Another article I wrote for scruz.general.
X-From_: tcmay@got.net Sat Feb 21 12:54:42 1998 X-Delivered: at request of tcmay on always Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 12:57:39 -0800 From: tcmay@got.net (Tim May) To: tcmay@got.net Subject: Re: Anthrax--The Four Horsemen are Riding Newsgroups: scruz.general Organization: None
In article <34ee3039.1340384@cnews.newsguy.com>, mmelpremo@cruzio.com (mmelpremo@cruzio.com) wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:34:16 -0800, tcmay@got.net (Tim May) wrote:
Cruzans,
Here's one of my articles to the Cypherpunks list, a list FBI Director Louis Freeh recently denounced as being a haven for information terrorists. If I get busted for having a lab which the Feds decide is thoughtcrime, I want someone in Santa Cruz to know what I think about these issues. <snip>
So, Tim, what do you think ought to be done, (if anything), about Iraq? Should we stop sanctions and let the Middle East worry about him? Should we continue sanctions? Should we forget about UN inspections?
1. Nothing. Ain't my problem, ain't yours, ain't anyone else I know of's.
2. Sanctions almost never work. Sanctions for 38 years on Cuba have had almost no effect on Castro except to consolidate his position. (Much as I may dislike Castro's policies, no American should be threatened with jail time for committing the "crime" of travelling to Cuba, or selling stuff they own to Cubans, or buying Cuban cigars, etc. In a free country, which neither the U.S. nor Cuba are, one does not criminalize actions which do not directly harm other persons.)
3. Bombing Iraq will be unlikely to work this time any more than last time(s). I have no energy to recount the info being provided on CNN and elsewhere, but consider that the weapons inspectors themselves claimed that their work over the past half dozen years had more effect on getting rid of weapons than the bombing campaign in 1991 did. Assuming they're not lying, how, pray tell, does a lesser bombing than 1991 then solve the putative problem?
4. As for the "putative problem," it is indeed putative. So Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction." So does Iran. So does Syria. So does Israel. And so on, for most of the countries in the world. (Let us not rant about how Iraq used WOMD on its own people, or on the Kurds. The Sovs used WOMD on the Afghanis...did we threaten to bomb them? How about the Chinese? And so on.
5. I repeat, it ain't our problem. Washington (the President, not the pesthole) warned us to avoid foreign entanglements and foreign wars, and yet the U.S. squanders its money and its soldiers' lives in dozens of foreign wars.
(There hasn't been a legitimate war since the Revolution, possibly since the War of 1812, in my view.)
I find myself in the middle on this one. On the one hand, I think Saddam's a threat to neighboring countries (particularly Kuwait), although I don't know how big a threat. On the other hand, I agree with you that America should not be Cop of the World.
Countries invade other countries frequently. I didn't see us going to war with the Soviet Union over Afghanistan. I didn't see us going to war with Israel when it (several times) invaded and occupied the southern part of Lebanon.
Ah, but the U.S. likes wars with _little_ countries. Panama, which we invaded because our CIA-installed leader was taking too large a share of the drug trade. Grenada, because it distracted attention from the 240 Americans killed a few days before in Lebanon. Nicaragua, because we didn't like the leader the people had elected. Somalia, for reasons no one seems to be able to articulate. Bosnia, because the Europeans, in whose backyard the Balkan states are, decided not to bother.
And so it goes.
--Tim May
-- Just Say No to "Big Brother Inside" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^3,021,377 | black markets, collapse of governments.