A strange question about war

[Zevico]

I was thinking back to 2 years ago when America decided to invade Iraq. At the time I supported that action, not so much from 'weapons of mass destruction' as the belief that a genocidal dictator should not remain in power.
Ours is a society that is ostensibly opposed to genocide. We have been educated by World War 2, where not only the Nazis, but the ideology of isolationism, caused the deaths of millions.
With that in mind, I would like to ask whether anyone on these boards believes that the murder of millions of civilians, or hundreds of thousands, or what have you, by a government is reason enough to invade it. If you do not think so, please state why.
If you agree, please state whether you supported the Iraq war (and why), and whether you would support military intervention in a country such as Sudan, where acts of genocide did occur, and finally, whether you would support intervention in Sudan over Iraq or vice versa. Again, why you think so is most important here.

[BeBMan]

I think it is (or better: can be) indeed a (or better: one) reason. I don't think however this means "we" (US, NATO, "the west") should invade in such cases automatically.

Now that was a clear answer, wasn't it?

[DinoDoc]

Re: A strange question about war

Originally posted by Zevico
With that in mind, I would like to ask whether anyone on these boards believes that the murder of millions of civilians, or hundreds of thousands, or what have you, by a government is reason enough to invade it. If you do not think so, please state why.

In and of itself, no it isn't a valid reason to invade. (I was also opossed to the Kosovo intervention) Idealist crusades like that only serve to lead a nation into unecessary conflicts and weaken its hand should real threats come up.

[:) Smiley]

Genocide has deeper causes than a single dictator. Besides war is hardly the best way to deal with it, for example, during WWII, if preventing genocide was the goal, it would have been easier to simply take all the refugees.

[BeBMan]

Refugees were probably one of the reasons why Europe supported the war against Serbia. IIRC Germany took the most from the Bosnian war, and it always means problem to have lots of refugees for long in a country - costs, social tensions. I don't advocate not to let refugees in when they are in danger of being murdered. But still I think this is mainly struggling with symptoms instead of going to the root.

That's why I think it is not only about Idealist crusades here. It is always about the consequences.

[GePap]

In purely idealistic terms, yes, I would say a state loses its legitimacy by engaging in wholesale destruction of its own people.

But the real world does not work that way, and besides, every action has consequences. In theory, the invader does only good if the situation they replace is less deadly than that they found. The thing is, Saddam's days of Great Terror were over. Daily life in Iraq in 2002 wasone of repression, but not of mass killings-those ended in the early 90's, and most happened in the 80's.

In those moralistic terms, removing Saddam from power anywhere from 1980 to 1992 would have been utterly moral. But afterwards, its iffy.

If we were to examine Iraqi death rates and see that more Iraqis died from political violence from May 2003 to today than in the same time period begining i March 2003 and going backwards, you would have to question the invasion solely on the grounds given.

[Pekka]

Gepap, right, and that's why I feel it's utmost important to stay there as long as it takes. To leave it in harms way will result into the same situation prior to the war, and then what good did the war do to begin with.

As far as war as a tool to remove genocide, well, if it's clear cut genocide going on right there and then, then yes I think intervention is in order, using military force. Kill the bad guys. Very rarely it is a clear cut case though... but if it is, then let's go there and make it stop.

In ideal world, everyone would have the policy we have, and that is to not cross our own borders, only self defense, and that means defense of own borders, not foreign interests. If everyone does that, then we have no wars, or at least the bad guy is easy to spot, because it's only illegal invasions

In case of internal problem, genocide, with the UN that would have a good army, they could go in and fight the genociders into submission.

THis would be the ideal world. Unfortunately it just doesn't go that way.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap
In purely idealistic terms, yes, I would say a state loses its legitimacy by engaging in wholesale destruction of its own people.

But the real world does not work that way, and besides, every action has consequences. In theory, the invader does only good if the situation they replace is less deadly than that they found. The thing is, Saddam's days of Great Terror were over. Daily life in Iraq in 2002 wasone of repression, but not of mass killings-those ended in the early 90's, and most happened in the 80's.

In those moralistic terms, removing Saddam from power anywhere from 1980 to 1992 would have been utterly moral. But afterwards, its iffy.

If we were to examine Iraqi death rates and see that more Iraqis died from political violence from May 2003 to today than in the same time period begining i March 2003 and going backwards, you would have to question the invasion solely on the grounds given.

That about sums it up. I don't necessarily agree with a pure body-count determination, though. There's a lot of pluses and minuses that aren't measured by just the number of corpses. Also at stake are things like political freedom, quality of life and the geopolitical situation (the last only as it will impact likely future human/civil rights)

Fundamentally I don't think there was anything hugely morally wrong with the invasion of Iraq. I do think that it will end up having more negatives than positives, so based solely on my principles for a just war it was at best miscalculated. From the point of view of the American government it was possibly the dumbest thing that they could have done.

[Patroklos]

In those moralistic terms, removing Saddam from power anywhere from 1980 to 1992 would have been utterly moral. But afterwards, its iffy.

I don't agree with this, Hitler would not all of a sudden become tolerable because he ran out of Jews to kill, or the Serbs becasue they exhausted their supply of muslims to slaughter.

There were a whole lot of people, pretty much all of the military, that could care less about WMDs as a justification for war as we had already had enough. Thats why when people talk to me about the missing WMDs, it does not matter in regards to my personal support for the war. It was just one of several reasons, any one of which by themselves would make me support invasion.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: A strange question about war

Originally posted by Zevico
With that in mind, I would like to ask whether anyone on these boards believes that the murder of millions of civilians, or hundreds of thousands, or what have you, by a government is reason enough to invade it. If you do not think so, please state why.

No.

For starters, how do we know what is alleged is actually real? The most obvious example being Iraq having BCN weapons. Clearly, the US adminstration lied, but the media didn't do that much better. How many of them run stories after stories based on "undisclosed sources" and such that turned out to be all rubbish later?

Another example is Chavez. Notice how the entire US mainstream media all lined up against him, saying how bad he is one way or another. Don't be fooled, each and every media, be it press, radio, televison, or what have you, has its own political agenda. I am constantly amused by certain posters' assertions that how biased Xinhua or People's Daily is, but the New York Times or the Washington Post has its own agenda.

The more thorny question is who gets to decide. Sure, maybe we can all agree that genocide is a good reason to topple some regime, but this opens a floodgate. You'd have country A asserting country B has "weapons of mass destruction," thus it is imperative to overthow that country's government. Then you'd have country C claiming another country are preparing a plague of frogs, so they start invading this other country.

The purported aim for such an action is to save lives, however nobody can tell if this can be achived at all. It is way too easy for something like this to rage out of control - just look at Iraq. You can easily get more people killed by attacking than just leaving the country in question alone.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Patroklos


I don't agree with this, Hitler would not all of a sudden become tolerable because he ran out of Jews to kill, or the Serbs becasue they exhausted their supply of muslims to slaughter.

Yes they would have (assuming they stopped their gencide when they ran out instead of moving on to another ethnic group)

Invasion on humanitarian grounds is not to punish the guilty, but to protect the innocent

Punishing the guilty is a side benefit.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Patroklos


I don't agree with this, Hitler would not all of a sudden become tolerable because he ran out of Jews to kill, or the Serbs becasue they exhausted their supply of muslims to slaughter.

There were a whole lot of people, pretty much all of the military, that could care less about WMDs as a justification for war as we had already had enough. Thats why when people talk to me about the missing WMDs, it does not matter in regards to my personal support for the war. It was just one of several reasons, any one of which by themselves would make me support invasion.

HOnestly, who cares what the military thinks? Its their job to carry out the government policy as long as it is in line with the ruling body of laws.

This is a question of what should drive said policy.

So, on hitler-the question would be the justification for regime change- if your justification is solely a moral one- he is a killer! Then, once the killing is long past, you really do start running low on justification.

hitler of course is a complex and overused example, and more importantly, most of the people he was killing WERE NOT GERMANS. There is a difference to killing your own and killing someone elses. Had HItler simply exterminated his own half a million Jews, I doubt any state would have gone to war with him. Its the fact he invaded the greater part of Europe that made him public enemy #1.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is a much better example- that murderous regime killed about a fourth of its own people, if not a third. Yet when some outside power finally moved in to remove it, that power (Vietnam) did so because the Khmer Rouge was trying to stir trouble for it, and Vietman as denounced by many outsiders, including, in one of his sad moments, Carter.

[VetLegion]

The problem is a moral one. Of right and wrong. You act (military intervention) to remove suffering and thus increase happiness.

Ideally, you need a way to empirically measure the amount of human suffering so you can add up individual suffering to get a total of some population. Then you need to establish a treshold which justifies military intervention to correct the amount of happiness.

Should a dictator that kills a million his people be removed? How about ten thousand? Two hundred? Where is the limit?

Also, adding up suffering brings other problems. Is all suffering equivalent? It probably is not and should be weighted in some way. Death (say, in genocide) causes greatest suffering. Displacement also causes suffering, though less. But what if the scale of ethnic cleansing is great - say, millions of people. How does that compare with a genocide of a thousand? Which is worse?

A third type of suffering that affects populations that comes to my mind is a restrictive economic system. People in North Korea are suffering greatly in such system even in years with good harvests. Should we invade to liberate them? Or do people always have a government they deserve?

By the way, I know I am only speculating. Having a universal criteria would mean we live in a truly moral world - something I doubt is possible, given that there are no truly moral people. Interests guide the lives of people and also those of states, not morals.

I see universal criteria for justifying military intervention in all corners of the world appearing with the emergence of the World State, no sooner. World state will act in same way in Iraq, Sudan and Sweden (apply force if needed to relieve suffering) -- much like USA would act in the same way in helping New Orleans with flood relief and Los Angeles in quenching racial riots.

[Winston]

Originally posted by GePap

including, in one of his sad moments, Carter.

[VetLegion]

Re: A strange question about war

Originally posted by Zevico
If you agree, please state whether you supported the Iraq war (and why)

I did not support it, but I did not oppose it to the point of joining the demonstrations in the street.

and whether you would support military intervention in a country such as Sudan, where acts of genocide did occur, and finally,

I would not if it means I have to walk the talk, dress in a uniform and go there myself, or see someone from my family go there. Other options (mercenaries, other countries etc.) are acceptable.

whether you would support intervention in Sudan over Iraq or vice versa.

I'd support those actions first that can have the greatest effect. If reports of millions dieing from starvation in North Korea are true, I'd support intervening there first, because I think it would be the easier country to fix. As for Sudan, I fear that troops would have to stay there forever, or violence would start again when they leave. Then there is Kongo and others, Iraq is a distant 20. or 50. country that needed invading in 2002.