You keep defining it with circularity: we killed blah blah without just cause, so we are acting as thugs. If the cause were just, we are not acting as thugs. You didn't even address the humanitarian considerations, of course. But beyond that, you do not seriously address the problem with making the decision entirely a matter for the UN, when there is substantial reason to believe that the process of dealing with Iraq had been corrupted by Saddam's bribery. There are legal scholars that argued, at the time, that we were within the letter of the law, but even had we not been, the technicalities of "international law" are no way to judge the justice of an action. War breaks out in the absence of an international system that can deal with such things juridically. "International law" is a misnomer, even under treaty provisions, insofar as there is no framework for judging or executing it.
I do not accept the definitive jurisdiction of a body largely composed of authoritarian regimes. Even the Security Council is tainted by the lack of a democratic culture amongst some of its members. Furthermore, under our constitution, any treaty provision can be over- ridden by simple statute. For the sake of diplomacy, we try to avoid that, but it is always there: we do not relinquish sovereignty, even to the UN, on any matter, most especially national security.
To me, then, the United States government gets to resolve the controversy over war and peace, not the UN. As long as its decision is reasonable, which I consider the invasion of Iraq to have been, it should be supported. |
