Cobb

Don't know anything about Rawls or Nozick, but I agree with Walzer, to a point, about the need for the Europeans to have provided an alternative to the Bush war doctrine. There's been a power vacuum in the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has allowed the U.S. pretty much free reign to set a world agenda. What bothers me is not even particular policies, some of which I've agreed with -our intervention in Bosnia for example-- but the general principle that any one nation dominating the world is not a good thing. But I'm not convinced when he implies that the policy of containment of Iraq was not working which allowed Bush to make a case for war. Bush never made a case for war. His lack of a real mutlinational miltary coalition proves that. And I disagree with him that the Europeans were following a policy of appeasement with Saddam. This was part of Tony Blair's argument if memory serves, that we should not be appeasing Saddam. But what was the policy of appeasement? No one ever seemed able to say what it was, because frankly there was no appeasement. Iraq was totally and completely isolated, it could not even feed its own people, and was in no position to threaten any of its neighbors much less Britain or the U.S.

The problem was that the Europeans did not have the power to stop the U.S. from going to war. In the bad old days, the threat of nuclear war was often enough to keep the U.S. and Russia stalemated. Granted, we still fought proxy wars, Vietnam being the most destructive. But even in Vietnam, the U.S. was prevented from widening the war to, say, invading China to cut off supplies to the North, which some more hawkish generals wanted to do. I'm not suggesting France and Germany should have threatned war against the U.S., but some sort of threat of retaliation, probably economic, may have been needed and may in the future be needed to check American imperial designs. It may seem brutish and old school, but often what works best to keep institutions in check, whether they be governments, corporations, or a combination of the two, is the countervailing power of a competing institution. That's how the American labor movement worked. It's just a form of non violent warfare, in a sense....

About humans winning over machines: I'm not sure about that. Seems to me we have already lost a number of battles against machines. Everytime we turn over a task to a machine, we are also ceding a certain amount of decision making to a machine, even if it just means that from that point on, the task must be accomodated to fit the talents and needs of the machine instead of the person ostensibly running the machine. On assembly lines, for instance, the human becomes more an extension of the machine than the other way around. Once we go down the path of integrating human thought with computers, via, say a chip in the brain that would allow us to store and retrieve massive amounts of information in our heads, we may well begin the process of ceding our very thought processes to the workings of the machine, at which point morality will only enter the equation if there is a person at the end of the line with his/her hand on the plug.

Interesting. I wrote recently on JosephCPhillips.com that a policy gap existed between inspections and war, but it would have required creativity to find it. I fundamentally disagre with Walzers opinion that the war was unjust, because justice is subjective to our moral standard. So long as we believe that peaceful, representative democracies set that standard, war for the protection of that system can be just. However, he is right that the French and Germans ultimately chose to appease a despotic regime. The failure of his argument is understanding the intent behind why they did not take a more agressive policy stance.

Agreed, Germany is pacifist, primarily due to its interminal case of moral hazard which results from the protection provided by the US military. France and Russia have debt concerns with Iraq, which they will freely admit. Those debt repayments would be compromised if there was a loss to the steady flow of Iraqi oil and thus thier self interest was threatened. China refuses to take a position that would compromise the rights of another sovereign, especially when the accusations against that sovereign stem from possesion of WMD and overwhelming violations of the rights of its own citizens. Thus when you consider the tangible strategic reasons why France, Germany, Russia and China opposed the US position, it in fact CLEARS the US to follow its own path.

The UN, if it is to have credibility in the arena of diplomatic policy, must develop a more forceful position on the right to sovereignty. And then give nations who understand and respect that position the clearance to ensure that those who don't, REALLY suffer. I argue that the route between pointless sanctions and war would have been the UN Security council voting to invalidate Husseins sovereignty outright and demanding his immediate removal. In many ways, using the same approach the Administration used in Liberia. Although, I would have argued for 24 hours to exile in Sadaam's case. I think this was possible because exile had been proposed by Several Arab nations. My point is somewhat specualtive, and more than likely we would have still went to war, but the intellectual exercise would have been valid.

However, I just can't get with Walzer's insistence that a "tough" (huh?) sanctions program would work. It has been proven time and time again that dictators don't suffer, ordinary citizens do. If Walzer doubts me, look 90 miles of the coast of Florida at the fat old dictator and the skinny children.

The UN has to get over itself and demand a bit more militancy from the Security Council. How many years did it 'not recognize' the South African stranglehold on Namibia? Nonetheless as wars in Angola proved, many countries will send mercenaries without UN sanction. In the end, of what value is a UN sanction without the credible threat of coordinated international military action?

I took the meaning of French appeasement as a signal that they were flouting American & British desires as part of their desire to strengthen their position in the EU.

I too disagree that the war was unjust and despite the fact that I find GWBush and his handlers to be awful diplomats, I agree with the geopolitical direction of becoming more hands on in the Middle East. Having a permanent military presence in Iraq is in fact better than having one in Saudi Arabia, especially given the corruption of the royal family. Nobody calls Germany a puppet state, so nobody should say the same of Iraq. A Saddam Hussein who would defy the US forever would increase world dependency on a militaristic Israel. American soldiers on the ground changes that for the better.

I think if one counts George Bush as libertarian whilst the centre left in Europe, have a more Rawlsian new on redistribution, one can picture the world more succinctly. For Nozick has inherently contradictory features in his theory which collapsed under its own weight as he often admits the that justice of rectification principle (justice as process), to qualify might need a short term difference principle a so-called one-off. Anyone who belived that egotisticial individual rights are the key to understanding human existence has forgotten the word human in human, as on the war and elsewhere in neo-con foriegn policy they have also forgot 'human' -if they are just able to look to themselves- they might find the answers to the dilemma that has caused such pain and terror in our world..