Day: July 31, 2002

So: I, the fellow who just called for a worldwide Pax Americana; who just breezily dismissed the idea of national sovereignty currently enshrined in international law as a useless anachronism; who flat-out called for American military intervention across the globe: I, have Been Categorized.
“Warmonger” ?
Nope.
“Imperialist” ?
Nope.
“Jingoistic American Militarist” ?
Nope.
“Fascist” ? (there’s always somebody)
Nope.
Try Blogger.
Damn, the left sure ain’t what it used to be.

Henry Shieh declares my argument against national sovreignty to be “bunk” in the comments section of previous Do It Now post on attacking Iraq, and says:
“If you want to use the terrorist argument to prove that Iraq IS a threat, then why not topple Iran? They’re certainly more linkable to major terrorism than Iraq, Mylroie notwithstanding, and are much closer to developing nukes. What about North Korea for weapons proliferation and terrorist connections? “
To answer Henry’s questions, I present to you The Bear Doctrine. (Colin, Rummy, Condi and Wolfie: Feel free to steal any or all of this & pass it on to George. I don’t mind). I think if you apply these rules, my answers for each scenario Henry poses should be clear.
The United States should consider military action to effect a change of regime against a foreign power when:
1) That power has demonstrated that they are hostile to the U.S. and its citizens, either by directly attacking us; by threatening or planning such an attack, or by supporting other actors who have executed or have threatened such an attack.
or
2) All of the following are true:
a) We have the means to decisively execute such a military operation without significant casualities, to our own forces or to innocent civilians.
b) Deposing the regime is clearly in the best interest of its citizens, and our intention is to establish a democratic government upon completion of the operation.
c) Such an operation is in the selfish best interest of the United States (economically; politically, etc.).
On national sovereignty: to me, the concept is meaningless except between nations in which the citizenry have the power to effectively change their own government; i.e., are functioning democracies. (Henry hints at this same point himself, but in my view, draws the exact wrong conclusions from it).
So: until all nations on the planet are functioning democracies, I don’t see much moral use for the concept. And frankly, once that grand day actually did come to pass, it would basically have become irrelevant anyway, because democracies don’t generally ever have a need or desire to attack one another. (Yes, I know that’s not absolutely true, but it is generally).
And let me emphasize one last point. Before folks start crying out “Your doctrine is absurd, it would lead us to conclude we should topple a huge number of regimes!” as if that was an argument against it, let me answer the complaint in advance: yes, I know. You’re catching on now.
The days when a nation such as ours could afford to leave hostile enemies alone, simply because they posed no immediate threat to us, are over. We cannot allow any government to remain in power that will harbor terrorists, because even one such nation is sufficient to provide a base of operations that can allow such a group to inflict mass casualties across the globe.
This problem is not going to get better. The depravity and sorrow of September 11th was prelude; it was the beginning, not the end.
It is going to get much, much worse. Imagine for a moment the weapons that will exist, and will be available to terrorists like al Qaeda, fifty years from now. I have no way of predicting precisely what they will be, but I will sadly stand by a prediction that they will be capable of inflicting horrors that are beyond our worst nightmares today.
I wish with all my heart that I turn out to be wrong about this. I would pray for my own foolishness to be revealed, if I knew how.
We have to fix this planet. Now. And it has to be us — America — because nobody else has the power, nor the will.
I am not kidding. It is a New World for America: what remains to be seen is if it is a Brave one.
I eagerly await your counter-proposals for alternative doctrines and cries of outrage at my blatant imperialism. Commence rock-throwing.
Update: What, are you all chicken? Six hours later and only three comments? Well, no new posts for any of you until I see some good discussion — so there.
Or perhaps I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue — which would work better?
Less Whiny Update: Matt Yglesias says: “I’m filled with desire to endorse NZ Bear’s foreign policy doctrine that would say national sovereignty is essentially irrelevant when the nation in question is a brutal undemocratic regime. I worry, though, that if the US were to adopt it we’d wind up on a collision course with China that wouldn’t do anyone any good.”
This raises a good point. It makes me uncomfortable, but while I genuinely think the doctrine I present is a valid one, and could form the basis for U.S. policy, that doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense for it to be our publicly announced policy. I agree with Matt that it would indeed raise tension with China; to what end, we don’t know.
International relations requires a bit of grey; put another way, it’s foolish to tell your enemies exactly what you’re going to do. Announcing our intentions far in advance can be beneficial sometimes — regimes can be ‘scared straight’ — but other times, it just gives our enemies time to plan.
And also: I focused on military power as a force to change dangerous regimes into democratic ones. By no means does that mean I think it should be our preferred tool: certainly, if we genuinely believe we can effect change through other means (trade sanctions for true misbheavors; deepening trade ties for regimes we think we can gradually lure into capitalism; whatever) then we should do so. We simply have to be honest with ourselves and not shy away from military action when other methods truly have no real chance of working.

Not that this is a huge shock, but the BBC a story today which points to research at Harvard that shows that Saudi Arabia is blocking access to many, many Internet sites from within their borders.
The research, conducted by Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, is pretty fascinating to review: you can find their summary of results here, and the directory to URL’s that have been blocked here.
So has the House of Saud decided to directly block the warblogger community yet? So far, it doesn’t appear so. Edelman and Zittrain’s current research does not tackle weblogs directly as a unique category; but I didn’t notice many weblogs at all on the blocked list, and none that I saw of our own ‘usual suspects’, so to speak.
However, I have dropped the authors an email bringing our little corner of the Internet to their attention, and have asked them a few followup questions: so hopefully they’ll get back to me with additional info.
I scanned the list for interesting sites, and didn’t find much of relevance to the weblogging community directly. But here’s a few choice URLs anyway:
Amnesty International’s pages on Saudi Arabia: Savor the irony on that.
The Onion: Apparently they don’t think its funny anymore either.
The IDF Home Page: Big shock there.
Hizbollah’s Web Pages: That one’s a bit weird.
The Jane’s Addiction Page: Jane says: screw you.
The Tokyo Toilet Map: Ha-what?
religoustolerance.org: Well, duh.
Rolling Stone Magazine: Go figure.
submission.org, “The Best English Translation of the Quran”, by Dr. Rashad Khalifa Step away from our holy book, infidel.
www.tasteless-jokes.com: See lack of sense of humor.
Check out the full list, and I’ll update if I hear back from the authors…
Update: They are Internet researchers, and they operate on Internet time, baby! Jonathan Zittrain has sent a brief reply back to my message. I had asked if they had tested domains such as *.blogger.com and radio.weblogs.com: his answer was that he didn’t believe so, but agreed blogger.com was a good URL to add to future testing, both for Saudi Arabia and other nations (their research is not just on SA).
Also: You can sign up to get on a mailing list for updated information here. Zittrain and Edelman are developing a web application to “allow interested Internet users to receive from our servers a list of sites to be tested; to automatically and efficiently test access to those sites; and to report results to our servers for centralized and automated tabulation and analysis.” Check it out if you’re interested in participating!
And more: I swear I saw an item somewhere in the blogosphere yesterday which alluded to a software project underway to develop techniques which would allow Internet surfers in countries with filtering like Saudia Arabia’s to bypass the filtering. If anybody has a link or info on that project, please drop it in the comments.

Nathan Newman points to an executive order signed by President Bush yesterday which, he claims, eviscerates the protection intended to be provided to whistleblowers who come forward against corporate fraud under the new act just passed.
On my own reading of the executive order, and a scan of the bill, he appears to be right.
You can find the full text of the bill here — I think this is the final version that was signed into law, but am not certiain — somebody with more Thomas experience than I, please confirm or correct. A direct link to the relevant part of the bill is here.
Bad President. No Treats.

Andrew Sullivan provides cautionary notes on opposition to an attack on Iraq today that are well worth reading. Sample:
“Those of us who think the majority of Americans decided last September that war with Iraq was essential to our present and future security had better be prepared. The opposition is determined and organized, and they are passionately opposed to using American power to defeat the forces of state terror.”
My one quibble with Sullivan’s work today is the headlines he’s used for the pieces today: “Stopping The War”, Parts I, II, and III.
The opponents of ridding the world of Saddam are not making a case to “Stop the War”. They are making a case for us to “Ignore the War”. Or perhaps “Concede the War”. Or yes, even “Surrender the War”.
We are at war; the only way to “stop” it is victory or the acceptance of defeat. Phrasing it any other way plays into the hands of those that, in Sullivan’s words, “campaign to protect Saddam’s weaponry.”

Can’t sleep, damnit, but too tired to write. So it’s time to link!
Lair us to an article on how porn sites are driving technical web innovation, and regails us with his own, er, personal experience.
Meryl lays it all on the table and ranks male superheroes by their dating potential.
(Hard up day in the Blogosphere, or coincidence? You decide).
Martin declines to provide any nookie, but instead dissects a NY Times op-ed which posits that the way to fight computer crime is — the government should fix it! OK ; Martin gets docked for lack of difficulty points, but his takedown is high on the artistic merit scale.
VodkaGuy said absolutely nothing today. But he said it in a really snarky, erudite yet earthy kinda way.
And lastly, PontifExMachina picks up my slack and, dismayed that I didn’t provide a more specific set of recommendations to prevent my 2014 scenario from coming true, provides The Paranoid Libertarian’s To-Do List.