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Hello Dave, hello everybody,
I have followed the discussion about responsibility for Iraqi people a
while, and what it boils down to is: Different people have different
definitions of responsibility.
First, there is the humanistic definition: People share this one planet, and
when someone suffers, everyone who is aware and can reasonably expect to be
able to change that is responsible for actually doing so. Applied to a
complex world, this usually means there is more than one person or
organization responsible. And even if some of them fail to live up to their
responsibility, the others are still obliged to do so.
In this sense, the US, as the leader in a unipolar world, have every
responsibility to lift the sanctions, because in a cost/benefit analysis
it turns out that they are ineffective with respect to their original goal,
but cause the suffering of many innocent people. They cannot hide behind the
fact that the Iraqi leadership obviously does not adhere to its
responsibility, either.
Then, there is the capitalist definition: People are responsible for
themselves, and have to adequately adapt any circumstances they find. If
they are unable to do so -- tough luck for them. Nobody will be held
responsible for anything, unless it can be directly tracked down to the
suffering of innocent people caused solely by his actions. Regardless to say
that, in a complex world, this will never be taken to the extreme, because
there is almost always more than one cause for something. So, in practice,
responsibility according to this paradigm is assumed when there is one main
reason for something.
In this sense, the US are not responsible for the effect of their sanctions,
because they are a rightful reaction to what the Iraqi leadership does. If
the people of Iraq want to get rid of the sanctions, they may have to change
their leadership, but that's entirely their own responsibility. The fact
that the sanctions against Iraq are ineffective has no significance with
this definition.
Finally, there is the calvinist definition: People, as predetermined
creatures, cannot be held responsible for anything. I haven't seen this
cited before in the discussion, so I list it just for completeness.
Obviously, in this notion, any kind of sovereignty is an illusion ...
> Regardless, it becomes a fairly straightforward matter of honoring Iraq's
> perceptions of its sovereignty; if Hussein (they) choose(s) to maintain a
> posture in defiance of the conditions that maintain the sanctions, then it
> is right and proper to allow him to maintain that posture, and, in so doing,
> to maintain the sanctions. Hussein very nicely washes our hands of all
> responsibility for the deaths of children.
I count this as an instance of the "capitalist" notion of responsibility. I
am just suspecting you (and others following the same paradigm) are a good
example for a psychological concept called "cognitive dissonance". In this
concept, it is assumed that people want their beliefs and actions to be
synchronized. If their actions cannot follow their beliefs, usually due to
external pressure, they tend to change their beliefs rather than their
actions. After all, it seems a lot easier to admit that we THOUGHT something
wrong than to admit that we DID something wrong.
In this example, whoever believes that the sanctions on Iraq should be
lifted, has to live with the fact that he is not in a position to easily
make that happen. Isn't it, then, a lot easier to filter information in a
way that lets those sanctions look OK? And then agree to them? And finally
define responsibility accordingly?
Look back in history and you can find a lot more (usually bad) things that
can be explained by this concept.
Regardless to say, after this post, I am following the humanistic definition
of responsibility rather than any of the other two ...
Greetings
Horst
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: War
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| (...) As I recall, you're willing to go to great lengths to assign a measure of blame to those who do not cause the events that befall them: (URL) and elsewhere so I suppose you're willing to extend the concept of blame beyond what I would consider (...) (23 years ago, 2-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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