At least Blair ( or one of his aides/advisors) has made some kind of intellectual defence. I do recall reading somewhere that Augustine’s ‘just war’ theory came into play in relation to his thinking too, which wouldn’t surprise me given his Christian beliefs. Wittgenstein’s “the hardest thing is not to delude oneself” always comes to mind when I think of Blair!

While I think you may have hit an interesting dilemma with regards to how to deal with dangerous ‘bad’ people there is still one point I would like to add regarding the Iraq invasion. In this particular instance I always thought that the issue was not whether or not to invade but rather whether outside intervention would be the most successful method of removing the threat.

I’ve been trying to adapt the two villains to try and get this point across but it doesn’t seem to work instead it seems important to point out that Saddam was largely contained and not a threat to anyone outside his own country. In this case it seems a better method of intervention involves supporting efforts to generate a proper democratic process in the country, a move that I suspect will always work better from within a grass-roots democratic movement. Maybe you could imagine it as an internal power struggle in the villains organisation or perhaps an attack of conscience on the part of the heavies both of which would end the problem with a lot less bloodshed than a full confrontation.

While Blair’s rationale was a little disingenuous for starting the war, his reasoning about staying is perfectly sound. (I’ve just finished reading the entire essay; it was better than his effort in “Foreign Affairs”. Damned by faint praise? Hardly: I thought this effort to be worthy of serious consideration.)

The bullies in the playground analogy works to a point; there is a case that taking on North Korea militarily would be better than putting up with such an evil dictatorship. On the other hand, the neocons in this country spoiled (destroyed?) the entire argument about taking on the bullies with their ham-handed and overly optimistic and incompetently managed invasion of Iraq. Does the world agree to live with the irrational fear of a nuclear explosion because so-and-so doesn’t get your lunch money, or do we simply say “No!”?

I can’t agree that funding a subversive democratic movement in Iraq would help: the budding democrats would be preaching to the rocks and sand before very long. Or helping ensure nice daisies (or whatever the local equivalent is) in various man-sized gardens.

Iraq is not a moral problem: it’s a political problem. Whether we should have gone in (no) is a different question to whether we should stay (yes). Dictators have little to do with it; morality has almost nothing to do with it, but competent political leadership (which hasn’t been on much, if any, display) has everything to do with it.

Carolyn Ann

Carolyn Ann said “I can’t agree that funding a subversive democratic movement in Iraq would help: the budding democrats would be preaching to the rocks and sand before very long. Or helping ensure nice daisies (or whatever the local equivalent is) in various man-sized gardens.”

Maybe yes, maybe no. The horribly repressive and totalitarian governments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed without benefit of the application of external military force. They collapsed because they lost internal legitimacy and couldn’t maintain a grip on power, thanks in part to external support for internal reform groups. Similar developments happened (albeit with significant differences) in Amin’s Uganda, Pinochet’s Chile, Franco’s Spain, and more.

In a similar fashion many of the Maoist totalitarian states in Asia are becoming more internally free and less of a danger to their citizens and neighbouring countries, thanks in part to internal citizen action (mixed with economic growth, which would not be possible under conditions of economic sanctions or blockades, as prevailed in 1990s Iraq).

All of which suggests that it is reasonable to suggest an appropriate response to oppressive governments is to use soft power rather than hard power: condemnation in international fora, platforms given to refugees and internal critics, support for internal democratic groups, and such. This approach seems not only to be morally praiseworthy but also, on the evidence, a pragmatic method of achieving change.

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union can be seen as consequentiality in work. They couldn’t struggle directly because the consequences would be disastrous for mankind… But indirectly they could, as in the Korean War, Vietnam and so on…

I agree that the troops must stay in Iraq, that Saddam needed to be defeated… nevertheless one point here is worth of stressing: the invasion of Iraq was made without the United Nations’ permission and justified with a lot of lies (e.g. there weren’t weapons of mass destruction). So, the ends don’t justify the means. (ok, my comment doesn’t prove anything either, but I think International Law based in dialogues/reasoning can lead to a more responsible solution in these affairs, and the Iraq war is a great lesson to not repeat isolationist actions…)

It’s probably been a long time since Blair walked the streets or had a job with a boss, but outside the world of bullet-proof limousines, we often treat people better the worse they are, from a school bully to a threatening street gang to a boss with an authoritarian personality. The idea that we must always stand up to evil comes from cowboy movies.
Now there are moments, like World War 2, when
there is no alternative but standing up to evil. Iraq hardly seems to have been a threat to anyone at the time of the invasion, and let’s recall that a majority of members in the UN security council wanted to give Hans Blix and the inspectors more time to see if Saddam really did have weapons of mass destruction, which he didn’t. How can we distinguish between the Hitlers (real threats) and the Saddam Husseins (local bullies, but better dealt with by soft power as Andrew says)? I suppose that’s the difference between a statesman (Churchill) and a politician (Blair). By the way, Iraq’s oil riches might just have had something to do with Blair’s idealistic stand againt evil.

The most telling argument against interventionism, IMHO, is that human beings are too stupid. For great big complicated things like invading other countries, the relationship between what we are trying to achieve and what actually happens is as near random as makes no difference.

The limits of the abilities of human beings to forecast the future and to direct top-down very large complicated issues/organisations is (are?) something Blair has never understood, and the main reason that he’s been driven out of office.

I’m not so sure on that inability to forcast the future bit. It seems that a lot of people were pretty sure about the way in which Iraq would end. It was the crux of many of the arguments over the war which I had and I also seem to remember some word of internal CIA analysts warning that Iraq would turn the way it did. In fact one of the more damning condemnations of the war on both sides of the Atlantic was the method by which both Blair and Bush ignored the information their own intelligence agencies were putting out instead relying on largely fabricated intelligence that fit their political agendas, Britain’s Dodgy Dossier and The States’ Valorie Plame affair.

Alright, bad examples. Found a link to the CIA analysis instead. I got it part-way wrong. The analysis puts forward a worst case scenario and highlights methods to avoid it. The contention that this information was ignored is sustained however.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060200905.html

And newer

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0916-02.htm

I’m sure loads of people forecast that it would all end badly. Equally, some people thought it would all work out fine. What I’m saying is that the connection between the forecast and the outcome is random.

Another way to put it is, if you took all the people who forecast that the Iraq war would turn out badly, and looked at the other things that they had made specific forecasts about, they probably wouldn’t turn out to be right more often than you would expect by chance.

In the case of the war, forecasting a bad end was actually a better statistical choice, because in the set of all possible outcomes, there were a lot more ways that it could end badly than ways in which it could turn out all right). So those forecasting making a high-level forecast of a bad end were making a better call. My comment about forecasting was actually linked to the second bit about direction; to influence the result to turn out well, you need to be able to forecast events with some granularity (if you’ll excuse the IT-speak) in order to be able to respond effectively to them.

I supose the logical outcome of this is that if you want to get a reputation as an accurate forecaster, you should never say anything more specific or more positive than “it’ll all end in tears”.

[...] Eine etwas kompliziertere Instanz eines schlechten guten Argumentes findet sich im aktuellen Economist. Darin schreibt Tony Blair, was er in seiner Amtszeit gelernt hat. Natürlich beschäftigt sich ein großer Teil des Artikels mit der Rechtfertigung des Irakkrieges. Das ist an sich völlig in Ordnung: Vielleicht gibt es hier gute Argumente, die uns noch nicht bekannt waren. So sieht das auch das hochgeschätzte Talking Philosophy Blog, das tatsächlich etwas gefunden zu haben meint. Nämlich folgendes Argument von Blair: It is said that by removing Saddam or the Taliban — regimes that were authoritarian but also kept a form of order — the plight of Iraqis and Afghans has worsened and terrorism has been allowed to grow. This is a seductive but dangerous argument. Work out what it really means. It means that because these reactionary and evil forces will fight hard, through terrorism, to prevent those countries and their people getting on their feet after the dictatorships are removed, we should leave the people under the dictatorship. It means our will to fight for what we believe in is measured by our enemy’s will to fight us, but in inverse proportion. (siehe Economist, via Talking Philosophy Blog) [...]

More evidence that any discussion which mentions Blair as an example turns into a discussion about the Iraq war pretty quickly!
Still, this is much better than most. potentilla’s saying some true things about prediction. Most people, for example, who were anti-war were way off the mark when it came to the scale of casualties in the war itself and months following. What we’ve had is a different kind of disaster to that mostly predicted.

There is no framework for the moral justification of a war. Any war. Each war has to be considered on its own.

The 2nd World War can be spun into a moral war, simply because so much became clear afterwards. Many are ambivalent about the Korean War; especially as the lines didn’t change after so much fighting. Vietnam, especially, was judged a immoral, and has been cast as both a failure and a mantra.

(WW2 was a moral war; but for many Americans, it was a war that they need not be involved in. The isolationists were on hand, and vocal, until December 7th, 1941. )

The fact is, war supplies its own reasoning. Hitler had to be stopped; the Soviet Union, too. In fact, the European Theater showed both the requirement for “soft” power (as Andrew puts it!) and “hard” power. It would have done Europe little good to simply say “Please don’t come any further”; if a vast and capable military power hadn’t been available, the Soviet troops would have stopped when their feet got wet.

The argument that supporting pro-democracy movements is the way to end dictatorships doesn’t really stand up to much scrutiny. The Soviets allowed pro-democracy groups to operate only when they lacked the resources and will to imprison the members. A totalitarian society looks after the government first, then the leadership. The people, the general population, aren’t in the equation: public opinion and support aren’t that important to a Pol Pot or a Kim Jong-Il. if they want to know what it is, they’ll tell the population what it is. Saddam was of this ilk; his self-centered government was little different to those of Amin, Mugabe and so many others. Soft power simply doesn’t work against these people. There are too many other governments that don’t particularly care about “human rights” as they are defined in “the West”.

A bit like the schoolyard bully, you can’t say ’stop it!”; you’ll end up being the punching bag. If you say “stop it, or else!” you’d better have a darned good “or else”. Telling the headmaster isn’t likely to work: but punching the guy in the nose just might. But you can’t predict the outcome of such a move: sometimes it works, mostly it just enrages the bully.

No violence fits into a moral framework. Mostly because morality eschews confrontation and harm to others, it can be astonishingly difficult to justify even punching a bully. It becomes contextual, and the so subtle I doubt even the great philosophers would have an easy time parsing the moments and the morality.

Was Gulf War 1 morally justified? I think “yes”, and I also think the troops should have kept going to Baghdad then. Was this war justified? Afghanistan, most assuredly it was. Iraq? No. It was launched under false pretenses, but that actually has nothing to do with its moral imperative. It’s not a war about morality, it’s a war started over vengeance.

Afghanistan was a necessary war: the acts of terror perpetrated by al-Qaeda, and promoted by the Taliban, was more than sufficient justification. Just like Pearl Harbor provided a reasonable starting point for America’s outrage in WW2. But, can the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki be justified? (The context is violent acts; this was the utmost in immediate violence.) Again, we get into murky territory. Dropping the bombs was justified. There’s actually no two ways about it: invading Japan would have been costly in lives lost. There were a million US casualties expected: the hospitals were being built when the bombs were dropped.

As I said, the moral framework for violence has to come from the violence itself. There can be a greater context - do no harm, for instance - but an act of war has to be considered independently of extenuating circumstances.

Individual violence doesn’t provide any guidelines: Was it justifiable to shoot the burglar? How about the rapist? Is it okay to punch the bully before he hits you, or do you have to wait? (If I’d been a little more proactive at school, maybe I’d not have had so many problems with bullies!) Of course, once you’ve punched the bully in the nose, are you able to step back and walk away? Hardly: the bully will simply use your retreat to his advantage.

Bullies have a different perception of violence. When a street thug talks of “respect” he actually mean “fear”. When a dictator or a regime like Iran’s talk of their “rights”, they mean the right to perpetrate violence against others.

State-sponsored violence - war - must be considered within the moment. It’s not automatically “wrong” (Afghanistan proves that); and it’s not automatically “right” (Iraq). Israel has had to consider the justifications for violence for its entire existence. It leans toward punching the bully first, in order to prevent the bully from maybe overwhelming them later. In other words, there simply is no “fixed” context for violence. Moral frameworks do tend to fail in extreme circumstances; war is probably the most extreme circumstance a society can imagine.

Carolyn Ann

“The argument that supporting pro-democracy movements is the way to end dictatorships doesn’t really stand up to much scrutiny.”

I disagree.

I didn’t actually say it was *the* way; I said it was *a* way, one that has proven successful in the past. I was arguing against the position, posited here, that soft power simply wouldn’t have worked in Iraq, and by extension won’t work elsewhere. And there is ample historical evidence to show that foreign support for internal dissent can lead to internal collapse.

“The Soviets allowed pro-democracy groups to operate only when they lacked the resources and will to imprison the members. A totalitarian society looks after the government first, then the leadership. The people, the general population, aren’t in the equation: public opinion and support aren’t that important to a Pol Pot or a Kim Jong-Il. if they want to know what it is, they’ll tell the population what it is. Saddam was of this ilk; his self-centered government was little different to those of Amin, Mugabe and so many others. Soft power simply doesn’t work against these people. There are too many other governments that don’t particularly care about “human rights” as they are defined in “the West”.”

Neither Robespierre nor Ceauşescu nor Pinochet cared about human rights either, yet it wasn’t external force that brought them down, it was internal dissent, and, yes, soft power. You say that they lacked, among other things, the will to continue the repression; just what do you suppose caused that will to slacken?

Given your insistence, Carolyn Anne, that “each war must be considered on its own,” I should think you’re aware how much local conditions matter in weighing these policy decisions; thus I’m surprised that you seem so vehemently to believe that soft power couldn’t have brought about change in Iraq! What features of Iraq, after all, distinguish it from the many other countries where progressive change was brought about without recourse by foreigners to invasion?

I’m probably one of the few participants here who has lived through a dictatorship, that of Pinochet. First of all, Andrew is right: it was internal dissent and international power which brought down Pinochet.
Second, dictatorships, with perhaps the exception of the most totalitarian instances, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc., play politics. Pinochet was sensitive to Chilean and to international public opinion. Moreover, a Pinochet doesn’t come to power or rule in a vacuum: he has domestic and international supporters and a great apathetic mass, who will abandon him when he ceases to serve their interests. It is perhaps dangerous to generalize about dictators, except for the obvious fact that they do not rule democratically. Finally, I sincerely doubt that Chileans, even those most opposed to Pinochet, would have welcomed being liberated from Pinochet by the US marines.

Apologies for taking so long to reply: the weather cleared, and my Ducati sat there, waiting to be ridden. :-) Sorry, Andrew. I read your post, and somewhere along the way “translated” it into a different sentence!

But, I don’t see how internal pressure alone will change a dictatorship. Some sort of external pressure is always required; no society can exist in a vacuum. (Despite North Korea’s best efforts.)

Even Gandhi had an external force to help him. Besides the support provided by Hitler (minimal, and more of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” than anything really meaningful, but it was there), Gandhi had the help of the British post-war economy. Britain could no longer afford an Empire. This decline started in WW1, and continued apace after WW2.

Dictators tend to be more concerned with their own security than with anything else. Power grabs, territorial gains and the like, are par for the course. Extermination of opponents is standard practice.

Objecting and influencing a dictatorship from within is reasonable; the CIA is reputed to practice it more often than they probably do. But soft power still only works as long as you carry a large stick, and are prepared to use it. Otherwise it’s going to take a long time for anything like soft power to work, if ever.

All of this also presumes that the target population agrees that “your” form of government is the best. That’s not always a forgone conclusion! As Bush, et al, found out. Despite the “soft power” efforts of the Soviets, Britain didn’t turn into anything like the Socialist Republic they wanted. Saddam was reported to personally enjoy torturing those who promoted democracy in Iraq. This is where it becomes increasingly tricky, morally speaking. Is it okay to put someone in danger in order to promote democracy? It is if they agree, but when do you draw the line? (Is there a (metaphorical) line to be drawn?)

Obviously each dictator is going to be different; each one has their own local considerations, and personalities. But in general, repressive regimes fail when the dictator is removed from power, or ceases to have influence. Dying, for instance, is always a poor move: the son is usually either worse, or more incompetent than the father. (It’s “strange” how these dictators are always men, and their successors seem to be their sons.)

The Soviets failed when their economy went bust: they ran out of the resources needed to suppress dissent. That and a guy at the top who understood the need to “free” the population. (Russia, currently, seems to be heading back to repression. Putin adhering to his history?)

And no, the US Marines turning up to “liberate” you is not desired anywhere. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for diplomacy and the sponsoring of forums and so on that promote what “we” might think is the proper form of government. It is. I’m just saying that if we rely on the ’soft’ forms of persuasion alone, we’re not likely to get anywhere. I’d go so far as to argue that we’d have more dictators, not less: dictators, like the bullies they are, ignore those who present no immediate threat to them.

The limitations of relying on soft power are apparent in Bosnia. The whole area was turned into a killing field, and no one was able to stop it. Until the Americans turned up with the technology that allowed “hard” power to be used. (And getting them to turn up was a monumental task unto itself!)

The other area that highlights the shortcomings of soft power is Israel/Palestine. Arafat played everyone against everyone else; he retained power, and peace was an impossibility. Now we have Fatah and Hamas fighting for power, with Syria and Iran standing on the sidelines, cheering the violent on. And supplying them more weapons than they can actually use. Diplomacy might be the answer (it probably is), but promoting democracy isn’t going to work: Fatah’s President was democratically elected, and Hamas was elected to run the place. (Maybe if the world had paid more attention to Arafat’s corruption, in the first place, the area might be different today. But they didn’t, and it isn’t.) However, no peace agreement is going to work if Israel has to rely on diplomacy alone. It has to carry a huge stick in order to survive. (It’s willingness, or immediate competence, to use that stick notwithstanding…)

Soft power has to be backed by hard power. As George Orwell observed: men capable of evil help the rest of us sleep safely. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t think human nature allows anything else.

I think a lot of the general discussion re Iraq, and Blair’s role in it, has confused any more general discussion about the morality of war. This war is considered by the majority to amoral, and all wars are therefore considered to be likewise. This isn’t necessarily true.

Before any consideration is withdrawing from Iraq, we (as a society) should examine the consequences of such a move. I don’t think it would be a wise move, no matter the justification for being there in the first place. I think it immoral to leave, considering the lessons from Afghanistan. This (hopefully) proves my contention that wars have to be considered within their own contexts.

Carolyn Ann

I snapped Carolyn Ann before heading off to enlist. Or maybe not.

http://tinyurl.com/2y59l4

I suppose we could give that lady the benefit of the doubt and assume she is going to put her hair into a tight plait before she heads off. And put her gloves on. At least she has boots and knee-sliders rather than high heels.

I don’t remember there being many roads in Corsica that are worth a Ducati, though.

The only problem with consequentialist theory is that one gets to pick the consequences, here a rather hairy matter. If we are to draw historical parallels we may refer to the price often paid by lack of due attention and action towards the rapacious.

We then proceed to considerations of what type of action is to be taken concerning Saddam while considering that he was running a sort of Disneyland for aspiring murderers and was heavily financing the international nail bomb industry.
I take it as a given that some type of [disagreeable ?] force was to be used.

Comparisons to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fail due to the internal fissures and bankruptcy of that one time hegemonic state. Saddam, thanks in part to the UN, the world’s best hope for something or other, had no such problems.

If then the solution resolves to force, the choices are two; do we, can we, utilize the stiletto? That is can we effect a quick, low key putsch centered on the assassination of Hussien?
Sad experience informs us that this is impossible, not just because of monumental security precautions in Iraq, but due to a CIA that has with monotonous regularity proven itself capable only in scheduling lunch hours during it’s work days, and drawing it’s lard assed employees into the cocoon of Langley. Wherein everybody analyzes everybody else’s work.

The second choice is the one in it’s scope but not it’s tactics that was followed. Here, but for the right reasons, Viet Nam is to be remembered.
Only after Westmoreland was replaced by Creighton Abrams was the conventional mass movement, body count, approach changed. The concept of seizing/controlling territory took it’s place, and with success. Broadly speaking this is what is going on in Iraq today. The sad part is that it took so long to implement.

What remains is the question of whether or not stability within the diverse elements that form the population can ever be attained.
This is a civic problem which may or may not be solved but upon which rests the answer to much in a war that in any case will continue across borders and years yet to come.

In regards of the morals of the war and viewing the trans-national, historic aspects of it, you could add in the deontological factor. Namely the prime duty to defend yourself and others, to in a word, survive.

:-) I wish i looked that good! But thanks!

(And the roads of southern New Jersey, northern Delaware and south-east Pennsylvania are purpose-built for Ducati’s!)

I’ve been thinking this one through a little more; while I’m not “backing” away from my “hawk-like” stance - which is not quite the opposite of what I really believe, I do need to reconsider how being a hawk (so to speak) can be correlated with the idea that peace is preferable.

Thanks for making me think. :-)
Carolyn Ann

“We then proceed to considerations of what type of action is to be taken concerning Saddam while considering that he was running a sort of Disneyland for aspiring murderers and was heavily financing the international nail bomb industry.”

Evidence…?

“I take it as a given that some type of [disagreeable ?] force was to be used.”

Even if we stipulate the claim that Hussein’s Iraq was an active sponsor of international terrorism, why does it follow that the application of force is the only possible response?

“Comparisons to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fail due to the internal fissures and bankruptcy of that one time hegemonic state. Saddam, thanks in part to the UN, the world’s best hope for something or other, had no such problems.”

You’re saying that Iraq under Saddam had no internal fissures? Remarkable how quickly they appeared once he was gone, then.

And re-read what I wrote about the Soviet client states in Eastern Europe. It was precisely because there was a certain amount of economic growth and prosperity among certain sectors of the population that enabled popular resistance.

It’s a myth that the growth of poverty sparks revolution; rather it tends to suppress it, dividing social groups into competition for limited resources. It’s economic growth that encourages the social linkages that bring down regimes (though it may take a sudden economic shock to disturb the status quo).

I’m amazed that my relatively modest thesis– that among the reasonable, pragmatic, and morally-appropriate responses to tyrannical regimes is the use of soft power– has attracted so much bluster! I mean, really, what’s so threatening about the admission that, sometimes, non-violent approaches may, possibly, be the right ones? Why the rush to assert that violence and only violence is always the right course of action?

Andrew asks: why the rush to assert that violence and only violence is always the right course of action?
I also wonder why. In addition, I’ve always thought that if one advocates the use of force, one should be ready to risk not just the life of others, but one’s own life. I think that I was consistent with that position during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Now, the United States and the United Kingdom send the working class to die or be maimed in Iraq. How many of the hawks in this blog are willing to put their lives on the line for what they call the liberation of Iraq and what I call the illegal occupation of Iraq? It’s very easy to be hawkish from your computer at many thousand kilometers from the battle scene. It’s very easy to send ignorant young men and women to die in the name of highsounding principles (although oil resources might be involved too). Has anyone ever seen the Kubrick movie Paths of Glory? There one sees the French general staff sipping cognac during World War I, while the infantry literally commits suicide trying to seize a German position, ordered to do so by the elegant cognac drinking generals. I suggest that all the hawks rent the movie.

I’m not sure what I said to promote such sarcasm. Whether I would serve in Iraq or not is irrelevant; that argument is a variation of the “if you’ve not been there, don’t criticize” thing put forward by neocons and some army personnel. I reject both variations; I didn’t have to serve in the Falklands War to understand the reasoning for it, or give my active support to it. Just as I don’t have to support the current Iraq War, even though I do understand why we went in, and why we need to stay there. I don’t agree with the reasoning of why we went in; but that’s different to understanding it.

Some of my friends might be interested to know they’re “working class”; they count themselves as middle class. I found that particular bit quite insulting; especially as my background is “working class”; I’m middle class, now, thank you very much. “Gallipoli” was also an excellent movie about the futile waste of young men’s lives. As the saying goes: young men die when old men go to war.

I apologize if I gave the impression that I favor military power over diplomatic efforts and the like. I don’t: I prefer peace to war, any day. But I still maintain that sometimes it’s better to be pro-active. We couldn’t wait for internal forces to work against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The fight had to be taken to them, and it was. It should have been in the 1990’s, but Congressional inaction and Clinton’s peccadillo’s prevented that.

A problem I have is when I think about Hitler’s Third Reich. Internal dissent was viciously suppressed; the State became the ultimate judge, jury and executioner. Internal dissent had no place in the Fascist Ideal; you didn’t even have to dissent, you just simply had to have some Jewish history. Internal dissent couldn’t start: in Greece, the Nazi’s simply took hostages, and promised 100 executions for every German soldier killed. In France, an entire village was put into a church and burned to death. In the face of such atrocity, the only recourse is external military power. Heck, Hitler killed his best Generals because they had the audacity to launch a campaign to kill him. Nowhere is it mentioned that these Generals said they would do away with Fascism; they just wanted rid of Hitler in order to sue for peace. And, presumably, maintain Fascism as a political system for Europe.

The problem I have with relying on internal dissent - besides a totally different idea of why the Soviet Union failed as a state - is the sheer number of dissenters who lose their lives, and whatever little freedom they may have. Is it any more moral to ask them to put their lives on the line than telling the professional soldier their orders? At least a soldier understands that someone will be shooting at them for little to no reason.

Well? Is it?

Carolyn Ann

Carolyn Ann: “…I do understand why we went in, and why we need to stay there.”

Who are “we”? Ducati-ridin’, military-lovin’, 21st century schizoid professionals? I’m just askin’.

Andrew M, I find it both helpful and polite to address the person I’m responding to, I recommend it.

You ask for evidence as regards Saddam’s involvement in terrorist activities. I’m tempted to say I left it all in the back pocket of my jeans when they went out to the cleaners.
But I won’t.

Rather i will rely on the ample reports and commentary concerning his repeated payments to the families of suicide bombers and the use of Salman Park as a training ground for large numbers of the violently faithful, the Disneyland referred to. It also happened that some war weary murderers used Iraq as something of a resort & rest area, including one of the hero’s of the Achilles Lauro caper.
Then there was the attempted assassination plot against GHW Bush,41, which for reasons I am afraid to guess at, didn’t seem to cause much of a stir. I must assume it was not regarded as an act of terror within the correct social and political circles.

Now Andrew, you must be certain of this one fact, I am not here to prove anything to you, I don’t intend to spend any time trying, i don’t intend to attempt or do links. The things I’ve mentioned, and more, are out there, no offense but do with them as you will.

You ask why is the use of force the only possible response.
Well I can think for starters of seventeen reasons, the seventeen useless and ignored UN resolutions, that’s for starters. Perhaps you think an eighteenth would have done the trick but I’m dubious. But more.
I mention in my first post why peaceful policies were not working, the UN, the Oil for Food fiasco being prominent.
Saddam was quite comfortable to the point where he even had new palaces constructed after the Gulf War. One who builds new palaces is not one who feels the pains and pangs of peaceful pressure. You will forgive the alliteration.

You find it remarkable, remarkable?, that fissures appeared after Saddam was gone after my saying that when he was in power they were not evident. But Andrew, just when else would they appear except when he was gone? If as Johnson said a hanging causes a man’s mind to concentrate imagine what a industrial shredder will do?
Feet first or head first? Is more necessary?

As a parallel case you may refer to Tito’s demise and what happened to and in Yugoslavia.

I’ll try and keep my rejoinder on Eastern Europe & the USSR brief. You manage to avoid the Solidarity movement in Poland joined with the influence of the Pope as well as it’s effects on the rest of the Soviet bloc. You mention increased wealth, but the USSR was an economic basket case, you do not mention the military catastrophe that nation suffered in Afghanistan, or Gorbachev’s realization that the arms race could no longer be sustained, or how Glasnost got out of hand and could not be contained. But I said I’d keep it short.

To close; I never asserted that peaceful means never work only that they had no prospects in Iraq.
And I may add that I only responded in part to what you, and importantly, what others said. Otherwise I would have addressed you in particular, always proper form and the right thing to do.

Peace !

Doug: Edward Said, who I imagine is not much loved by many of the participants in this forum, wrote a wonderful essay in the Guardian (I think) titled, “we know who we are,” all about that “we” that so often appears in the media and the assumptions behind that “we”. That far from innocent “we” intends to constitute a hegemonical common sense for rational, civilized Western men and women, implying that those who don’t share “our” set of beliefs are simply not valid interlocutors.

John T.,

Thank you for the advice on how to conduct myself on internet fora. Though entirely unsolicited, I’m sure it was well intended.

It’s good to know that there are people out there who are willing to take time away from their projects to instruct me on what is “proper form and the right thing to do.” Because how else would I know?

Thanks for policing my speech!

–Andrew

amos — Obviously you got my little joke. (No offense, CA.) Very astute comment you made about the insidious “we.” I never use it; I name countries. I say the US, not “we.” The majority of USers (not to mention Iraqis) are opposed to a US presence in Iraq, so “we” don’t need to stay there. (That’s if one accepts that democracy is a valuable concept.)

I found and read the Said article in the London Review of Books of 17 October 2002. I’m afraid your memory has tricked you. The title of the article is misleading. It’s not “all about that “we” that so often appears in the media and the assumptions behind that “we”. ” It uses “we” in quotes several times, but it doesn’t actually explain why. Good article, though, even though it’s rather dated now.

Doug: I guess that I invented Said’s argument for him. The “we” is insidious as you say, and I think that it’s almost always spoken or written unconsciously, by people who simply do not see that their official version of the truth is contestable.
I know that the majority of the US population opposes the war in Iraq, but generally, the “we” comes from
nations like the United States or the United Kingdom,
which seem at times incapable of understanding that the rest of the world does not see them as the noble champions of all high ideals that they imagine themselves to be. The old Bob Dylan song, “With God on our Side”, sums it up better than I ever could.

“If fire them we’re forced to,
Then fire them we must.
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide.
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.”

from Bob Dylan: _The Times They Are A’changin’_ (1964)

that they imagine themselves to be So that’s the “they” version of the “we” you’re deploring, is it?

“We” is a generic conversational term. It can mean a specific group, if the context is appropriate. In this case, the context was, I thought, more general.

I’m aware that my view of Iraq is unpopular, even despised. Am I supposed to change my view to comply with the majority opinion, in order to avoid insult?

I still maintain that “soft” power doesn’t work as desired: Hitler, Pol Pot and many others prove that dissent from within needs to have a start, and that doesn’t happen in a totalitarian regime that is eager to quash dissent. I haven’t read anything that could dissuade me from that.

And I haven’t read anything that answers my specific questions.

Carolyn Ann

I ( and perhaps Doug: I can’t speak for him) am referring to a broader phenomenon, the tendency of the United States (and perhaps Blair’s UK) to see itself as the bearer of noble ideals, when much of the rest of the world sees them as the biggest bullies on the block. That’s what the Dylan song is about: we could rewrite it with the title “with human rights on our side”. No one in Chile, on the left or on the right, supports the US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq, and no one understands it in terms of high ideals or of human rights. I listen to two radio news programs every morning, one leftwing and one rightwing, and both take it for granted that the US-UK are in Iraq in order to control Iraq’s oil wealth. I always try to explain that it’s more complicated than that, that Bush and Blair genuinely believe that they are good people, that although oil surely enters into their calculations, they probably unconsciously rationalize their realpolitik with the language of human rights. I also find it impossible to communicate to most people in the United States (I have a US passport) that most of the world does not see the United States as the good guy. Many people, including myself, just don’t see a good guy-country in the world. But the United States (and again, that’s what the Dylan song is about) has a psychic necessity to see all its motives as well-intentioned. The United States is like a rapist who always acts out of love.

Andrew, anything for a friend.

Carolyn Ann — I was attempting to be witty in my perhaps somewhat insulting remark, but the initial question was serious. When you say you understand why “we” need to stay in Iraq, who are “we”? The US? I’m a citizen of the US, and I disagree. So if “we” means the US, what does that make me?

I’m aware that “we” can be general or specific depending on context, but don’t you think it would be a good idea to use “we” sometimes (often, even) in the most general sense possible, meaning all of humanity?

Regardsless of Blair’s actual intention, what we can see in the world following their Idea of so calle war against terror!!! is even more chaose and I believe that, Bush and blair are responsible for every single life which has been lost. I am more than curious to know Blair’s answer to this disater. Not only they could not make the world better place but also they’ve made it even much more dangerous place to live. they didi the same thing which Adolf Hitler did but with different style and under the different name, I am so sorry for their ignorant suupporters. they sould be brave enough to reveal their actual intention which is the domination of the whole world!!!

If we review the history, American and British government were among the main supporters of Saddam Hussain in the eight years war between Iran and Iraq. During that war Saddam Hussain in many ocassion put the chemical bomb on innocent citizens, west countries were the main provider of mentioned bombs, but aparently those days human rights and such issues were not important. but the main point still remains unanswered. who sold the nuclear technology to Saddam?obviously WEST!!
why did West suddenly Woke up and decided to remove Saddam, their old friend? because he didn’t pay them enough money.
to think that Iraq’s war was because of humanity and good for the world is exact symbol of fullishness!!!!

And now Blair is going to be the special envoy for the Middle East Quartet. Lying warmonger becomes honest peacemaker. If only… What a bad joke.

Not particularly aimed at anyone, but there was a point I was trying to make that seems to have been missed.

Blair’s argument here is an almost classic straw-man. Let us be clear, I’ve never met anyone who actually wanted to leave Saddam in power. I always felt that argument was that there were other ways of going about removing him and I resent Blair trying to paint me a coward for disagreeing with his methods. It’s much the same as calling me a coward for not shooting a burglar when I could have just kocked him out.

Carolyn Anne,

First off I’m not too sure about the Hitler analogy. I’ll admit it’s probably just a knee-jerk reaction to people bringing up that Nazi’s. I guess one problem is that Saddam had nothing approaching Hitler’s legitimacy; Saddam was a Shia dictator which meant his power base was technically the minority in the country and maintained rule largely through threats and force.

Perhaps a better analogy will be to look at Isreal/Palestine where we have access to the effects of a long-term interventionist policy. It’s even better because it’s regional. As for what to take out of it I’m reluctant to push any point. I personally feel that a defensive security policy will serve the process better but I also suspect that’s never going to happen and sadly I don’t have anything remotely resembling the expertise to take the question further.

Kallan: “…Saddam was a Shia dictator which meant his power base was technically the minority in the country…”

That’s incorrect. Replace “Shia” with “Sunni” and you have it right.

Heh, I was worried about that, the problem of writing posts at 3 in the morning. I couldn’t get the phrase ’sunni majority’ out of my head so I thought I was safe, cheers mate.

Doug, you say “I was attempting to be witty in my perhaps somewhat insulting remark”. That remark mentioned “Ducati-ridin’, military-lovin’, 21st century schizoid professionals.” Can I ask you (and others) to wield your wit more carefully? Whether your remark was insulting I’ll leave to Carolyn Ann to decide, but in general such remarks are likely to cause offence and I’d like to avoid that in this civilised forum!
Sorry to interrupt - back to the matter rather than the manner.

Mr. Baggini, I am duly chastened, and I shall comply. I should know better than to type under the influence.

I’m rather embarrassed: I’m sorry, I didn’t get the joke, Doug.

Why doesn’t the Hitler analogy stand, Kallan? He was a totalitarian dictator, who “suppressed” (what a benign euphemism!) those who even hinted at dissent. Saddam may not have the “legitimacy”, but he certainly had the temerity to admire Hitler, and Stalin.

World domination I’ll leave to people like Hitler; the ever-changing nature of democratic politics means it could never actually have the goal of total domination. Besides, how do you dominate a population if they’re really allowed to choose their own leaders? That’s the essential nature of democracy; free expression simply means that those leaders can’t do anything but chafe when they’re criticized, either.

Bush may (another euphemism…) not be the most competent leader, but that doesn’t mean he’s after domination of the world. Heck, he’d settle for getting a Republican Congress back, and a Veep that isn’t above to him. It just looks like he wants Iraq’s oil. His general incompetence (and that of his staff in articulating what they really want: an Evangelized America) merely reflects the almost complete lack of thought that went into anything but extending a partizan domestic agenda, and an almost willful ignorance of the impact of not having any foreign policy beyond a very strange isolationism. Don’t, for a minute, think they want world domination: they’re not that imaginative.

Blair’s article was better than the one he wrote for “Foreign Affairs”. He actually makes some salient points in The Economist article.

Sorry, gotta dash!
Carolyn Ann

I’m not quite sure where the idea of domination enters into it. I suspect you took interventionist policy to mean imperialist in some sense and that’s not what I intended.

The link I was trying to draw was actually with Isreal’s constant intervention into Palestinian territory in the interest of security. I’m talking about the raising of towns, the assassination of ‘terrorists’ hell even the recent abortive invasion of Lebanon. These are all examples of the interventionist policies I have in mind when drawing a parallel between Iraq and Israel.

As for Blair’s piece I’ve lost all respect for it. The principle that difficulties shouldn’t stop one from actiong is one I hold. I believe strongly in action and in fact have a bad habit for confronting people who misbehave. The point in this instance however is that the anti-war argument does not need to be an argument to passivity which is how the piece has framed the argument. Misrepresenting your opponents position is quite frankly a rather cheap rhetorical trick and Blair should be above it.

Just a small point, lets look at the issue universally rather than particulary.
Regardless of the geographical point, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan…… dont u think that the main problem for West mainly British and American is middle east as a whole. In almost last 50 yeards there has been few bloody war in the region and west always supported one side of the war which make me unsure about their integrity.
if the problem is the cultivation of democracy which they try to help with in the region, why they dont want to cultivate it in countries like Russia, or China which to some extent is much worse than moddle east!!!