(from Signposts)

I have been following a cross-blog exchange between wood at connexions and mark byron about a post that wood had written. If you start from there, you can follow the dialogue.

I am finding myself agreeing with both of them on different points. Wood says:

You see, I think the biggest mistake both Liberals and Conservatives (using the American definitions of the words) make again and again is to assume that

"If Liberals/Conservatives (delete as applicable) really knew all the facts and had a grasp of the meanings behind it, they wouldn't be Liberals/Conservatives (delete as applicable)."

But the thing is, there are both Liberals and Conservatives who aren't ignorant. And in fact they have exactly the same information and grasp of things... they just come to a different conclusion.

I do this. In my head I am being charitable by thinking that people I disagree with are misguided or stupid - because otherwise if you understood the situation and still disagreed wtih me, there may be some explanation which (in my head) is less charitable to you.

Anyway, Mark mused a little about the dispute and concluded:

We'll tend to interevene if there are bad guys who threaten our economic or geopolitical interests. We don't intervene when there are bad guys who don't threaten our interests (Zimbabwe, Congo, Liberia/Ivory Coast, Burma) and we definately don't intervene when the bad guys aid our long-term interest (the Saudis, Singapore, some of the 'stans). Where US foreign policy is hypocritical is intervening where there are strategic interests and ignoring ones that have merely humanitarian interests.

However, I don't think that makes our actions in Iraq immoral. It makes inaction in places like Liberia and Zimbabwe immoral, but it doesn't make action in Iraq immoral.

Mark expresses a different point of view than the one that I hold, but I thought that there was wisdom in this analysis.