[extropy-chat] Krugman on the state of play

[Kevin Freels]

I agree. The way to make America appear better in the eyes of the
internatioanl community is to tell everyone in the world that we will do as
they think we should. Better yet, let's just say whatever needs to be said
to get people to like us and change our minds whenever someone gets mad at
us.

"We can already see one example of this when we look at the question of
> torture. Abu Ghraib has largely vanished from U.S. political discussion,
> largely because the administration and its Congressional allies have been
> so effective at covering up high-level involvement. But both the
> revelations and the cover-up did terrible damage to America's moral
> authority. To much of the world, America looks like a place where top
> officials condone and possibly order the torture of innocent people, and
> suffer no consequences."


By the way. Why is it that people think that "torture" and "abuse" are the
same thing? Torture is what Saddam did. Our prisoners in Abu Ghraib were
abused. I am not condoning this behavior, but it's not like these prisoners
were being beheaded with a knife, having limbs cut off, being electrocuted,
or starved to death.
Those are the images that the word "torture" brings to mind. I don't know if
that was your work, or quoted from the article. I hope it isn;t yours. As an
excellent writer, you are perfectly aware of the difference between torture
and abuse. As a professional writer, I would hope that you would be more
careful about how you present your arguments. Such tactics are beneath you.







----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 12:29 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Krugman on the state of play


>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/opinion/01krugman.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=
>
> "As a result of the American military," President Bush declared last week,
> "the Taliban is no longer in existence."
>
> It's unclear whether Mr. Bush misspoke, or whether he really is that
> clueless. But his claim was in keeping with his re-election strategy,
> demonstrated once again in last night's debate: a president who has done
> immense damage to America's position in the world hopes to brazen it out
by
> claiming that failure is success.
> [...]
>
> We can already see one example of this when we look at the question of
> torture. Abu Ghraib has largely vanished from U.S. political discussion,
> largely because the administration and its Congressional allies have been
> so effective at covering up high-level involvement. But both the
> revelations and the cover-up did terrible damage to America's moral
> authority. To much of the world, America looks like a place where top
> officials condone and possibly order the torture of innocent people, and
> suffer no consequences.
>
> What we need is an effort to regain our good name. What we're getting
> instead is a provision, inserted by Congressional Republicans in the
> intelligence reform bill, to legalize "extraordinary rendition" - a
> euphemism for sending terrorism suspects to countries that use torture for
> interrogation. This would institutionalize a Kafkaesque system under which
> suspects can be sent, at the government's whim, to Egypt or Syria or
Jordan
> - and to fight such a move, it's up to the suspect to prove that he'll be
> tortured on arrival. Just what we need to convince other countries of our
> commitment to the rule of law.
>
> Most Americans aren't aware of all this. The sheer scale of Mr. Bush's
> foreign policy failures insulates him from its political consequences:
> voters aren't ready to believe how badly the war in Iraq is going, let
> alone how badly America's moral position in the world has deteriorated.
>
> But the rest of the world has already lost faith in us. In fact, let me
> make a prediction: if Mr. Bush gets a second term, we will soon have no
> democracies left among our allies - no, not even Tony Blair's Britain. Mr.
> Bush will be left with the support of regimes that don't worry about the
> legalities - regimes like Vladimir Putin's Russia.
>
> ==============================
>
> No, wait, if John Howard's govt returns to power in Australia in a week's
> time, Oz will still be panting along behind, eyes tight shut.
>
> Damien Broderick
>
>
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