Leaving Iraq, Self-Determination of Nations, Adventures!

[tcpip]

Australia is leaving Iraq, after costing 2.3 billion in public funds. A legal brief has been sent to the International Criminal Court claiming John Howard committed war crimes in authorising the invasion. Kevin Rudd's comments lend credibility to the claim, saying that the invasion was conducted "without a full and proper assessment". I am glad we are washing our hands of this tawdry affair. The invasion was without ethical or legal justification and the only reason a similar writ hasn't been served on George W. Bush is because the United States is a rogue nation in its failiure to join the International Criminal Court. Getting Bush on trial is going to be a task for the American people alone.

On a related matter I have recently ended up in a bit of a debate with my religious colleagues concerning the self-determination of the Tibetan people. In the last two issues of the Beacon they have published an article by Michael Parenti who rejects a utopian potrayal of Tibet as an independent regime. My criticism of the article (last page, second issue) is that none of this deals with the basic principle of self-determination of nationalities. The lengthy response by the editors utterly fails to address this basic matter. As a result of their failure, I've joined the Australia-Tibet Council.

Went to see the latest Indianna Jones film on Saturday. It's a significant step down from the eighties classics; not a disaster, but if I'd known beforehand what it was like I wouldn't have bothered to see it at the cinema. Gaming has been good with an excellent session of RuneQuest: River of Cradles (example story in lin) last Sunday (and with a new player, Sam) and with good developments in the two PBeM games that I'm running. I also have another RPG-related annoucement to make, but that's going to have to wait until the next post ;-)

Comments

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

The article by Michael Parenti is interesting, but seems to be following the same route as many politicians: Let's discuss the ends and not care about the means, especially if it involves loss of personal choice. Tibet as a whole may be better off now than they would have been without the Chinese takeover, but it should have been their choice. Similarly, even if the Iraq invasion by the USA had turned out to be a success, that doesn't mean the USA had the right to make the decision for them.

We have more and more politicians getting away with this in little steps in recent years. We're supposedly better off if a terrorist can't take a drink onto a plane, so it's deemed worthwhile spending billions of dollars and inconveniencing millions of travellers by not allowing them to carry a drink onto an international flight. We're supposedly better off if our ISP filters our internet content, so we're going to be forced to pay millions of dollars to have slower internet connectivity.

These are all manifestations of the same problem: Those in power deciding when we will be better off, without any regard for the concept of individual freedom.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Tibet as a whole may be better off now than they would have been without the Chinese takeover, but it should have been their choice.

Exactly right, as is your parallel with Iraq.

One of the remarkable (in a bad way) comments in Parenti's article is towards the conclusion: "Whether Chinese rule has brought betterment or disaster is is not the central issue here. The question is what kind of country was old Tibet".

What utter nonsense! This pathological obsession with what a backward theocracy was like some sixty years ago has no relevance whatsoever to the fact that there is a brutal occupation now which murders people because of the conscience, which is systematically destroying a culture and denies even the most trivial human rights.

When I'm not so furious about this I may even compose a more subtle letter to Dr. Parenti and hopefully point out this terrible misjudgement.

[redcountess]

Yes, that gets me too, that somehow the wrongs of the theocracy were worse than the torture of monks and nuns and other innocents.

ISTR either the Dems in the House of Reps or Obama and Clinton saying they had no intention of impeaching Bush, I really do worry that he and Cheney will be given a pardon by the incoming president, regardless which party the new president is from :/

[taavi.livejournal.com]

I dunno, the US Iraq policy is a pretty good demonstration of what happens when a brutal theocracy comes to power.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

+1 :-)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

ISTR either the Dems in the House of Reps or Obama and Clinton saying they had no intention of impeaching Bush

*nods* Part of the grand battle for the "middle ground" means that few politicians are prepared to take up the battle against anything remotely considered legal. Which means it's up to people themselves...