Self-Defense
Given that Saddam is well known to be an evil
wrong-doer to his own people, the calculation appears to have been that one
could not go wrong in this situation by harming him, even if it turned out that
he had no strategic weapons, and was not colluding with al
Qaeda.
I found a credo at the web site of
Dave Krieger (http://www.davekrieger.net/Credo/)
that contained an interesting definition of evil:
1. Any being capable of conceptualizing about future events, communicating their conceptions to me, and acting in accord with their expressed conceptions, is a person.
2. Wrong consists of harming another person unnecessarily.
3. Evil is the enjoyment of doing wrong.
I believe that the principles above are good ones that correspond closely to the foreign policy principles of the USA. So when is it necessary to do harm to other persons? Necessity is defined by that thing called "self-defense", the legal definition of which is:
The right to protect oneself against violence or threatened violence with whatever force or means are reasonably necessary.
So the key is either attempted or threatened violence. Either of those will legally justify doing harm to the degree necessary to prevent further reverse harm from being done. A key problem is that lethal violence, once done, cannot be undone by self-defensive violence. Thus there is always a strong motivation to take advantage of the "threatened violence" clause. To do otherwise could be considered suicidal.
Let's apply it to the initiation of war, say, the war in Iraq:
The US was repeatedly harmed by terrorists. The terrorists threatened additional harm. The US clearly has a right to use self-defensive force to prevent further harm being done, up to and including the level of harm already done or threatened.
Was the US entitled by this situation to invade Iraq and to kill members of the ruling family and their armed representatives?
An impartial court, if there were one, would evidently find that the Iraqi ruling family was not involved in the terrorist acts against the US, nor had it threatened the US with attack beyond its own self-defense. However, Iraq was asserted to have the means for such attacks and to be colluding with the terrorists who had threatened to carry out further attacks. Hussein denied having either the means or the inclination to attack the US. But the Hussein family was known to have done wrong to others, including its own people. So it came down, in Pres. Bush's approximate words from his nomination acceptance speech: to "I had a choice between believing a madman, or defending my country. Given that choice, you can always count on me to defend my country."
Given that neither the means of attack, nor the collusion with the 9/11 terrrorists have been confirmed, the US now appears to have harmed the Iraqis unnecessarily and to be guilty of wrongly attacking Iraq. Some members of the administration have expressed substantial satisfaction with what has been done there, which would appear to correspond roughly to "enjoyment". Is the USA evil?
It appears that we were willing in this case to transfer the harm done and threats made by religious jihadists to the secular Husseins, as justifications for action. Given that Saddam is well known to be an evil wrong-doer to his own people, the calculation appears to have been that one could not go wrong in this situation by harming him, even if it turned out that he had no strategic weapons, and was not colluding with al Qaeda. Our "backup" motivations were not adequate as public justifications, so we were forced to find more robust ones in their place, and found a way to do so for sufficiently long to occupy Iraq. Now we are stuck with the results, and the question is whether the above calculation was indeed valid. Most likely, true defense of our nation is worth any price we can pay, while the disciplining of an evil wrong doer may not be worth the price we have already paid, especially considering the risk that al Qaeda has become more threatening while we've been distracted...
1. Any being capable of conceptualizing about future events, communicating their conceptions to me, and acting in accord with their expressed conceptions, is a person.
2. Wrong consists of harming another person unnecessarily.
3. Evil is the enjoyment of doing wrong.
I believe that the principles above are good ones that correspond closely to the foreign policy principles of the USA. So when is it necessary to do harm to other persons? Necessity is defined by that thing called "self-defense", the legal definition of which is:
The right to protect oneself against violence or threatened violence with whatever force or means are reasonably necessary.
So the key is either attempted or threatened violence. Either of those will legally justify doing harm to the degree necessary to prevent further reverse harm from being done. A key problem is that lethal violence, once done, cannot be undone by self-defensive violence. Thus there is always a strong motivation to take advantage of the "threatened violence" clause. To do otherwise could be considered suicidal.
Let's apply it to the initiation of war, say, the war in Iraq:
The US was repeatedly harmed by terrorists. The terrorists threatened additional harm. The US clearly has a right to use self-defensive force to prevent further harm being done, up to and including the level of harm already done or threatened.
Was the US entitled by this situation to invade Iraq and to kill members of the ruling family and their armed representatives?
An impartial court, if there were one, would evidently find that the Iraqi ruling family was not involved in the terrorist acts against the US, nor had it threatened the US with attack beyond its own self-defense. However, Iraq was asserted to have the means for such attacks and to be colluding with the terrorists who had threatened to carry out further attacks. Hussein denied having either the means or the inclination to attack the US. But the Hussein family was known to have done wrong to others, including its own people. So it came down, in Pres. Bush's approximate words from his nomination acceptance speech: to "I had a choice between believing a madman, or defending my country. Given that choice, you can always count on me to defend my country."
Given that neither the means of attack, nor the collusion with the 9/11 terrrorists have been confirmed, the US now appears to have harmed the Iraqis unnecessarily and to be guilty of wrongly attacking Iraq. Some members of the administration have expressed substantial satisfaction with what has been done there, which would appear to correspond roughly to "enjoyment". Is the USA evil?
It appears that we were willing in this case to transfer the harm done and threats made by religious jihadists to the secular Husseins, as justifications for action. Given that Saddam is well known to be an evil wrong-doer to his own people, the calculation appears to have been that one could not go wrong in this situation by harming him, even if it turned out that he had no strategic weapons, and was not colluding with al Qaeda. Our "backup" motivations were not adequate as public justifications, so we were forced to find more robust ones in their place, and found a way to do so for sufficiently long to occupy Iraq. Now we are stuck with the results, and the question is whether the above calculation was indeed valid. Most likely, true defense of our nation is worth any price we can pay, while the disciplining of an evil wrong doer may not be worth the price we have already paid, especially considering the risk that al Qaeda has become more threatening while we've been distracted...
Posted: Wed - September 1, 2004 at 07:16 p.m. | |
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Published On: Sep 01, 2005 06:35 p.m.
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Published On: Sep 01, 2005 06:35 p.m.