{"id":484,"date":"2004-08-15T02:21:28","date_gmt":"2004-08-15T02:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:44","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:44","slug":"some_make_arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=484","title":{"rendered":"Some Make Arguments…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been working on a reasoned response to John Quiggin’s arguments<\/a> on al-Sadr, but I’ve been distracted by the latest bit of spooge<\/a> from Yglesias. Quiggin most recently makes the claim that<\/p>\n

…the bloody campaign to destroy Sadr was both morally indefensible (as well as being politically stupid). I restate the point I made when the fighting was at its peak.<\/p>\n

Almost certainly, the current fighting will end in the same sort of messy compromise that prevailed before the first campaign started. Nothing will have been gained by either side. But 2000 or so people will still be dead. Sadr bears his share of the guilt for this crime. The US government is even more guilty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I’ve noted, I think he’s wrong both in his political and moral analysis but I certainly owe some kind of an argument to support that claim.It’s in the works.<\/p>\n

Then I read Matt Yglesias weighing in<\/a> on the same subject.<\/p>\n

To put this another way: Who wants to die for Iyad Allawi? Certainly I don’t. If people do, they should consider forming a new Abraham Lincoln Brigade and shipping out.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now personally, I don’t argue that those who care more than Matt or I do about, say – genocide in Darfur, or the Hutu\/Tutsi conflict – ought to saddle up and head out to personally do something about it. I accept that they’re a legitimate part of our polity, and that these are issues we need to decide on together, and costs that we will bear together. Matt thinks that the only way one gets to play is to be willing to go fight.<\/p>\n

Does this mean we can simply turn this election over to the troops? I’m willing to if he is…<\/p>\n

But I’m getting effing tired of giving any moral authority at all to people who think that’s a clever argument.<\/p>\n

[Update:<\/b> I edited out a sentance I wrote out of bad temper; Yglesias doesn’t deserve to be called names, and I’m embarassed to have been the kind of person who did. Sorry to all concerned.]<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been working on a reasoned response to John Quiggin’s arguments on al-Sadr, but I’ve been distracted by the latest bit of spooge from Yglesias. Quiggin most recently makes the claim that …the bloody campaign to destroy Sadr was both morally indefensible (as well as being politically stupid). I restate the point I made when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}