From: Alfio Puglisi (puglisi@arcetri.astro.it)
Date: Sun Apr 07 2002 - 13:25:00 MDT
On Sun, 7 Apr 2002, spike66 wrote:
>Kai Becker wrote:
>
>>IMO, there is a "good" and a "bad" side, but the line goes right through
>>the people there. I call people wanting to stop killing "good" and those
>>wanting to continue killing "bad". This probaly puts most of the
>>Israelian government plus(!) most of the Palestine leaders on the "bad"
>>side...Kai
>>
>Kai, I would agree with your definition of good and bad, but it
>will not work for the court of world opinion. Your definition
>would put the American government on the good side for its opposition
>to the war. Evidently this is a logical contradiction: in the opinion
>of Europe and perhaps much of the rest of the world, US must
>automatically be defined as bad, regardless of its actions and regardless
>of its opinions. The US is arrogant, you see, therefor it is bad, no
>matter what it actually does, including aiding desperate and starving
>populations.
I think that the world is a bit more complex, you see. If I claim that the
US is "good" when it's asking for the end of the war, and "bad" when it's
selling firearms and tanks to the parties involved, I see no contradiction
in my terms. The contradiction should be found in the US behaviour, which
shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, given the sheer size of the nation,
with hundred of millions people each with its own opinion. Saying "the US
wants" is an oversimplification, exactly like "Europe wants". Maybe
narrowing the field to "the US govt." would be better. Note that the
equivalent Europe govt. have virtually no power compared to the
individual nations, for now. This gives Europe an even wider spectrum of
opinions.
Alfio
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