The Sixth International
14.3.03
Allo, Anderson? Do you still 'ave those shredders?
More shots fired at the Den Bestian interpretation of German (and French, and Russian) opposition to war in Iraq, this time from a Mann ohne Eigenschaften.
Mr Musil notes that 'wanting to keep their business dealings secret' is scarcely adequate to explain the sand these nations are throwing into the gears. It's also illogical. If that were all that keeps Chirac from falling into line, he'd have a simple and elegant solution at hand. "Eh bien, George mon ami, we'd love to help. There's just one little thing you'll need to do for us...'
13.3.03
And we're revisionist wreckers, too!
Andrew Hagen has taken us to task for being excessively ironic. We're working on our abashed look.
12.3.03
The Wurzel of all evil
Germany's opposition to war in Iraq is an attempt to keep German arms sales to Iraq secret, charged Ami. Papa Scott and I replied (he here, I just below), noting that publicly prosecuting the sellers is, emm, a counterintuitive way of keeping arms sales secret.
Now Ami points out that, even granting the force of our arguments, the fact remains that Iraq's list disclosing suppliers of arms (or things to use in making arms) contains a wildly disproportionate number of German firms. Even if the Den Bestian interpretation is wrong (and it is), this fact is disturbing enough in its own right. The state might have no part in this; indeed, it has always taken a dim (and punitive) view. But why have so many German firms been willing to sell to Saddam?
Well; money, of course. I imagine supplying a sanctions-handicapped dictator with things he very much wants but isn't allowed to have must yield rather attractive margins. Selling banned things to Iraq makes perfect sense, if you're a hardheaded profit-driven businessman, and not very risk-averse, and not very moral.
The mystery to me is why so many of these businessmen have been Germans. I've known a fair few businessmen in my day, German as well as the other sort. The German businessmen have all been pretty much like the non-German kind, if rather more German. I don't think the German lot are, on the whole, any more or less evil than the others. I don't doubt there are plenty of American and British and French and Ruritanian firms providing evil swine with things evil swine shouldn't have. Why is it that so many of this particular evil swine's suppliers are Germans? Leaving all moral considerations to one side, how'd they get that kind of market share?
That might well remain a mystery. What isn't mysterious at all is that, if there's enough money to be made by doing so, some people will behave atrociously. Money isn't really the root of all evil, but it's often enough a catalyst. Give free rein to the invisible hand, and soon enough some of its fingers will be in very dubious pies.
This isn't a call to slap manacles on the invisible hand. It's appropriate to punish businessmen who break the law, but freedom should not be curtailed simply because freedom can be abused. With freedom comes responsibility; how can we be dissuaded from enjoying the one whilst shirking the latter?
Amitai Etzioni hasn't started blogging a moment too soon.
Coming up next: Germany's al-Qaeda connection
Glenn Reynolds whoops in triumph as Amiland reveals that Germany Is Arming Iraq. Here, cries the professor, is vindication for Steven Den Beste's claim: Germany joins France in blocking the war so that the world will not know what they have been up to.
Ami's post is a pr�cis of an article in Die Welt. Perhaps Prof. Reynolds is not familiar with this intelligence source; in technical terms it is known as a 'newspaper'. It's hard to believe, given that the Germans will stop at nothing to keep the world from knowing that Germany Is Arming Iraq, but you can actually buy these 'newspaper' things freely from the kiosk down on the corner. And not to worry if you're outside Germany: efforts by Schr�der's thuggish Thought Police to shut down the paper's website seem to have failed, so you can access the article from anywhere. True, the article is in German; fortunately Ami, who knows German, has relayed the sordid story through Prof. Reynolds to the Free World.
It's strange, really, that Germany continues to oppose US plans for war -- knowing that the cost is damage to its relationship with its most important ally -- all to keep the world from knowing that Germany Is Arming Iraq. I mean, thanks to Die Welt that cat is pretty irretrievably out of the bag, isn't it? If Prof. Reynolds hadn't taught me to take a more jaundiced view of things, I'd almost suspect there's some other reason for the German government's stance; like (just one wild guess, mind you) the firm opposition of most Germans to a war in Iraq. But now I know that theory to be hopelessly naive.
The mere fact that Germany couldn't keep this shocking revelation out of the media is interesting enough in itself; the substance of the story is positively astounding. It's not that the German state is arming Iraq directly. Rather, some German firms have sold stuff to Iraq that the Iraqis can use to make weapons. Now here's the beauty part. It's against German law to do this, Die Welt reports, and when the state finds businessmen doing so, it arrests them and throws them in prison. The lengths the German state will go to to keep the world from knowing that Germany Is Arming Iraq - prosecuting the Germans who do the arming! Clearly, German cynicism knows no bounds.
It's been sad to watch Prof. Reynolds slip ever deeper into Orwellian Mode in his commentary on the upcoming war ('pro-liberation' in place of 'pro-war' is especially good; I find this irritating, and I am pro-war myself). It's sadder still to watch him and and Ami drink Mr Den Beste's Kool-Aid.
11.3.03
The Bomb-Throwing Leftwing Subversives of T6I
The Sixth International Politburo were proud to be named 'Enemies Within' a few weeks ago by Jackbooted Tory Reactionary Peter Cuthbertson. Now Decadent Capitalist Oppressor Iain Murray's new blogroll officially classes us as part of the International Left-Wing Conspiracy™. If our heads get any bigger, Andrew Sullivan won't be able to see the Mao cap we've put on just to annoy him.
Just to be sure, we ran the T6I Party Manifesto (ringingly and unanimously endorsed just last week by the Irkutsk Stakhanovite Tractor Mechanics Congress) through the World's Smallest Political Quiz. We came out smack on the border of Left-Liberal and Libertarian. Ah well. We hereby resolve to engage in frank self-critical confrontation and re-education until we get safely down into the left side of the Authoritarian quadrant.
