At 07:48 PM 12/26/03 -0500, Michael Kalus wrote: >Then I guess you better start liberating the world.
If I were a neocon asshole, I would. Instead, I regard liberation as a local task, and interfering with sovereignty as the initiation of force, ie an act of war.
Well, clearly bombing and invading them was an initiation of force, in the most literal sense--we shot first. But while I can see that individuals have a right that you violate by initiating force against them, I don't see how that can apply to governments, especially governments whose main method of keeping power involves terrorizing their citizens. Did the Iraqi government have a right to stay in power, or at least not to be invaded? Where did that right come from? From the rights of its people, most of whom apparently didn't have a hell of a lot good to say about it? (That doesn't mean they like *us*, of course.)
In the most morally neutral case, this is like one criminal gang attacking another. If the Sopprano family invades the Bozini family's turf, takes over their protection rackets, and hunts down their godfather, it could be messy, and it really will be an initiation of force in the most literal sense. But is this the same kind of "initiation of force" that we normally talk about when, say, a mugger knocks me over the head and takes my laptop and wallet? (And of course, it's not that morally neutral. It's more like a bunch of vigilantes from the neighborhood next door getting rid of the gang running your neighborhood, for reasons of their own, but probably to your benefit.)
None of this means it made any sense for us to invade Iraq, or that we did it mainly to liberate oppressed Iraqi citizens. But I think using the same kind of language for interactions between individuals and between governments is a mistake.
--John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259
