Addendum
What I had meant to add in my last post was the famous remark made by Justice Robert Jackson - our man at Nuremburg - to the effect (even if these were not the ipsissima verba) - that the United States sets no standard in these matters by which it is not itself prepared to be judged.
Now obviously the United States is not guilty on the main charge at Nuremburg, on which all other "war crimes" verdicts ultimately depended, of the crime of conspiring to wage a war of aggression in the first place. (At least, I am not among those who think it is guilty in this way.) And I myself prefer an administration that overthrows dictatorships to one which, a la Kissinger, imposes them where democracies once used to be. However, the Jackson standard appears to me to be one that we ought to have cited and gnawed over by now. After all, with most important treaties and conventions and declarations concerning human rights, the United States is not only a signatory itself but is the power that most strongly urges that others become signatories as well.
Night thoughts for a dark time....
If it were is simple as that, what a wonderful world this would be.
I myself prefer an administration that doesn't use great tragedies as a reason, as an excuse, to take off on foreign adventures that distract from enemies more acute.
October 1, 2008 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think a strong case for a "war of aggression" against Iraq has already been made. But the US certainly won't put that poisoned chalice to it's own lips. So, we go as the Romans before us.
October 1, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Crap! its not it's. When is someone gonna invent a punctuation check? It should ask questions like "are you sure you want it's = it is rather than its? Dumbass?
October 1, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Define "dictatorship". A system which compromises or eliminates basic mechanisms of justice? Institutes a global torture-dungeon network? Spies on its own citizens? Operates with all the transparency of zinc... and ridicules accountability and review?
Can a dictatorship's abuses be manifest only domestically - within its own borders? Or also internationally?
Too much glass in our house to be hurling so many stones.
October 1, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, not "obviously."
A "war of pre-emption" is in fact as much a war of agression as date-rape is rape. "No" really does mean no WMD or as the Pope Himself (for lack of proper example) warned, "no moral justification."
It is irrelevant whether the perpetrator is self-deluded and/or has terrorized the witnesses into complicit silence, or even managed to get them to have a turn.
It is only impeachophobia that blinds one to such a simple reality and instead leaves them quibbling about what might be "cited and gnawed over" -- remaining pig ignorant about that which should have long since been ACTED upon.
The quite accurate "signatories" observation confirms that our failure to impeach (then prosecute) for torture is far worse than the war itself, the terrorism itself, the financial crisis, or any other calamity an impeachophobe chooses to distract themself with.
Impeachment remains our ONLY moral, patriotic option. One either demands it loudly or continues to aid and abet the war criminals.
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October 1, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am totally confused.
First, because this is the start of the confusing sentence, why should a verdict on war crimes depend on the manner a particular war was initiated? While the initiation of hostilities may be criminal, it is a separate issue from, say, killing captured officers while interrogating them. I am not an expert, but it would be at best puzzling if treaties were allowed to torture to death, provided that a cause is good.
Second, while it is hard to convict an undefeated country, and a superpower to boot, of anything, how did Hitchens manage to absolve us from the charge of waging a war of aggression?
Third, what would make the phrase "overthrow a dictatorship" more than a mere excuse? I think is should be a substitution of a dictatorship with a non-dictatorship. A rule of occupation authorities augmented with local puppets strikes me as too close to a dictatorship to issue such self-congratulations.
October 1, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
On your second point, Hitchens makes the argument that we have never not been at war with Saddam. He points out that the period of "peace" under Clinton was at best a tenuous ceasefire, where Saddam fired on British and American planes (who were enforcing the No Fly Zone) almost everyday. This 2003 invasion/liberation of Iraq was the conclusion to a war that Saddam started long ago.
October 1, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
So... Saddam picked a fight with the United States. Sure. That makes sense.
...But not in this cosmos.
Few wail over the late dictator's grave, but the fact remains he was able to maintain control of an entire nation in a very dangerous, very precarious part of the world; he was neither stupid nor crazy.
In the summer of 1990, Saddam was told point-blank by Ambassador April Glaspie that the U.S. didn't give a tinker's damn whether he invaded Kuwait. But when he did, we launched Desert Storm... and reduced his country to a pop-gun military power.
As a result, the largest contingent ever of American and other Western forces were permanently stationed in the Middle East, to strategically guarantee the flow of oil - and quash any armed peevishness from Israel's neighbors. Those were the reasons for the war - not phantom babies thrown from invisible incubators.
October 1, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink