On May 10, 2005, at 6:02 PM, Dan Minette wrote:
From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On May 10, 2005, at 2:26 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
Anyways, yes, getting them to intervene is good, but their intervention has been illegal and unapproved by the UN. You can be in favor of intervention to stop genocide in Rwanda/Darfur _or_ you can say that intervention on moral principles is contingent on international consensus. You _cannot_ do both. They are fundamentally inconsistent positions. The French government, which has veto power in the UN, _aided_ in the Rwandan genocide and denies that there is a genocide happening in the Sudan. As long as they do that, UN approval is impossible, therefore legal intervention is impossible. You can either stand on international law or on the necessity of humanitarian intervention. You cannot do both.
I think I see where you're leading with this, but there's a big
difference between immediate pressing need -- genocide happening now --
and something considerably more vague -- oh, maybe there's nastiness
afoot, we don't know, and oh by the way this guy did genocide, um, a
decade ago -- which makes it difficult to support a suggested parallel
between an illegal action in Rwanda and an illegal action in Iraq.
It seems that you are arguing that situations like these need to be evaluated on a case to case basis.
Yep.
There are too many extenuating circumstances to imply that supporting *one* illegal action suggests that anyone should support *all* of them or be a hypocrite.
Agreed. But, I think a case can be made that "it's against international
law" becomes a much weaker argument against a proposed action in light of
the examples Gautam gave.
Sure it can; if the only argument against an action is that it's against international law, then the argument isn't very sound.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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