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Objectively anti-WMD ?

John Quiggin8 Comments

My natural inclination is to say that the agreement on WMDs between the Libyan, British and US governments is good news. But wouldn’t that leave me open to the accusation of being ‘objectively pro-Qaddafi’ ?

8 thoughts on “Objectively anti-WMD ?”

  1. No, because evidently, despite the forward strategy of freedom, the US and Britain have excused Qadhafi from their customary rigorous human rights stadards.

  2. Whatever you may be accused of, in the wider scheme of things it is not a good thing. When I first suggested the accusations against Iraq were something of a Morton’s Fork, it occurred to me that Iraq’s experiences showed that it was probably better to have something to give up. Now Libya’s experiences show the same, from an experimental test of what happens when you do have something to give up.

    So now everybody with any cause for concern knows he should start having some WMD’s or reasonable facsimiles thereof, if only as insurance (look how much trouble you get into without them, and how valuable they are for buying your way out of any trouble).

    So far the US approach reminds me of a Nixon/Kissinger story. Once they were in a conference and Nixon’s dog started chewing the carpet. Nixon slipped the dog a biscuit to chew instead, then asked Kissinger if he didn’t think that was a good example of diplomacy. Kissinger replied, “Mr. President, I think you’ve just trained your dog to chew the carpet.”

    The USA has just trained all the dogs to chew the carpet.

  4. What is wrong, Mr Ricardo, is the risk involved. If you are an important world player, being objectively pro Gaddafi could have meant that certain people would conspire to kill you in the slightly distant past, or possibly in the future.

    You of course have been dead for nearly two centuries so I imagine that holds no fears for you.

  6. Let’s not get into an argument on how to spell that Libyan dictator’s name. This Geocities site lists THIRTY-TWO different transliterations. It gives the nod to “Mu`ammar al-Qadhafi”, as it is supposedly the more accurate.

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