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As NPR has said over and over again, Saddam's dictatorship was achieved
through America's backing (against Iran). It is then our obligation to undo
this mistake. How the peaceniks lambast us for both acts is a blatant
contradiction. In fact it only shows the left's true colors: they want to be
put in charge and they feel a spiritual unity with all dictatorships.
America need not apologize for the use of force in a just cause. Iraq has no
claim to sovereignty, because it denies the sovereignty of all its citizens.
Iraq, which is to say Saddam, has no right to any weapons at all. A
dictatorship has not even a right to "self defense" against a liberator--in
that scenario Saddam's orders to fight back equal orders to further oppress
Iraq's own people. Any nation is justified in invading a dictatorship to
liberate its people. Iraq's claims to sovereignty represent only its claims
to terrorize its own people, a right which no nation can have.
And it is a contradiction to believe in Iraq's right to sovereignty (which
it does not have) while insisting that America act only by permission to set
things right. (But the bigger error is to believe that Iraq could be dealt
with by any other way--negotiation or "peaceful" means. This is a false
conceit embodied by the U.N.)
As for world opinion, nations are not citizens in some world-democracy.
Democracy, defined as majority rule, is not even a moral form of government.
That big, socialist democracies of the world disagree with us is hardly to
be wondered at -- in France, Russia, Germany, Canada, Sweden it is still
axiomatic that the individual is the chattel of the state, a part of the
whole who is not permitted sovereignty. Americans are still half-free of
their minders, and America is not wholly subservient to U.N. whims.
The U.N. itself is a thoroughly altruist (unjust) institution, as conceived
by Kant in "Perpetual Peace", and in his own way by Dag Hammerskjold, built
on the mistaken theory of "human rights" as a multitude of entitlements to
be provided by others. It has always been a fraud, throughout the years
while Communist Russia was given moral respectability and veto power.
Founded on the idea that you can reason with a dictator, the U.N. embodies
the policy of bargaining with terrorist supporting states and appeasing
them. Lately Syria and others are elevated as models of "human rights". It
is now remotely possible that this fraud will be repudiated and replaced
with something better.
Bush has brought a rare quality to American policy: self-assertion.
Throughout the 20th century it was American policy to appease its enemies
until too late. The current crisis is a small one compared to the 70 years
of Soviet terror sanctioned from the beginning by America and the UN. To
this day, American intellectuals, following dead German philosophers (Kant,
Hegel, Marx), grant to its enemies the moral high ground. In one small way
Bush has repudiated this credo, by asserting America's moral right to act to
liberate the Middle East (as it should have done with Russia once.) Carried
out consistently, it will mean the liberation of Iran (and other citadels of
unreason) who are protesting loudly today. (Iran ought to have come
first--even UNMOVIC agrees Iran is a nuclear threat.)
It is an article of Americanism that men "should give an account of the
reasons for breaking" a political connection. That is the purpose of Bush's
ultimatum--directed both at Saddam and the U.N. He has not said nearly
enough, but it will have to do for now, and it is a big improvement over the
policy of appeasement followed by his predecessors.
-Erik
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: America need not apologize
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Erik Olson writes: <snip> How refreshing to have a voice not often heard in .debate actually say something intelligent, articulate and well thought out, in contrast with so many of our recent visitors. Thanks for that (...) (22 years ago, 20-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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