...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, March 24, 2003
      ( 9:37 AM )
 
Lessons in 'Diplomatacy' from the Bush Administration

1. When we want to mistreat prisoners of war and hold them indefinitely, even when there really is no war anymore, we just say that they are criminals and so we don't have to abide by the Geneva Convention. But if you mistreat American prisoners of war, you will be condemned as a war criminal in the Hague and we will yell about your transgressions to the world (not that we could actually charge you in the Hague, since we're the only major democratic country on earth not to sign on to the Hague treaty - but we'll get someone else to do it).

2. When we want to torture people to get information, we just keep them in countries that allow torture, so that we don't have to deal with that inconvenient Constitution thing at home. But if you torture people for information, we will publicly condemn you and come after you and kill you.

3. We don't have to sign onto the agreement to ban land mines because it would be a big hardship to our manufacturers who make most of the land mines in the world. But if our troops are injured or killed by landmines when we invade your country, you are despotic and evil.

4. We don't have to sign the Kyoto treaty because we don't believe there is such a thing as global warming or the ozone dissappearing, and also because we have lots of polution rules and we don't let people smoke anywhere anymore - and frankly, the environment doesn't really matter to us. We can be the main polluter of the air and seas because we have all the big guns. But if you light oil wells on fire, we will condemn you for the vast environmental damage you have done to the earth.

5. We can have as many nuclear plants as we want to, not to mention nuclear weapons. But if you try to build a nuclear plant for energy, we will stop helping to feed your starving people, and we will stop talking to you altogether and won't even consider signing a non-agression treaty with you.

6. We can invade a country if we say it is developing weapons of mass destruction, but we reserve the right to diplomatize with countries that already have them. We can test chemical, nuclear and biological weapons on our own citizens, but if you do that, then you are a despotic government which must be eliminated.

7. We don't have to give health care to our old people and children if we don't want to. And we can cut the budgets for research on the cure to aids and cancer and parkinson's disease. But if you don't cure that rampant aids crisis in your own country, we're going to consider not letting you trade with us.

8. We can withdraw from proliferation and weapons treaties we had with you, but if you disagree with our policies, you are just the same as our enemy.

9. We can arbitrarily bomb and attack any country we please, and that's our right. But if you attack us, you will be obliterated because you are immoral and a terrorist.

10. We can take away the civil rights of our own citizens if we want to. But if you don't give your citizens freedom and democracy, we can and will invade you whenever we deem fit.

Therein ends today's lesson, students. Don't say we didn't set a good example for you.

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