<are YOU not behaving/advocating things (WRT this war) that are consistent with:

1) You think you know best and

2) you are trying to meddle in how people live their lives/tell them how to live.



I am assuming that this question is specifically about going into Iraq and changing the regime, and regarding that as "meddling" and telling the Iraqis "how to live." If I'm misinterpreting, let me know.

My belief is that a person's right to run their own life can be legitimately abridged when they are deliberately harming other people. This also applies to nations.

In other words, just like one has the moral right to restrain and imprison a person who is beating a child, or the right to shoot a person who is about to murder another person, a free nation has the moral right to interfere with nations where there is no freedom.

Leftists certainly felt this way back during the Spanish war against the Fascists. Wonder what happened? When did the "war against the oppressor" suddenly shrink down only to mean a war against "Amerika?" Did you read this? It got little comment when Larry posted the link a few days ago.

The Left enthusiastically endorsed a world-wide embargo on South Africa, which is certainly "meddling," although not military. And how many Marxist military "revolutions" have been endorsed by the Left, and even supported? There seems to be nothing wrong to the Left with a military solution if it's in their favor.

Now of course, having a moral right does not, in a society of laws, give you totally free reign. If I, who am not a cop, shoot a man who is about to knife another one, I may get off as legally justified, and I may indeed have a moral justification, but that I will spend time in court to prove this is certain.

And even given a moral right to eliminate a totalitarian regime, this does not, in a realistic world of politics, give a nation carte blanche to roll into every rotten country on Earth with tanks. I will give you that.

Ideally, the U.N. should be the "cops" and "courts" in these cases, but for reasons I've discussed elsewhere, the U.N. has long ago ceased to be functional at this sort of thing, either morally or in practice. They have become the equivalent of a completely corrupt legal system with cops on the "take." So we are left with what we have now, having to make the decisions to defend our nation and our allies without U.N. blessing.

So to sum up, yes, if saving a nation's people from tyranny is "meddling," so be it. We can legitimately disagree on whether there are ways other than military to accomplish it--I still have yet to see workable alternatives for Iraq, although I will concede that a non-military solution could be possible in many other cases. Totalitarian regimes have certainly fallen without a fight, but it's damn rare. I personally think we were bloody lucky with the Soviet Union.

A sidebar on violence as a solution: Some pro-war folks have pointed out that the Civil War was required to end slavery in the U.S. Others have quietly pointed out that of all the nations that have eliminated slavery over the years, apparently only the U.S. required a war to do so. Something to think about.

There are many methods of "meddling," and tanks aren't the only solution. They just seem to be the only solution in Iraq, when Saddam is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

I hope this clears my thoughts up a little. It's late, and I'm not thinking as linearly as I should be.