"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual." --G.C. Lichtenberg
Demosthenes has posted a very interesting analysis of last Wednesday's Donahue, which featured former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponeck on the subject of Iraq:
Iraq has said they're willing to let in the inspectors, and what was the American reaction? "No dice, we don't care, we want to invade anyway". This makes sense; the Bush administration has never really cared about WMD except as an excuse to "get Saddam". The warblogging community and the far right doesn't appear to be much different, and this "humiliation" argument makes a hell of a lot more sense now that it looks like Iraq isn't nearly as dangerous as people are saying it was. The humiliation argument doesn't rely on Iraq being dangerous to the United States or its neighbours, so it's the one being erected now that the "he'll invade his neighbours" and "he'll arm terrorist" justifications are slipping away. It's utterly mindless, of course (why Iraq, as opposed to anybody else?) but it's not intended to be a reason, just a justification- a flexible end to justify the means.
