From: Dan Minette [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> I don't agree with Andrew completely. For instance the pre-emptive strike >> by Israel in the Seven Day War was justified. Thats a tricky one, to be honest I don't know enough about it to comment. Taking a premptive strike, like if the French had launched an attack hours before the Germans invaded in 1940, to gain a strategic advantage over an enemy poised to invade and essentially already at war, I would not view that as "starting" a war. The balance of strenght is also relevant. I am not opposed to defensive wars, they are unfortunate but beyond ones control really. Its wars of agression that you dont start. For any who wish to cast this as the situation in Iraq, with TWAT as the war already declared, I would seek three bits of info. 1) Where were the poised Iraqi Armies about to invade America, or England, or Australia et al. 2) Where is the evidence that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 etc, ie that he was at war with any of the above. 3)Even if both the above were true, what sort of evidence do we have that America was in any way threated by Iraq. >> It becomes more obvious every day however, that the invasion of Iraq was >> unjustified, ill advised and poorly executed (not withstanding the >> effectiveness of the military whose initial performance was exemplary.) >OK, you put brackets on your opinion, which I appreciate. But, let me >explore it further. Was our intervention in Bosnia acceptable? Should we >have stopped the genocide in Rwanda? Our hands are full, but should >somebody stop what's going on in Sudan? What about my position. If >Hussein was sill killing people by the tens of thousands per year after we >had a success in Afghanistan, and the sanctions were working no better, >would it have been justified? I dont think Bosnia or Rwanda were/would have been starting wars. Both were civil wars as I see them, in which one, with the full support of the UN, one could justify intervention to end them, not to start them. Afghanistan is a little more complex, but I can see that as a legitimate response to an attack. The war started on 9/11, and it was clear that the Taliban were a party to it. I dont think that was starting a war, and it had the tacit backing of the world community. >The lack of preparation by the Bush administration clearly was a factor in >my believing the war in Iraq was unwise. But, I don't think there is >anything inherently wrong with overturning a genocidal dictator. There should be, in my opinion (and I think Doug discusses this above) some sort of body to make these decisions. The UN is flawed, in many ways, but it does have the only claim to being a world government. And even it would not "start wars", it would reluctantly undertake interventions in countries that had gone beyond the limit of what was agreed by the world as being acceptable behaviour. That would not be an easy judgement, and lots of stalling and politics would go on, and lots of indecision, but thats how it should be. Rwanda, Bosnia and a few others would fall into the category of places that one would intervene in. Perhaps, eventually, Iraq would have too, once all other avenues had been fully explored. Soverign nations dont start wars with other soverign nations. Wars are forced upon you, not undertaken cos it seems like a good idea at the time. Anyway, moral issues aside, I just thought it was a stupid idea to invade Iraq. Ohh, I got bitten by an insect ! Hey look there is a bee's nest, lets go and poke a stick in it and swirl it about a bit, that will stop it happening again. Sure.. great idea guys. Andrew
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