Cuba/Georgia, continued

Matt Yglesias says pretty much exactly what I've been saying about the Russian Occupation of South Ossetia. Of course, Yglesias has the benefit of the audience, so it's nice to see the ideas get out there.

I really think that people like Peretz or similar just can't possibly get past my country/their country distinctions to see this kind of similarity. As I've said before, the nuance card tends to get played a lot: the people who are pointing out similarities between American action and the actions of America's antagonists just aren't seeing the nuance that makes these comparisons legitimate. But it's a weird vision of nuance that holds that nuanced readings invariably lead to one conclusion or another. Usually the benefit of nuance is that it reveals the errors in any kind of broad-strokes reasoning, but these people tend to think nuance can only justify their black hat-white hat visions of foreign policy.

Update: As a bonus, Yglesias neatly encompasses my obsession with the predominance of notions of relative morality when describing America's misdeeds:

Now nothing in America’s fairly long history of shabby acts toward our “near abroad” comes close to justifying Russia’s bad actions in its near abroad. But they do provide the necessary context of fairly banal great power politics rather than terrifying and unprecedented expansionism.

Saying "America's actions are more moral than Russia's" is an entirely separate thing from saying "America's actions are moral". The first statement is an academic question, of limited interest to just about anyone. The second statement is a fundamental question, of incredible important to anyone who concerns themselves with their country's commitment to democracy, and to righteousness.