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January 14, 2004

Comments

Instapundit should run for President. I'd love to see the stuff raked up about him.

Bad side: This, I suppose, does rather seem at odds with Dean's stance on Iraq from a purely humanitarian viewpoint. I think we're all aware by now that there are one or two other factors (not that there weren't in Bosnia, but one always had the impression that Iraq was more of an agenda).

Good side: From MY point of view, this shows Dean isn't so much of a peacenik that he doesn't care what goes on abroad. In fact, this bit of information would probably make me vote for him. Were I able to, etc. etc.

Kevin Drum pointed out that Dean doesn't actually come out in favor of a full scale invasion in the letter.

I just posted this in his comments--

"Here are some additional distinctions you can make between Bosnia and Iraq:

1. genocide happening right now v. past genocide
2. much more at stake in Iraq as far as national security. No matter how much you support humanitarian you would not support one in say, North Korea or behind the Iron Curtain if it means someone's going to get nuked. Iraq's less extreme, but still unusally dangerous and counterproductive as far as national security for a humanitarian intervenion.
3. multilateral options exhausted v. multilateral options given lip service."

Yeah. Do your letter writing, Katherine - it'd be good to have this guy in the top office.

The Dean comment is weird because it suggests that we should use our military when it doesn't really matter.

Katherine, I don't see how your 'someone going to get nuked' comment helps Dean's case. So shouldn't we stop proliferation? Isn't the UN really bad at it? (See North Korea, Libya, etc.) In fact isn't it the Dean attitude the type of policy which allowed North Korea to become a nuclear power in the first place?

I don't understand. My comment meant, you do not launch a humanitarian intervention when it will trigger a nuclear war. It was made under the assumption that North Korea as a few nuclear weapons and it would use them on Seoul. It's an extreme example of the general point: it's one thing to intervene for humanitarian reasons when it's strategically netural; it's another to intervene when it's strategically harmful. Dean, and I, believe the Iraq war is in the strategically harmful category.

You tend to argue against things I am not saying. I don't think it's deliberate, but it's certainly frustrating.

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