marcos et al: I am a US citizen who considers this and most
other US wars since WWII to be mistakes. It is crucial why one believes this. I consider human rights to be primary, and gov'ts justified as the protectors of those rights. The consensus view is that governments are at least co-primary, having a "right" to exist, and sovereign immunity against external interference. This view, enshrined in the UN and other parts of the laws of nations, inherently enshrines gov'ts (often mistakely equated with nations) as primary objects of protection, charged individually with protecting their people (who are thus rendered secondary).
When barbarians achieve power over a population, as Saddam has, the issue is or ought to be their human rights violations. Whether the barbarians are domestic or foreign usually (and differingly) affects the capcacity, will and means of the people to resist, and the willingness of foreign gov'ts to aid their resistance (witness Kuwait '91). Whether the source of oppression is domestic or foreign has no effect upon the existence of human rights violations, even if many effects and duration may vary.
So I take issue with:
the billions of us on this world will never accept domination by a few in the back rooms of DC, this PNAC agenda ['Project For A New American Century'] .... it is not human to submit to such concentration of power, and there have to be effects coming from the attempt
That isn't the US, because the rest of the world isn't Iraq. Even the rare nation that draws a US invasion has a very brief "submission" period, and its people have much more freedom thereafter (until old ways resume).
I believe (admittedly, very much a minority view) in the right of the truly righteous (who can be another gov't) to remove a gov't that has (long enough, hard enough, with no end in sight) violated the basic human rights of its people. I don't mean denying them socialist "rights" to material status; I mean killing, raping, torturing, etc.
Of course, that position can never be international law, as there never has been or will be a shortage of power-lovers and outright evildoers claiming to be truly righteous. Yet that doesn't prevent recognition that, in any given case, the elimination of a regime truly is being done by the righteous, for the innocent, and as a "just war" (in a civil and theological sense, even under Catholic doctrine, notwithstanding the Pope's view of this war).
I oppose this war because I agree with you about "the effects coming from" it. I see my country reaping a harvest of blood and ill will for decades, and because I doubt we'll change Iraq in the long term. While debatable, I think the better way for the US to deal with the Muslim world is to try to achieve justice in Israel, stop supporting corrupt regimes worldwide, and start making people pay the "real" cost of energy in less destructive and counterproductive measures than our armament, bombs, and soldiers' lives. Meanwhile, I would extirpate Al Quaeda wherever they can be found. A nicer, more limited, but still very stark form of carrot and stick. |
