I carefully looked over your list of things that make Saddam a threat and none of them included attacking America which happens to be THE ONLY valid reason to attack him.
Nothing he did to his neighbors or his own people makes him a danger to America. Ignoring the UN doesn't make him a threat to America. Building nukes doesn't make him a threat to America (Not that he was building them). No part of anything you mentioned makes Iraq a threat to America or is valid justification to use the United State's DEFENSIVE military against him. --- In [email protected], "Brian Holtz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mark Robert <colowe@> wrote: > > BH> Foreign intervention is a tool, and tools can be use competently or not, > for good or for evil -- just like weapons. It's as mistaken to condemn all > use of foreign intervention as it is to condemn all use of weapons. <BH > > MR> Only if you apply a double standard to said intervention. The ethics of > "intervention" on an individual/libertarian level is questionable at best > and then only allowable in the verbal arena. AFAIK no libertarian accepts > the use of pre-emptive force, on an individual basis, for "reasons" as > sophisticated as international ones you appear to defend. Maybe you would > enjoy further elaborating on the justification for your seeming > double-standard, especially in regard to your "self-determination" > justification. <BH > > I don't understand what double-standard you've identified, or what you mean > by "the verbal arena". My comments about "self-determination" in that > message were not a justification at all, but rather empirical observations > about a hypothesized trend. Every libertarian accepts the use of > pre-emptive force when a threat is clear enough. I've claimed that the > threat in question here was the conjunction of > > > * > > Saddam's admitted nuclear ambitions, > * > > Saddam's hatred for America (regardless of whether some think > Saddam's hatred justified), and > * > > Saddam's support for terrorists that have targeted American > civilians; > > The rest of the justification I've cited is > > > * Saddam's record of aggression, in which he > > > > * killed over a million people, > > * invaded one sovereign neighbor, > > * annexed another by force, > > * fired ballistic missiles at two more, > > * defied UN nuclear disarmament mandates that Iraq was bound to obey > as a 1945 UN Charter signatory, > > * used chemical WMDs in a war of aggression, and > > * used chemical WMDs in genocidal attacks on its own citizens; and > > * the existence proofs we had in Kurdistan and Afghanistan that the > U.S. military could depose tyranny in the Islamic world and replace it with > reasonably stable self-determination. > > For full details of my Iraq thinking, see my blog index at > http://humanknowledge.net/KnowingHumans/. I don't read the Libertarian Y! > group too closely due to its high traffic, so cc'ing me or my marketliberal > Y! group is the best way to ensure I see any response you might post. > > Brian Holtz > Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley) > http://marketliberal.org <http://marketliberal.org/> > blog: http://knowinghumans.net <http://knowinghumans.net/> > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
