Anti-Climacus

I GOT YER MULTILATERALISM RIGHT HERE: David Brooks:

"And so we went the multilateral route.

Confronted with the murder of 50,000 in Sudan, we eschewed all that nasty old unilateralism, all that hegemonic, imperialist, go-it-alone, neocon, empire, coalition-of-the-coerced stuff. Our response to this crisis would be so exquisitely multilateral, meticulously consultative, collegially cooperative and ally-friendly that it would make John Kerry swoon and a million editorialists nod in sage approval.

And so we Americans mustered our outrage at the massacres in Darfur and went to the United Nations. And calls were issued and exhortations were made and platitudes spread like béarnaise. The great hum of diplomacy signaled that the global community was whirring into action.

Meanwhile helicopter gunships were strafing children in Darfur."

Then there's this charming development in Iran, where it's apparently now illegal for a man to beat his wife (better late than never, I suppose). Norm has another example of their enlightened legal system.

Thus I point you to Bird Dog:

"If being unilateral to stop this genocide is wrong, I don't wanna be right. This is another example of Kofi Annan's abysmal legacy. He hasn't exercised leadership here--or few other places for that matter--he's exercised followership. This genocide is happening right now. What right does Sudan have to sit on the UN Human Rights Commission? Why should the UN Security Council wait one more minute to stop this atrocity? If they can't take serious action to stop the mass murder of the Darfurs, what good is the UN except for making noble, high-sounding pronouncements? What right does Kofi Annan have to tell us we're in violation of international law when his own house is in such disarray? What moral authority does Kofi Annan have when his own house is rife with that an appalling oil-for-food scandal or when there's a rogues gallery of thugs on the human rights commission? It's time for new leadership at the UN and it's time for a Democracy Caucus."

In that vein, I do have to ask: if actual clear examples of genocide aren't enough to convince people that maybe intervention isn't the worst thing in the world, there's probably not a whole lot of point in talking to those people, is there?