Ken,
I agree with you. Finally, a Scoop Jackson democrat.
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 5, 2013, at 12:35 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
> i have been hearing this argument repeated over and over, and i still find it immoral.
> basically when you say, the u.s. is not the world's policeman, you are saying it is someone else's problem.
> it is all our problem. anyone who can stop a killing and doesn't is as guilty as the perpetrator.
> there is a logic that bothers me. the logic says, it isn't in u.s. interest, so don't do it.
> neither was rwanda.
> yet, crimes were committed, and the guilt fell not only on the interahamwe and their rwandan extremist supporters, but on those who prevented u.n. peacekeepers from intervening, adn, indeed, who reduced their numbers so that they wound up protecting only one stadium in downtown kigali.
>
> this is the jewish new year. we pray for tikkun olam, the good of the world, and we give charity.
> what good is it if we also say, gee, maybe this wouldn't be good for the u.s. or for israel, or for jordon, or etc etc
> someone has to respond with a meaningful way to end assad's killing of so many people; otherwise we are passively permitting it to continue, and share some blame for it
> maybe nothing can do done; maybe russia and china will keep others out, and let the killings continue till a million people are dead. two million dead.
> my question is, how many is too many?
> if you oppose u.s. intervention, give another answer than simply let it happen till they are tired of killing each other. that answer means, they don't count as real people.
> ken
>
> On 9/5/13 10:22 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
>>
>> Reader Supported News
>> Obama's Political Capital and the Slippery Slope of Syria
>>
>> By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
>>
>> 04 September 13
>>
>> [http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-E.jpg]ven if the President musters enough votes to strike Syria, at what political cost? Any president has a limited amount of political capital to mobilize support for his agenda, in Congress and, more fundamentally, with the American people. This is especially true of a president in his second term of office. Which makes President Obama's campaign to strike Syria all the more mystifying.
>>
>>
>>
>> President Obama's domestic agenda is already precarious: implementing the Affordable Care Act, ensuring the Dodd-Frank Act adequately constrains Wall Street, raising the minimum wage, saving Social Security and Medicare from the Republican right as well as deficit hawks in the Democratic Party, ending the sequester and reviving programs critical to America's poor, rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, and, above all, crafting a strong recovery.
>>
>> Time and again we have seen domestic agendas succumb to military adventures abroad - both because the military-industrial-congressional complex drains money that might otherwise be used for domestic goals, and because the public's attention is diverted from urgent problems at home to exigencies elsewhere around the globe.
>>
>>
>>
>> It would be one thing if a strike on Syria was critical to America's future, or even the future of the Middle East. But it is not. In fact, a strike on Syria may well cause more havoc in that tinder-box region of the world by unleashing still more hatred for America, the West, and for Israel, and more recruits to terrorism. Strikes are never surgical; civilians are inevitably killed. Moreover, the anti-Assad forces have shown themselves to be every bit as ruthless as Assad, with closer ties to terrorist networks.
>>
>>
>>
>> Using chemical weapons against one's own innocent civilians is a crime against humanity, to be sure, but the United States cannot be the world's only policeman. The UN Security Council won't support us, we can't muster NATO, Great Britain and Germany will not join us. Dictatorial regimes are doing horrendous things to their people in many places around the world. It would be folly for us to believe we could stop it all.
>>
>>
>>
>> Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, are now arguing that a failure to act against Syria will embolden enemies of Israel like Iran and Hezbollah, and send a signal to Iran that the United States would tolerate the fielding of a nuclear device. This is almost the same sort of specious argument - America's credibility at stake, and if we don't act we embolden our enemies and the enemies of our allies - used by George W. Bush to justify toppling Saddam Hussein, and, decades before that, by Lyndon Johnson to justify a tragic war in Vietnam.
>>
>>
>>
>> It has proven to be a slippery slope: Once we take military action, any subsequent failure to follow up or prevent gains by the other side is seen as an even larger sign of our weakness, further emboldening our enemies.
>>
>> Hopefully, Congress will see the wisdom of averting this slope.
>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> faculty excellence advocate
> professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> 619 red cedar road
> room C-614 wells hall
> east lansing, mi 48824
> ph. 517 803 8839
> harrow@msu.edu
>
> --
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I agree with you. Finally, a Scoop Jackson democrat.
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 5, 2013, at 12:35 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
> i have been hearing this argument repeated over and over, and i still find it immoral.
> basically when you say, the u.s. is not the world's policeman, you are saying it is someone else's problem.
> it is all our problem. anyone who can stop a killing and doesn't is as guilty as the perpetrator.
> there is a logic that bothers me. the logic says, it isn't in u.s. interest, so don't do it.
> neither was rwanda.
> yet, crimes were committed, and the guilt fell not only on the interahamwe and their rwandan extremist supporters, but on those who prevented u.n. peacekeepers from intervening, adn, indeed, who reduced their numbers so that they wound up protecting only one stadium in downtown kigali.
>
> this is the jewish new year. we pray for tikkun olam, the good of the world, and we give charity.
> what good is it if we also say, gee, maybe this wouldn't be good for the u.s. or for israel, or for jordon, or etc etc
> someone has to respond with a meaningful way to end assad's killing of so many people; otherwise we are passively permitting it to continue, and share some blame for it
> maybe nothing can do done; maybe russia and china will keep others out, and let the killings continue till a million people are dead. two million dead.
> my question is, how many is too many?
> if you oppose u.s. intervention, give another answer than simply let it happen till they are tired of killing each other. that answer means, they don't count as real people.
> ken
>
> On 9/5/13 10:22 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
>>
>> Reader Supported News
>> Obama's Political Capital and the Slippery Slope of Syria
>>
>> By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
>>
>> 04 September 13
>>
>> [http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-E.jpg]ven if the President musters enough votes to strike Syria, at what political cost? Any president has a limited amount of political capital to mobilize support for his agenda, in Congress and, more fundamentally, with the American people. This is especially true of a president in his second term of office. Which makes President Obama's campaign to strike Syria all the more mystifying.
>>
>>
>>
>> President Obama's domestic agenda is already precarious: implementing the Affordable Care Act, ensuring the Dodd-Frank Act adequately constrains Wall Street, raising the minimum wage, saving Social Security and Medicare from the Republican right as well as deficit hawks in the Democratic Party, ending the sequester and reviving programs critical to America's poor, rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, and, above all, crafting a strong recovery.
>>
>> Time and again we have seen domestic agendas succumb to military adventures abroad - both because the military-industrial-congressional complex drains money that might otherwise be used for domestic goals, and because the public's attention is diverted from urgent problems at home to exigencies elsewhere around the globe.
>>
>>
>>
>> It would be one thing if a strike on Syria was critical to America's future, or even the future of the Middle East. But it is not. In fact, a strike on Syria may well cause more havoc in that tinder-box region of the world by unleashing still more hatred for America, the West, and for Israel, and more recruits to terrorism. Strikes are never surgical; civilians are inevitably killed. Moreover, the anti-Assad forces have shown themselves to be every bit as ruthless as Assad, with closer ties to terrorist networks.
>>
>>
>>
>> Using chemical weapons against one's own innocent civilians is a crime against humanity, to be sure, but the United States cannot be the world's only policeman. The UN Security Council won't support us, we can't muster NATO, Great Britain and Germany will not join us. Dictatorial regimes are doing horrendous things to their people in many places around the world. It would be folly for us to believe we could stop it all.
>>
>>
>>
>> Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, are now arguing that a failure to act against Syria will embolden enemies of Israel like Iran and Hezbollah, and send a signal to Iran that the United States would tolerate the fielding of a nuclear device. This is almost the same sort of specious argument - America's credibility at stake, and if we don't act we embolden our enemies and the enemies of our allies - used by George W. Bush to justify toppling Saddam Hussein, and, decades before that, by Lyndon Johnson to justify a tragic war in Vietnam.
>>
>>
>>
>> It has proven to be a slippery slope: Once we take military action, any subsequent failure to follow up or prevent gains by the other side is seen as an even larger sign of our weakness, further emboldening our enemies.
>>
>> Hopefully, Congress will see the wisdom of averting this slope.
>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> faculty excellence advocate
> professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> 619 red cedar road
> room C-614 wells hall
> east lansing, mi 48824
> ph. 517 803 8839
> harrow@msu.edu
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
> For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
> For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
> To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
> --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
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