Disagree.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

If I understand you right I find this incredible. You are (1) backing moral relativism and (2) you are giving priority to a nation's sovereignty over human life?

No Moral Case Against the War
 

stp

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Of course I do.

Invading? If that's what it takes. But certainly we should be doing something.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

I'm going to have to read the piece you linked to if we take this much farther so that I can tell you specifically what I disagree with, but there are a bunch of different reasons why we shouldn't do what you call the moral thing all the time. Some have to do with the limits of our power. If some foreigners are trying to kill other foreigners, often there is little we can do about it. Also, there are questions about what gives us the right to impose our views on others. To me, the latter objections evaporate in the face of genocide. But less so the former. What could we do in Zimbabwe to change things in the long run? And then there are the practical problems. How do we intervene in Zimbabwe if none of its neighbors want us to?

No Moral Case Against the War
 

I fully agree that we can't always do the moral thing. I was just trying to limit the discussion to the moral issue, to see if anyone could come up with a MORAL argument against the invasion. There are many legitimate practical arguments against invasion.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

There are many legitimate practical arguments for invading, too. Everyone pre-war thought he had WMD. Even Old Europe did. Moreover, we have to start somewhere in radically changing the middle east if we ever want to win the war on terrorism. Iraq was the logical place to start.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

It's not always "can't". A realistic -- indeed, conservative -- assessment of the limits of our power would acknowledge that there are very real limits on our ability to change the world. Arguably, Iraq has had a repressive government because of the conditions it finds itself in. A strong government is needed to hold the country together because it coheres so poorly. It appears that Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnis identify more with those groups than they do with the nation. Moreover, they're in a dangerous neighborhood. As strong as we are, we can't do anything about these facts. Hussein was a bad man, but it's not clear yet that we've brought stability or a more legitimate government. Indeed, at this point, the government is less legitimate (in the Weberian sense) -- at least Hussein was installed in power by Iraqi guns.

caption, please
 

No Moral Case Against the War
 

According to hello, God is the sole source of morality. God told me the war against Iraq was immoral. Therefore, it was immoral. QED.

caption, please
 

"Laura, I swear to you that when I told Karl that I wanted to 'fuck Paris,' he didn't realize that I was talking about Old Eur....ouch!"

caption, please
 

"As you know, I'm a natural blond, so you know what my choice is."

No Moral Case Against the War
 

I try to look for the most practical solutions. Sometimes I find the answers because I don't object to immigration. Where the newly oppressed minority (formerly part of the oppressive minority class) is anything resembling 1% or .5% of the population, this country and old europe and whoever else oughta be bringing em in. At least, in the case where they are all of British or Dutch (or some basically single or identifiable) origin. I like to think about the Netherlands as a sorta Israel for Dutch people everywhere. Let these oppressed people move back to their fatherland.

Hell, I'll kick in a bit of money, just so I can quit hearing about them getting raped and killed as Zimbabwe slides completely into chaos and anarchy.

To more directly address the point, military intervention? No way. There are way easier and justifiable/defensible solutions out there, and it doesn't involve intervening on behalf or a formerly-oppressive white minority in Zimbabwe, even if they are the best farmers in the country.

As a really, really good example of what you are talking about with the limits-of-power, I think North Korea is the model case. What in the world can we do there militarily, within reason? The only way we take that country out is by nuking it. And to save its starving people? No thanks. Its an impossible choice, but I'll take their starvation at their G's hands to their destruction at our hands.

Hello

more on automated warfare
 

Describing a brief raid into Khan Younis today, from an article:

>>During the raid, pilotless aircraft fired five missiles at Palestinian targets, killing a total of four people and wounding 18. <<

From a distance, this shit is interesting to watch. Its amazing that they weren't aggressive about the pilotless drones when they were proposed for the Israelis before 1973, they would have been usefel seeing the Egyptians massing on the far side of the Suez before the attacks.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

So basically you are now completely abandoning your original position. Fine with me.

caption, please
 

if her video starts being rentable at hotels isn't there the potential for a "vertical integration" antitrust suit? and who do you want in the WH to minimize the liklihood of anittrust suits? QED

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Muhammad told the 9/11 hijackers to wage war against Christians and Jews and fly planes into buildings. Muhammad says God told him to have sex with 9 year olds, too.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

You really think it is hard to come up with a moral argument against INVASION? Really?

And weren't you just saying that the moral imperative was to do something, rather than to invade? What moral belief do you hold (much less have you cited) that requires invasion?

caption, please
 

Ask Oracle.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Where do these guys get this at? I said the possibility of God (for that, oh, 100% of us who can't prove there is one) is what forces us to naturally worry (okay: fear) the outcome. I think the basis of most acceptable morality is likely to be found in a social compact basis (scratch my back I'll scratch yours, or do unto others, or whatever). I know that I'm hard to follow sometimes, but its amazing how many things are attributed to me when I've actually stated something entirely different.

As it is, most religious texts seem to incorporate almost everything from a social compact standpoint and then add other stuff (72 virgins or whatever). As an example, honor they father and mother? Let me guess, God told that to someone who didn't have children, right? Mmmm, hmmm.

Not directed at you Not_Me. Rather, I could spend all day on these boards saying, nope, never said that, not that either, ooooh, yur getting warm, yada yada yada.

Hello

caption, please
 

Hey, I saw it on the internet, which Al Gore invented. Scratch the QED. Your slide continues.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

I was responding to SS. Don't take what gets said here so seriously. Some of us are just trying to break up the monotony of the work day (Hi Sebby!) others are trolling for sex partners (sniff, I miss Penske).

No Moral Case Against the War
 

While Western countries tend to view the situation in Zimbabwe through a post-colonial prism that focuses on the white minority, what Mugabe is doing is using the few remaining whites as a scapegoat. The minority (or majority, depending on which election results you credit) party is black-led. The white farmers forced off their land can often emigrate. The blacks who starve to death cannot.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Fair enough. Than the first thing any military intervention oughta do is remove the white people and send em to Minnesota, just so its clear that we aren't intervening to put whitey back in charge. After that, I'm not sure what we really hope to accomplish, but whatever.
Democracy? Long shot? Who knows.
Ending genocide? I'm not aware that its whats occurring there now.

Not_democracy should not be the pretext for us to invade someone. If it was, Cuba would have been taken out as soon as the Russians pulled their last people out. Anyhoo, all I'm saying is that those white people should be oughta there. For whatever reason, it seems that the bulk of the stories I read about there focus on whats happening to them.

Hello

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Yeah, I haven't been exposed to sarcasm very much in my past, so a lot of the time I'm not really sure when people are being sarcastic. I would greatly appreciate it if people would label their sarcasm with a "sarcasm appears below" tag, just to avoid any confusion.

Hello

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Rwanda cannot be compared to Iraq. We did not invade Iraq to liberate Iraqis. We said that AFTER we invaded. Prior to invasion, the reason for the invasion was WMD.

Had Bush argued initially that we should invade Iraq for humanitarian reasons, rather than merely default to that basis as an after the fact excuse, your comparison would be valid. But that didn't happen.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

You are a total clown. My bad, I forgot.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

He made this argument pre war. People forget that, pre war, the NYT (and Ty) chided him because he had too many rationales for going to war. That said, WMD was the primary one sold to the country/world.

Doesn't it seem a bit ridiculous that Cheney and Bush are running on the platform that we're at war, only tough guys like them know how to get us through wars, when its only as a result of their own pre-emptive strategy that we're in war at all?

9/11 was not the start of a "war" (the "war" on terrorism is like the "war" on drugs - its a misuse of the word). It was a very successful terrorist attack. There were a variety of response available to us. Going into Iraq was a textbook "war", and it hasn't turned out to be a terribly successful war so far.

So when Cheney and Bush claim they're the only ones who can guide us through this "war", aren't they really saying "We took you into this war, so we're the only guys qualified to get you out."

An Al Gore Moment
 

No Moral Case Against the War
 

True. I misspoke. But he did not get into the humanitarian thing until way late in the game, after the scant WMD evidence did not appear to justify a war.

The bottom line is that Bush supporters should not go into the humaritarian argument because it just smacks of desperation.* It ain't the reason we went over there. We do not engage in actions of that size for humanitarian reasons. Look at what's gone on recently in Sudan. We're tsk tsking it, but we are not starting a military action there.

I cannot laugh enough when I hear Cheney say "Kerry is weak... were he in office, Saddam would still be in power!" Yeh, and that would be a direct threat to us how? Don't tell me because Saddam paid terrorist bounties. He paid them to Palestinian bombers. That's Israel's problem, not ours. And don't tell me because AQ was in Iraq. They weren't.** No secular dictator gets in bed with religiuos nuts who seek governance by mullahs. Saddam marginalized killed the mullahs. I think a great case could be made that it would have been strategically wiser to KEEP Saddam in power to offset the power of the religious loons. We could've brought him back into the fold, but that wouldn't have been too popular with our friends in SA or Kuwait.

* When I make this argument, my GOP friends call me a heartless ogre who'd be complicit in Saddam's crimes against humanity. Notwithstanding the comedic value of hearing such heartless free-marketeers/life-is-tough-deal-with-it types suddenly turn into bleeding heart humanitarians, this argument usually ends when they're reminded who Saddam's largest patron was during the late 70s to mid-to-late 80s.

** Ansar Al Islam operated solely in the area of Northern Iraq controlled by our allies, the Kurds. Now they operate throughout Iraq.

Back to the social conservative thingy
 

Rufus on running with lawyers blog got a response to his "why W?" question that I reposted here last week. A guy by the name of Jack said in part

• As to George W Bush - it's an American thing. You ain't ever gonna understand it ... Real America that has saved your sorry asses time after time after time only to have us rednecks that give our lives on foreign shores for a flag we love and cherish as much as we cherish our Nation's profoundly Christian heritage roots and foundation spat upon so you can practice the Law that enslaves and buggers and corrupts.

Rufus's response answers the question that club had the other day -- why are you (me) so worried about the social conservatives? Rufus made the case much better than I did:

• Jack seems like a guy with a lot of resentments. I won’t speculate as to why that is. But let me make this very clear, I don’t look down upon Jack, nor do I hate Jack. I am, however, afraid of Jack. The problem is that the reason I’m afraid of Jack is that he’s trying to impose his values on me, but that if I resist and my values win out won’t those values be imposed on Jack? I guess. Maybe. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Well it is. You see, I don’t want to force Jack’s daughter to have an abortion, but he wants to prevent someone else’s daughter from having one; I don’t want to force Jack to listen to Howard Stern, but he wants to stop me from listening to Howard Stern; I don’t believe that Jack is going to hell, but he believes that I am. So on the scale of who is closer to American ideals of individual liberty, my values win. Sorry Jack.

http://runningwithlawyers.typepad.co...and_.html#more (emphasis supplied)

Money or liberty, sebby. It's that simple.

Back to the social conservative thingy
 

I think Rufus hits the nut of what I've been so inarticulately struggling to explain. There's a letter to the editor in the NYTimes this morning that says roughly the same thing very well (I recall its in response to the Bishop of Denver's OpEd piece last week wherein he demanded all Catholics vote based on setm cell/abortion policy).

I notice "conservatives" hate when this argument is raised because it drives them nuts to have to admit that they're actually in favor of increased govt regulation of people. And worse, the "conservatives" are not just favoring business regulation, like the Dems, they're demanding regulation that gets almost all the way into the bedroom. They want business to have more liberty than you or I have in our personal lives. Except as to our private gun ownership...

The best, however, is Bush's "flipping" of the abortion issue. Instead of saying "I favor a culture of control over other people's choices" he says "I favor a culture of life" and cleverly argues that abortion is robbing the unborn of a choice. You gotta hand it to him - thats a nifty retort. Of course, its Achilles' Heel is that it tees up the issue of who's choice should take priority - the living breathing woman or the gestating tissue or fetus (depending on what stage the pregnancy is at). In that argument, Bush loses. But alas, he still gets to claim the moral high road by claiming he's the voice of the voiceless.

WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

That last one scares me. If only b/c pre-president Bush was never very curious about the rest of the world.

No Moral Case Against the War
 

I'd bet that Mahatma Ghandi and most Quakers would disagree with that writer.

I can't make the case convincingly, because I am neither a pacifist nor well-schooled in the philosophy, but that is one example of a moral case against the Iraq war.

S_A_M

No Moral Case Against the War
 

I used Rwanda to show how TW's general statement about going to war in a foreign country does not work because the rule he/she proposed would have rendered any U.S. support in Rwanda "morally unsupportable." To the extent one thinks some intervention in Rwanda would not have been immoral, then my example worked to show the uselessness of TW's simple proposed rule. From herein, I will refer to Taxwonk as "The Twit".

Supreme Court vacancy soon?
 

Not really, Hank. There were reasons for invading Iraq, much as there are reasons for cleaning up the genocidal and crazed sociopathic acts of any number of dictators in any number of countries. Plus, Iraq has oil. A whole shitload of oil, which the North Sea is starting to produce less of every day.

All of the above were reasons for Blair and the rest of the coalition of the willing to plunge on in. What I meant by calling it a smokescreen was that invading Iraq really did absolutely nothing to reduce the terrorist threat to the US, but it did provide Bush with an opportunity to declare victory over something.

I can live with that.