Russ, I think we get reproached becaue we tend to trot out the morality card when our interests are involved in other ways.
Its not like we make a systematic attempt to stop genocide. WE aren't making lists of countries that need to be intervened it. We use morality as a cover to go in for other reasons. Stopping genocide is a happy plus.
Now, I personally have no problem with us killing foreign people just to further American Interests, but I don't need things sugar coated like many seem to require.
I think the use of a moral cloak is more dangerous because its misinformation.
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Originally posted by PhiPsiRuss
It wasn't the reason, but it was a reason. Just because the genocide had been going on for some time, does not mean that it should be allowed to continue. Bill Clinton should have demanded a regime change as soon in 1994, but he was a moral coward.
In my opinion, we have the moral obligation to intervene in any genocide, past American transgressions not withstanding.
In the first week of March, of 2003, Eli Weisel met with President Bush and urged him to force a regime change in Iraq. Not because of WMD, but because of genocide. That Eli Weisel would urge such an action speaks volumes about the moral imperative to intervene.
We did not go into Iraq for WMD (that was an excuse for the British population) or for oil. Our primary motivation was to remake the region, and do so in the interest of national security. That region needs to be changed. Genocide should have been the primary shield against our motivations. Instead, the Bush administration chose the WMD argument, something that I opposed at the time.
This war is just, and history will probably show it as such.
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