I'm sorry, I'm just going off topic for a bit. Lots-not all-of conservative republicans, and bloggers such as John Ellis, Andrew Sullivan and others consider the poor response of the Bush Administration pre 9/11 to be a non-story. Rather it's just some institutional management, impropoer procedures that should be rectified, etc... Two comments: 1) All the commentary comparing Bush's response to Al-Queda to Clinton's response to Al-Queda was, in actually, comparing Bush's post September 11 response to Al-Queda to Clinton's response to Al-Queda. Now we learn that Bush's pre September 11 response to Al-Queda was pretty much the same as Clinton's. So let's just be fair. I happen to be a big fan of Bush's view of the world. It's a good mixture of promoting our values and real-politik. But he wasn't about to launch a move into Afghanistan on September 10th, 2001. Every action we've taken after September 11th would have been justified morally and strategically before that, on the simple basis that if someone is shooting at your family, you don't have to wait until they kill someone to shoot back. That nobody (well, maybe Paul Wolfowitz), promoted this is a systemwide failure that we should look at very carefully. And when I say systemwide, I mean "all the individuals who comprise the system." We simply have to ask more from our leaders in this age.

Gedanken Pundit came up with the same idea contemporaneously! He wants to move quicker, and just trash the UN in favor of the UDN immediately. Read about it here!

One thing that Americans have become more aware of in recent months is that, for far too long, we have been legitimizing dictators in innumerable ways. One way has been through use of the United Nations as a primary mechanism for international diplomacy. In the UN, India--a democracy with power vested in hundreds of millions of citizens--gets the same number of votes as Iraq--a dictatorship with power vested in one man and a small group of not more than a few hundred around him. Now it may be the case that something like the United Nations is necessary and useful. And it may also be the case that the composition of the United Nations reflects the relative power of its participant nations rather than whether or not the national governments are ethical or democratic. But accepting that necessity doesn't mean that we have to abandon our principles. Because every time we go to the UN for a vote, every time we even participate in the UN, we are implicitly accepting the right of the dictators of countries like North Korea, Iraq, and Zimbabwe to have a say in world affairs perhaps far more than they would otherwise. Think of the propoganda victory gained by the tyrant Assad of Syria when Syria became a member of the Security Council? Or when Sudan joined the UN Council on Human Rights?
Yes, I do understand the importance of having a process that involves most of the world. For example, when the UN sends peacekeepers, that's a signal that the world is in accord with the sending of those peacekeepers-- a truly powerful signal. Yet the cost is the propoganda victories-- Iraq supports peacekeepers in Africa, way to go Saddam!

Perhaps there should be a parallel institution composed entirely of Democracies. For now, let's use the term "United Democratic Nations," or UDN. Democracies would use the UDN as much as possible, and fall back to the United Nations when necessary, thus minimizing the propoganda value of the UN to the tyrants of the earth. Now, I may disagree with how France, Greece, or India behaves in such an institution. But I'm very willing to empower them if it means weakening China, North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. Or rather, weakening the tyrants who run China, North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. Because tyrants are using the UN for their own benefit, not for the benefit of the populations they dominate.

Certainly at first, the institution would probably have little power other than to sponsor non-binding resolutions. But even that would have power and influence. Consider the following three cases:

1) A government action is condemned by the UN, but not by the UDN. The UN condemnation would be weakened, probably rightfully.
2) A government action is condemned by the UDN, but not by the UN. Well, that action is highly likely to have been pretty bad if the democracies are against it. Yet, without the existance of the UDN, the action would have escaped condemnation from an international body.
3) A government action is condemned by both the UN and the UDN. A truly strong signal to the government that it had better change its ways.

Later, as the UDN becomes more powerful, its very existance would be an incentive for countries to become Democratic.

Now I realize that there are lots of institutions to promote democracy. Here is a compendium of these institutions. But what these institutions all have in common is that they are promoting democracy. I'm talking about something else. I'm talking about giving existing democracies more power in international affairs.

Just some thoughts.

In this article, Derrick Pounder makes it known that "The claim that only fighters were killed (in Jenin) is simply not true - a mixture of bodies were clearly civilians and combatants." But of course, nobody ever made the claim that only fighters were killed. Israel only claims that fighters were targeted and steps were taken to minimize civilian deaths. Pounder makes the Israelis out to be liars unfairly.

My first target is someone whom should know better-- Robert Wright of Slate Magazine. In this article, he claims that the Israeli offer to the PLO in 2000/2001 was far from generous. Fair enough. But he claims that it was not generous because the Israelis offered all of the West Bank except for 9 percent, and offered 1 percent of Israel proper in exchange. He harps on this 9 to 1 ratio:
But the terms of the trade bordered on insulting. In exchange for the 9 percent of the West Bank annexed by Israel, Arafat would have gotten land as large as 1 percent of the West Bank
..
I'm trying to imagine Yasser Arafat selling this 9-to-1 land swap to Palestinians

The rest of the article is energized by the unfairness of the 9 to 1 land swap (later, Taba was 2 to 1, Wright states).

Wright is using a horrendous statistical distortion to support his claim-- The reasonable statistic to use is to compare what Arafat wants- 100 percent of the West Bank, versus what Israel offers: 91 percent of the West Bank (or 92 percent including Israel land proper). That's a ratio of 9.1 or 9.2 to 10, not 9 to 1!

An example of using Wright's methodology in real life:

Ok, suppose Wright believes that I owe him 100 dollars in a business dispute. I offer a 91 dollar check and a one dollar gift certificate. Can he claim that he's only getting one ninth of what he thinks he is owed?

An example of why Wright's methodology is not consistent:
Now suppose Israel offered all of the West Bank to Arafat except for 100 square inches. In return, they offered 1 square inch of Israel proper. Using Robert Wright's methodology, this would have been a tremendously insulting offer: a 100 to 1 land swap!

Robert Wright gets paid a real salary to write for a real publication. He should know better.

Welcome! I will use this blog to reveal distortions/obfuscations and outright lies by people of note. For now I'll concentrate on the Middle East Crisis, but I won't necessarily hold to it.