Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
Click here for an excellent post by Jim Henley on the siding with Saddam question. Henley does pay me a compliment:
What Micah has been doing for some time is looking at the dynamics of proliferation from the perspective of the potential antagonist of the US...
I've previously written that Micah expresses more sympathy with the country's antagonists than I'm comfortable with. But guess what? It doesn't matter. What matters is whether Micah's empathy gives him and us a clearer picture of how potential opponents will think these issues through. In fact, it does. If anything, what many would call Micah's "anti-Americanism" makes him especially useful to us pro-Americans - it makes him better able to imaginatively inhabit our actual and potential adversaries. The insight benefits us, because you can craft sounder policies when you know what your adversary actually thinks and wants.
I couldn't agree more. Also check out the next, and final, paragraph:
(That's not to say you give them everything they want or agree with everything they think. It is to say that you're acting from knowledge rather than ignorance, or worse yet, prejudice.)
I guess my rule for people in the United States is that if you want the government in engage in policies and actions that anger people around the world to the point where some of them want to harm the U.S., U.S. interests and people living in the U.S. then you should acknowledge that casualities are a price that will be paid and be willing to criticize the U.S. when you feel it is necessary and be able to defend those policies. I for one have little respect for somebody who wants war with Saudi Arabia but doesn't come out and say that Operation Desert Shield -which was designed to protect the Saudi ruling elites- was a mistake. posted by micah holmquist at 12/16/2002 04:14:00 PM
