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January 29, 2003
Its a hostile world
Janet Albrechtsen, The Australian journalist, says that the church leaders are caught up in the fog of peace. She says here that 'Australian churchman are caught up in moral surrender to the new secular God, the UN'. They are part of the compassion industry that has become a tool of the Left.
Underneath her criticism of 'the peace not war' position of the Australian churchman ----the basic criticism is the standard one that the making of independent moral decisions has giving into politics of appeasement of utopian pacifism----is a particular conservative assumption.
The UN is held to an inept organization, not much different from the old League of Nations, because the world consists of hostile nation-states engaged in power conflicts because they are all seeking to further their national interest at the expense of their rivals. Its a mean Social Dawinian world out there and nation-states have to fight to protect their self-interest. Power is all that matters, and since international law does not really exist, war is the best means of ensuring peace. History is then introduced to say that Saddam is the new Hitler. This view of the world, as an anarchic world dripping with blood and slaughter is called being realistic.
What is not acknowledged by neocons, such as Albrechtsen, is the challenge to the anarchic assumption by way that international law and international institutions are evolving to regulate the conduct of nation-states and to develop new modes of goverance. THe WTO, the International Criminal Court and the UN are examples of this.
This global mode of regulation and governance is rejected by neocons on the grounds that nothing should impinge on the negative freedom of the nation-state. Might is right. Justice is the rule of the strongest. No decision making should be given to the United nations.
This is the geopolitical assumption that the neocons regard as an unspoken truth and it is behind their attacks on the United Nations as a corrupt body. Votes are bought and sold in the name of self-interest whilst Germany and France in opposing the war with Iraq are merely acting to protect their lucrative business deals with Baghad. All that exists is self-interest and power.
This assumption is never defended publicly by the necons because it is taken to be the truth, even though it is very questionable assumption.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at January 29, 2003 11:24 AM
Comments
Hmm, let me see, do you think the UN as it is currently constituted IS working?
The UN needs to be abolished and a new security organisation organised that reflects global realities.
Posted by: Scott Wickstein at January 29, 2003 12:13 PM
I liked her re-writing of history too. Apparently the 'appeasement' of
Franco, Mussolini and Hitler during the Spanish Civil War never
happened. It also seems that Hitler's activities before 1939 against
'undesirables' were not really not that serious either. As far as i can
see, the response of many 'conservatives' to these events is of a similar
type to those who refused to listen to contemporary accounts of
socialists and others about the tyranny of the Soviet regime.
Posted by: dj at January 29, 2003 01:11 PM
these people spin history to suit their twisted interepretation of the facts all the time....like moonies, many of the neocons present what sound like reason based arguments but upon closer analysis essential facts have been omitted or slanted to suit their particular agendas.
aware and bloody well alarmed
Posted by: ausyankee at January 29, 2003 09:38 PM
Oh shock horror ausyankee? Do we really?
So you've never told a lie or overlooked an inconvinient fact to make your case then? I see...
Posted by: Scott Wickstein at January 29, 2003 11:09 PM
or they result to ad hominem attacks, as above
Posted by: ausyankee at January 30, 2003 07:40 AM
sorry, "resort to ad hominem attacks
Posted by: ausyankee at January 30, 2003 07:41 AM
Why not reform the UN? Is it not concerned with public goods in a global world?
We do have global problems that can only be solved by global processses being fairly governed, shaped and regulated.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson at February 2, 2003 08:54 AM