[present tense]

2003.04.22: Why we should not go to war

In a previous post entitled "Should we go to war?" I was puzzling over this dilemma: How do I go about supporting war with Iraq while completely disagreeing with why we should be at war?

My latest answer: I may support a war with Iraq, but I don't support this war with Iraq.

As I had said in my previous post, I think that the current administration is pursuing war for entirely the wrong reasons. And in an even more previous post, I pointed out the "pre-emptive self-defense" was not ethical. So, between the bad motives, and the bad ethics, I had plenty of reason to oppose the war.

So why did I come out in tentative support for the war? Because I felt that there was a moral case for the war. I believe that war can be an ethical response to human rights abuse. And Saddam Hussein certainly has a poor human rights record.

So why have a switched positions? Because President Bush and Tony Blair have presented their Moral Case for War, and they have managed to do it so egregiously that I can no longer give them even the tepid support that I had previously given them.

Blair, in his presentation of his Moral Case for War says:

The moral case against war has a moral answer: It is the moral case for removing Saddam...It is not the reason we act. That must be according to the U.N. mandate on weapons of mass destruction. But it is the reason, frankly, why if we do have to act, we should do so with a clear conscience.

So essentially, in stating his moral case for war, Blair is saying that the moral dimension does not matter. The moral aspects "are not the reason we act". Theoretically, the U.N. mandate is why we act. If Saddam Hussein obeys, the mandate, then there is no war. If he doesn't, then there is war. The moral dimension make no difference. A declaration of war depends in no way upon the presence or absence of human rights abuse. It only serves to allow us to take action "with a clear conscience".

That's pathetic. If you want to present a moral case for going to war, then make the moral dimension the reason why you are going to war. If you need a U.N. mandate to back it up, then have it mandate that the human rights abuses stop.

However, it seems abundantly clear that the moral dimension is an afterthought for the Bush Administration. As Paul Berman says, President Bush:

has failed to discuss in any serious way the moral aspect of the war, has failed to present the war as an act of solidarity with horribly oppressed Iraqis and other victims of Muslim fascism, has failed to show the humanitarian aspect of the war, has failed to present the war in the light of the long history of anti-totalitarianism

And the reality is: there are more pressing humanitarian concerns than Iraq. North Korea, for example.

So count me among the doves again. I never felt comfortable in the hawk outfit anyway.