***Dave Does the Blog

He’s not actually building any. He’s just researching for a book.

Andrea took this particular letter-writer in the Sydney Morning Herald for a bit of a fisking, but I feel obliged to throw my two cents in, too.

“HM” begins:

Not only should Australia not be part of any war with Iraq, no one should be involved in the ultra-conservative US led drive to control the world.

That’s right. The US wants to conquer the world. Always has. I mean, look at all the countries we’ve taken over in the last fifty years or so. Look at all the new territory we’ve added to our country. Look at all the states we’ve absorbed. Look at all the …

Sure, Saddam is nasty. So what?

So noted by the Kurdish people.

There are dozens of distasteful dictator types out there (I’m sure GWB qualifies).

Yeah, ’cause just last week, GWB ordered the countryside peppered with statues and murals of himself, not to mention fabulous palaces, and paid for it by redirecting food aid from our starving children. Oh, and that Olympic Committee that his daughter runs? It’s been torturing athletes who lose, and torturing ones who get too popular, too.

And I’m sure it’s a comfort to dictator Bush that he doesn’t have to worry about those pesky elections he abolished, or those political critics he’s sent off to the dungeon, or those annoying newspapers he’s shut down, or …

(Does HM really have no preference as to whether he’d prefer to live in a Dubya regime or a Saddam regime? Really? Yeesh.)

Does that mean we have to attack all of them? Anyone who thought so would soon be carted off the the asylum.

Obviously HM has read the Secret Attack Plan on All Distasteful Dictators documents that were leaked from the White House.

(Does it strike anyone as odd that Saddam is merely noted here as “nasty” and “distasteful”? Do you think the people of Kurdistan, or the Marsh People/Shi’ites of the south, or the citizens of Kuwait would use the word “distasteful” to describe him?)

Ask yourself, apart from buying Australian crops, what has Iraq ever done to Australia? Hmm?

I’ll bet HM has a great time watching other people being mugged.

Tell you what, HM, next time someone — oh, say, the Japanese — are threatening Australia, the US will measure its response only based on the damage done to us, not the threat to you. You can be on your own. That’s the spirit of international community you seem to be in favor of.

The only reason that the coalition is keen on starting this war is fear.

I thought it was the US Conquest of the World. Get your story straight, HM — is it greed, or is it fear?

And what, exactly, is wrong with fear of what Saddam will do in the future?

The Americans are scared sh*tless that an Islamic country like (choose one) might actually get some real power (ie nuclear power) and change the staus quo.

First off, isn’t Pakistan an Islamic country?

Secondly, hasn’t much of the criticism of the US here been that invading Iraq might upset the status quo?

Thirdly, do you think the status quo would be improved, or degraded, if, say, Iraq became a nuclear power?

Finally, Iraq’s status as an Islamic nation may, in general, be accurate, but the Iraqi regime only invokes Allah when it’s looking for good press among its Arab and Persian neighbors. The socialist/autocratic Baath party is anything but aligned with Islam, and the treatment of the Shi’ite Muslims in the south is as good an indicator of that as any. Heck, you could as easily have said the US didn’t want the Soviet Union to get the A-bomb because it was a Christian nation.

For many years, the US and UK other hangers on, like Australia, have enjoyed manipulating the rest of the world into ‘trade’ that is heavily balanced in ‘our’ favour.

Yeah, thank heavens other countries aren’t into that “trade” thing, or let it influence their foreign policies. Let’s abolish trade, the tool of the ultra-conservative conquerors from the US!

Imagine how the US, et al, would respond if some piss poor third world country decided that enough was enough. That’s right ‘Dad’, they’d kick their butt all over the playground.

That’s right — we force people to trade with us at gun-point. “Buy these Nikes made in China, or else we’ll plant a nuke up your ass!” That’s the American Spirit!

Anyone who thinks that war is a good idea should stop to think of the human cost. Not only will many civilains die, Australian soldiers could, very possibly, come home dead.

What? People might die? War might not be a good thing? These — these concepts are strange to me! I’ve — I’ve never considered the possible cost of lives in a war! I’ve never thought of the devastation that war can bring!

Now, can anyone tell me why that is acceptable? John Howard cannot. Neither can Bush or Blair. War is not acceptable in any form.

Which is why you’re speaking Japanese now, rather than English.

Forget a UN sanctioned war. If the UN inspectors find no reason to justify a breach of the resolutions, the US will make some up and the UN will capitulate.

So why should the US bother seeking a UN resolution, if they’re all such a bunch of push-overs anyway?

YOU need to stand up and make your voice heard. No War.

Speak louder. I don’t think Saddam — the invader of two countries so far, the developer of various weapons of mass destruction, and the supporter of terrorist organizations all over the Middle East — can hear you.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s comments about “Old Europe” being out of step has drawn fierce scowls and finger-wagging from representatives thereof (France and Germany, to be precise). Some of the criticism is actually kind of amusing:

In an editorial, Bild reminded Rumsfeld of his German roots and the ideals of the French Revolution which inspired the United States’ constitution.

Let’s see — should Rumsfeld have been more of a fascist, or more of a Prussian autocrat, to stay true to his “German roots”?

And implying that the US Constitution sprang out of whole cloth based on the “ideals” of the French Revolution would probably give any history teacher fits. Never mind that the French Revolution was in 1789, two years after the Constitution was ratified, and over a decade after the American Revolution began. Never mind that the French Revolution led to the Terror, and Napoleon, and a string of “Republics.”

Granted, both Revolutions sprang out of Enlightenment thinkers, including a few in France, like Rousseau (and a few elsewhere, like Locke and Hobbes). But suggesting that the current US foreign policy ought to be controlled by, or even parallel with, French foreign policy for that reason is historically inane.

“Mister Rumsfeld, hundreds of thousands of your G.I.’s fell for ‘old Europe’ because they freed us from the tyranny of Hitler. You are sinning against your own heroes by disparaging ‘old Europe’. Your G.I.’s died for the ideals of your place of origin,” Bild wrote in an editorial.

No, they died for the ideals of their place of origin, the US. They died because Old Europe was, even then, too sick to fight off the hate and man-on-a-white-horse rescue from Depression that Hitler represented to Germany, or fight him off when his aggression became known. Appeasement and exhaustion seem watchwords for Old Europe.

French newspapers quoted French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie as saying: “We are no longer in prehistoric times when whoever had the biggest club would try to knock the other guy out so he could steal his mammoth skin.”

An odd sentiment from a defense minister, but symptomatic. Actually, internationally, that’s exactly where we still are. The only thing that stops most countries from doing just that is (a) enlightened self-interest, or (b) folks like the US with bigger clubs, or (c) folks like France who are willing to hand over their mammoth skins first, then scold the bullies once they’ve done so.

Germany’s left-wing Tageszeitung suggested the U.S. should follow the example of Russia and China in its approach to Iraq.
“Rumsfeld has a problem with age. The U.S. defense minister calls France and Germany ‘old’, the rest of Europe ‘young’ and wants a quick war with Iraq. Nuclear powers like China and Russia favor more level-headedness,” Tageszeitung said.

Yeah, because everyone — especially the Europeans — should want the US to model its foreign policy on that of China and Russia. That’s a clever idea.

Jeez.

(via SDB, who notes that Bild‘s argument would seem to indicate that they owe us, not the other way around.)

Since France has taken on the role of Defender of International Morality, perhaps some other actions taken in the past few days will shed light on the sort of actions it considers to be exemplars of How Nations Should Act.

First off, we have the case of Robert Mugabe, the butcher/dictator of Zimbabwe, who has been formally banned from entering the EU (his assets there have also been frozen). That ban is up for renewal next week.

The French, though, are convinced that Mugabe’s being able to attend a meeting of African Heads of State held in Paris will “help promote justice, human rights and democracy in his country.” To that end, they’ve invited Mugabe to France, to arrive the day after the current sanctions end.

Meanwhile, France is still officially peeved over Libya’s involvement in the bombing of a French aircraft over Niger in 1989. That wasn’t enough to keep them from voting no when Libya was being elected to the rotating leadership of the UN Commission on Human Rights. That’s because Libya had the support of most African states, and, after all, a lot of Africans died in the plane crash, too.

So, rather than vote yes or now, they simply abstained.

Moral Leadership indeed.

(via InstaPundit)