Contractual obligations have moral weight according to my moral code.

Contracts come with escape clauses. Shouldn't you be seeking to extricate yourself from this contract, now that you realize it allows Saddam to chop out people's tongues with impunity?

Two wrongs do not make a right

I don't consider protecting Iraqi women from rape to be a "wrong".

There is a difference between you personally fighting an injustice and you employing the machinery of a state against another state to help their subjects.

I don't see a difference in my moral code. I outsource violence to different institutions depending on the circumstances at hand.

An goal is only morally good if it can also be accomplished by morally good means.

There is nothing immoral about calling up International SWAT to go and spread human rights. There is something immoral about trying to stand in the way of SWAT.

The countries, and thereby their governments, and thereby the people these governments represent, insofar as they were democratic at the time, have signed the UN Charta, which enshrines non-intervention. That's at least a contractual obligation with some moral weight.

I didn't sign any such thing, so my moral code is not dependent on the UN Charter. Is yours?

But the rule is also reasonable because outside of the UN, states operate in an anarchic environment with only few overarching principles. Interventionism would amount to a state, or states, imposing their will on other states without any process of redress and without any possible oversight. It'd be akin to mob justice, done without the consent of all parties.

Not all parties consented to being raped by Saddam's goons either, or having their tongues cut out. It's already mob justice in my eyes. But not yours?

One where it goes beyond preventing an individual in the street from being raped, because you might have to bomb a neighborhood, among other things.

Ok, thankyou. So it depends on how much force is required to respond to the rape call. What if some terrorists have taken people in a building hostage, and you need SWAT to intervene, and there's a high likelihood of innocents being killed by the SWAT action? Would you say SWAT can't be used? Or would you just say that that's the appropriate level of force needed to respond to that particular criminal act, and the deaths are on the criminal terrorists, not SWAT?

Who has the moral high ground? — jamalrob

YOU should have the high moral ground. YOU should have derived a philosophy even superior to that of the US. What did YOUR moral philosophy say should be done about Iraqi women being raped by their own government?

Because it involves countries.

What moral/philosophical code introduces the concept of a "country" where a previous strategy becomes invalidated?

I was critical of the motives of the people involved is making those decisions

Even in the absolute worst case, that Bush only went to war because Iraq had the best sunflower seeds and he thought he could steal them, why didn't YOU have a goal to liberate the Iraqi people, which would have happily coincided with Bush's plan for (allegedly) different/immoral reasons?

Regarding Saddam's crimes being ignored earlier, the US was focused on fighting the Cold War, not do humanitarian interventions. If you have any complaint about that, take it up with Mr Marx.

"I don't think intervening in other countries is analogous to helping an individual here."

Why not? What moral code or philosophical argument says that the number of meters away the victim is calls for different action?

In my moral code, I immediately call whatever phone number I have available to get the forces required to respond to the crime.

I don't know. I tend to support pacifism and non-intervention. But reality is messy.

Would you also go for pacifism/non-intervention if you saw a woman being raped in your street? Or are women in your street more important than Iraqi women? If so, why is that? What's so special about your street? What set of moral codes do you subscribe to that elevate women in your street?

Shouldn't the cost of intervening be factored in? A country like the US is often in a position to interfere, but then what are the consequences? You get embroiled in someone else's civil war? Then it turns into another nation building exercise with troops still stationed there a decade later? — Marchesk

Yes, the US has been incredibly generous. Instead of lashing out after 9/11, they turned around and freed 52 million people from state-slavery, and did nation-building in 2 countries.

The US should be praised for its generosity, not derided.

It wasn't a war to free them. — Coben

YOU should have supported a war to free them, as I did. What stopped YOU from trying to help the Iraqis? Is it because they are brown?

Billions of people the world over should have supported the liberation of Iraq to free them from state-slavery. If Bush (allegedly - why don't you read his 2003 State of the Union address prior to the war) wouldn't act for any reason other than WMD, then billions of people should have been trying to convince Bush that Saddam probably had WMD, so he should take action. Bush shouldn't have needed to sell this war to the public. The public should have been clamoring for intervention. And let's start with you, as a member of the public, who likely expects his own human rights to be protected to the nth degree.

Are you one of those people who did not care about Iraquis?

No. Far from it. I believe everyone has the right to live in freedom, including Iraqis, and VERY much supported the 2003 war to free them.

I've spent decades trying to understand the forces that prevent others from supporting the same action I supported.

Note that I was an atheist in 2003, and I didn't need any religion to teach me to care about the Iraqi people. It was just innate. I wasn't alone either. See what these American soldiers said. Everyone in the free world should be supporting the Iraq war for the same reason as those American soldiers.

Most people on both sides did not give a shit about them. One side created a mass of bs that this was (after no womd were found) the reason they were there and cared. — Coben

Are you one of those who didn't give a shit about them? What set of morals do you follow that ignores the plight of the Iraqis? Are you in a religion that teaches to not care about Muslims? We need a comprehensive review of all of this in light of the failure to act over institutionalized rape and tongue-cutting in Iraq. A philosophy forum is exactly the right place to be doing it. This is really basic philosophy. Do we care about Iraqi men having their tongue cut out by their own government or not? Or is their plight dismissed because they are brown, or because they are in the wrong religion? Would you like to see video of Iraqi men having their tongues cut out so that you can see if you are moved or not?

I am not arguing for Paul Edwards's position, and I am not saying you are both wrong, but I don't feel that his challenges have been fully met. — jamalrob

I actually live in fear that one day someone is going to trot out a convincing argument that ends "And that's why Iraqi women should continue to be raped for as long as Uday felt horny". Because that will put an end to my hope of seeing world freedom in my lifetime. I'd like to die in peace.

And for the time being, I think the sovereignty of each country should be respected.

No, for the time being we should actively convert countries so that they meet the requirements to join NATO.

It is the moral obligation of oppressed people to liberate themselves;

No, that's what the Iraqis tried in 1991 and they got slaughtered. It's what the Chinese tried in 1989 and got slaughtered. It's not technically possible to defeat automatic weapons. We experienced the same thing in WW1 when *armed* men tried charging against machine guns. Unarmed civilians going up against automatic weapons is just a blood-sport.

And I can assure you that if Australia has a military coup, I will not be charging against armed Australian soldiers. I'm not going to throw my life away for nothing. I am happy to negotiate under what circumstances you are willing to send the US military to liberate me. Let's negotiate.

otherwise, oppression will just change forms but will always be present.

No, this theory about it being impossible to install freedom by force of arms was shown to be bunk in Iraq, just as it was in Panama.

Then I think you should be fighting for a world unified under the same flag.

Yes, that is why I fly the NATO flag, even though Australia is not yet part of NATO.

One day I hope that the entire world is a member of NATO (because they meet the requirements of being a secular capitalist liberal democracy) and then we can rename NATO to UN or UN to NATO (doesn't matter to me).

or a genuine call for help.

If you didn't hear the screams of Iraqi women as they were being raped by their own government, you must be deaf. I heard them and called up the US military to put an end to it.

intervene in the internal affairs of another country

I don't recognize the rape of women, or cutting out the tongues of Iraqi men as something "internal" that should be protected. The rape of any woman on this planet is my business. THAT's what should be protected. The right to not be raped by anyone, including your own government.

Or do u like unwanted "help"?

If my country (Australia) ever has a military coup, US help is most welcome by me, and I hope the majority of Australians. No sanctions. No dilly-dallying for decades. IMMEDIATE use of military force. I don't want to be enslaved by an Australian dictator for ONE SECOND more than necessary.

Even if that's true, it doesn't mean they want the US to do it for them. — jamalrob

The Iranian people don't speak with one voice. We now know that 87% of Afghans and about 50% of Iraqis wanted the US to liberate them. The figure was probably above 90% for the Libyans who had risen up in Benghazi and now faced being mowed down by automatic weapons.

Regardless, x% of Iranians would welcome a US military intervention. Those x% are my ideological allies (ie I would want a US intervention if I was an iranian), and I believe in supporting my ideological allies. So it's a no-brainer for me to support a coalition of democracies to go and liberate Iran.

What's the alternative? Keep 85 million people enslaved indefinitely? How would you feel if you were one of those enslaved people? Do you expect to have your own human rights protected to the nth degree?

And that's before we get into the strategic reasons for replacing a hostile dictator with a (likely allied) democracy.

Good question. It is in America's long-term interest that the rest of the world (now all members of NATO, including China and Russia), be able to liberate the US from someone like Trump who doesn't respect the democratic process. — Paul Edwards

And it is in the long-term interest of the non-US countries that they not be enslaved by a rogue US. NATO needs to be able to reconfigure on a dime against a hostile US.

That moment was in the end lost during the Kosovo War — ssu

Yes, I agree that was a very unfortunate situation. Unfortunately the racist Russians didn't like their Slav brothers being bombed. I agreed with the Kosovo war, but I totally opposed recognizing Kosovo as an independent state, betraying commitments to Russia. There was absolutely no urgency to doing that. The Kosovars were perfectly safe with NATO protection. We have absolutely no right to annex territory from a secular capitalist liberal democracy (which Serbia was at the time) like that.

However, even if we posit that Russia is lost for eternity, there's no reason why we can't convert the entire Middle East to be our ideological brothers. That's exactly what we should be doing in response to 9/11.

And after we have agreement on the Middle East, maybe we can ask whether anything can be done to win the Russians over. Note that I did manage to convert one Russian nationalist into a very enthusiastic member of the free world. I've posted the link before, but here it is again. It's a shame he is too busy to participate here now.

Should he win this time, do we start bombing ourselves?

Good question. It is in America's long-term interest that the rest of the world (now all members of NATO, including China and Russia), be able to liberate the US from someone like Trump who doesn't respect the democratic process. That means you need to get rid of your nukes.

But you need to go through the process of getting everyone else to give up their nukes too. Because they're all NATO allies and no longer need them.

But first things first. Let's take down enemy governments.

Have you served in the military? Are you an active reservist?

If only soldiers can have an opinion on military matters, you should talk to these two guys.

Si vis pacem, Para bellum

(If you want peace, prepare for war).

Unfortunately when people talk about "peace" what they really mean is non-combat. The Mullahs of Iran would spread their Islamic "revolution" worldwide if they had the ability to do so. Keeping them in check for eternity is a lousy strategy. A better strategy is to have true peace, where every country in the world is trying to HELP every other country in the world. Because we're all clones of Estonia/Taiwan.

And I'm not even content with 100% allied governments. 9/11 forced us to deal with NGOs too. I want EVERY INDIVIDUAL on this planet to be allied with the US/Australia/Taiwan.

I want everyone to be willing to risk their own lives to PROTECT America, not giving their lives to HARM America as happened on 9/11.

Or at the very least be neutrals.

1) Soviets invade Afghanistan
2) Fundies fight Soviets
3) Soviets leave
4) Fundies take power in Afghanistan
5) Victory for fundies

That is technically true, but obscures the fact that the war was won by Yeltsin being against communist dictatorships.

What Vietnam should have taught us is that whoever wants victory the most is usually who wins.

What Vietnam *should* have taught us is that TANKS WORK. In 1975, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam with 2 armored columns and won.

Everyone has learnt the wrong lessons from Vietnam and Afghanistan, and the record needs to be cleared up now that it is important to do so.

Note that Vietnam has a capitalist economy now. So as far as the war to defeat communism is concerned, the US won in Vietnam too.

What we're seeing now is the "Vietnamization" of the Afghan conflict. Face saving negotiations with the enemy, leading to our retreat, while pledging ongoing support. Government collapses. Enemy wins.

There is no reason for a government (a democratically-elected government) to collapse. Just keep funding them, or make sure someone else is funding them.

Nobody needed to "stand up" the Taliban. They stood themselves up, and sustained their assault without much assistance from outside powers. The Afghan government needs "standing up" because they don't want freedom as much as the Taliban wants to dominate.

That is not true. The Afghan president said in one interview that he would fight for generations if need be. They're not going to surrender to a bunch of terrorists.

What the Libyan example seems to illustrate is that while it is indeed possible to depose the dictator from air, that doesn't automatically lead to democracy.

Ok, this I can agree with. And it's the same deal with a revolution. So many revolutions replace one dictator with another, as happened in Iran for that matter.

Does that mean revolutions are wrong? If not, wars of liberation are also not wrong. But the result from Libya was actually very good. Even without bombing or ground troops, the revolutionaries adopted democracy. They had 2 elections. Yes, they had problems after that, but since both sides in the civil war support democracy, I fully expect a return to democracy. And we haven't seen what happens if we simply bomb one side or the other in that civil war. It's never been tried. ie add purely air power again. When Libya returns to democracy, as I fully expect to happen, will you agree that Libya is an example of "air alone" working to install democracy? Or does the messiness between the 2nd and 3rd elections invalidate the success?

Let's assume we could take out the entire Iranian leadership with precision air strikes. I doubt that's possible, but let's assume it is for now. What happens next?

What happens next in a revolution which so many people demand the Iranians do if they want freedom?

The revolution (or pure air war) provides an opportunity for democracy, but no guarantee of it. This is the reality we need to live with.

What do you think would have happened if we had chosen to liberate Tunisia from dictatorship in 2010, ie prior to their revolution? Note that their revolution essentially triggered a military coup. Maybe then you'd agree that air wars can be totally successful, it depends on the quality of the target country.

Actually, I must say I agree with part of what you are saying. Air wars (and revolutions) don't guarantee democracy, which is what we actually want. We need to maneuver the world to get behind democracy. The main threat to democracy is actually military coups, as we saw in the Philippines. The US used air power to put down a military coup there in 1989. Purely from the air. THAT is the position we need to be in. All we need to do is support some faction of the local military that supports democracy. All military coup plotters should be put in a position where they can call in US air support instead of being expected to be successful on their own.

So my suggestion in Iran is that we drop noise bombs (and a note and a satellite phone) on different Iranian military bases to see if they are interested in supporting democracy. Of course, they could lie and say they support democracy, and instead install themselves as dictators, but if that happens, all we need to do is repeat the process, until we get someone who is genuinely democratic.

As I said before, we really need 20 liberations under our belt so that we have at least one example like Tunisia under our belt, that hopefully people don't dispute. Libya came very close to that. Afghanistan in 2001 came close. But even if we have a Tunisia under our belt, it doesn't mean the next country will be a repeat of Tunisia, which is probably the real point. ie the real point is we cannot guarantee democracy from the air in the initial phase. We MAY need to repeat an air war several times until we get the result we want. I think the world is pretty much in agreement that there is no real alternative to democracy though. So I think the future is bright.

But yeah, western ground troops are the best way of guaranteeing a democracy is installed. I can agree with that. A 500,000 invasion force would be best for immediate standing up of democracy. I can agree to that too. But it's not what I want in the long term. In the long term I want a repeat of Philippines 1989. So that we can stand down our enormous ground forces, and engage in air wars that the US public can stomach. And a UN full of democracies that approve of these air wars. We just need a plan on how to get from here to there. So that is why I support doing "light touch" wars similar to Libya. To prove the technology and get a Tunisia under our belt. Otherwise, even when the whole world is democratic, we'll never know whether the US military ground forces can be stood down or not. And instead people will be insisting that 500,000 ground troops need to be maintained forever. I'd rather spend that money on medical research. Go to war with viruses instead of other humans.

Yes, we had good intentions in Afghanistan, and conducted a brilliantly efficient dethroning of the Taliban. But 20 years later the Taliban has succeeded in exhausting us, and we are now retreating with our tail between our legs, just as happened to the Soviets. The Taliban are talking peace only to give us a face saving way to abandon the Afghan government.

There is a stalemate while we wait for the Afghan military to come up to speed. Their army was built from the ground up. It's not a problem unless you make it a problem. There are close to 0 US deaths.

Also note that the Soviets didn't retreat with their tails between their legs. That's American propaganda. The Soviets left a communist dictatorship that was perfectly capable of seeing off any challengers. And they did so for several years. All they needed was money to sustain the fight. It was only when Yeltsin cut off the money that there were defections and defeat.

South Vietnam similarly had funding/weapons cut off.

Having defeated the world's two greatest superpowers, there is little chance the Afghan fundies will now stop short of their goals.

The trouble is that with the whole world (except me and my Russian friend) believing that myth (that Afghans can defeat superpowers), the Taliban are continuing to try to defeat a modern military.

Do you think you could defeat an enemy that has total air supremacy and tanks? What do you think a US general would tell you about that plan? Do you think we spend enormous amounts of money on aircraft when they are totally unnecessary?

With the benefit of hindsight a better plan would have probably been to set up bases in northern Afghanistan from which we relentlessly killed terrorists, skipping the part about rebuilding the country, which we have proven ourselves incapable of.

We want to stand up a self-maintaining democracy there. Not just there, but everywhere. We can't stand down our large militaries until we have worldwide secular capitalist liberal democracy. A self-sustaining solution that doesn't need the US to keep enemies in check for eternity. Wall-to-wall allies instead. Many (racist) people insisted that it was impossible to stand up a democracy in Afghanistan because the Afghans had no history of democracy, and anyhow, you can't install a democracy by force of arms, and democracy needs to come from within. We needed to prove that theory wrong, and we have. Via careful nation-building. The pain is all over. No more nation-building needs to be done. We already know that every culture can cope with democracy, that it can be installed by force of arms, and can be given externally.

The big picture is that the real threat is not all these little countries, but Russia and China. And they would like nothing better than to see us bleed ourselves to death in an endless series of inconclusive contests which alienate us from our allies, and our own fellow citizens.

Your allies don't speak with one voice. And Iraq and Afghanistan are now allies, and support the new democratic systems the US installed. Surely you can see that the more allies we have, the more we are in a position to squeeze China et al? We can't directly take on China, but we can topple all their friendly dictators and bring them over to our side. All self-sustained. We don't need to force these people to be our allies, they innately choose to ally with the free world. We can withdraw all our troops and they'll still be allied.

Having said all that, if you really want to leave Afghanistan, you can. The new Afghan military cannot be defeated by goons. You just need to continue supplying them with weapons and money, or have allies like Europe who will do that.

Please inform yourself of actual events. IFOR was a 60 000 strong NATO force deployed into Bosnia.

After the war was already won from the air. That's why they faced no opposition.

You're still disputing what can be done from the air. That's why we need to do more air-only liberations. Ideally we want to reach the point where we can just fly a single drone over Venezuela/Iran and the military starts defecting en-masse now that they know they have a chance to make a difference.

Oh that's your view? I thought you had in mind bringing peace and democracy,

I have multiple objectives, not just one. The end state in Libya (and the world) is to have a secular capitalist liberal democracy. But we're not at the stage where we can ram secular, capitalist, liberal down people's throats, so I'm just angling for democracy in the first round.

And the Libyans did in fact vote. They managed to stuff things up after the second vote.

but really seem's that isn't the intent at all. Just kill the bad guy(s). Anything else that happens afterward isn't on us.

I fully expect the Libyans to work things out themselves, so that we can at least prove "air alone works, if you don't mind the difficulty the locals have afterwards". Libya shows what happens with the lightest possible touch. It would have been great if we had gone into Tunisia first, which apparently has higher quality people, so you can get your example of "air alone works". But since you're not accepting Libya, we need to try again, preferably on Iran. Even if it works in Iran to your satisfaction, you may dismiss that data point as an exception that can't be repeated.

We really need to reach consensus on air wars so that we can stand down our expensive standing armies and reconfigure to "air liberation wars only".

No more wars of conquest. No more ground troops. No more nation-building.

what better choice than to make hundreds of thousands of military trained men unemployed. — ssu

BTW, if Sistani had rejected the existence of the old Iraqi army as being an oppressive force, and used the opportunity to call for a Shiite jihad against the occupying force and its oppressive old army, you would instead be on this forum today saying how it was "obvious" that keeping the old army that was responsible for the slaughter of so many Shiites in 1991 was a terrible mistake, and Garner should have been sacked.

If in a future liberation we keep the old army and do in fact get a jihad declared against us, it's not so important anymore. We already know that every race/religion in the world can handle democracy, so it's just a matter of apologizing and disbanding the old military or whatever else the majority of the population want from us.

You might like to read my analysis of Afghan and Iraq wars where every single action the US did was exactly what I wanted myself. Whether that was for the same or different reasons I have no idea. But US soldiers couldn't understand why they were asked to withdraw from Fallujah and (separately) let Sadr escape. But both of those things were cunning moves.

Afghanistan was never an air-alone war.

In future wars of liberation, the main thing we need to do is defeat the fielded forces so that revolutionaries can rise up (instead of expecting them to do that themselves as a blood-sport). In Afghanistan the fielded forces were the Taliban. The Taliban was dislodged from Kabul in about 2 months, with the US just providing air support and special forces.

THAT is the model we need for all future wars. Air power and special forces. We no longer need large standing armies because we are not trying to conquer the people. We're just trying to liberate them.

In fact neither was even the intervention in the Yugoslav war as US forces and NATO ground forces were deployed their.

The ground forces weren't actually used. The Yugoslav wars were another example of air-alone.

And what success is Libya, a country torn still in civil war with two opposing governments and various countries (some of whom should be US allies) backing their sides. Libya is a case example of how you cannot control everything from the air: you can assist one side, but there stops your influence to what is happening on the ground.

You're misreading Libya. In Libya we wanted to topple Gaddafi, and we did, in less than a year, purely from the air.

Yes, after some time a civil war occurred, but that's not on us. AND we can end that civil war any time we want simply by providing air support to either side.

And here one of the biggest errors was made. Paul Bremer decided to abolish the Iraqi Army with his infamous Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2:

No, it wasn't an error. With the information available at the time, ie specifically MANY (racist) people insisting it was genetically impossible for Arab Muslims to handle democracy, democracy needs to come from within, democracy can't be imposed by force of arms, we didn't know whether we could stand up democracy or not. We needed to set up democratic institutions and then SEE WHAT HAPPENS. Those democratic institutions include professional security forces that PROTECT human rights rather than violate them. How were we supposed to do that when the Iraqi people have only ever known security forces that oppress them? We needed to make the Iraqi people believe, truly believe (because it was true) that these security forces are totally different from the old ones. We had to start from scratch.

That's just one factor. The other thing we needed to know, in response to 9/11, is what values Arab Muslims had internalized. Was Islam a wonderful religion that made good citizens when there was no force keeping them in line?

what better choice than to make hundreds of thousands of military trained men unemployed. Before US general Jay Garner, a professional soldier, had made several plans what to do with the large Iraqi military, yet then this clueless ideologue Bremer comes to the scene and makes one of the worst decisions ever that directly contributed to the insurgency starting.

Now that we have proven that we can install a democracy in an Arab Muslim country by force of arms, there is no need to disband the old security forces. Future wars will be a cakewalk because of this.

Libya is now totally unstable with the sporadic fighting going on. The Balkans isn't similar. The ex-Yugoslavia is peace and the civil war is thankfully history. That was done both with air AND ground forces and a sound plan with the international community engaging in this.

The actual wars to dislodge the Serbs were done entirely from the air.

In Libya we are showing what is possible if you just do the air war and then withdraw that air support immediately once the government is defeated. The Libyans will sort out their mess in due course, but you may not believe that until it actually happens. That's why it needs to be done. Both sides want democracy so they should be able to sort out their differences in time. Once again we are proving a different form of what "air alone" can achieve.

Libya was just an erratic response in which the US didn't take charge leading to the fiasco it is now.

Libya was done with UN permission. We're seeing what happens when the UN instead of the US is in charge. It's a good piece of data to extract.

The war in Afghanistan is still going on as also there was no good plan.

There was an excellent plan. Help the Northern Alliance to victory from the air. Then replace the Northern Alliance with a democracy, something the racists, again, said was genetically impossible and pointed to the fact that there had never been democracy there, which was true.

Yes, the Taliban think they can defeat a modern military (learning the wrong lesson from Vietnam) so they're still fighting. But they have no chance of militarily defeating the government forces. The enemy gets a vote in how long they remain at war.

How you make Libya and Afghanistan a success story while the liberation of Kuwait (a success) is somehow seen as bad I don't understand at all. Rumsfeld was delusional and should have been sacked years earlier.

I didn't say that Kuwait was bad, I'm just saying that the barrier to Kuwait-style wars is too high. If everything is going to be a Kuwait, we will never get permission to have a war of liberation. But if the war of liberation is a cross between Afghanistan and Libya, or perhaps Panama, or perhaps Haiti, then the barrier is extremely low. The US public doesn't really mind bombing dictators from the air for 0 US losses.

I really want western militaries to be reduced to air power, so that the money can be spent on other things like medical research. But before we can do that, we need to defeat all of our enemies. The sooner we do that, the better.

But we're STILL debating whether wars of liberation can be done from the air. So what we need is another 20 liberations under our belt so that you can see for yourself what is possible. The way I envisage it is special forces and helicopters take over a stadium and call for revolutionaries to come to the stadium to be armed. And at the same time call on the military to defect. We know from Iraq that SOME Iraqis defected, but most deserted, and some fought. So there's a mixed bag there. We really do need more data on this.

If Libya hadn't had a civil war (which was largely bad luck for us), would you be convinced that wars can be won from the air alone? If we do 20 liberations, hopefully one of them won't have a civil war (like Tunisia) and we can point to that and say if we have high quality people, air power is enough. And if we don't have high quality people, that's on them. And as part of the response to 9/11 we need to convert low quality people to high quality people anyway. Leaving people languishing under dictators is no longer acceptable. We need free, high quality (ie reformed) people worldwide.

Although I guess Senegal did liberate Gambia. But that's about it. — Paul Edwards

Actually, it was France who stepped up as the diplomatic front of the Libyan liberation, with the US just quietly providing muscle. And that's how it should be. One day I hope France will be replaced by Tunisia or Iraq, and we can have an Arab Muslim country leading the free world into battle.

In order to control the air over Iran we'd have to shock and awe Iran's air force, all it's missile installations, and navy too. — Hippyhead

By the way. The above is exactly the same thing that Iranian revolutionaries face, and also what anyone attempting to stage a military coup faces.

If it is even potentially difficult for the US military to do it, why would you expect unarmed Iranian civilians to be able to do it?

They need help. Asking them to revolt against a cruel dictator prepared to use automatic weapons is just a blood-sport.

And even if they were successful, after a new government was installed they'd be in the exact same position as if the US military had liberated them. If it's going to take a generation for them to work out their problems, it has to be done. Or are you saying it is wrong for the revolutionaries to revolt because of the unstable situation they will allegedly be in for a generation?

Paul, I applaud your moral vision, and feel you make many great points. You're arguing your case like a skillful lawyer, which perhaps you actually are.

Thankyou. I'm actually a computer programmer, so I'm used to dealing with logic. I'm also used to getting a logical response. :-)

I'm not sure you're fully taking in to account the results of the last two invasions.

Let's see. :-)

We've been in Afghanistan for 20 years and the outcome is still unknown.

The US has had a democracy for 200 years and the outcome is still unknown. I couldn't have predicted that the US people would support someone like Trump who threatens a fellow liberal democracy (Iraq) with sanctions if they don't want the US to remain. I couldn't have predicted that a US president would say that we're only in Syria to protect the oil (whatever that even means, and I'd feel real shitty as a US soldier if that was the motive). I couldn't have predicted that the US would betray Russia by recognizing Kosovo.

We're being forced to leave because the Taliban have succeeded in exhausting the patience of the American people, just like in Vietnam.

Sure. The goal here is to get the intellectuals to accept that with close to 0 US casualties, there is no urgency to leave Afghanistan. Just like there is no urgency to leave Japan after 70 years. Once the intellectual argument is won, we can try to educate the US population. Perhaps show them video of the Taliban hitting women with sticks and say "is this what you want?".

The invasion of Iraq went a long way to undermining the unity of the democracies, basically making it politically impossible for more invasions until everyone alive now is gone.

Libya was done. Syria was half-done. Iran should be done too. Anyway, like I said, it's a two-step process. First we need to win the intellectual argument, then we need to explain it to the western population.

Whatever the merits of such a decision might be, there is basically no chance we're going to invade Iran or North Korea, unless their armies roll across the border in to some other country, which neither despot is stupid enough to do.

I am hoping that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons will be used as an excuse to liberate Iran. And that when the decision is made that nuclear weapons justify war, that a pure liberation is done in the form that I asked for.

It was only in 1945 that democracy became a settled fact in Western Europe. Almost in my lifetime. The Middle East is centuries behind us in political maturity. Many in the Middle East view democracy as "we get elected and then jail our opponents".

We need to get the Middle East caught up, as part of the response to 9/11. And because 9/11 was done by non-state actors, we need a total war where every single civilians is a potential threat.

An invasion of Iran would be a huge roll of the dice. It could literally lead to WWIII, see for example American and Russian troops delicately avoiding each other in Syria.

Inaction could lead to WW3 too. If Iran fires a nuke at Los Angeles, how do you plan to respond to that? Nuke Tehran? As far as I am aware, most people in Tehran hate their dictator even more than you do. They are actually allies of ours. Do you intend to incinerate our allies? If you have no good option to respond to a nuclear attack then "RESPOND" IN ADVANCE!

If Afghanistan takes 20 years, and Iraq takes ten, Iran could take a generation.

Or it could take a few hours. Note that Libya was done in less than a year. And yes, in Libya a civil war started some time later, but that civil war could easily be ended by the US providing air support to one side or the other. Both sides intend to restore democracy.

If we didn't have the actual result (less than a year) from Libya, you probably would have been quoting a generation for Libya too.

And the real figure you should be quoting for Afghanistan is 2 months, and Iraq 3.5 weeks. After that all we need to do is add air support (indefinitely) to whichever side we like.

As evidence, note how determined the mullahs were in resisting the invasion of Saddam. A million dead.

But there is a huge difference between being invaded by a dictator and being liberated by a coalition of democracies. I'm pretty sure the Iranians are smart enough to tell the difference.

In order to control the air over Iran we'd have to shock and awe Iran's air force, all it's missile installations, and navy too.

Iran has a conscript army meaning that the soldiers are like the people, and the people hate their dictator. I fully expect the Iranian military to rise up against their dictator as soon as it is safe for them to do so. We'll never know until we TRY. This is a gap in our military knowledge, and we need to try it just for this reason alone (understanding warfare). Because the future of the US military depends on understanding whether wars of liberation are possible or not.

Any of Iran's military that chooses to attack the US needs to be destroyed. Yes, we need a war. An air war.

Trying to shoot the mullah's henchmen from the air in the middle of urban chaos all over the country is not likely to go very well.

We need to actually try it and see.

You have excellent goals, we just need a more sophisticated strategy. This is a very long chess game.

Sure. I'm here for debate. Thanks.

I am not really suggesting any particular one-size-fits-all solution, I think we could begin to come to an agreement if you didn't want everything to go perfectly, your optimism is based on wishful thinking and that's an issue I'm taking up with you.

My optimism is based on the fact that huge numbers of people living in dictators want to be free. That's the basis for a controlled uprising. Something similar to Afghanistan and Libya. Regardless of what percentage of the population that is, those are my allies. I wish to support them the same as I would hope they would support me if the tables were turned.

If an Iran war is barely an inconvenience to the US or if it's a tumultuous decades-long transition, don't you think that matters?

It needs to be done regardless, as part of the response to 9/11. Also for geostrategic reasons we should be taking down hostile dictators with an official policy of "Death to USA".

If it is indeed tumultuous, that is a measure of the Iranian people themselves, it's not the fault of the US. In Tunisia and Panama we didn't see a tumultuous situation.

It's really important that Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam were not nearly as successful as you're making it out to be because that's probably the main reason why these wars are so infamous. If the wars were outstanding successes, easy wars for the US, the people rose up after being liberated and the transition to democracy was easy then this stigma for the wars that exists, would not be there.

Vietnam was very tough because we were fighting an appealing ideology that people were dumb enough to believe. After the 3.5-week war in Iraq we were fighting a large number of religious bigots.

In Iraq the people did rise up, just as they rose up in 1991. But this time it was a controlled uprising, which you could see by looking at the long queues to join the new Iraqi security forces. Even when those queues were repeatedly bombed, ie people were being killed before they even received their first paycheck, the people lined up again and again and again.

It was breathtaking.

The fact that these wars are poorly-understood by the public is something that needs to be addressed. But before informing the public, we need to win the intellectual debate. ie you.

I think given your unwillingness to even accept the judgement of non-affiliated organisations who rate democracies

The problem I see is that you're unwilling to accept your own eyes. Don't trust these "organizations". They're probably all fronts for the communists. We had the same thing with feminist groups. Not one of them was saying "Hey, Iraqi women are being raped by their own government. Why aren't we taking action?".

When the number of political parties changes from 1 to 300+, I expect any democracy index to see a MASSIVE spike. If it doesn't happen, don't trust them.

and your unwavering but quite frankly unsubstantiated optimism about how easy future wars will be,

Libya was the future war. It was so damn easy.

that our disagreement is fairly well clarified but I don't see a way to proceed beyond that.

Yes, good point. I'm not sure how we can reconcile this. We need another 20 liberations before we can agree on an average and standard deviation. But it first requires you to believe your own eyes instead of what the media tells you. 1 vs 300+ is a MASSIVE difference. Iraq is one of the most fascinating democracies on the entire planet.

The Iraq war may not even deserve to be called a war of liberation,

YOU should have supported it for the purpose of liberation, if nothing else.

the US has made it clear many times that the war was to prevent Iraqi acquisition of WMDs.

The US doesn't speak with one voice. And there are strategic reasons why WMD was touted as the main reason. But it's easy enough to see where Bush said "I believe God wants everyone to be free" or where he wrote "Let freedom reign" to see what was in his heart.

The war cost billions of dollars for the US,

Yes, the US is a very generous country. Their response to 9/11 wasn't to fire off nukes at random hostile governments, but to liberate millions of people from state-slavery. The UK was very generous too, roughly matching the US on a per capita basis. Australia was well behind, only contributing 1/7 of what the US/UK contributed, and pulling out earlier than both of them. A damn shame we couldn't be last out.

many lives were lost

Not many lives were lost in the initial invasion, which is ALL YOU NEED.

and WMDs weren't even there.

That was a good thing. It made the 3.5 week war easier and cheaper.

The war damaged US credibility,

And now is the time to repair it, starting with you.

it undermined US leadership

Quite frankly, it shouldn't be the US leading this. Someone like the Philippines should step up to the plate and say "we stand for freedom". No-one's going to accuse the Philippines of imperialism. Or at least Australia should be doing this. The world is a disgrace that everything is left to the US or nothing is done. Although I guess Senegal did liberate Gambia. But that's about it.

and still today, Iraq is not far from anarchy, it is a place of instability and violence and its very existence is under threat.

If the US, or preferably NATO, stays engaged, making sure the Iraqi security forces are professional, then I simply don't see how anything can go wrong. No-one can defeat NATO-backed forces. If you look at the protests in the US (larger than Iraq) are you going to say the US is not far from anarchy, it's a place of instability and it's very existence is under threat? It's just a consequence of freedom. Freedom is messy and noisy.

So when you zoom out from this issue of liberation, a high price was paid, we can't only focus on the morality of the invasion.

I'm not ONLY focused on that. But it's a great starting point and needs to be won in the intellectual realm.

It's just really hard to see why Westerners like Australians would support the Iraq war in my opinion, given the facts and benefit of hindsight.

I find it really hard to see how westerners like Australians can support indefinite institutionalized rape and tongue-cutting.

If you really think your list (besides SK) is a list of US success then I just don't know what to say. The poor opinion of these wars is due to how badly they went but then you say that they were massive successes.

Wars are normally judged by how many of your own soldiers are killed to achieve the objective, not how many enemy civilians were killed. By the traditional measure, Saddam was defeated in 3.5 weeks, for a cost of 100 US lives, the majority of which were friendly fire I believe. Contrast this to 3000 dead on 9/11.

You have this optimism for future wars despite every previous war being messy and horrible,

What was horrible was institutionalized rape and tongue-chopping under Saddam.

War and democracy are both messy, but they have their place.

I don't think it comes from analysis of history, it's just wishful thinking?

Sometimes we get the result we want without a single bomb being dropped. Like Tunisia and Sudan. Sometimes we get what we want (Gaddafi deposed) by dropping some bombs for zero US lives lost. It's not wishful thinking, it's maths.

Afghanistan was close to 0 lives lost for the initial battlefield defeat too. The Taliban were deposed. The Northern Alliance were anti-Taliban and anti-Al Qaeda, exactly as we wanted. We hung around because we had EVEN MORE objectives we wanted to achieve. But that was such a ridiculously good START.

Oh well, I think it is clear where the disagreement is and clear enough that we won't progress from here. If an Iran-US war occurs, I'll hope it goes as you say.

Sure.

And that opens up the question as to how to deal with non-state sponsored terrorists in the first place. — Benkei

Yes, exactly. A good start would be to stop dictators from teaching children that the West is evil. Ultimately we need every country to be a clone of Australia, where a nation (both government and people) volunteers to spend its blood and treasure on *protecting* America, instead of *harming* America.

That still leaves the problem of individual Australian terrorists, but they are already being chased down to the best of the government's ability. And individual Australians have difficulty trying to create a group of terrorists. It's not like Afghanistan 2001 where they had a place to go to get trained.

It is insufficient for you to simply say "there were no WMD, so the war was wrong". You also need to address the response to 9/11. You also need to address the human rights abuses. Geostrategy is just one of the 3 reasons (which I provided a link to already).

You make me embarrassed for being part of the human race. Well done.

Translated: You ran out of arguments. Not surprising. You have a fundamentally untenable position. You need to support rape and mutilation to oppose the liberation of Iraq.

Any way, for what it's worth the Iraqi war was unjust because:

1. The US has subscribed to the UN system and therefore cannot declare a war of aggression single-handedly unless it was in defence of an immediate threat to itself or an ally, (in other words; if you agree another authority makes these decisions, you abide by that: pacta sunt servanda);

Again, if you think the UN creates a pact that protects Saddam's "right" to rape and mutilate, you should ignore that law for now, and do your best to get it changed. What it needs to be changed to is "all countries should be liberal democracies to be members of the UN, and any liberal democracy can liberate a dictatorship". Now you need to come up with a plan on how to make that change official. Good luck.

2. There was no right intention, the grounds for war were a lie, probably hiding other intentions but at no point was it to prevent the cutting of tongues or rape;

YOU should have been doing it to prevent cutting of tongues and rape, even if you are SURE that the US is not doing it for those reasons. Why don't you read Bush's "State of the Union" address in 2003 where he specifically says that Saddam was raping women, and if that's not evil then evil has no meaning?

3. There was no just cause (please note that if preventing rape and torture would be a just cause then on that basis we can invade the US as well);

No, rape and torture are already illegal in the US, and if you have evidence of either, you can report it to the US police and US media and it will be actioned in accordance with the limits of the US democracy. That's a far cry from Saddam LEGALLY chopping out people's tongues.

4. It wasn't a last resort because it was already proved no WMDs existed;

No such proof existed (I was fooled by Saddam's cagey attitude myself), nor does war need to be a last resort. It's just a resort. A tool. To be used whenever you've got your ducks in a row.

5. It fails because it was disproportional, causing more deaths in a timespan of 3 years than Saddam murdered during 24 years in power.

The actual 3.5 week war caused hardly any deaths. Subsequent deaths by terrorists against the new democratic state are on them, not the US.

BTW, the Russians lost 20 million keeping the Nazis at bay, and didn't even get freedom at the end of it. What is a fair price that Iraqis should pay for freedom?

You're subscribing to might is right but only if you're a certain type of country. We're back at selective justice, which is no justice at all.

We already live in an unjust world. We're not breaking a just system. We're in the fortunate position where the strongest country in the world is a liberal democracy, and it has powerful NATO allies that are also liberal democracies. We have the ability to pounce, and that's exactly what we should be doing. We have the ability to make the world a more just place. Our politicians shouldn't say that out loud though. They should instead come up with some other bullshit reason for invading "just one more country". Because that is the strategic thing for our leaders to be doing. We don't want a "dictator alliance" to challenge NATO.

We already established you shouldn't commit a crime to prevent a crime.

No, that is not my position. If you need to jaywalk in order to stop a rape in progress, then by all means jaywalk. It depends on exactly what the circumstances are.

If starting a war is a crime, even though it prevents another crime, it is still a crime and therefore can never be just.

I don't consider starting a war to be a crime. I consider Saddam ordering rape and mutilation to be a crime.

That's a matter of definition. A purely consequentialist approach necessarily fails, as was already illustrated several posts ago because you can't tell the difference between a crime and a just action without taking into account intent (which is why proving intent in criminal law is important).

You're still not getting it. A good action does not require justification as far as intent is concerned. Only bad actions require justification. You need to update whatever textbook you are reading with this apparently new information.

Of course there was justification. You just happen to disagree with it but it's exactly the same hubristic bullshit you're peddling now. The USSR thought they were bettering the world by installing communist regimes through violence. You believe installing liberal democracies through violence betters the world. Welcome to the world of aggressors.

Yes, this is exactly correct. You just don't trust your own judgement that liberal democracies are true freedom, unlike communist slavery. So you're giving them moral equivalence. We spent an enormous amount of effort countering the "communism = freedom" brigade. Now we're in an enviable position able to finish off the job that our ancestors spent decades or even centuries doing. We should pounce. But in a cunning way that makes it as easy as possible for us by avoiding a "dictator alliance".

Actually, even Iraq could have been done with US air power alone, but it was never tried (for good reason).
— Paul Edwards
Seems that you have no military training, because this is again nonsense. — ssu

Again, this is why we need to do it. Even with the result of air-alone in Afghanistan and Libya, you're still disputing what is possible. During the 2003 Iraq war, some Iraqi generals turned over their bases to the coalition. Mostly the enemy deserted though. Either way, all you need to do is take over a small area and call for volunteers. There were long queues of Iraqis willing to join the new Iraqi security forces. We know that now, but we didn't know that for sure then. These volunteers can be armed, given air support, and they can do the rest of the job.

There was a reason we didn't use that strategy in 2003. Partly because we couldn't guarantee long lines of volunteers when Sistani could well have declared a jihad instead.

Even Rumsfeld didn't believe that US air power alone would do it, even if he had widely erroneous ideas of how little troops you need to invade and occupy a country.

He didn't have erroneous ideas. You're totally ignoring the fact that we got what we want with the troops actually used. And we have succeeded in lowering the barrier to war. Instead of having to convince people to pony up the cash for a 500,000-man invasion force like Desert Storm, we can instead point to Libya done purely from the air, or Afghanistan where the initial defeat was done purely from the air, or 2003 Iraq done with a relatively small force.

These wars of liberation require a new calculus compared to wars of conquest.

The US, especially when acting as part of a coalition, especially a coalition that includes Australia, will be seen as a liberator — Paul Edwards

Actually you can make the coalition even more trustworthy by putting the Philippines or South Korea or Estonia in charge of the liberation, with the US just quietly providing muscle. This is what the world needs. We already have injustice. It's not like we are breaking a just system.

Yes, likely an external military invasion will indeed unify the Iranian people to fight a holy war alongside their Mullahs just as it did with Iraqi invasion. — ssu

We really need to liberate Iran just to answer this question. We can't have such large gaps in our military knowledge because it prevents us from planning the future of the US military. In my opinion the US military needs to be pared down to pretty much just air power, so that it can effect wars of liberation, like Afghanistan and Libya were done. Actually, even Iraq could have been done with US air power alone, but it was never tried (for good reason).

You think the Iranians would be unified (100%) against the external invader, despite the fact that 87% of Afghans supported an external invader, 50% of Iraqis supported an external invader, god knows how many Libyans supported an external invader. You will never change your mind until we actually get into Iran and do it. And if the US follows my playbook, they will prove that it can be done purely by air, purely supporting revolutionaries. They should drop noise bombs on Iranian air bases, along with a radio that the base can use if they wish to defect. Try to jump-start both a military coup and a revolution.

The US, especially when acting as part of a coalition, especially a coalition that includes Australia, will be seen as a liberator, far different from the Iraqi conquest attempt. But you won't believe it until you see it with your own eyes. Hell, even then it might not be enough. You can view Iraq's 300+ political parties with your own eyes and still say "nope, no sign of democracy there".

then you have vigilante justice. Hmmm... One wonders why no modern civilization accepts that. We're all fools! Oh, if only we were all batman and listened to Paul Edwards.

You can call it vigilante justice if you want. I call it a "posse". Internationally, there is no "modern civilization". There is a cesspit of dictators enslaving their populations. Yes, everyone should be Batman. The state of the world as it currently is, calls for the US and others to be Batman, and we should be thankful for it.

One day hopefully there will be wall-to-wall liberal democracies, and at that point I can agree for Batman to stand down.

We've previously established that not all methods of preventing crime are acceptable.

I'm not sure what you're quoting, but it's true that I don't think you should rape a woman to prevent her from jaywalking, even if you knew for certain that she was going to jaywalk.

You even agreed but we're now back at "anything that will stop the crime is allowed, including another crime". That just opens the door of allowing me to shoot the cop, because he's committing a crime so I'm justified in doing so, which in turn allows someone else to stop me... Ad infinitum. In other words, what you just came up with is logically inconsistent and unworkable to reach any form of justice.

Actually this is exactly what we face internationally. The USSR could have taken over the world. A posse was formed to contain the USSR. There was no justice in the USSR, and no justice when the USSR invaded someone else. There was no justice when the communists took over Vietnam with USSR help. We live in a fundamentally unjust world. One day I hope that will change, but right now, dictators are committing human rights abuses, and even if we wanted to, we can't stop all of them at once. I'm at least trying to establish a baseline of "we want to", combined with "call Batman IF NECESSARY (which it most definitely is)".

And yes, if we had tried to help liberate Eastern Europe during the Cold War, we would have been pushed back by USSR nukes. It's a rough-and-tumble world we live in. Not a neat set of laws that protect human rights. It is laughable to talk of justice in this environment.

"Again wrong. They actually did do that."

The Shah could have put down the revolution by mowing down much more than 100 people.

It's physically impossible to defeat men with automatic weapons who are prepared to use them. The Chinese tried it in 1989. The Iraqis tried it in 1991. The Iranians have tried it several times. Soldiers in WW1 on both sides tried it.

What is needed for freedom in Iran is an external military invasion, to make their revolution a success.

That's just selective justice then which is no justice at all.

If you wish to call that "selective justice" or "no justice", that's up to you. I believe preventing the crime is the right thing to do. You would rather the criminal commit his crime, without even detailing how heinous that crime is.

If we start there we can have rules for poor people and rich people. Black people and white people.

No, that is not my position.

The law should apply to everyone equally.

You seem to be blinded by the law, as if it was perfect. In the past there were laws against harboring Jews too.

The corrupt cop should be apprehended because he's committing a crime.

No, the crime by the criminal should be prevented. Especially if it was going to be a 9/11. And if it takes a corrupt cop to do the right thing, so be it.