Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Allowing a mass murderer to continue after killing five to seven million of his powerless subjects can never be right. I'll agree that the bulk of daily governmental decisions aren't so simple - affirmative action? taxation? flag burning? - all subject to much more complex and subjective parsing. But to allow SH to continue? To ignore a Rwanda as it happens? No. These are simple. For these, we all know the moral response. If we have disagreements, they are more towards the "but can we afford to, or do we want to, be moral in this instance?" That's a very different debate than the moral one.
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Another different debate is what should be done. Reagan thought boycotting South Africa was the wrong thing to do and that we would have more leverage if we continued to do business with South Africa. I think the economic sanctions worked in the case of South Africa.
With a dictatorship like China, I think we are better off continuing to do business with them and as they become increasingly capitalistic, political change will come, too, especially if we use our leverage on human rights issues. If it doesn't, though, we will have a real problem on our hands if China grows economically stronger and continues to be a military dictatorship.
