Lords of Death Forums Lords of Death Forums LoD General Discussion Taking out Dictators: Iraq

I am going to read his book.

Not Soap Boys
I felt as though, Stewart was asking tough questions, but didnt really want to get verbally owned. So he sorta cut him off.
Good point he made, there are prerequisites our government uses onto why a dictator needs to be ousted.
I agree with preemptive attacks, and the 4 qualifying measures to do so.
4 Conditions/Reasons to take out a Dictator
Sovereignty is over
Repeated agression to neighboring states
Fooling around with nonproliferation treaty (If signed)
Genocide
Iraq is a mess nonetheless.

hitchens pk'd stewart. of course like all liberals stewart cut him off as soon as he got a point rolling... but that's why we love liberals. they make any conversation that doesnt agree w/ their point of view an argument.

NT

Do you think taking out a dictator with these prerequisites is a good preemptive guideline?

I thought it was a good discussion. No Ownage by either party. It would be great if our politicians would have that level of discussion out in the open.
As for the rules for taking out a dictator -- I do not want to have 4 simplistic statements guide hugely important foreign policy decisons. The geo-policitcal landscape is far to complex for us to make deicsions about taking away a country's sovereignty through a multiple-choice question.
There are probably 50 nations that pass this "test" and I don't think removing the dictoator by force in most of them would be the smart thing to do.

That is one of the guidelines, when a country has no sovereignty.

I think they are good prereqs but only when it isn't going to be a burden on the country/countries that are taking out the dictator. Our governments first and foremost job is to protect its citizens from A: foreign invaders B: national emergencies C: economic problems and then provide education. I am kind of a libertarian...

I believe what he said is that a nation loses its "soverign" status if it meets any of the 4 requirements. Once a nation loses this "soverign" status then it is no longer illegal (according to UN charter I guess...he didn't really say) to wage war against the nation.
I may have misunderstood, but I think that is the point he was trying to make. Thus, since Saddam engaged in these activities Iraq was no longer a soverign nation and therefore the US was within its rights to declare war to remove him

Great point
Those standards did not apply to Clinton as well. Seeing how almost 1 million Rwandans were slayed during Clintons watch; as our president stood and watched via TV people get massacred on the streets of Rwanda by gun and mechete.
I was not justifying the Iraq war, but saying the 4 examples he used are certainly good guidelines to use. No president made sound decisions depending on whom you talk to. But nonetheless the House voted 296 - 133 and the Senate 77 - 23 for the Iraq resolution.

What do you think we should do about Iraq now? Coming up with new and improved justifications for the war is all fine and good, but I think the American public has stopped falling for that trick. How about a new and improved exit strategy. Does anyone you read/watch have any good ideas?
The only good idea I have heard was from Senator Fiengold who says we should at the very least announce a date for full withdrawl.