Why Does Al-Qaeda Hate Us?

[LnGrrrR]

No we cannot make all countries into what we want. We don't have the capacity.

Fair enough.

Here are some of my question is should US intervene anytime? Should we intervene when it is beneficial to america's interest, or morally just?

A good question!I don't think there's any hard and fast rule to when we should intervene. But I think that, in general, these rules should be considered:

1) It must be supported by a majority of Americans
2) It must be supported by a majority of citizens in the country we're helping
3) There must be a strong case to be made why America should intervene

I believe 1 was applicable to Iraq, and 3 could be argued. Not sure about 2.

Are there certain governments that america should not work with until they become a better government?

I'm against the idea that talking to a regime gives them legitimacy. If a person is in power, by hook or by crook, that's all the legitimacy they need anyways. I'm all for talking to whoever we can to determine what America's interests are. I realize I'm probably in the minority.

Should an enemy of ours be able to develop nuclear weapons?

Philosophically speaking, I don't see how America, the only nation to use nukes, is justified in telling other people whether or not they can pursue nuclear weapons.

Realistically, there are certainly valid reasons why we don't want countries producing nuclear weapons, especially if those countries have poor security. I'm not quite sure how to align those two.

[Wild Cobra]

I have heard several interviews with Brigitte Gabriel. She has a couple books out. If anyone is serious to lean about this topic maybe her books should be read. Since I haven't read them, I cannot fully comment, but the several interview I have heard her on, she makes sense.

Her website:

American Congress for Truth

I don't know if that audio is one I heard before or not, but I linked it because I found it in a short search. From YouTube:



Audio: Interview with Brigitte Gabriel

[MannyIsGod]

Well, it did take on some life after sitting there for hours like a rotting turd.

You made your post 20 minutes after my OP. Hours? Are you so ing stupid that you don't believe people can tell time?

You're not even good at being a hack.

[mogrovejo]

Actually, you obviously missed the whole point.

Tell me Micca, what makes it MORAL to invade another country and change their government through force?

Are you a utilitarianist?

Can't a war be morally legitimated ex-post? For example, would an American intervention in the II WW before Pearl Harbour be moral if it the result would have been to avoid the Holocaust?

[mogrovejo]

The UN inspectors, who had the best access and information, were ignored. They told us beforehand there were no WMD's in Iraq and they were right.

In which report? Can you provide a link?

[balli]

Really? Weak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix

[LnGrrrR]

Can't a war be morally legitimated ex-post? For example, would an American intervention in the II WW before Pearl Harbour be moral if it the result would have been to avoid the Holocaust?

I don't believe so. That same logic would involve saying that it's fine to drive drunk, as long as you don't actually hit someone, wouldn't it?

[mogrovejo]

Thank you, but I certainly wasn't asking for a link to Mr. Blix wikipedia article.

I was asking for a link to the report or briefing from the UN inspectors before the invasion where it was said beforehand "there were no WMD's in Iraq".

Accordingly to Mr. Blix briefing to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, he explicitly stated that they weren't able to exclude the possibility that weapons of mass destruction exist and that to reach that conclusion they'd need credible evidence to that effect that was yet to be presented due to the lack of cooperation from Iraqi authorities.

Winehole stated something different so he certainly has access to information I'm not aware of. It's the link to that information I asked for.

[mogrovejo]

I don't believe so. That same logic would involve saying that it's fine to drive drunk, as long as you don't actually hit someone, wouldn't it?

Not necessarily, because a priori there's no right intention or just cause in the act of driving drunk. I think that driving drunk can be morally justified if one does it with, eg., the belief that he's driving someone with a risk of life to the hospital.

What should have been done to the Nazi leaders who were judged in the Nuremberg Trials if one refuses the concept of ex post legitimacy?

[LnGrrrR]

Accordingly to Mr. Blix briefing to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, he explicitly stated that they weren't able to exclude the possibility that weapons of mass destruction exist and that to reach that conclusion they'd need credible evidence to that effect that was yet to be presented due to the lack of cooperation from Iraqi authorities.

He was probably just covering his ass right there. However, it's quite a jump to go from "Probably NOT there" to "Definitely there".

[mogrovejo]

If a person is in power, by hook or by crook, that's all the legitimacy they need anyways. .

In that case, are all revolutionary or civil wars unjust? Including the American Revolutionary War?

[Winehole23]

In which report? Can you provide a link?

I surely overstated their conclusions, and I thank you for the correction. My memory turned out a bit fuzzy. UNSCOM found no WMDs, nor any evidence of any programs, George Tenet's slam dunk notwithstanding. Surely it would have been imprudent for them to rule out that no WMDs or WMD facilities existed in Iraq.

But that they had found none after years of very intrusive inspections is true, and this fact received little consideration in the stampede to war. As it turned out, these findings gave a true picture of Saddam's WMD activity.

Perhaps my own memory of the way things unfolded was influenced by the Duelfer Report, which confirmed the UNSCOM findings.

I apologize to the board for the mistatement.

[mogrovejo]

Deleted.

[LnGrrrR]

Not necessarily, because a priori there's no right intention or just cause in the act of driving drunk. I think that driving drunk can be morally justified if one does it with, eg., the belief that he's driving someone with a risk of life to the hospital.

You're confusing the issue here, unintentionally I believe.

You asked two different questions originally, which I should have broken up.

Can't a war be morally legitimated ex-post?

If it is not moral to join the war, then it's not moral. You can't join a war for immoral or amoral reasons, and then graft some sort of "Well, things turned out OK, so it was alright" morality to it. Here's where I brought up the 'reverse' idea, that it would be ok to approve of drunk driving if nothing negative occurred.

For example, would an American intervention in the II WW before Pearl Harbour be moral if it the result would have been to avoid the Holocaust?

An American intervention could be seen as moral even if we weren't attacked first, yes, if it could be determined to save a greater amount of lives than would be lost, if it would mean upholding moral ideals, etc etc.

I'm not saying starting a war with someone without being attacked first is necessarily immoral. I'm just saying it's. IMHO, bad policy.

What should have been done to the Nazi leaders who were judged in the Nuremberg Trials if one refuses the concept of ex post legitimacy?

I'm not sure why you're conflating legitimacy with morality here. As you know, the winners make the rules. If the Axis had won, they would have seen their rules as legitimate.

Perhaps you could clarify what you meant here?

[LnGrrrR]

In that case, are all revolutionary or civil wars unjust? Including the American Revolutionary War?

Legitimacy /= Morality

I would think it rather obvious, but no, not all revolutions are unjust or immoral.

[spursncowboys]

I surely overstated their conclusions, and I thank you for the correction. My memory turned out a bit fuzzy. UNSCOM found no WMDs, nor any evidence of any programs, George Tenet's slam dunk notwithstanding. Surely it would have been imprudent for them to rule out that no WMDs or WMD facilities existed in Iraq.

But that they had found none after years of very intrusive inspections is true, and this fact received little consideration in the stampede to war. As it turned out, these findings gave a true picture of Saddam's WMD activity.

Perhaps my own memory of the way things unfolded was influenced by the Duelfer Report, which confirmed the UNSCOM findings.

I apologize to the board for the mistatement.

You are truly a scholar and a gentleman.

[mogrovejo]

You're confusing the issue here, unintentionally I believe.

You asked two different questions originally, which I should have broken up.


If it is not moral to join the war, then it's not moral. You can't join a war for immoral or amoral reasons, and then graft some sort of "Well, things turned out OK, so it was alright" morality to it. Here's where I brought up the 'reverse' idea, that it would be ok to approve of drunk driving if nothing negative occurred.

An American intervention could be seen as moral even if we weren't attacked first, yes, if it could be determined to save a greater amount of lives than would be lost, if it would mean upholding moral ideals, etc etc.

Isn't that a contradiction? It seems you think that it would have been moral if the US had entered the IIWW in 1941 and hypothetically prevented a genocide. In that case, and according to your previous stance, if it's not moral to join a war then it's not moral, ergo if it's moral to join a a war then it's moral, the decision to enter the IIWW earlier would always be more regardless of the outcome. Unless if "it could be determined" you mean ante facto. But men, not Gods, are making those decisions and that would subordinate the morality of the war to the outcome - if they were right in their cauculus the war would have been moral, if not then it wasn't moral, something that conflicts with your previous stance.

I'm not saying starting a war with someone without being attacked first is necessarily immoral. I'm just saying it's. IMHO, bad policy.

So, was the war in Iraq immoral or merely bad policy?

I'm not sure why you're conflating legitimacy with morality here. As you know, the winners make the rules. If the Axis had won, they would have seen their rules as legitimate.

Perhaps you could clarify what you meant here?

I'm talking stricly about morality or moral legitimacy. Does "the winners make the rules" moraly justifies the Nuremberg Trials?

[Winehole23]

I don't believe so. That same logic would involve saying that it's fine to drive drunk, as long as you don't actually hit someone, wouldn't it?

In philosophy (Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel) this is sometimes referred to as moral luck.

From the wiki:

Moral luck is a phenomenon whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even though it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences.

Your focus on drunk driving turns out to be apt. It appears in this problem:

There are two people driving cars, Driver A, and Driver B. They are alike in every way. Driver A is driving down a road, and, in a second of inattention, runs a red light as an old lady is crossing the street. Driver A slams the brakes, swerves, in short, does everything to try to avoid hitting the woman – alas, she hits the woman and kills her. Driver B, in the meantime, also runs a red light, but since no woman is crossing, he gets a traffic ticket, but nothing more.


If a bystander were asked to morally evaluate Drivers A and B, there is very good reason to expect him to say that Driver A is due more moral blame than Driver B. After all, her course of action resulted in a death, whereas the course of action taken by Driver B was quite uneventful. However, there are absolutely no differences in the controllable actions performed by Drivers A and B. The only disparity is that in the case of Driver A, an external uncontrollable event occurred, whereas it did not in the case of Driver B. The external uncontrollable event, of course, is the woman crossing the street. In other words, there is no difference at all in what the two of them could have done – however, one seems clearly more to blame than the other. How does this occur?


This is the problem of moral luck. If it is given that moral responsibility should only be relevant when the agent voluntarily performed or failed to perform some action, Drivers A and B should be blamed equally, or praised equally, as may be the case. At the same time, this is at least intuitively problematic, as – whatever the external cir stances are – one situation resulted in an unfortunate death, and the other did not.

The case involves resultant moral luck, as does mogrovejo's question about justification after the fact.

Resultant moral luck concerns the consequences of actions and situations. In the above example, both drivers were affected by resultant moral luck in that a particular set of cir stances turned out in two different ways: in one situation, a pedestrian appeared on the road; in the other, she did not.

War is surely a not a cir stance that is governed by the intentions of those who wage it, nor are its accidents or eventual course subject to much control. Whether or not a war is just seems to some to depend on the results of the war.

"Bad guys were killed, the world is better off for it."

This view is correct as far as it goes, but it is partial. If justification after the fact is subject to moral luck, so is the justification beforehand: our casus belli turned out to be a crock of . There were no WMDs. Saddam was not an imminent threat.

Ergo, our justification before the fact is nugatory. We waged an unjust war in Iraq, despite all our after the fact bids for legitimacy.

[mogrovejo]

If justification after the fact is subject to moral luck, so is the justification beforehand: our casus belli turned out to be a crock of . There were no WMDs. Saddam was not an imminent threat.

Ergo, our justification before the fact is nugatory. We waged an unjust war in Iraq, despite all our after the fact bids for legitimacy.

Just to clarify: if there were WMDs, the war would have been just or still unjust?

[Winehole23]

So, was the war in Iraq immoral or merely bad policy?

The two are not mutually exclusive. IMO the answer is both.

I'm talking stricly about morality or moral legitimacy. Does "the winners make the rules" moraly justifies the Nuremberg Trials?

This is one of the problems with resultant moral luck: the winners are always morally justified in their own eyes, and define the criminality of the losers.

Force decides justice. By comparison, moral justification is a rhetorical flourish.

[Winehole23]

Just to clarify: if there were WMDs, the war would have been just or still unjust?

Perhaps. In my mind there would have to be the real intention to use them on us. The threat would have to be actual. I don't think mere possession of WMDs satisfies that condition.

To be completely clear, I don't think just war theory compasses preemptive wars of aggression. I'm skeptical that they are ever moral, but I don't rule out that some future war might be.

[mogrovejo]

The two are not mutually exclusive. IMO the answer is both.

I didn't mean that the were were exclusive. I already knew he thought it was bad policy, I was wondering if it was morally unjust on the top of that or not.

This is one of the problems with resultant moral luck: the winners are always morally justified in their own eyes, and define the criminality of the losers.

Force decides justice. By comparison, moral justification is a rhetorical flourish.

Probably true. In that case, maybe moral concepts can't really be applied to a state's behaviour and the right thing to do is always to pursuit it's own security.

[Winehole23]

You are truly a scholar and a gentleman.

I screw up sometimes. IMO it's best to admit it promptly.

[MannyIsGod]

Perhaps. In my mind there would have to be the real intention to use them on us. The threat would have to be actual. I don't think mere possession of WMDs satisfies that condition.

To be completely clear, I don't think just war theory compasses preemptive wars of aggression. I'm skeptical that they are ever moral, but I don't rule out that some future war might be.

Just wary theory does indeed address preemptive war and it finds that preemptive war is indeed just. However, what we have here was the misuse of the word preemptive in place of preventative war which is not jus ad bellum.

[mogrovejo]

Perhaps. In my mind there would have to be the real intention to use them on us. The threat would have to be actual. I don't think mere possession of WMDs satisfies that condition.

To be completely clear, I don't think just war theory compasses preemptive wars of aggression. I'm skeptical that they are ever moral, but I don't rule out that some future war might be.

Clarified. The problem that may exist with that view is that it may force a state that wants to be moral to put at peril the safety of its citizens, precisely the most noble and morally justified function of a state. The reality is that if Churchill's advises in the 30s had been followed millions of human lifes would be saved and the civilization would be spared to the most horrific moments of its existence.