[ExI] The Death Toll Imbalance in the Mideast War

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/6/11 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:

> But are we to be stuck on a sea of moral relativity?  No...  You make it
> seem like every government and people have an equal right to retaliate, and
> this is simply not the case.  Should the U.S. have not attacked Nazi Germany
> during WWII?  And would you not agree that the defeat of the Nazi government
> was in fact a *liberation* for the people of Germany?  Or would you
> disagree?

Germany was attacking the rest of the world; Iraq was not. If Germany
had not invaded other countries then invading Germany would not have
been as easily justifiable, and it would not have been at all
justifiable if it were not for the extermination of the Jews. Simply
having a government that abuses human rights (as defined by a
consensus of world opinion) is not reason enough to invade.

> Well, the people of Iraq needed to be liberated from the raping and
> murdering Saddam Hussein.  Yes, we stirred up a hornet's nest that he kept
> in place, but the evil bastard and his government is now gone.  Do you
> feel the U.S. should have not invaded and let him stay in power?  Don't you
> care about all the people he had tortured, raped and murdered?  I do.  And
> is sickens me that the U.S. gov't supported a thug like him until he grew
> uncontrollable.

The US has installed and supported *many* dictatorial thugs in the
past century. They should not have done this. Should all the countries
with these dictatorial thugs have been invaded? Should the US have
been invaded to prevent this malicious interference in other
countries' affairs?

> When the citizens of a nation are compelled by their tyrannical government
> (that has very little or no respect for human civil liberties- think
> Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Saddam's Iraq) to defend it from a foreign
> power that wishes to liberate them through regime change, should this be
> considered just the same as a nation like the United States being attacked
> by Japan?  Stathis, you either just don't grok this subject, or you are
> having fun baiting me.

Did the US conduct a poll to see if the citizens of Iraq wanted to be
invaded? There is a difference between hating your government and
wanting your country to be taken over by a foreign power, your economy
destroyed and millions of your countrymen killed. I have spoken to
Iraqi refugees who say that life was actually pretty good under
Saddam: freedom of religion, freedom for women, universal education
and health care, no discrimination against Christians, and a booming
economy with relatively equitable distribution of oil wealth. It
wasn't all good because you could lose your job or be imprisoned if
you criticised the regime, but things did not really get difficult
until the the sanctions following the Kuwait invasion. This was from
people who, in order to gain refugee status, had to argue that they
feared persecution if the returned to Iraq, so they had no reason to
present a rosy picture of the country they had left.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou