Jag, Hayes, good thread so I had to contribute. First, Jag, unfortunately the death ray is part of the Star Wars scenario, though the defensive missile shield part is usually pushed for pr reasons. A link I put on another thread suggested that the US is hoping to have this laser ray going by about 2020. Let's have him anwser that question as to whether he would support such a ray being used against the US.! The World According to Hayes Street Doctrine.. There are universal rights. Examples of such rights are democracy, freedom from genocide, civil rights, national security. The right that is of prime concern is national security.. If there is an immediate threat or violation to such a right, immediate action is required, inaction is a great threat. (Remember, the Alamo, Munich and Yalta !) This can require going against one our great values. multilateralism. The right to respond to threats or violations to these rights applies no matter how many times a country and its leaders themselves have been threatened or violated those same rights in other or their own countries.. Pretext Exception: -- an example of it applied to national defense.. “When (one) do(es) not act out of self defense or to ensure those principles for others, but merely use it as a pretense for some other agenda, it is not justified.” Let’s apply the Doctrine to the Axis of Evil and more specifically Iraq. US national security may eventually be threatened. Many estimate 10 years from now North Korea might be able to fire a nuclearmissile and reach the US. About the same for Iran and Iraq. A few crude missiles, which we can pretty much keep track of while they build them are not that threatening, when faced with overwhelming nuclear obliteration by the US. (This raises the question of whether the Pretext Exception below applies.) So we see the threat to national security is not immediate. Therefore since we believe in the UN, allies and multilateralism very strongly we can take the time to build a consensus. We have time to see if other methods rather than immediate attack can protect our security such as, whether through diplomacy N and S Korea will unify as it looks like eliminating that threat, whether Iran keep moderating as it has been doing and whether there are other ways of dealing with Iraq, which most of the world thinks there is. Applying whether the Pretext Exception applies we see that the US is a repeat offender in “not act(ing) out our of self defense or to ensure those principle for others, but merely us(ing) it as a pretense for some other agenda” such as securing oil fields, banana plantations, and eliminating obstacles to cheap labor for multinationals, like left leaning governments. We see that in the particular case of the middle east ,that US foreign policy in the middle east has often been mainly concerned with oil, even if this required overthrowing democracies and installing dictators. . However, we have to apply the other principle, i.e., ignore past US violations of universal rights and stick to whether the current desire to attack and change to a government we like is a pretext. It doesn’t even appear the Doctrine allows a history of past violations as being circumstantial evidence when judging whether the present case is a pretext.. Iraq may present a nuclear threat to the US eventually as we have seen above if it doesn’t moderate. It doesn’t seem like an urgent threat. It is definitely better in terms of oil if we could put in an emir beholden to us, the power behind the throne. The Bush’s have a history of doing oil deals with emirs after they put them back on their thrones. I know past actions by the Bush’s should not be relevant. There is no smoking gun document showing the future oil contracts reduced to writing. Does the Pretext Exception apply? Tough to say, but the Doctrine does supply explanatory notes as a guide. “Who is the arbitrator? I can only say we SHOULD do the best we can.” So doing the best we can, all in all it appears that the Pretext Exception to Iraq probably does apply. Fortunately, since no immediate threat to US security applies we have 10 years or so to see consensus and to check whether our finding that the proposed action against Iraq is indeed a “pretense for some other agenda was in error.. Mineful of how the "evil empire" fell much to the surprise of our own CIA we remain optimistic that the world will look and be different 10 years from now. How can we account for others applying the Doctrine, finding: an immediate threat to national security, necessitating an action so quick that we can’t afford consensus, allies, .and that the no Pretext Exception does not apply.. Unfortunately, the doctrine can justify about anything a US president wants. The doctrine often leads to analysis like: Any threat to an ally is a threat to US security. We have allies all over the world, so any threat to an ally is a threat to our security. Tends to justify actions all over the world at all times. Applying it to the The Axis of Evil and Iraq example, we see: Sharon and Israel are our allies. Any threat to them is a threat to the US. Iran and Iraq are threats to Sharon’s ideal of Jewish expansion into post 1967 territories. North Korea has been claimed to have supplied missile technology to Iran and Iraq, therefore it is a threat to Sharon and our national security. A Scud or some other primitive missile could hit Sharon and Israel tomorrow, therefore the threat to our ally i.e., ourselves is immediate, demanding unilateral immediate action against Iraq and the other Evil Axis members..
Jeff -- I suppose I misunderstood your previous posts...I guess as I started writing I was focusing on infidelity on a more micro level...and then just extrapolating to the majority as evidence of social/moral decay. I still stand by that thought...but I think we're arguing on two different planes entirely, perhaps. You are right that we filter the world differently due to beliefs. And that certainly affects the ability to even have a discussion...or to have some kind of meaningful debate. My best example of that is threads on moral relativism. I would argue that, because I believe that God has given us some guidance on morality, there are some absolutes...and I beat my head against the wall trying to argue that here, because I'm clearly starting from a point that others aren't on that subject. I could see how your view of animals would do the same thing. I had a close friend in law school who was a black, homosexual professed socialist. We couldn't have been more opposite!!! But I enjoyed his company and our conversations...however, sometimes we'd argue an issue and ultimately it would come down to "you trust government more than I do."...and the debate would just stop...we'd joke about it being just like butting heads over and over again. Great guy who's probably sold out his socialist beliefs now to the highest bidder in the legal market!!!
Yes, there are different interpretations of rights. But I find it curious that you constantly oscillate between (look at the Founding principles of our country) and (there are no universal rights). Hello? The founding fathers wrote down their concept of rights, which they asserted were universal. Make up your mind. When you are a moving target with your opinions you might look clever when you are actually an opprtunist, refusing to defend any hard positions. If the US government was rounding up it citizens, and committing genocide, like in Cambodia or like in Bosnia, or if it was so repressive that is crushed dissent whenever and whereever it found it like in Iraq, I would certainly hope the Swiss with thier death ray gun to come in and help. They would be helping in the in such a situation. Would I want them to come in now and replace our government? No, and I don't think I justify that. Now I've answered your question so you answer mine, since I also have asked it several times and you disappeared from the thread each time... Should the US not intervene in a country where the leaders are committing genocide on a mass scale, when they can get neither the approval of the sovereign government, nor a consensus among 'allies?' Why is that? The point is that the government that allowed the genocide of Native Americans is not the one we live in today. Is your view so simplistic that you think it is true? There hasn't been an international tribunal but who would they put on trial? Saying 'uh, its still called the US government' is silly, especially when you consider your comparison with Germany. It wasn't just Hitler and Gobbels and Himmler that slaughtered millions, it was 'entities' like IG Farben and Hoescht that are still intact today. Where is the resolution there? Well, those that spearheaded the travesties are gone. Same in the US. Those that created and drove those events are gone. I disagree that you look at our history as if its a balance sheet, to decide whether we are in fact 'evil' ourselves. But even if you insist, and we are hypocrites, uh, so what? What is the impact of that? That we should never act unilaterally? That is silly. The founding fathers did not believe that. They were, in fact, wary of entangling our actions with other alliances, preferring to retain our ability to make our own decisions. Exactly the opposite of a multilateralist perspective. What does hypocracy do to our policy perspective? You drive a car, does that mean you cannot protest global warming? You live in the US and enjoy all its comforts, do that mean you cannot protest the fact we consume more resources that any other country? The US committed condemnable acts in the past, do that mean we cannot act in the future? No, no, and no.
Glynch, I guess you think that it is ok for them to get WMD, I mean what does one small nuclear weapon mean? It is only one US city. DaDakota
Don't say "sold out to the highest bidder." How about "wisened up to the real world and earned his pay?
agreed...actually i find it quite humorous how quickly my liberal friends put aside their beliefs to cash a big check!!! one is now working with a large firm helping energy companies manipulate and navigate govt regulations...another works for a debt collection firm!! (that one cracks me up!!)...another is a corporate attorney working for one of the big oil companies!!! i certainly don't blame them for it...just think it's funny!
The Hayes Street Doctrine. Catchy If it can not be shown that Iraq is an immediate threat, then no intervention would not be justified under the article of self defense (1) in the HS Doctrine. It might well be justified under the article of 'rights protection' (2) in the HS doctrine. If it cannot be shown there these countries are threats nor that they are extremely repressive, then action is not justified. What the world thinks is still irrelevant. Their motives are suspect, and their inability to reach consensus is legendary. Indeed, presumption would be heavily against overthrowing democracies under the HS Doctrine. The evaluation of whether the US is a repeat offender of the principles of the HS Doctrine BEFORE the HS Doctrine is irrelevant. If the same powers are involved, then yes you could argue that. But your argument would say 'there is not a threat in this situation,' not 'you erred in the past.' Saying you erred in the past has no relevance. Whether or not there was a threat in Iran in the 50s, is not relevant to whether there is a threat in Iraq today. If intervention cannot be justified under Article (1) self defense nor Article (2) supporting universal rights, then it cannot be justified. I might add, glynch, that the Gulf War was a UN operation, which was multilateral and which you supposedly support. Why then, do you use that as an example of where your principles were not upheld? Arguments of convenience are not convincing. This discussion, at its base, is about what policymakers should do. Policymakers themselves are really in the best position to decide what the justification for the intervention is. If they were applying the HS Doctrine, which is self defense and protecting those principles we feel to be universal, they should be able to evaluate the motives of the action. Now creating a viable foreign policy is hardly easy. There are, to be sure, dilemmas at every turn. But I believe that as the world's most powerful country, it is our duty to protect those who need it and project our power when others will not in support of those objectives.
