Warfare is an especially problematic means because behaviors that would be considered illegal under other circumstances are either tolerated or encouraged during war. Warfare debases social structures in the area where it's waged to survival levels, and traumatizes the entire population. If it's not the absolute last resort, this is an evil thing to do.

To say that war is the only effective means of intervention is to say that all other means, even those that are indirectly coercive, are not worth the attempt.

Diplomatic efforts are not "doing nothing". They are, however, exercised in a less public theater than warfare, and make much less dramatic copy. To our 30-second modern attention spans, they would look a lot like nothing.

Application of the same level of violent intervention to the other problems you mentioned would necessitate a vigilante society, which we have had in the past and have romaticized in novels, movies and on TV. Fine for cowboys. Then the women moved west and put a stop to it, because they wanted their children to grow up, with as many limbs as possible.

I would feel a lot less tense about this particular war if it didn't look to me as if war were the desired action first, and the justifications for it were not developed as backstory. This goes to consistency of application of principles. We haven't done that. For all the noise about liberation, that hasn't happened yet. Liberation, if it comes, will only happen in the war's aftermath. If we fail to follow through, the only gift we will have given is a lot of new landforms (the craters of 2003) and an opportunity for new dictators to vie for the oil fields of Iraq.

Is this a sea change in American policy? Will America, from this time forward, use force to impose philosophy and political uniformity on the world? We'll see. It didn't work for the Soviet Union. I don't understand how we think it will work any better for us.

What if we liberate the Iraqis and, when given a free choice, they choose another junta? Do we overthrow that as well?

Regards--
Mary Anne