Lets say that Hitler just killed the Jews, The Serbs were just killing the Croats, and Saddam was just killing his own people.
Is this enough by itself to justify using force to remove them from power and free the oppressed people?
If a guy was beating up a girl to a point where she is bloody and aproaching death and you could easily take out this guy, should you? If the girl is innocent? And the guy is known for this behavior? How does this differ when it comes to nations?
I’ve heard arguments about the war against Iraq saying no blood for oil, no WMD have been found and the like (I’ve heard the other side too), but if it is enough to use force to end the attrocities then I can’t see how any other anti-war statment can be considered.
It depends what you mean by “justified” - as in, morally acceptable, or fulfilling the proper job of a government? It seems to me that it would be acceptable to use force to stop atrocities in other countries, as this is the moral equivalent of killing somebody attempting to murder a third party (of course, if you add in the question of civilian casualties, it becomes a more complicated problem). That does not mean that a government has an obligation to intervene to stop atrocities, as that may not be in the bests interests of its citizens. However, in this case the offense is against the government’s citizens, and not those against whom force is used.
It also gets complicated when the atrocities are claimed to be part of internal struggle. As a wild hypothetical let’s say that rather than killing his own people Saddam claims he was attacking a village under Kurdish rebel control. So are we going in to stop atrocities or take sides in a civil war?
The problem with the analogy is that there are also a lot of other guys standing around who habitually do nothing. But, when your back is turned, they screw the girl. Then there is our friend, let’s call him “Tony,” who always helps us with these wife beating types. We should see what he thinks we should do…
Anyway, the analogy is a little strained. I’ll work on a serious answer, sorry.
The problem is when the next guy starts beating his wife, the wife will expect us to come to their aid as well. But what happens if we need that wifebeaters help against an even bigger wifebeater? Do we say, sorry lady? We need your husband to help us go kick some other guys ass?
I think that’s what people have a problem with. While it’s great that Iraq will have a Sadaam free future, people generally expect justice to be doled out in a consistant manner. To quote from “Three Kings” (the greatest of the three Desert Storm movies made), “lots of people are in trouble but you don’t fight no fucking wars for them”.
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I know one of the others ones was Courage Under Fire (pretty good, but not particularly memorable). Which was the third? Live from Baghdad?
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Does the fact that the girl is pretty (or not) play a role in this equation? After all, look at Rwanda (no oil) – we did not care to save her and make her ours. But when it comes to the atrocities of Saddam in Iraq (oil rich) – we care, and we are going to save her and make her ours.
"and you could easily take out this guy, should you?"
Yes, but only if you “could easily take him out”. All the tough jobs with no rewards are best selectively ignored.
I rather think you should call the police. Seeing someone who beat his wife over a decade ago and then calling the police to say “hey, there is a bad guy, I am going to beat him up, ok? But you know, no matter what you say, I am going to do it anyway, ha ha ha” is definitely the wrong solution to this problem.
Rwanda also had no sea ports, making supply difficult. Logistics is a huge problem. Kofi Anan lying in front of the UN made some serious problems in getting any public support in America, and this was at a time when Americans didn’t want to send forces abroad (after Somolia). There was also some serious concern over whether or not we could do anything to help. Everything was against going to Rwanda, except our humanity. Sadly, brotherly love is wonderful, but not terribly practical.
This is why in my analogy I stated ‘easily’, perhaps I should have stated easily AND not having a net negative effect on you (or the country).
This is an added complication which is another moral/ethical problem, are civilian casualties accpable when freeing people from a murderous government.
To me it justifies corrective action by the larger community. Internal abuse in a country is much like domestic violence. It’s wrong.
Hitler directed most of his internal atrocities against the Jews, based on the fallacious premise that they weren’t really German, or part of the German community. Not to disregard what he did to the Jewish people, we unwittingly go along with that that fallacy when we emphasize the fact that his targets were Jews, and forget that they were also citizens and residents of Germany.
This wasn’t another nation he was attacking, it was his own people. Our intervention was justified then and it is justified now.
