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Ed Huntress wrote:


Don't tell anybody I said this, but I believe you're quite right.
What we DO
know, however, is that the US has just introduced a new principle
into
international relations, one that we have been the biggest defenders
AGAINST
since Pearl Harbor. We used to maintain a sharp distinction between
"pre-emptive" war and "preventive" war. The first was sometimes Ok,
but the
second never was Ok. We're the ones who wrote it, or defended its
principle,
in the UN charter.

Unlike the Japanese we did not attack without declaring war. I think
there is a big difference here.

The lack of warning doesn't occupy a very large place in historical
scholarship because everyone now knows it was a screw-up. The issue that has
remained an issue in international diplomatic relations is that it was a
preventive war -- one that didn't work, but that was its intent.

We stated that if Sadam did not live
up to the terms of the Gulf War surrender, that we would invade.

That was warning, but the intent was preventive. He hadn't attacked us. He
didn't overtly threaten to attack us. By definition, going after him under
those conditions is a preventive war.


I don't know how else we could have enforced the terms of surrender.

The question is why we felt we had to enforce the terms of surrender. If he
was preparing specifically to attack us, and we attacked first, that would
be a pre-emptive war. If he actually attacked us, that would be a defensive
war from our standpoint. If we attacked because we felt a potential threat
as a result of his capabilities, rather than of his overt attempts to attack
us, that's a preventive war.

The war in Iraq was an overtly preventive war, the first one we have fought
since the glorious war in Granada. g In any case, this one is a serious
matter in the relations among nations today, because we just gave the green
light to preventive wars. It's a serious escalation in the level of risk for
the world.

Breaking the terms of surrender, unless the term being broken was a specific
agreement not to attack another country, is not grounds for war under any
doctrine the United States nor the United Nations have ever supported. It
constitutes a justification for some action, whether it's blockades,
sanctions, or other punishments, but not war. At least, it never has. If
we're saying it does now, then we just changed the rules.

We did try economic pressure, but Sadam had the UN in his pocket.

I don't think it's true that he had the UN in his pocket. What he had was so
much oil that many countries felt it was too delicious to let themselves get
all high and mighty about principle. g I think you're right that the UN
was too *weakened* by those temptations to be very effective. But we could
have supplied the backbone. The French and Germans had already put
themselves on the spot: three more months, and they would have supported
war, they say. Maybe they would have or maybe they wouldn't have. Either
way, they would have lost. But we let them off the hook by going to war
ourselves.



Well, we differ there. I'm very proud to be an American. I'm just not
very
proud of some of the actions being taken in our name by the current
resident
of the White House.

Curious, I am only able to be proud of my own accomplishments. Never
was really a team player. I had very little to do with shaping the
U.S. And therefore have not figured out why I should be proud of being
an American.

It's natural to have pride in one's country. I don't take credit for what it
is, but I'm proud to be a part of it. I guess I was a bit more of a team
player.



Is Iraq better off because of the invasion? Probably. The number
of
people that have died because of the invasion is less per year than
the
number that died because Sadam was in power.

Most of the sources say that isn't true. Even Amnesty International,
as I
quoted indirectly a couple of days ago and which is inclined to put
the
worst possible spin on Saddam's human rights record, says that the
number of
people he killed was only in the hundreds per year during the last
few years
of his reign.


Sure if you pick the right day the number of people he killed might be
none. But you have no way of knowing what he would do in the future.
So I don't think you can pick and choose which times to use in deciding
his human rights record. You need to use all of them.

However, as the IBC says, that's not much of an argument.
Furthermore, it's
not why we allegedly went to war. Supposedly it was because of a
real,
immediate physical threat to the United States.

I never thought we went to war because of a real immediate threat.

Neither did I, nor most other reasonably intelligent people. However, as
Bush's speech and the dominant monologue coming from our government claimed,
he was a threat, he'd have nuclear weapons within six months, and we had to
take him out. That was the official story.

I
thought we went to war because Sadam would not honor his agreements.

Nobody ever went to war because someone "would not honor his agreements."
That's a non-starter.

I
don't see how anyone would have thought that there was an immediate
physical threat.

Read Bush's speech on the day we invaded, and see how dumb he thought we all
were.

--
Ed Huntress