Could you explain why you believe the United States has the right to "punish" any other nation other than for outright aggression against us? Of course, to answer you'd have to reevaluate your support of the Bush foreign policy.

There is lots more money in guns than butter and therefore the USA foreign policy with heed the dictates of military/industrial complex and arm the world with destruction, plus it is good for population control and nation building and natural resouce management. War is good; and to have a good war you have to have good weapons, and the USA makes the best.

Lew, the United States, as a member of the United Nations, has a right (upon proper authorization) to "punish" any nation that commits an act of aggression against a fellow UN member state.

As you'll recall, such an act of aggression was the ultimate origin of the Iraq conflict. Iraq conquered Kuwait, in one of the last examples of the kind of international gangsterism that was supposed to have ended with WWII. The UN authorized other nations to take whatever measures were necessary to reverse the aggression and restore peace in the region. Iraq got beat, and asked for a cease-fire to prevent Iraq itself from being invaded and its regime changed (which was within the original 1991 mandate's scope). Iraq subsequently violated its cease-fire terms, and was duly declared to be in "material breach" of them. Under international law, a "material breach" of an agreement releases the other party from its obligations thereunder. In other words, game back on. Completely legal.

Or you could just say "no blood for oil" and "Bush lied, people died." Slogans are much easier than reality.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Colin Powell's speech at the UN was designed to get the UN to authorize the invasion based on WMD's (which proved to be bogus); unable to convince the UN, the US and Britain went in essentially alone - a measure of questionable legality. But to the broader matter in this editorial, the question of trade or war, China has adopted market mechanisms almost entirely on her own because to the enormous difficulties presented by central planning in the huge Chinese economy. Freer markets tend to more freedom. Trade is always preferable to war.

Thomas is one of those who refuses to separate the civilians of a country with the government that is running it.
He tells us a country should be "punished." I guess that means the same as "shock-and-aweing" of civilians of Iraq and nuking the civilians of Hiroshima.
Anything goes to today's neocon, even murdering woman and children.
After all, it's for the 'greater good'.

We could write off Mr. Anonymous as irrelevant, except that people who use his methods have gotten to very high places in the Democratic Party.

It all goes back to Saul Alinsky and his fundamentally antidemocratic, intimidating, by-any-means-necessary political tactics.

The central thrust of Alinsky's concept was that the radical knows his views are right, so there's no need to engage in good-faith dialogue or to keep an open mind. It's taken as a given that the opposition will never be convinced, and so it must be crushed. Engaging in rational argument is to be avoided, as is too-extensive focus on stating one's own positions. Instead, the main point should be tearing down the moral standing of the opposition, so that the radicals' will can be imposed on them against their will.

A central component in this strategy is the use of mockery and sneering. As Alinsky rightly pointed out, there's no defense against it, and even if it's totally irrational, it tends to win.