because there is no basis for sovereignty there!!! the people have no say in the outcomes of their own lives...ask the afghan people today if they're happy the taliban is gone. what an abstract, intellectual argument in a bubble. but you might remember that little thing...al qaeda was working out of afghanistan! remember that whole thing about the world trade center? it was in the paper for a few days...not sure if you caught it.
1) Yes...I didn't realize that an action is justified the moment it becomes fait accomplis. 2) To a degree, but moreover I saw it at the time as the 1st step on a slippery slope, and nothing I have seen since has dissuaded me of that view.
In your opinion. We are talking about the same basic element here: Do nations have the right to do what they want within their own borders..everything else is subjective. As usual, you answer with that ( But they're hitting their wives with newspapers, we're using our fists, so it's entirely different) We Set The Standard For What's Right, Therefore, We Are Automnatically Right argument, and side step the moral issue behind it.
which kinds of nations? nations that are actually marginally accountable to the people they govern? and, no...gross human rights abuses can't go unpunished from the outside, if that's what it takes to stop them (see Nazi Germany). but for the most part, when the people of a nation have no say under a regime, the term for victory is "liberation."
MM, don't you see what you're saying? You establish our way as THE way, and say that those differing are falling short, therefore their right to sovereignty is void...Sovereignty, as a concept, has been around a hell of a lot longer than the US, or the American way of doing things. When Nation A decides that Nation B isn't living up to Nation A's standards, whatever they are, and then uses that percieved shortcoming to excuse invasion, sovereignty no longer exists. And, yes, re: the 9-11 thing, I'd like to thank you for confirming my original point,(about honoring moral obligations only when pragmatically advantageous, otherwise looking the other way ) unless we have bombed Yemen or Saudi Arabia and I'd not heard...
I might agree with your position if it weren't centered on the principle that the American version of human rights and responsible government were the standard for all others to abide by...As is, it would be hard to find the US wanting when they set the standard for you, no? Unfortunately for your argument, if you apply your reasoning to history, there would be no United States, as the massive human rights violations ( slavery, native genocide, etc.) in our past would have prompted foreign invasion and resettlement based on whatever the standards of the power of the day were...
illegitimate governments...ones not elected by their own people...ones that don't exist with the consent of the people they govern...i don't mourn for the passing of these governments. again..you're right...we should have just left Nazi Germany alone. they were sovereign after all.
Ummm..I hate to take away from the Power of the Rolleyes, but we did leave them alone...and exactly for that reason. Depending on which 'we' you mean, a few salient facts... 1) The pre-Us Allies didn't intervene with Germany until they threatened the sovereignty of other nations. 2) Even after that the US did not get involved. The US only declared war once in WWII...on Japan. Reason? You guessed it...sovereignty.( Pearl Harbour) The US didn't declare war on Germany, Hitler declared war on the US in supprt of his ally, Japan..To wit, we did leave them alone. Because, as you say, they were sovereign. No one, repeat, no one invaded Germany because of internal issue, however heinous. History does provide plenty examples of nations invading other nations because of, er, altruistic issues. *The Romans invaded Gaul, and killed over a million in support of a potentially oppressed minor ally, and the potential threat the Gauls represented to Rome. * The Crusaders conquered much of Syria and the Levant in the name of God, Justice, and to protect pilgrims, killing countless infidels, heathens, and/or innocents along the way. * The Spanish conquered most of central America, and killed millions, in the name of God, and to save those poor heathens from the oppression of their tyranical aristocracy. Human scarifice was even mentioned. * The British conquered India, major portions of Africa, and much of North America, and killed hundreds of thousands, in the name of spreading 'civilization', God, and the King's Justice. Et cetera...Of course, history records the nobility of these efforts in the name of promoting their various moral rights, and the fact that the moral wrongers happened to possess resources that the righters wanted access to was coincidental, just as the oil is incidental to this current issue. Obviously if their were human rights issues going on in a less fertile area, like, say, Rwanda, we would step in with equal zeal.
so we were wrong for not kicking hitler's ass to begin with..it ultimately would have saved lives if we had. lesson learned... and if you're comparing the crusades to the liberation of Iraq, you're reaching. are you a college professor? just asking..don't mean anything personal by it.
Sure...when a nation hosts terrorist training camps so those terrorists can then fly airplanes into office towers, they take their chances at being invaded and told what to do...not so when you are merely doleing out the normal punishment for murder which has been handed out since the dawn of time all over the world.
You have got to be kidding. The camps ran in Afghanistan trained terrorists which perpetrated 9/11. The US would have been fully justified in declaring all out war and killing every damned thing in sight. Are you REALLY saying that you can't see the difference or are you being argumentative just for the hell of it?
