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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:23 pm Post subject: Mr. Ignatieff and his oeuvre |
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The National Post today summarized M.Ignatieff's ideas on how to fight terrorism:
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This week, the Liberal Party of Canada picked Michael Ignatieff as its new leader. To help readers decide what kind of leadership Mr. Ignatieff might provide for Canada, members of the National Post editorial board are reading through Mr. Ignatieff�s oeuvre, discussing their impressions as they go. This week�s selection: Mr. Ignatieff�s 2004 book on fighting terrorism, The Lesser Evil.
Kelly McParland: Here�s my reading of Prof. Ignatieff�s theories. Having not been to Harvard, I may not express it as elegantly:
Because of the advent and spread of well-organized terrorism, good countries may find themselves forced on occasion to do bad things. This being the case, it is best to adopt certain parameters to prevent the good guys from lowering themselves to the level of the bad guys. Thus they should:
1. Always adopt the lowest level of evil available to do the job (hence the title of this work).
2. Admit that evil is evil and don�t try to dress it up as something else.
3. Direct the evil at specific targets rather than adopting it wholesale.
4. Ensure there is some level of independent oversight of the evil.
5. Try to limit the evil to specified periods and include periodic evaluations and sunset clauses.
6. Try to avoid too much secrecy, even though that may be difficult.
There is more along this line, but you get the gist. Prof. Ignatieff also includes an analysis of the agents of evil and the varying categories they come in:
1. Individual crackpots who hate everything and what to blow it all up (See, e.g.: Oklahoma City bombing)
2. Individual crackpots with targeted beefs (See: abortion clinic bombers)
3. Organized nutbar groups trying to overthrow whoever happens to be in government ( e.g., the Taliban)
4. Organized groups trying to oust an occupying power or colonial ruler (See: Algeria, history of)
5. Organized groups trying to force the government to give them a homeland (See: Sri Lanka)
6. Global nutbar groups that hate everything and just want to blow it up (see al-Qaeda)
In addition, there are strategies for dealing with various peace-making scenarios, though they tend to be fairly wooly. Stuff like: Talk to reasonable non-violent insurrectionists, but not the ones who kill civilians; offer an alternative to the terrorists so civilians won�t sign on; try to get international backing and show the targeted country that you�re killing or arresting people in their best interest; when you have to kill people, try to do it one at a time and don�t just drop bombs on whole villages just because you think there�s a terrorist in Hut #12. |
More commentary in the link.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/12/13/mr-ignatieff-and-his-oeuvre-through-the-prism-of-the-np-editorial-board.aspx
The points I bolded are I think excellent. Thoughts? |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Fight fire with fire. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| I wouldn't say nos. 4 and 5 are necessarily always evil. For example Mr. Ignatieff wouldn't dare call Menachim Begin a terrorist. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm in his riding. But I voted for the Marxist Leninist Party. If he becomes PM, I'm hoping my riding gets an airport. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:56 am Post subject: |
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Some of this stuff strikes me as being just basically, umm... whats that word for statements that are so self-evidently correct that they�re meaningless? Truisms?
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| Always adopt the lowest level of evil available to do the job |
I don�t think there are too many people who would advocate inflicting more evil than is neccessary in a given situation. Even Stalin, in his own mind, probably thought that everything he did was warranted by the gravity of the problems he faced.
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Try to avoid too much secrecy, even though that may be difficult.
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As I teach my students, the word "too", properly used, means an excessive amount of something. And since excess, by definition, is somehing that should be avoided, well, again, Ignatieff really isn't telling us much here.
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| Ensure there is some level of independent oversight of the evil. |
Easy to say, but in practical application, what is the working definition of "independent oversight"? If you were to ask Bush, he'd probably tell you that having a couple of army lawyers review the interrogation procedures once every few months is all the independent oversight you need, since they�re not directly involved in the interrogations.
On the other hand, there are some leftists who would argue that even if the interrogtion guidelines were being drawn up by the ACLU, it still wouldn�t be independent oversight, because the ACLU lawyers were taking a government salary when they did that. |
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