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Justness in Iraq (Still)
05/30/2003

Well, I'm going to begin taking my own "blog credit" for these long comments on Mark Shea's site, at least until Mark starts paying me for the work (I'd accept links and traffic as compensation). Mark just wrote, at the tail end of an argument that came around to general consensus that Hussein's human rights abuses made his toppling "just" (the argument being over whether it was, and whether it matters if it was, the President's motivation):

I take it, then, that you repudiate Rush Limbaugh's ridicule of the Clintonian habit of turning the military into "Meals on Wheels" and regard it as our duty, henceforth, to send troops into any part of the world where "the children" are being oppressed and we can feasibly defeat the regime in power? Should we start with Somalia? We can take 'em.

To which, I replied:

I'd have to hear the entirety of Rush's argument, but if his contention is that the U.S. should never use its military power principally to end nightmarish reigns, then yes, I disagree.

I'll give you another "yes": I think we ought to be doing more to oppose other regimes — in all the myriad ways it is possible to do so, including limited military efforts where feasible. Of course, it isn't as simple a matter as dispersing our troops into the world to overthrow the thugs, for three reasons:

1) The global diplomatic stage is such that even the obviously evil regime of Saddam Hussein required some bucking of the internationalistas and now requires a precedent proving that we are not after an "empire."
2) The circumstances required for Just War are such that multiple conditions must be met, including the exhaustion of non-military means. Nothing was going to remove Hussein but war, and he had made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of changing his ways.
3) Even the United States can only do so much, and such endeavors include a significant degree of clean-up.

Ultimately, the point with Iraq was that it lay at a juncture of multiple justifications — human rights, terrorism, WMDs, oil (i.e., the global economy), Iraq's undermining of international norms (i.e., scoffing at signed agreements), and its positioning both geographically and with respect to pressuring other regimes and thereby facilitating progress without the need for further, more bloody, war. (I'm sure I've missed some.)

I think you pursued this line of thought before the war, Mark, and I think I replied that it didn't apply back then. You said something like: terrorism would require attacking Saudi Arabia; WMDs, North Korea; human rights, Somalia. All of these nations must be dealt with, but they are all unique and all lack aspects of the situation with Iraq, including a reasonable immediacy.

The bottom line is that, as a matter of moral justification, I don't, frankly, need much more than the human rights issue to be convinced of moral "justness." If the other Just War requirements (particularly chances of success and exhaustion of other possibilities) click into place along with practical (and essential) considerations, such as sufficient resources and support to follow through, then I say, "Let's roll."

Note: reading back, I see that I should clarify that, by "reasonable immediacy," I meant to suggest that the U.S.'s having a reasonable sense of immediacy was a factor in Iraq, not to imply that some of the other nations don't also have that factor.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 09:51 PM EST