Watchdog Agency Concludes Chlorine Used as Weapon in Syria

[The Magistrate]

44. Events, Ma'am, Are Not So Organized As All That

It is not so much a case of my seeing U.S. policies as 'pure', as of my seeing them as not too different from those of anyone else in a similar position throughout history. We sustained dictators, as what the ruling element here considered the best policy of containing and over-coming the Soviet Union and Communism. The Soviet Union maintained dictators, as what its ruling element considered the best policy for over-coming the United States and Capitalism. I think we made a good many poor choices in fighting the Soviets, but the opposition to Soviet totalitarianism was not a mistake.

States will act in furtherance of their interests, or perhaps more precisely, in furtherance of what their rulers conceive to be their interests. A more powerful state may be able to do this more effectively than a weaker state, but that is a difference in degree, not in kind. No state behaves in a particularly moral way, though a state may well find it advantageous to act in ways that many can perceive as moral, and its leaders would do well to remember that actions which are morally unsupportable usually turn out in time to have been bad politics. I do no expect anyone to behave better than the general run of humanity, and I will not judge the practice of one side against the ideal view of another.