----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 7:23 PM Subject: Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
> On Wed, 6 Apr 2005 16:48:44 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote > > > If Iraq does end up as a stable > > democracy - and the odds of that are higher than they > > have ever been in all of Iraqi history - are you going > > to come back and admit that those evil > > neoconservatives destroyed one of the vilest > > governments on earth and replaced it with something > > pretty good _while you did everything you could to > > stop it from happening_? Who, in that equation, will > > have been looking out for poor, brown people who are > > far away? > > > Are you saying that war is the only way to get rid of an evil dictator? It can be. Bush I and Clinton tried other means for ~12 years. I think, after that time, it was safe to say that Hussian wasn't losing his grip on the country and wouldn't without an invasion. Again, let me state that I was opposed to going in because I didn't think we were prepared to handle the peace afterwards. We might suceed in spite of ourselves...but if we do or not, the question with regards to Iraq has always been a practical one to me. The practical questions need to be answered with ethics in mind, but I see nothing inherently wrong in overturning Hussein with military power. Whether it was right or wrong to me depended on the best assessment we could make of our ability to suceed in nation building. Gautam and I were on opposite sides of this question, but I saw our differences as differences in assesment of practical questions, not questions of principal. >Or > war was the only way to get rid of this one? Am I mistaken in believing that > in almost every other case, our policy has been not to go to war for that > reason? Is "removing an evil dictator" justification for this war? Well, let's look at three other cases 1) The Balkins 2) Rwanda 3) The Sudan 1) In the first case, Clinton finally pushed Europe into violating international law to stop the Serbians in their actions of genocide/ethnic cleansing. The Dutchbat report gives excrutiating detail on how the UN's policy was to break it's word concerning protection and stand aside to allow genocide. Since Russia supported Serbia, there was no legal way for NATO to act. It did anyways. Serbia did not pose a direct risk to the US. It did pose an indirect risk to Europe, so the European governments went along with the US after Clinton pushed. This was only after years of trying to stop the conflict through the UN. 2) In the second case, Clinton did not stop the genocide in Rwanda. He admited guilt for that, and I think that is valid. But, there was no will at the UN to stop the genocide. It would have been illegal to stop the genocide. There would have been an outcry against it. American soldiers may have found themselves in a quagmire. They question is, would it be moral to illegally save 500,000 lives? In this case, we know that there wasn't time for other options, the genocide happened quickly. 3) In Sudan, there has been a lot of opposition to any effective action concerning the genocide. Bush has not done enough, in my opinion, but even Neli had to admit he did far more than anyone else. In addition, he was stopped from doing anything effectively through the UN. There is one good practical reasons for countries to look the other way with the genocide...Arabs have a lot more oil than black Africans. Gautam, a couple of years ago, listed four questions that must be answered in the affirmative for a war of choice to be waged by the US. 1) Is it in the best interest of the US? 2) Is it in the best interest of the people in the country/area? 3) Have other realistic options been tried already? 4) Is the a reasonable good chance that the war will achieve the desired outcome. This was just before Gulf War II. I think they are a good list of questions. They met virtually no response. I think it would be useful to either question, modify, or use these criteria in evaluating our actions. It should be clear that my objections were with point 4 (including problems that would come to surface after the war), which led to my questioning 1. Gautam had a more sanguine view of 4, which let to an affirmative answer for 1. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
