peoples, in which the great powers, rather than compete to carve out rival spheres of influence, cooperate to preserve international peace in the face of threats from aggressive states and terrorism.

"The UN Charter codifies the liberal internationalist vision of world order. The fundamental norm is sovereignty. Wars are legal only if they are fought in self-defense or authorized by the UN Security Council. The Security Council was intended to function as a concert of great powers cooperating to keep the peace."

The article points out the goal in 1945 was to eliminate imperialism, not local despotism. In order to participate in the UN General Assembly, a country needed only to refrain from aggression against their neighbors. They did not need to be democracies.

"Indeed, in the post-1945 liberal internationalist system, it is illegal for a democratic country to wage an unprovoked war against an undemocratic country."

"Sovereignty should remain the basis of international order." The only exceptions are in cases of genocide or ethnic cleansing. This does not include massacres, lynchings or judicial murders, all of which should be handled by the state itself.

The definition of a failed state is one that cannot control the violence within the borders of the state. Via that definition, Afghanistan is a failed state, since it cannot affect the violence wrought by U.S. and NATO forces.

Forget the Taliban.


--Jim and Lisa

Voting With Bullets and Ballots

No Title, Otto Schade (2005)

Well, here we are; well, here we are!
Just watch us rolling up a score.
We'll leave those fellows behind so far,
They won't want to play us any more!

--Boola Boola, Yale Fight Song

He that troubleth his own house
shall inherit the wind

--Proverbs 11:29

_________

It is Afghan President Karzai's opinion that the civilians, and not the Taliban, are bearing the brunt of the attacks. Again, as in the past, he calls for more restraint, warning that "the fight against resurgent Taliban militants could fail" otherwise. But they're just, you know, peasants, and they probably procreate like bunnies.

"In the past 10 days, more than 90 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery fire targeting Taliban insurgents, Karzai said. The mounting toll is sapping the authority of the Western-backed Afghan president, who has pleaded repeatedly with US and NATO commanders to consult Afghan authorities during operations and show more restraint."

"Several times in the last year, the Afghan government tried to prevent civilian casualties, but our innocent people are becoming victims of careless operations of NATO and international forces," Karzai said." (Karzai criticizes US, NATO; Says forces killing Afghan civilians in careless operations)

But it appears that we're winning, since the score is NATO/U.S. killed: 211; Taliban: 172. Go team. So you see, basically 211 hearts and minds have been eternally converted and cannot become Taliban recruits. Let's not count their family and friends, since the court's still out on that one.

Voting with bullets in Afghanistan and Iraq is as valid as voting with ballots.

An article sidebar noted that seven al Qaida fighters and 10 suspects were killed. So suspects are tainted by their proximity to bad guys. Mother always told us you would be judged by the company you keep. And certainly, America is a safer place for it.

In Gitmo and all the secret prisons, the detainees are still suspects, but on the street, justice is dispensed much more swiftly with a 5.56 mm round.

In effect, you can be shot down in the street or languish in prison. Pick your poison. It is not good to be a suspect in today's brave new world.

One would expect more of America's concept of legality.

When will this madness and illegality stop? Clearly Americans accept this lawlessness, since there is no end in sight. We must revert to the rule of law if we are to remain a viable democracy in more than name alone.

At this point, we are not displaying moral rectitude--we are just the bigger bully. Boola, boola.