Similarities and musings
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When I was in Yugoslavia in the early and mid-90s, I was struck by the way that the newspapers kept insisting that the Serbs were being wronged, that the embargo was unfair. Nationalism was encouraged and world opinion was dismissed because The West Was Against Them and had its own agenda and therefore it should be ignored.
I am very glad that the current Administration has started making noises about reaching out the the international community and mending bridges, because the similarities of rhetoric between Milosevic's "what the rest of the world says doesn't count" stance and Bush's stance on invading Iraq made my skin crawl.
I also applaud the ideal of encouraging the growth of democracy throughout the world. Unfortunately, in the absence of any immediate threat, invading a sovereign country to "promote democracy" reminds me too much of a parent beating a child to punish him for hitting his sister. As we have seen by the rise of "insurgents" in Iraq and the thousands of dead since we invaded, violence begets violence.
What would things have been like if we had taken one quarter -- heck, one eighth -- of the money spent in Iraq and put it towards building the infrastructure of Afghanistan and other countries in the region? I mean building better roads, schools, creating jobs, hooking up the place for internet access, that sort of thing. Personally, I think that although it may take time and sustained investment, education builds democracy a helluvalot more securely than war and killing people.
On a different but obliquely related note, I've been wondering about the long-term effects of the tsumani. Much of that region of the world (I'm thinking of India; I admit to not knowing specifics about each of the nations that were hit) has historically been poor and overpopulated. With so much literally swept away, what sort of infrastructure could be built in its place? Could we get Bill Gates and Richard Branson to invest in creating a technological Marshall Plan that could change the future of not just the devastated area, but its place in the world economy?
And, considering the rampant rise of consumerism and lack of trans-national corporate accountability, would this be a good thing?
Quote of the Day
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
-- H.G. Wells
I am very glad that the current Administration has started making noises about reaching out the the international community and mending bridges, because the similarities of rhetoric between Milosevic's "what the rest of the world says doesn't count" stance and Bush's stance on invading Iraq made my skin crawl.
I also applaud the ideal of encouraging the growth of democracy throughout the world. Unfortunately, in the absence of any immediate threat, invading a sovereign country to "promote democracy" reminds me too much of a parent beating a child to punish him for hitting his sister. As we have seen by the rise of "insurgents" in Iraq and the thousands of dead since we invaded, violence begets violence.
What would things have been like if we had taken one quarter -- heck, one eighth -- of the money spent in Iraq and put it towards building the infrastructure of Afghanistan and other countries in the region? I mean building better roads, schools, creating jobs, hooking up the place for internet access, that sort of thing. Personally, I think that although it may take time and sustained investment, education builds democracy a helluvalot more securely than war and killing people.
On a different but obliquely related note, I've been wondering about the long-term effects of the tsumani. Much of that region of the world (I'm thinking of India; I admit to not knowing specifics about each of the nations that were hit) has historically been poor and overpopulated. With so much literally swept away, what sort of infrastructure could be built in its place? Could we get Bill Gates and Richard Branson to invest in creating a technological Marshall Plan that could change the future of not just the devastated area, but its place in the world economy?
And, considering the rampant rise of consumerism and lack of trans-national corporate accountability, would this be a good thing?
Quote of the Day
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
-- H.G. Wells
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