Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
I have two questions (1 and 2a or 1 and 2b) for the people that supported the war in Afghanistan but not the war in Iraq.
1) If the Taliban were not connected with Al Queda would it have been morally justifiable for the United States to invade and take over Afghanistan?
2a) If no, how badly does a government have to abuse its people before another country has the moral right to invade and take it over?
2b) If yes, what makes Afghanistan under the Taliban so much worse than Iraq under Saddam Hussein?
|
I did not realize we invaded Afghanistan; I thought we simply bombed the country sufficiently so that the Northern Alliance would handily win their war. However, this is an area where I think an important distinction is whether the behavior has become sufficient disturbing so that there is substantial international support for interfering. A single country should never serve as the sole moral arbiter for the world; if it does, I would expect that moral position to very quickly begin to show bias due to self-interest or a limited perspective. This is really simply human.
I think there are a number of situations that have met this standard, perhaps the most obvious one where no invasion occurred being South Africa. I am wary to say that, for example, the condition of women in Afghanistan can justify invasion; though genocidal attacks on the Kurds may well have justified an invasion of Iraq in the 1990s (but less so when the invasion actually did occur).
But if we are to posit that invasion by us is justified because of our views of the radical Islamic culture, I believe we have handed moral justification, at least at an intellectual level, to the anti-Israel forces in the Middle East, among others.
