Is the War in Iraq Justified?

[Nirvana-Eld]

Wasn't it evil when GW Bush declared war on and killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi's for no provable reason? But isn't he a good Christian that follows the Bible's teachings?

Please tell me that you cringe at the sight of this terrible mis-understanding.

This was brought up in a thread concerning the nature of evil and it lead me to wonder about different opinions. And to link this to religion, im going to provide St. Thomas Aquainas' theory on just war. Three things are needed to make a war just.

1) a just cause

2) a just(legitimate) authority

3) a just intent

Personally i think the current war passes this test, but it is up to you. I would like to see facts, statistics, and logic, not the biased opinionated lie seen above.

[Cephus]

Legitimate Authority - The U.N. is and would be, yet it and its members didn't act. So are we to be the kid (U.S.) on the street (the world) watching kids(innocent Iraqis) get beat up by a big bully (Saddam)? I wouldn't want to be just a bystander that sits a shakes his head saying "pity pity". If no one else does anything then why not us to stand up in the face of injustice.

We had no legitimate authority. That rested with the U.N. and whether or not you like what they have done, their failure to act as you might have liked does not give the U.S. the right to go off and do whatever we want. The U.S. had no legitimate authority to invade a soverign nation who had done nothing whatsoever to us and was not, in any way, shape or form, a credible threat. What we did was little more than vigilante justice.

[Nirvana-Eld]

So then my question is who? Who would have saved them from tyranny and crimes against humanity? I agree that the U.N. was the legitimate authority, but their actions were insufficient in every way. They tried a diplomatic route, and that obviously did not work. The United States is a legitimate authority. It was the U.N.'s their failure to act on their own international law sat up by the Geneva Convention that gives us the right. If a governing body fails to protect its people, then it is the people's right and responsibility to do it themselves. That's basic paraphrased John Locke for ya. The Iraqi people obviously wanted something done as we see in retrospect, and they could not do anything. We proposed that we do. The U.N. denied it. According to John Locke, the real inspiration behind the Dclaration of Independence, our founding fathers, and ultimately International law, at this point we have a right, even responsibility to do something oiurselves. You call it vigilante justice, I call it basic inalienable rights. Tomato, tomato.

[juliod]

look at the statistics, of all the oil being sold from Iraq, none of the profit is being kept by the United States, In fact, we are doing this war at our own cost. To say that its for oil does not make much sense.

We are doing it at the cost of the US taxpayer, not at the cost of the US oil companies and other corporations. Indeed the war has been immensely profitable for Bush/Cheney-connected corporations. See Corporations of the whirlwind:

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/c ... lwind.html

The business practices relating to this "war" would have cause unimaginable scandal if they had occured during WWII, or indeed any previous US war.

I believe that all or nearly all of the profit from Iraqi oil is being retained by US oil companies. First, there was Cheney's so-called "energy taskforce", secret meetings apparently with oil executives. He refuses to disclose what was discussed and with whom (this is unprecedented for an elected official to have "secret" meetings with companies and not publically disclose the details). The documents relating to this meeting that have been publically revealed related to... you guessed it... Iraqi oil. This was before 9/11 of course.

Then there is the studies published by the Project for a New American Century, a neo-con think-tank heavy with people who later to become members of the Dubya administration. They advocated the invasion of Iraq and the seizure of their oil resources for import into the US. In fact this scheme has been under development since the oil crisis of the 70's. See The 30-Year Itch:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... 73_01.html

Lastly, and I bet you don't know this, US oil companies have been granted full, blanket immunity in regards to Iraqi oil by an Executive Order. Under this order, US corporations are completely immune to US and Iraqi law. They cannot be sued, regulated or challenged for anything they do in relation to Iraqi oil, neither by the US government, US citizens, nor even the current or future Iraqi government. Commentators have stated that this EO goes so far beyond any possible business need that it "cancels the rule of law" for US companies profiting from the invasion of Iraq.

DanZ

[USIncognito]

So then my question is who? Who would have saved them from tyranny and crimes against humanity?

The only real "flip flopping" that goes on in Washington is which side (and I mean Conservative Democrats/Liberal Democrats back in the day when the Republicans could only get presidents elected as well as todays allignments) is trying to claim that the U.S. should be the world's policeman and which is saying we can't/shouldn't be.

The problem I see, and I think I see more clearly as the years go by, is that if we were to violate the soverignty of every nation where we felt there was tyranny and crimes against humanity going on, not only would we need to reinstitute the draft, we'd need to mobilize, and then deploy the majority of this nation's population. Democracy is much more widespread than it was 20 years ago, but there are still a lot of despots and crappy places to live in this world.

Bean counting aside, how do we determine which countries to liberate? (And I'll leave aside for the moment whether we've "liberated" Iraq to democratically become another Iran) Why do we go into Bosnia, but not Rwanda? Why crush the Taliban, but ignore the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia? Why was an emasculated Iraq more important to liberate than a rapidly going nuclear (and with a thriving ICBM program) North Korea? Cuba is closer and things are a lot worse in Sudan, and yet they get lip service while Iraq gets invaded? Why is that?

I was opposed to this folly from the beginning, and it's execution has been excruciating for me to watch. A lot of the hawk apologists keep harping on about how it took the U.S. "x" number of years (they claim everything from 1776 to 1781 as the end of the Revolution) in order to get a Constitution, but that's a red herring since it distracts from the fact that New Englanders and Carolinians weren't killing each other while while hammered out the most effective means of governance.

I mean, based on the most historically accurate time table for the nascient U.S. (Treaty of Paris to Ratification) that's 8 years of 1000 Iraqis and 10-50 American troops dying and $10,000,000,000.00 a week. Is that argument supposed to convert us to a more optimistic outlook on how this folly will play out?

[youngborean]

Legitimate Authority - The U.N. is and would be, yet it and its members didn't act. So are we to be the kid (U.S.) on the street (the world) watching kids(innocent Iraqis) get beat up by a big bully (Saddam)? I wouldn't want to be just a bystander that sits a shakes his head saying "pity pity". If no one else does anything then why not us to stand up in the face of injustice.

Well this is truly the isssue. In a perfect world the UN would be the authority. The only problem is the security council has never done anything positive, UN forces have always been bystanders to massacres. They have proven that the UN is only somewhat useful for handing out food inefficiently, and useless at policing. I find it silly that so many countries want to (and are allowed to) participate in a world wide democracy that are not even based on truly democratic principles. I believe this is why so many of the activities of the UN are defunct. It has only been an avenue for the wealthy to cohort and plan trade relationships and really nothing more. It would only have authority if Nation States are willing to cede that authority, but they will never do that. Because they all want autonomous rights to protect their interests.

[micatala]

Legitimate Authority - The U.N. is and would be, yet it and its members didn't act. So are we to be the kid (U.S.) on the street (the world) watching kids(innocent Iraqis) get beat up by a big bully (Saddam)? I wouldn't want to be just a bystander that sits a shakes his head saying "pity pity". If no one else does anything then why not us to stand up in the face of injustice.

I would disagree that the U.N. 'didn't act.' Yes, I can understand the frustration that some feel at the perceived slowness or inadequacy of the response, but I don't think it is fair to say that the U.N. was just sitting on its hands.

In addition, even if the U.N. is not generally perceived to be an effective de facto 'legitamizing authority,' that does not automatically mean the U.S. was justified in taking matters into its own hands. When we are talking about a pre-emptive strike against a sovereign nation, however unpalatable we find that nation's ruler, we need more legitamization than just our own domestic considerations. This is an international issue with international consequences and so the authority needs to be in some sense international, IMHO.

Also, remember that our original reasons for going to war had really very little to do with freeing the Iraqi people from the rule of a brutal dictator. The rationale was principally WMD's and the threat they posed to other nations in the area, and possibly even the U.S. Freeing the Iraqis was only a 'bonus reason.' If freeing the Iraqis was the only reason for going to war, then I think it is pretty clear we would not have gone to war.

Finally, I would agree with Cephus' comments on this point. We took the law into our own hands, and really, in my view, made a sham of the idea of legitimate authority.

Last Resort - how many years did he defy sanctions/inspections? I think 14 is the right number correct me if I'm wrong. There were 17 U.N. sanctions passed in this amount of time. If the U.N. is un-willing to take any real action against tyrrany, after 14 years of attempts at diplomatic solutions, what would work?

Granted Saddam was and would probably continue to try and 'game the system' as much as he thought he could get away with. However, I don't think the facts show that the U.N. actions had no effect at all. The fact that Saddam's attitude was 'defiant' does not mean that the sanctions, etc. were entirely ineffectual.

I think there was reasonable evidence available at the time to conclude that the risk of maintaining the existing 'go slow' approach was minimal, and that there was also enough to be gained by maintaining this approach so that we cannot say we were at the point of 'last resort.' Neither the passing of time nor the loss of patience are in and of themselves enough to make a situation one of 'last resort.'

Reasonable Hope and Success - I beleive I should let the Iraqi people speak for themselves on this one, The elections today/yesterday had a voter turnout of 70%+. In Saddam's home town of Tikrit the voter turnout was 80%. Even Suni religious leaders even urged voting. (Suni makes up most of the remaining insurgency) If Iraqis thought that there was no hope for a peaceful future or success, why would they vote? There is an obvious optimism about the future within Iraq.

I say HURRAY for this.

However, this is being retrospective. The question is not 'did it turn out OK' but 'was there a reasonable expection beforehand that things would turn out OK, enough so that the risk of failure, the unavoidable loss of life, and the deterioration of international relations, etc. would be worth taking.' My view was that it was not, and the fact that we might get lucky and have things turn out OK does not mean that this assessment was wrong. Certainly history would indicate that the kind of action we took was a high risk gamble. See Russia in Afhanistan, U.S. in Viet Nam, U.S. in Phillipines, U.S. in Cuba, France in Algeria, etc.

The problem I see, and I think I see more clearly as the years go by, is that if we were to violate the soverignty of every nation where we felt there was tyranny and crimes against humanity going on, not only would we need to reinstitute the draft, we'd need to mobilize, and then deploy the majority of this nation's population. Democracy is much more widespread than it was 20 years ago, but there are still a lot of despots and crappy places to live in this world.

A very valid point.

I would also argue that, were we to implement a widespread policy of such pre-emptive wars, we would greatly destabilize the world-wide situation by making such actions appear to be OK/justified/etc. We would open up a huge can of worms, and find that other countries would follow our lead and engage in their own 'self-justified' pre-emptive wars.

[Cephus]

So then my question is who? Who would have saved them from tyranny and crimes against humanity?

The obvious answer was the Iraqi people rising up against Saddam and deposing him. Certainly we could have helped by supplying arms and training in such an effort. But they didn't want to do that, did they?

I agree that the U.N. was the legitimate authority, but their actions were insufficient in every way. They tried a diplomatic route, and that obviously did not work. The United States is a legitimate authority.

Who decided that the U.S. is a legitimate authority? Who elected us as the world's policeman? Please show where any country signed any kind of agreement that the United States could invade their country, as we desire, and depose what we consider to be a bad regime.

It was the U.N.'s their failure to act on their own international law sat up by the Geneva Convention that gives us the right. If a governing body fails to protect its people, then it is the people's right and responsibility to do it themselves.

Exactly, it's the people of IRAQ's right and responsibility, not us. Or should some other country come invade the U.S. because they don't like how our government works? After all, supposedly they have the right.

That's basic paraphrased John Locke for ya. The Iraqi people obviously wanted something done as we see in retrospect, and they could not do anything. We proposed that we do. The U.N. denied it. According to John Locke, the real inspiration behind the Dclaration of Independence, our founding fathers, and ultimately International law, at this point we have a right, even responsibility to do something oiurselves. You call it vigilante justice, I call it basic inalienable rights. Tomato, tomato.

Then I eagerly await someone to come in and overthrow the U.S. government. After all, the whole planet has a responsibility to get Bush chucked out of office.

[micatala]

I for one would be happy to have Bush deposed, if it can be done non-violently.

Maybe we could just retroactively correct the error of the 2000 election?

[Nirvana-Eld]

The obvious answer was the Iraqi people rising up against Saddam and deposing him. Certainly we could have helped by supplying arms and training in such an effort. But they didn't want to do that, did they?

I would hope that history proves otherwise. The Kurdish people, which make up a more than decent chunk of the Iraqi population, had been fighting against the government since the early 1980's, the best instance is when members of the Barzani tribe carried out a revolt that killed a couple dozen Iraqi army men in 1983. In retaliation, The Iraqi government comitted an attempted genocide. There was even an assasination attempt that lead to countless more deaths in retalliation. During Saddam's regime, estimates are coming out of Iraq that say he killed at least a million people. They obviously would have done something if they weren't paralyzed by fear. And we now see that since they are openly participating in this democracy with a constant death threat from the insurgents, that they are optimistic about what is to come. Their voter turn-out was far greater than ours here in America, in Tikrit, Saddam's home-town, the turn-out was 80%! you cannot honestly argue with that can you?

Who decided that the U.S. is a legitimate authority? Who elected us as the world's policeman? Please show where any country signed any kind of agreement that the United States could invade their country, as we desire, and depose what we consider to be a bad regime.

According to John Locke, there is a social contract between a government(U.N.) and its citizens(member nations and their people) It is that the citizens give up some of their rights to get protection from the government. If the government (U.N.) fails to protect its citizens (Iraqi people) Then the citizens have a right to do what is necessary to achieve that protection against the will of the government. You can see evidence of this theory in the Declaration of Independence. (Thomas Jefferson was a big fan of John Locke). We, the Iraqi people, and a good protion of the free world, decided Saddam was detremental to the protection of rights (and lives for that matter) and the legitmate government with the power to do something, didn't. We as members of this government, saw our fellow man in need, and acted accordingly. We are not the only ones who "consider it bad". Listen to the testimonies at Saddam's trial, they thought so too, only with 100x the conviction and first hand experience.

Exactly, it's the people of IRAQ's right and responsibility, not us. Or should some other country come invade the U.S. because they don't like how our government works? After all, supposedly they have the right.

And as I stated before, they didn't have the ability to overthrow the present regime. It's not that we don't like how their government works, (thought I would like to see one example of a dictatorship that DOES work) It's that 1,000,000 people were killed, and countless more raped and tortured. These were crimes against humanity. That alone should provide enough justification for the ousting of any government that corrupt.

Then I eagerly await someone to come in and overthrow the U.S. government. After all, the whole planet has a responsibility to get Bush chucked out of office.

I would like to see credible statistics and evidence for this, please.

juliod I am working on responses to yours as we speek sorry but I felt that I had to answer this one in particular.

[Nirvana-Eld]

OK juliod I'm staying up late for you bud.

First I am not upholding G.W.'s pre-war reasons for invasion, I'm seeing the results in retorspect and calling them justified from that, the ends justify the means to an extent don't they?

I would like to see evidence from a credible source of these mercenaries you spoke of in your first response, because I myself have never heard of them and I don't believe that an army such as that f the United States would need that type of support.

I am not under-stating or discrediting Martin van Creveld's accountablity as a historian and a military theorist, yet it seems that his views on the American wars in the second half of the 20th century are very "anit-american". I can't help bu tfeel that he is slightly biased against any Amercan action on a global scale.

But again his attacks were on G.W. and I'm not here to help him justify the war with the mess he put himself in, but I'm here to look at the overwhelming inherent good that came out of it and the fact that under the given circumstances, a war with Saddam's regime was totally justified. I would also say that on a global scale much more needs to be done and more involvement from the rest of the world is needed. In other threads I have called our society "emotionally apathetic". All these countries that oppose the war, (France , Germany, and Russia, to name a few) Have done nothing of nearly as much significance to fight injustices around the world, namely Africa, which I think should be a big priority once Iraq is stable. But the problems in Iraq we're a long-time coming, and severe to put it mildly. Injustice is rampant around the world, but theres only so much one country can do. Global participation is necessary.

I felt like i needed to rant and get up on a soap-box there, sorry.

Your source for your information in your second response is undeniably biased and anti-bush. On the home-page theres a link to a cartoon parody of the president for God's sake! If i had a more reliable resource i would agree more with our oil standpoint, but with links to parodies that question the crediibility of our elected officials its very hard to see passed the obvious biased.

I will admit though that at first glance i find this...

US oil companies have been granted full, blanket immunity in regards to Iraqi oil by an Executive Order

a little fishy, but for all we know there could have been toally justifiable reasons for that order. We aren't the exactly in the know of government beurocratic process and the purpose of some bills and orders. It is easily mis-interpreted by us, the common man.

See you later