A strange question about war

[GePap]

No one said Westphalia made Europe peaceful, but the point is that in accepting that each unit was rightfully soverign, it removed one huge aspect for war, which is the claim of any ideological party that they had complete and final soverignty-that they were the final sole sovereign. That idea of some absolute principle that should rule all is a dangerous idea, in so far as it leads to a lot of violence. Just look at people like Bin Laden, who do claim there to be a single source of universal legitimacy.

Wars for power are never as nasty as ideological wars, because its much simpler to beat armies than it is to end ideas-to the the latter, you usually have to exteminate the idea holders.

[RGBVideo]

and the aftermath where the US didn't demand unconditional surrender from Saddam, but rather let him keep power.

And replace him with... what exactly?

The problem here seems to be that you are seriously starting to believe your own propaganda about Saddam being somekind of bloodthirsty new incarnation of Hitler who killed people for fun and only cared about his own leadership position and money. Not so. By middle-east leadership standards, Saddam was actually a pretty nice guy. Read up his domestic policies pre-1991 and compare them with the policies of the leaders of neighbouring countries 1945-1990.

The hard truth is that it'd be -- and it currently is -- very hard to find anykind of replacement to dictator Saddam who ends up being better for the Iraqi people in the long run.

[Az]

Not really thought. Your point, and Zevico's point, are moralistic ones. My point is utterly AMORAL, having to deal far more with how such a system would work.

Not really, kind of like how zero is a number, too.

The current world system is based on the assumption that each soverign state is free to persue whatever policy internally they wish with zero outside interference as long as their policies do not directly affect other states. That is a harsh, cold system, but one that works.

Works = is the best system thought of so far, best = most ethical, which proves that the approach is just as "moralistic" as any other. The real claim is that national sovereignity prevents war, and thus is ethical. It's a decision based on ethics, otherwise, what point would be to make a decision at all. If so, why the completely synthetic differentiation between the ethical obligation to step in for the right ethics of the personal, organizational and social realms, while in the same time frowning upon it on the international stage?

I may morally support attempts to impose some higher form of legitimacy, as it were a blast to the past of the pre-Westphalian system, but it is only sane to do so as long as you can come up with a way to avoid the drawbacks of the pre-Westphalian system, which was pretty much round the clock warfare.

Around the clock warfare had many reasons, and is practiced in many parts of the world to this very day, in places in which the social order has, perhaps coincidentally, but maybe not, has a close familiarity to the european late-feudal one.

Because if you start making war moralisitic, you have to accept the fact that different people have different moral standards, and what you may consider OK might not fit in someone elses book.

Isn't this a natural consequence of differing ethics and morals over differing axioms? Again, the need for this is negated in the personal and societal realm by regulating human behavior through law. But such a global law regulating how a country should treat it's own people doesn't exist worldwide, and this places the state of the world in complete anarchy. In this enviroment, vigilanteism can be an ethical choice.

[Dr Strangelove]

I think that humanitarian wars should rely upon the approval of world opinion, i.e., the UN. Unfortunately we don't have a complete universal world code of law, so no one country has the right to stand alone in judgement of another save with regards to its own legal policies.

One other thing to consider about Iraq is this: for the past 50 years the Shiites, the ethnic majority, has been deprived of its rightful place in the government of Iraq. Every government has been dominated by the Sunnis. I don't believe that's just an accident or that it just so happens that the Sunnis have in every election managed to convince the people of Iraq that they're the only ones able to run the country. The Shia of Iraq have been politically oppressed for over a half century largely because the Sunnis occupy the capital. The Shia deserve their voice in their own gobvernment, so really what should be happeneing in Iraq is a civil war. We should arm the Shiites get out and let them finish the real job.

[Az]

Civil war in Iraq

3 countries instead of Iraq

[Patroklos]

being somekind of bloodthirsty new incarnation of Hitler who killed people for fun and only cared about his own leadership position and money. Not so.

Doesn't look like he is the one believing propaganda.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by DanS
Why was Gulf War I our fight in the main?

We had no one to pass the buck to and little interest in bleeding the House of Saud for the very reasons listed by GePap.

I think it's easy to say now that we wouldn't have had support to go to Baghdad.

I highly doubt that even then you'd have found any more appetite in the international community for adopting the Iraqi people than Bush II did in Gulf War II. I'd be interested in how you feel that such an effort then would have faired better.

And since when have we allowed our enemies to stay in power after laying them low? It is a collosal waste of time to assemble a half million of the world's finest troops, have the American people behind you, and then not be ambitious enough to finish the real job.

We had accomplished the real job by throwing him out of Kuwait and the sanctions regime along with the no fly zones put in place after the war ended had effectively contained any threat his regime and his real or imagined NBC programs might have posed.

Originally posted by BeBro
What are the benefits of the current instability there?

You might want to direct that question toward one of this boards neo-cons. The war was unnecessary IMO.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Az
Not really, kind of like how zero is a number, too.

That annalogy does no work. Amoral is outside of morals, not just part of a continuum. The scale goes from Moral to Immoral. Amoral stands outside.

Works = is the best system thought of so far, best = most ethical, which proves that the approach is just as "moralistic" as any other. The real claim is that national sovereignity prevents war, and thus is ethical. It's a decision based on ethics, otherwise, what point would be to make a decision at all. If so, why the completely synthetic differentiation between the ethical obligation to step in for the right ethics of the personal, organizational and social realms, while in the same time frowning upon it on the international stage?

Actually, NO. Works as in the system is stable and can continue indefinitelly. Plenty of Immoral systems work. Slavery as a system works. The point of that system of state soverignty might be in order to limit ideological wars, but the point of this very thread is that the cost is allowing for all sorts of inhumanity. The Westphalian system was a purely self-interested system imposed by those who had a interest in the creation of strong centralized states, something that is much more difficult without accepting the notion of State Soveriengty. Otherwise you can have folks like some Pope of Holy Emperor making policy demands. That is the point of the Westphalian system, a way to keep a certain system in power.

Around the clock warfare had many reasons, and is practiced in many parts of the world to this very day, in places in which the social order has, perhaps coincidentally, but maybe not, has a close familiarity to the european late-feudal one.

If by this you refer to failed states, those are the results not of a system as it works, but system failures.

Isn't this a natural consequence of differing ethics and morals over differing axioms? Again, the need for this is negated in the personal and societal realm by regulating human behavior through law. But such a global law regulating how a country should treat it's own people doesn't exist worldwide, and this places the state of the world in complete anarchy. In this enviroment, vigilanteism can be an ethical choice.

Given that no power can monopolize violence on a global scale, vigilianteism only make the situation worse by undermining attempts to end the anarchy by means other than a single global state. Because most of the time Vigilantees are nothing more then people carrying out their own agendas, with no real connection to any nominal notion of an absolute Justice.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Az
Isn't this a natural consequence of differing ethics and morals over differing axioms?

As I pointed out previously, using your own ethical code to judge another country's own internal affairs is a dangerous game.

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged.

Originally posted by Az
In this enviroment, vigilanteism can be an ethical choice.

Who gets to determine what is moral and what is not? As you can see this simply becomes a pretext to attack any country you don't like.

[Mr. Harley]

Actually there is an answer for Berzerker, and for our Westphalia types. The Spanish Civil War, and expeditionary forces supporting whichever side they consider moral. If you can get enough people willing to die, and contribute funds, for "your" side, you can win. No more taxes, no more men sent out to wars they do not support. Of course this situation could end up a mite bit chaotic, and one could that is what Osama's special ops teams did on 9/11....

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by GePap
No one said Westphalia made Europe peaceful, but the point is that in accepting that each unit was rightfully soverign, it removed one huge aspect for war, which is the claim of any ideological party that they had complete and final soverignty-that they were the final sole sovereign. That idea of some absolute principle that should rule all is a dangerous idea, in so far as it leads to a lot of violence. Just look at people like Bin Laden, who do claim there to be a single source of universal legitimacy.

Agreed - my post wasn't neccessarily a reply to yours (although you mentioned westphalia), just a general comment to the souvereignty discussion related to the westphalian treaty.

Wars for power are never as nasty as ideological wars, because its much simpler to beat armies than it is to end ideas-to the the latter, you usually have to exteminate the idea holders.

Hm, WWI was not mainly an ideological war, mainly for power, although it had without doubt ideological elements - nationalism for example - but I would not see it primarily as an ideological war, its cause was certainly deeper rooted in the conflicts between the Euro powers. Still it was the most "nasty" war of all so far, toppled only later by WWII.....I would agree with you if you speak about the pre-WWI world, but the big "industrialized" world wars changed pretty much everything.

[MrFun]

Re: Re: A strange question about war

Originally posted by DinoDoc
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.

Of course DD, remember that your give a **** thingy is broken. You have never gotten around to getting it fixed, have you?

[Patroklos]

Still it was the most "nasty" war of all so far, toppled only later by WWII.....I would agree with you if you speak about the pre-WWI world, but the big "industrialized" world wars changed pretty much everything.

I would say that WWI is a perfect example. Almost all of the effort of that war was focused around defeating actual military formations. Beyond the front, there were no depopulated cities, no genocide. The level of destruction was increased due to technology snd scale, not the bloodthirsty fervor of the participants.

Now you can blame that on the fact that the lines were static and thus the sides had no oportunity, but the German occupation of French/Belgium territory was rather benign compared to earlier and especially later examples, and the lines in the East were as fluid as any WWII battlefield with none of the "trappings" of the 41-45 equivalents.

[SpencerH]

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.

and I would add and we have a moral responsibility to try to end that destruction including the use of force, with or without the sanction of the neutered UN.

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.

I think that the exception to this point is the question of whether its better to intervene in a semi-barbaric country prior to their development of WMD (NK for example).

[Odin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


As I pointed out previously, using your own ethical code to judge another country's own internal affairs is a dangerous game.

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged.



Who gets to determine what is moral and what is not? As you can see this simply becomes a pretext to attack any country you don't like.

Extreme moral relativism: Something your own government invokes when someone questions it's human rights record.