Matt, I take your point, but I think your analysis misses the mark a bit. See my thoughts here.

Posted at August 2, 2006 2:59 PM in response to Too Conservative?

I'll bet you good money that article was written by Peter Beinart

Heh, nope, even better. It was one Mr. Lawrence F. Kaplan.

Posted at July 1, 2006 8:07 PM in response to Consistency

Unsurprisingly, I totally agree and think this is a pretty cogent summary of the key issue. It always baffles me that war supporters can't get their heads around the simple premise that our moral obligations are necesarily mitigated by our practical capabilities.

When talking about this with war supporters, I often use what I call the "Scissorhands Example": If a child is falling from the top-floor window of a very tall building, I have a moral obligation to try to catch the child...unless I'm Edward Scissorhands, and my attempts to catch him will inevitably impale and kill him with a certainty far greater than that resulting from a fall alone.

(The analogy, of course, extends further; I could probably resort to multilateral persuasion, and begin begging normal-handed passersby to catch the child. Of course, the child's rapidly accelerating velocity does present a grave and growing threat that requires immediate...oh, never mind.)

Anyhow, maybe there's a good slogan here: "America: The Edward Scissorhands of International Democratization."

Posted at June 23, 2006 8:15 AM in response to Against The Odds