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April 09, 2003
Liberation and Empire
Of all the arguments against war, only one stands up to serious scrutiny; the human-rights argument, that it is morally just to overthrow a brutal dictator. The anti-war side's only argument against this is that of consistency; why invade Iraq when there are plenty of other dictators, and even Iraq was once a US ally?
On a moral calculus, that fails. The US is being inconsistent, even hypocritical, in attacking Iraq, but that does not make the war unjust. The war would only be unjust if it caused more suffering than it relieved. With the unexpectedly low casualty figures, that does not seem to be the case.
Which raises the troubling question. What is to stop America from engaging in similar attacks against any other state it doesn't happen to like? The same moral case for invading Iraq could be made again and again for Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, and a long list of others.
So does America have the right to carry out a series of lightning strikes against every dictator too small to put up much of a fight, and install democratic regimes in their place? The only argument against this that makes sense to me is that America's previous interventions have usually replaced one dictatorship with another, or even (Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973) replaced a democracy with a dictatorship. But the immoral action there is not the intervention, but the nature of the regime that followed the intervention.
Consider the track records of US interventions abroad. This list includes both direct actions (deployment of US troops) and indirect (US training or other support provided to one or both sides).
In defense of democracy or civilians: Berlin Airlift (1948), Grenada (1983), Somalia (1992), Haiti (1994), Zaire (1996), Liberia (1997), Bosnia (1995), Albania (1997), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003).
Defending one dictatorship against another: Philippines (1948), Puerto Rico (1950), South Korea (1950), Iran (1953), Lebanon (1958), Cuba (1961), Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia (1959-73), Indonesia (1965), Dominican Republic (1965), Oman (1970), Angola (1976), El Salvador (1981), Nicaragua (1981), Lebanon (1982), Iran(1987), Iraq (1991)
Overthrowing a democracy: Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973).
A pattern emerges. The dividing line is about 1991. Since then, the US has not intervened to support a dictatorial regime. The only genuinely questionable US military actions since the first gulf war were the airstrikes against an alleged chemical weapons plant in Sudan, which turned out to be an aspirin factory. The sanctions against Iraq, maintained for 12 years, could also be considered violence in a different form.
So can the US be trusted as a self-imposed global policeman? Too early to say. During the Cold War no rational person could possibly have trusted America as a global policeman. After it ended, the record is better, but in several cases it remains murky. Their most recent intervention - Afghanistan 2001 - allowed the country to slip back into tribal conflicts after the Americans' enemy was defeated.
The reason so many people around the world have opposed the war on Iraq is fundamentally not about Iraq. It is about America, and whether the world is ready for an active American role as global policeman and effective hegemon. The past experience of history suggests that whenever one nation gets too powerful, others gang up against it. Diplomatically, this has already started; France and Russia did not object to the 1991 war (which killed far more Iraqis than this one) but were unexpectedly obstinate this time around.
Can we trust America? Fundamentally, that is what the war debate is all about. America has not repeated the crimes it committed during the Cold War, but neither has it acknowledged or apologized for them. And it continues to support some very repressive regimes (Colombia, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia come to mind).
It is also true that if a repression or humanitarian crisis does not involve US interests, US military involvement will not appear. During the genocide of 1994, the US not only refused to intervene, it vetoed attempts by other countries to do so, and actually insisted on withdrawal of the few UN troops that were there. Evil is only stopped when it is in the American interest to do so.
Ethically, where does that leave us? Is good and evil to be defined as whether America's national interest is affected? This seems obviously distasteful, to say nothing of the maddening air of superiority it gives to America over the rest of the world.
These are difficult questions. It is not enough for us to oppose US empire. We have to come up with an alternative.
Posted by Tyrone at April 9, 2003 01:02 PM