Don’t Worry, We Won’t Invade Your Country Without Good Reason
"When it comes to violating international law, we've got very high standards!"
A story out in today’s NY Times reveals that back in 2004, the Bush administration gave the Pentagon the green light to breach the borders of sovereign countries in pursuit of suspected terrorists. Several anonymous sources verified the alleged secret order. Apparently, it set off quite a row between different branches of the government, military and intelligence community. You’d think at least some of those arguments would have been about, you know, whether it’s a good idea - or legal - to stage raids in other countries without their consent, including supposed allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But apparently, all anyone cared about was guarding their bureaucratic prerogatives:
Senior officials of the State Department and the C.I.A. voiced fears that military commandos would encroach on their turf, conducting operations that historically the C.I.A. had carried out, and running missions without an ambassador’s knowledge or approval.
We wonder if anyone involved in these pissing matches paused for a moment to appreciate the irony of their internal dispute. Here they were waging “turf” wars about who gets to go out and violate the only turf that matters in international law - a country’s sovereign borders. But here’s our favorite part of the story (emphasis added):
Several officials said the negotiations over the 2004 order resulted in closer coordination among the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A., and set a very high standard for the quality of intelligence necessary to gain approval for an attack.
Don’t worry, we’ve got high standards! We don’t attack another country unless we’ve got really, really good intelligence. Gee, that’s reassuring.
Imagine the Russians setting up military bases in Mexico and conducting raids in El Paso, Tx. against our solders at Fort Hood. Sounds ridiculously impossible that we would allow this doesn’t it.
Well, try this one. Imagine those same nasty Russians justifying putting missile bases in Canada in order to protect them from attacks from Greenland. This sounds even more absurd.
Well, when the US launches raid in these Middle Eastern countries or tries to place a “missile defense shield” in Poland, we are guilty of the absurdities. As bad as our politicians and military would be ridiculed for allowing these things to happen, so are theirs. Is there any doubt why the world hates us and would rather fight us to the death rather than let us dictate how they are to live in their own countries?