Morality questions about the war in Iraq

I used to look at it that way. At first, I supported the war, but was in the closet about it since all my friends are liberal. I felt that even if the motive was impure we still may have a good result. The Baathist regime was evil, and the world would be a better place without it.

I don't see it in that one-dimensional light anymore. I might have been able to hang onto that ideology if there wasn't such an effective guerilla resistance campaign and soldiers and innocent Iraqui civilians kept dying.

If we want to hang onto the idea of using our military might to fight evil and make the world a better place, then we have to question how this was carried out. Credibility and good intentions count to our allies. Do we even have any allies anymore?

Do we really have a good result? Will guerilla/terrorist resistance continue right up to Iraq elections and beyond? What if the Iraqis elect a secular democracy, but the resistance keeps up a steady pace of attack/assassination on the new leaders? Will the Baathists ever fade away? If they do, will the foreign terrorists stop their bomb attacks? As our occupation continues, and anti-US feelings grow, will that play into the hands of the religious extremists who want to create a religious state?

There's way too many uncertainties and too many deaths for us to say "it was worth it."

I would have been for continued pressure against Iraq, stronger coalition building, gaining legitimacy and using force as a last resort.

 

i had doubts about it for several reasons

the world didnt support it, and most of all, iraqis didnt support it and not that many do now. I read just as many iraqis supporting the war as those that did not support it.

Saddam did kill a lot of his people, but he was not doing it at the time, like milosivic was doing. also, why Iraq? why not burma, parts of africa, etc. especially since iraq was not committing major abuses at the time. I also believe that in order for countries to fully change a regime, they need to do it by themselves and can get help, only if they ask for it. if a father is committing domestic abuse, you dont just shoot him in the head without asking anybody.

I would have loved the administration say that they were going into iraq for humanitarian reasons, but that didnt come up for several months after the war started.

also, in international law, there is a hundred year old agreement to not interfere with how a country runs its own internal affairs. this is why saddam can murder its own people, and we can have the death penalty. dont you think it would be ridiculous if europe declared war on the US because we kill our prisoners, stating that it was a "human rights" breach?

on top of that, I believe from iraqs point of view, that they had a right to build up self defense, yes they were rearming, but part of that reason is because the US has been threatening another war for several years, what do you expect them to do, just lay down their weapons and let their "betters" take over their country? what did we do to the british 250 years ago? do we not think that people are capable of doing what our american founders could do? because I believe it only works out right if you do it yourself.

and then you have to wonder about the real motives of the administration, the last gulf war was about oil, now they are saying that this one isnt about it? and this is during a time when the American perception of the middle east is seen as chaotic and unstable.

and then theres the whole thing of preventive war, its just a scary thought to feel right to kill someone because you feel that they could be a threat in the future. theres a lot of assumption there. does that mean that china has the right to bomb us because we have nuclear warheads and have promised to defend taiwan? doesnt that mean that iraq was justified in building up arms, knowing that the US was going to attack them? does that mean I can kill the guy who gave me a dirty look the other day? its a dodgy issues, and thats why the whole question of "was it an imminent threat?" is very important. and in the old days, an imminent threat literally meant that the other guy had their army parked on your border and their missiles were fueled and prepped for launch. even in domestic law, its only self defense if they hit you first or if they are showing certain intent to hurt you. you can shoot someone who trespasses your property, but you cannot shoot someone who may be planning to trespass, let alone trespass into their property and shoot them.

theres all these things, and also the cost, what our allies think, what the UN has now become now that you can break their decisions, if the UN gets power back, what will they do in the future, what this will do to our economy, what this will do about future terrorist attacks, the general population fear, changes in law, social mistrust, hatred towards minority groups, changes in our armed forces, a military budget increase.

basically, i had a lot of questions about this war which went unanswered, and for these reasons, i was against the war, which outweighed our claims that we used to legitamized the war, these claims that did not include humanitarian reasons.

 

excellent post nyquil

chase to your question

" Why is it morally preferable to have innocent people killed by Saddam as opposed to being casuatlies in a war to free them from Saddam?"

morality is a moot point

If it were about morals, we would have been in an uproar about the 1/2 a million Iraqis that died under the sanctions imposed over the past 12 years.

 

There are several responses to this.



1) Like unto the Laws and oath of Hippocrates, the onus is on the actor to do no harm, irrespective of their intention.

2) It assumes nobility on the part of the actor. You presume the US had purely moral reasons, but suppose you are wrong. As such you are reducing the morality of each participant to numbers akin to a bean counter for an insurance company. Wrong does not correct wrong, it merely changes it's shape. The presumption that this shape is better may be sound, but I assume that there was some time on the road to Saddam's current situation where it was assumed that his wrongs were excusable in the face of alternate wrongs ( Cold War, for example.)

3) It assumes that one nation has the right to decide when and where they can and will apply and enforce their version of morality. there was a time when, according to many definitions, we were among the least moral nations on earth, with slavery, genocide, etc. Would we have thought it morally just for other, more powerful nations to invade and enforce their moral codes upon us? And all this endangers the right for nations to invade to enforce less obvious moral distintions.

3) Because of precedent. There are limitations on certain things for a reason, and when we circumvent them for our own reasons even if we accept that we are correct in the instant, we absolutely must be opeing the door for others to follow through, with less noble reasons. Suppose that, as a police officer, you are pretty sure that there are illegal substances on a premises ( sidestep the drug debate, assume illegal is wrong, cool?). Suppose you have no evidence for a warrant, but are pretty sure. So you dummy up evidence, get a warrant, and enter the home. Now what happens afterwards is, morally, independant of the action it took to accomplish same, even if the second action is morally good. You also broke the law. Even if you assume that we have the right to appoint ourselves the world's policeforce, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? If we forgive ourselves 'lesser wrongs' in the pursuit of rectifiying greater ones, where does that stop, and who is there to stop it?


There are more, but I've gotta run for a sec...

 

How is it morally justifiable for soldiers to die for another country without their consent and imminent threat?

The sanctions imposed by the UN killed many Iraqis, maybe the countries in support of the sanctions should instead be eradicated to free the Iraqis from their oppression? How are people more moral than Saddam when they treat Iraqis like a b**** then kill them for WMD threats based on "faulty intelligence"?

 

The ongoing carnage is an issue because it hits home. It is a VERY real cost that the US (and its allies) are incurring and inflicting.

The big difference is that it was not until the war was in progress that it was sold as a humanitarian cause. And Saddam's abuse of his people, while brutal, was not significantly greater than that of other despot regimes. The world threat, WMDs, etc were the primary rationales behind the war. Many nations disagreed that enough evidence was there to justify action. And it seems they may have been right (based on the WMD issue). We have at least a zillion threads on this subject. If it was primarily a humanitarian action they should have said so...and Iraq may not have been number one on the list.

You're right that in the post war debate many of Saddam's crimes are being downplayed. In many ways that's the nature of debate. Republicans embrace deficits. Democrats focus on the military service of their leaders. You focus on the issues that support your view. Just as those who were originally in favour of military action now justify it though the good it may bring (even if that was quite different than the original rational), those who feel a greater principle was breached through the process that led to this war, are more apt to dismiss that good.

It all comes down to whether the war was justified.

 

The problem, chase, is that things aren't so black and white. We've frequently done business with what most would consider "rogue dictators". We didn't sanction them, we didn't ignore them. Hell, we often held our nose and praised them, knowing the whole time that they were cruel, murdering s.o.b.'s.

 

Chase,

the policy of the U.S. toward Iraq has been regime change. That is doing something about the immorality of Saddam's regime. Doing something does not automatically mean going to war. Since it had been more than a decade since Saddam had used WMD on his people, the policies that were being put in place regarding Saddam were working to some extent.

If we do in fact of a desire to fight the immoral brutality in the wolrd there is plenty of it to go around. So priorities are in order.

Kim of N. Korea is a more authoritarian dictator, Charles Taylor in Liberia had more ties to Al Qaeda, and then there is the war against terrorism which first overthrows a horrible Taliban, but then does little to help the country of Afghanistan gain control and remain in control.

So I think, at least, some of those who don't like seeing Americans die in Iraq because and believe it is morally wrong, can see better uses of lives and resources as well as more important locales as far as putting down immoral dictatorships. Remember not going to war against Saddam does not mean doing nothing. There is a large gap in between.

 

chase...you keep skipping my direct responses to this question because the post they are in included responses to what you perceive to be unrelated questions.

 

Huh? I answered the question. You argued with me. Ok, lesson learned. Won't happen again.

 

Because we could have spent the 87 billion/year on helping fight aids/hunger/civil war in africa and probably would have had a bigger positive impact on human lives. And they want us to be there.

 

b/c they don't gots oil.