I’m agruing that attempting to make masses of people happy (i.e. give them ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, etc.) by means of violence is a dangerous fallacy. So, I’m being oppositionist here, I guess.

Stealing their stuff, on the other hand, might be a rational idea, provided you can get away with it.

You said: “In 1943-44, the dictatorships (of Mussolini and of Petain) were not killing large numbers of their own citizens [...]”.

Excuse me, but have you ever heard of the final solution? The mass deportation of French and Italian Jews to the gas chambers, by their own governments? Said governments going even further that what the nazis demanded and expected?

“although there is a lot of talk about morality in international politics, when you look at the historical record you don’t see many uplifting examples”/i>

Oh if only.

soru

I mean is it me, or can these people just not read?

I got into another argument with another pro-war loon earlier on, who also mangled my words, seemingly unware that anyone can check what I actually said by just scrolling up.

If anyone cares, or still has the will to live, here’s the money shot:

‘US forces in Iraq are attempting to tame Fallujah with biometric ID, according to an NBC news report broadcast last week. The returning population of up to 250,000, reporter Richard Engel said on Tom Brokaw’s last Nightly News, is to be allowed back in gradually, a few thousand at a time. “They’ll be finger printed, given a retina scan and then an ID card, which will only allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid centers, which are now being built. The Marines will be authorized to use deadly force against those breaking the rules .’
Since one of the rules will be they must carry an ID card (read what I wrote) therefore (and follow my complex logic here) marines will be permitted to use lethal force if ID is not carried.

From the Register a ‘non-tinfoil hat’ site.

I honestly think that the army of lies regimented to support the WMD hypothesis has led the pro-war grouping to the conclusion that no one will actually be able to spot that they are lying.

See, but this is the whole problem you have. The Brits are very much junior partners in this whole exercise. You have no real control over the real strategic and tactical decisions of this war.

I really think the word ‘war’ means a different thing in US and UK english.
—You can also read elsewhere that Muslim fundamentalism is rampant in those British-occupied areas, women are being attacked for smiling n’ stuff like that.—
Just to be clear, are you merely being oppositionist here, or do you genuinely believe that kind of cultural imperialism (literally) would be a good idea?

soru

Soru,

He certainly didn’t accept that non-citizens had rights, so he broke rule 4 (inhumanity). Of course he didn’t treat citizens any better, but that’s not a mitigating factor – quite the contrary. Also, I think leaders are guilty of inhumanity if they ignore genocide in another country when they are in a position to do something about it. So in deposing Pol Pot the Vietnamese did the right thing, though they behaved badly afterwards; and pretty well everyone is at fault right now in ignoring Darfur. But it’s true enough that Pol Pot’s infamy was not in the sphere of international relations, which is our topic, so I really shouldn’t have lumped him in with Hitler and Stalin.

I purposely keep the rules vague, because what I had in mind was the fact, which “abb1” and others have noted, that although there is a lot of talk about morality in international politics, when you look at the historical record you don’t see many uplifting examples. So I wondered how a historian ought to decide who was a good king and who was a bad king – other that for satirical purposes as in 1066 and All That with its “103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates.”

Come off it. The half a million figure is just as bad as Noam Chomsky’s stat about the US bombing of a medicine factory in Sudan. Thats simply unprovable.

To put it another way, here’s a one word quote from Juan Cole today about the british-occupied areas of Iraq: ‘success’.

Success in what sense, though? In establishing Sharia law in the Shi’ite South, governed locally by al-Sadr’s crew? Now I’m not saying this is necessarily a failure – probably a lot of people in this area do prefer this to Hussein’s rule.

But lets be realistic about the trajectory Iraq is heading in: that is three de facto separate countries: Kurdistan, a poor man’s Iran, and a failed and lawless Sunni center. These three regions may or may not hang together as a country, but whether they do is – to a good extent – beside the point.

That the Shi’ites and, to a greater extent, the Kurds are better off without Hussein is in most cases true. But this only one part of a much larger picture. Insofar as you separate out all those other pieces and cosequences and just view the Shiite and Kurdish aspirations in a vacuum, I think the war can be viewed as moral you have a point. But most of the war’s backers don’t confine themselves to goals this simple, for the most part. They believe they can radically remake the Middle East by forcibly westernizing Iraq along lines similar to Attaturk did in Turkey setting it up as a model.

Simply put, I believe that war is a brutal, violent illiberal exercise that is incompatible with a humitarian goals. This isn’t to say I oppose war all the time. But it does suggest that the bar for employing it is pretty damn high. Too high for me to justify the death of 1700 American troops for a war of dubious strategic and moral merit.

You can also read elsewhere that Muslim fundamentalism is rampant in those British-occupied areas, women are being attacked for smiling n’ stuff like that.

So, how does it justify the war, then? Why would you want to make a mess and kill people to replace Saddam&Co with al-Sadr&Co?

Hardly.

If anything, that’s a caricature description of lack of self-reflection, illiberalism, ‘extremism’. You could find people who think that way with any political position, from those who would fly planes into building to establish the Caliphate (ok, technically pro-, not anti-, imperialism) to those who would let a half million Iraqis die to stave off the necessity of deploying US troops.

In order to avoid war, the US has set up the Sandanistas, backed both sides in the Iran/Iraq war (the better for them to weaken each other), and financed the precursors to Al Qaeda. Were those actions noble because they were comitted in the name of the morally pure goal of avoiding war?

As I said before, there’s a much more productive way of understanding the actual difference. ‘War’, ‘imperialism’, ‘fascism’. Which is the worse evil, which is easiest to avoid, least problematic to define (is the situation in Iraq now a war? If so, why do people mutter darkly about the threat of civil war? Is america an empire? Was the ba’ath part fascist?).

You can rank those evils differently without being one whit less pragmatic. The different histories of the UK and US with respect to winning and losing wars probably accounts for most of the reason that brits tend to see war as the lesser of at least two of those evils.

To put it another way, here’s a one word quote from Juan Cole today about the british-occupied areas of Iraq: ‘success’.

soru

As regards the retinal scans, I must admit I was sceptical too, but it’s clearly true. For those commenters who scoffed (and want to maintain future credibility) a gracious acknowledgement of error might be a good idea.