Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Maybe to wind this up...

Willing to see eye to eye
Yeti Master — (archived)

"I think we could arrive at a middle ground if we could see that neither the "no preemptive attack" or the "preemptive attack" approach to foreign policy is without risk and possible terrible consequences."

Okay, as long as you allow that there are other factors than our sides own bodycount that go into the decision to make war. Very severe and non-trivial ethical issues that are at least as important. I will allow that this can speak both for and against war.

My position, however, remains that only national self defense is justified with the possible exception of (preventable) active and catastrophic genocide.

"The intelligence question on Iraq could have fallen either way, and there was no way to know that ahead of time."

I disagree, categorically. Like I said- I was driving SUVs through the holes in the claims by the admin BEFORE the war ever started. To me it was absurdly wrong intel.

"The consequences of the other path, had Iraq in fact been doing everything our intelligence said it was, would also have been difficult to live with."

And the moral cost (and I think, ultimately, the practical cost in terms of our relations with the world) for having done the wrong thing, to OUR NATION, has been and will continue to be astronomical. These were the costs that I argued about before the war- go check your bookmarks.

Tom- for me it was pretty clear that there was little or no evidentiary basis for this war. I think time has simply bourn me out on this. The only really irrefutable basis for this war was that Saddam was a Bad Man, a real dreg of humanity. This was irrefutable, and unequivocable, but not much else was.

If this is to be the bar for waging war in the future, all is lost, as 5/6ths of the world is ruled by thugs. And if we are not carful, so will we become, as we thrash whomever we decide on a daily basis.

Davin L

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