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Maybe. I don't think it's possible to determine with any certainty what would have happened, but you could be right.
That occurred to me while I was replying to LnGrrR. I am more than somewhat sympathetic to realpolitik, and I wish there were more hardheaded realism in the conduct of our foreign policy. The damage done by so-called humanitarian wars for democracy and and "self-determination" is incalculable. More amoral realpolitical thinking might begin to stanch it.
My own feeling is that morality (or the decent scruples of civilized nations) and just war theory might in some limited way function to restrain the state's amoral pursuit of of its own ends.
What people love about America is its values, not its might.
Extruding the natural moral differences between nations from analysis would be a mistake IMO. Not only because it restrains us from unleashing war and its evils, but also because it is part of the culture for which we putatively fight, and for which others admire us.
If we win the battle but lose our souls we are losers too.
Last edited by Winehole23; 09-30-2009 at 09:50 AM.
Maybe. I don't think it's possible to determine with any certainty what would have happened, but you could be right.
Eh, I don't see any states out there that are trying to be moral tbh. Realists dominate foreign policy decisions even if they try to play themselves off as liberals (in the classic sense of the word).
They hate us for our freedom. Wow, straight for the school of Bush.
Yes, I feel it could be.
I'm not sure you understood me. I meant, the only morality on determining whether to join a war is at the TIME you join the war. Look at Iraq for instance. Some people could be morally justified in supporting the war if they thought there were WMDs that were going to be used against us or other countries in the near future. However, when it was determined that there WEREN'T weapons, the reason for their morality is shown to not be there.
Their decision is still moral though; as they decided based on the information available.
The opposite is true too though. Say two countries are fighting, and we want to share in the spoils. We join side A. Later, it's found that side B tortured. Just because good things came of our joining the war, does not mean the choice to enter the war was moral.
That's why I explained the difference between legitimacy and morality.
Wel, the war in Iraq encompasses many things. I don't necessarily think the decision to go to war was immoral; however, not planning for the fallout of taking out their government definitely was. Given that Cheney, in the first Gulf war, correctly described what would happen if we took Saddam down, ignorance can't be used as an excuse.
Oh, no it does not. The fact is, the winners make the rules is a reality. That does not make each rule they create morally justified, no.
Thanks for bringing up moral luck. Couldn't quite remember the term, but there's a reason I knew about the drunk driving analogy.
As I detailed above, our war did turn out to be unjust, but I can't fault the morality of the actors who agreed with that decision based on limited information.
That and OBL wanted to help Kuwait so that the US would never have to come on over to the holy land in the first place.
Really, this thread could have ended with boutons quote above because it's pretty much correct.........the "they hate our freedom" thing is dumb.
I can.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. Morality is a paper tiger if it lets us off the hook for decisions that are inevitably founded on imperfect information.
There's also the question of bona fides. Intelligence agencies were pressured to tailor their work product to GWB's predilection for war. When they did not comply to the degree desired, intelligence shops (OSP most notably) were set up in the DoD to cherry pick and stovepipe bad information and straight up fabrications to the president.
IMO the brief for war wasn't assembled in good faith. Deception and selectivity characterize the whole process. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O' Neill reports that Bush started asking for a cause of war in his very first week in office. Maintaining the pretense that the Administration had a good faith relationship to the Iraq intelligence is a bit of a stretch. It was an idee fixe. Not going to war was never an option. The results of investigation were tailored to suit this end.
That's immoral.
Since this thread is so 2003-ish, I thought I'd pile on.
Ah WH23, you missed my little bit at the end. That's why I mentioned the "limited information" at the end of that. I don't fault the average person for supporting the Iraq War.
However, if the information you have ISN'T limited, and in fact isn't clear, but you massage it in order to only show what you want it to, then that IS immoral.
I agree that the administration used the intel in bad faith.
It does not let one off the hook, so to speak, if due diligence hasn't been performed. But if an actor does due diligence, and later determines that said information is incorrect, I can hardly fault the man.
For instance, let's take the hypothetical of a firm developing a new drug. Said drug will, let's say, ease suffering of chemo patients. The firm tests the drug over a 5 year study and concludes the drug works, then release it on the market.
Now, 25 years later, it's found that the drug can lead to increased risk for heart problems. Should we conclude that the firm was immoral in releasing the drug? I think not.
I think the time of when a decision is made is key to the morality. For instance, slavery is obviously immoral, and I believe even our Founding Fathers knew that. However, I would consider it MORE immoral if America were to ins ute slavery nowadays, as opposed to back then. I feel morality evolves as we do (or, in the case of torture, devolves.)
Morality is a fad from 2003?
Hypocrisy never goes out of style.
How do the liberals justify their outrage?
They were the ones who told us about the threat, then all then they can say is "Bush Lied," when much if the intel he relied on was from them!
The Democratic party doesn't speak for me or the rest of the antiwar right.
It's one big happy war party. Pointing to the quiescence of the Dems on Iraq doesn't prove anyone's hypocrisy except for theirs.
Meanwhile, Obama is in Copenhagen to hard sell Chicago for the Olympics and General McChrystal has talked with Obama only once in 70 days and is still awaiting a response to his August memo -- all the while, things are getting worse in Afghanistan.
The silence form the left is deafening.
Also, remember back when the MSM wanted to photograph the flag-draped caskets of dead soldiers returning to the US? As of April this year, Obama lifted the press ban. Funny thing is, without Bush in office, the MSM has suddenly lost interest --> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/po...-62427012.html
I was ready to start a new thread on that once I did a little fact checking.
choo choo had 8 years to , but didn't.
Who is being a hypocrit in this thread?
Are you so upset with a thread that actually has substance and real discussion with very little bull that you have to come clutter it up with political rhetoric?
You're amazing.
Belongs in the other thread. Please pay attention, Darrin.
See first post on this page.
Anyways...
WH23, any rebuttal to my comment about morality, due diligence, etc etc above?
As a rule of thumb, it makes good sense to privilege intention over results. I substantially agree with what you posted.
I'm not a moral luck absolutist; but neither am I an absolutist about morality going to intention alone, a la Kant.
Sorry for the brevity. I have to go to a trade show pretty soon.
Sandy Berger. Is that a sheet of paper under your shirt?
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