Crossposted from Flopping Aces

Well, at least one country has taken Obama up on his offer to meet without preconditions.

Syria:

Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks broadcast Monday that he wants a dialogue with the United States but there should be no preconditions by the Obama administration.

Assad told Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV that the new American administration sent officials close to it to Damascus, Syria’s capital, to start such a dialogue. He did not name them but said they visited before President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20.

Syrian-U.S. relations deteriorated sharply during the administration of former President George W. Bush, which accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to cross its border into Iraq. Syria denied doing so, while saying it was impossible to control its long desert border with Iraq.

Washington also pulled its ambassador out of Syria after the 2005 assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus was widely accused of being involved in the killing but has denied the accusation.

And as Ed Morrissey notes, having been advised for a long time by Samantha Powers, we know he would be receptive to any kind of suggestion Syria has about the Israeli conflict.

Samantha Powers line of reasoning is that the President needs to alienate the Jews, because they are so powerful in the United States, investing billions into Palestine and then send a huge, massive protection force to protect Hamas and their cohorts:

It’s kinda humorous. Obama promised he would meet with the worst of the worst without preconditions and now they are calling it in.

So let me see. Don’t listen to Rush….Rush=bad

But listen to Syria….what exactly do they equal to Obama?

Also:

Jimmy Carter Meddling Again

It’s simply amazing this guy was once our President. Here is Jimmy Carter speaking about the Israeli conflict this morning:

CARTER: … We’ve had a chance to meet two times with the leaders of Hamas, both those in Gaza and those that are top leaders in Damascus, Syria.

VIEIRA: And you’ve been criticized for that, sir, because Hamas is considered a terrorist group.

CARTER: By some, they are, and they’ve done some bad things. But for instance, the year before we had the cease-fire, that I helped to orchestrate last June, the 19th, there was one Israeli killed by rockets. And on an average, 49 Palestinians killed every month during that previous year. And as soon as the cease-fire went into effect, Hamas obeyed it completely. There was no serious rocket fire during the next four or five months.

Whereas, Israel did not restore providing provisions for the Palestinians and Gaza. But Hamas has pledged to me — and publicly — that they will accept any cease-fire that is negotiated between the Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Israelis, provided the cease- fire, in turn, is then submitted to the Palestinian people for approval and a referendum. So, that’s a major step forward.

~~~

VIEIRA: Do you believe that Hamas can be trusted?

CARTER: Yes, I do. I think they can, because of their own self- interest, not because they’re benevolent, or kind, or that sort of thing. But yes, I do. I think they can. And they’ve never betrayed any commitment that they’ve made to me, or publicly, as a matter of fact. …

VIEIRA: But Hamas has said its goal is to destroy Israel. How can you involve them in a peace process when they said their goal is to destroy Israel? They don’t recognize Israel.

CARTER: I’m not here to defend Hamas, but to tell you what they have pledged to me, and publicly: That if any agreement is negotiated between Fatah leaders and Israel, that Hamas will accept the agreement if it’s submitted to the Palestinian people in a referendum. And that’s a very good step forward. And I think they will do that because of their own self-interest.

And Hamas complied very thoroughly with the cease-fire agreement that I had worked out for the last June the 19th. For five months, there were no rockets fired until Israel did attack Gaza again on November 4th.

He’s not here to defend Hamas? Pretty much all he did.

His logic in this case is pretty much indefensible. Hamas didn’t violate the cease fire because there was no SERIOUS rocket fire. What the hell does that mean? They continued to lob rockets into civilian areas, plain and simple. 126 rockets and 71 mortars in November alone….guess that isn’t serious. Baloney. It’s a violation of the cease fire.

Then he dismisses out of hand the fact that Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel and wants them destroyed.

David Greenberg and Stephen Hess describe Carter perfectly:

There they stood, all four living U.S. presidents at the White House, smiling and posing with the soon-to-be newest member of the club, Barack Obama. But at that historic gathering earlier this month, one member of the group, Jimmy Carter, appeared to be cut off from the rest, as if he had crashed the party but could stay if he didn’t cause any trouble.

“It was fascinating,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who said the photo opportunity showed the others as clubby while Carter was a step apart. And there’s probably a good reason for that too, Hess said.

“He’s a person who has stuck his thumb in the eye of every president who has followed him,” he said.

~~~

“I think in my view, he’s jumped the shark,” said David Greenberg, a presidential historian with Rutgers University. “He passed the point of no return when he wrote the book.”

Greenberg said he believes Carter has morphed from an angry and resentful ex-president after losing to Ronald Reagan to a self-righteous man who has damaged his reputation with his acts.

“Now a lot of people don’t know or follow it closely,” he said. “They see a man who does conflict resolution and Habitat for Humanity and admire that part. And that is part of the record.

“But when you look at the whole record, with the Middle East and the meddling with other presidents’ foreign policy, I think he has, one, behaved badly and, two, discredited himself in a deep way.”

The man is an embarrassment who has meddled in every Administration since he was kicked out of office after one term. I would call him one of the principal reasons the North Korea deal went south during Clinton’s run. He ran interference for the North Koreans and they got themselves some nukes.

Whatta guy!

Finally:

Moral Puzzles and Dilemmas

VOICE: Probably? Well, that’s a very cavalier answer. You don’t seem to care about the implications here. Well, Mr. Bauer?

BAUER: I’m sorry, Senator. I didn’t hear a question.

VOICE: All right then. Did you torture Mr. Haddad?

BAUER: According to the definitions set forth by the Geneva Convention, yes, I did. Senator, why don’t I save you some time. It’s obvious that your agenda is to discredit and generate a series of –

VOICE: My only agenda is to get to the truth.

BAUER: I don’t think it is, sir.

VOICE: Excuse me.

BAUER: Abraham Haddad had targeted a bus train of 45 people, 10 of which were children. The truth, Senator, is I stopped that attack from happening.

VOICE: By torturing Mr. Haddad.

BAUER: By doing what I deemed necessary to protect innocent lives.

VOICE: So basically what you’re saying, Mr. Bauer, is that the ends justify the means and that you are above the law.

BAUER: When I am activated, when I am brought into a situation, there is a reason and that reason is to complete the objectives of my mission at all costs.

VOICE: Even if it means breaking the law?

BAUER: For a combat soldier the difference between success and failure is your ability to adapt to your enemy. The people that I deal with, they don’t care about your rules. All they care about is a result. My job is to stop them from accomplishing their objectives. I simply adapt it. In answer to your question, am I above the law? No, sir. I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. I will let them decide what price I should pay. Now please do not sit there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions that I have made because, sir, the truth is I don’t.

-From the season opener of “24″

It seems to be a slow weekend at FA; so, I thought I’d put this up as an exercise for readers.

One of the most interesting classes I took in college, was an upper division course on Morals and Ethics.

Here are some interesting moral dilemmas. Pick a situation and please explain, how you would deal with it, if you were the one put in the hot seat to make the tough decision. And please explain your line of reasoning. There aren’t really supposed to be any right or wrong answers.

Do the variables and stakes matter, in how you decide? Are you consistent? Do you deal in absolutes? Or are there gray areas and situational nuances, where two seemingly similar problems causes you to respond differently to each.

If you answer some of the problems, I may tweak the situation around, to see if the specific variables may cause you to change your answer (readers are welcomed to offer similar challenges).

(a few of these comes from Moral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian).

1. The Overcrowded Lifeboat

In 1842, a ship struck an iceberg and more than 30 survivors were crowded into a lifeboat intended to hold 7. As a storm threatened, it became obvious that the lifeboat would have to be lightened if anyone were to survive. The captain reasoned that the right thing to do in this situation was to force some individuals to go over the side and drown. Such an action, he reasoned, was not unjust to those thrown overboard, for they would have drowned anyway. If he did nothing, however, he would be responsible for the deaths of those whom he could have saved. Some people opposed the captain’s decision. They claimed that if nothing were done and everyone died as a result, no one would be responsible for these deaths. On the other hand, if the captain attempted to save some, he could do so only by killing others and their deaths would be his responsibility; this would be worse than doing nothing and letting all die. The captain rejected this reasoning. Since the only possibility for rescue required great efforts of rowing, the captain decided that the weakest would have to be sacrificed. In this situation it would be absurd, he thought, to decide by drawing lots who should be thrown overboard. As it turned out, after days of hard rowing, the survivors were rescued and the captain was tried for his action. If you had been on the jury, how would you have decided?

2. A Father’s Agonizing Choice

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

3. Sophie’s Choice, not in Grassian.

In the novel Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron (Vintage Books, 1976 — the 1982 movie starred Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline), a Polish woman, Sophie Zawistowska, is arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz death camp. On arrival, she is “honored” for not being a Jew by being allowed a choice: One of her children will be spared the gas chamber if she chooses which one. In an agony of indecision, as both children are being taken away, she suddenly does choose. They can take her daughter, who is younger and smaller. Sophie hopes that her older and stronger son will be better able to survive, but she loses track of him and never does learn of his fate. Did she do the right thing? Years later, haunted by the guilt of having chosen between her children, Sophie commits suicide. Should she have felt guilty?

4. The Fat Man and the Impending Doom, with parts cut out in the 2nd edition; they seem to have gotten removed to avoid unintentionally humorous overtones.

A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. [But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite.] There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using [that] dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?

5. A Callous Passerby

Roger Smith, a quite competent swimmer, is out for a leisurely stroll. During the course of his walk he passes by a deserted pier from which a teenage boy who apparently cannot swim has fallen into the water. The boy is screaming for help. Smith recognizes that there is absolutely no danger to himself if he jumps in to save the boy; he could easily succeed if he tried. Nevertheless, he chooses to ignore the boy’s cries. The water is cold and he is afraid of catching a cold — he doesn’t want to get his good clothes wet either. “Why should I inconvenience myself for this kid,” Smith says to himself, and passes on. Does Smith have a moral obligation to save the boy? If so, should he have a legal obligation ["Good Samaritan" laws] as well?

6. A train is barrelling down the tracks, and if it continues on its natural course, all 3 passengers aboard will die, as the bridge up ahead has given out. You have the ability to save the 3 passengers by pulling a lever that will switch the tracks. If you do this, however, the train will end up hitting a person sitting on the tracks and who will not be able to move out of the way in time. This person’s life is in no danger, unless YOU take action and change the tracks, to save the 3.

7. A madman who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been apprehended. Unfortunately, he has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It is possible that hundreds of people may die. The authorities cannot make him divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. He refuses to say anything and requests a lawyer to protect his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. Do you agree? If you do, would it also be morally justifiable to torture the mad bomber’s innocent wife if that is the only way to make him talk? Why?

8. The Principle of Psychiatric Confidentiality, cf. the 1997 movie, Devil’s Advocate, and the 1993 movie, The Firm, on confidentiality between lawyers and clients.

You are a psychiatrist and your patient has just confided to you that he intends to kill a woman. You’re inclined to dismiss the threat as idle, but you aren’t sure. Should you report the threat to the police and the woman or should you remain silent as the principle of confidentiality between psychiatrist and patient demands? Should there be a law that compels you to report such threats?

9. The Partiality of Friendship

Jim has the responsibility of filling a position in his firm. His friend Paul has applied and is qualified, but someone else seems even more qualified. Jim wants to give the job to Paul, but he feels guilty, believing that he ought to be impartial. That’s the essence of morality, he initially tells himself. This belief is, however, rejected, as Jim resolves that friendship has a moral importance that permits, and perhaps even requires, partiality in some circumstances. So he gives the job to Paul. Was he right?

10. The Value of a Promise, Compare with the role of David Cash in the murder of Sherrice Iverson by Jeremy Strohmeyer.

A friend confides to you that he has committed a particular crime and you promise never to tell. Discovering that an innocent person has been accused of the crime, you plead with your friend to give himself up. He refuses and reminds you of your promise. What should you do? In general, under what conditions should promises be broken?