USA deciding world ethics

[Egeides]

First of all, hi all, since this is my introductory and first post.

Second, I've read a little and came with this, espescially asking for emprworm's answer (which I guess I'll get ;)):

Does someone here believe ONE single nation (whatever which one) should be able to decide that something should be done against another nation for ethical reasons? Like USA, France or other... Anyone believing USA should attack with everyone else against is welcomed to answer ;D

[Gobalopper]

Well it depends. In some cases they should if they feel they need to in order to protect themselves.

And if this pertains to the Iraq situation, which I assume it does :), the US isn't acting alone.

[SurlyPIG]

Every nation has the right to its sovereignty and its decisions. It has the right to protect its people, also.

[emprworm]

"Does someone here believe ONE single nation (whatever which one) should be able to decide that something should be done against another nation for ethical reasons?"

No. Any nation should be able to. When dictatorship is killing his own people...despite warnings from the UN...then ANY nation should be able to go in there and remove the dictator.

It just happens that only a few nations have the power to do that kind of work. And France...sorry to say...isn't one of em.

[Egeides]

Should we apply this to citizens too, each citizens beeing permitted to emprison the guy as "preemptive attack"?

Here, I wish to enter the more theorical part of it. It's not meant especially for USA, even if USA of course gives excellent exemples. Other exemples would be Bertrand Russell that proposed to nuke Russia as a preemptive attack. I'm kinda worried of the results of preemptive stuff applied as an international rule (everyone afraid of the other beeing permitted, IF HE IS STRONGER). I bet Rome and modern colonial countries (UK, France, Germany) used this! Isn't it potentially dangerous, not nly to be used falsely but also to escalate weapon races?

"Every nation has the right to its sovereignty and its decisions.

[Gobalopper]

The problem is the jury in the case of the world governments, in this case the UN, is not fair and impartial.

[Egeides]

The problem is the jury in the case of the world governments, in this case the UN, is not fair and impartial.

WHAT?? What makes USA a jury? Why, if we're silly, wouldn't it be France, Canada, India or any other country? A self-proclaimed jury?? In what UN less impartial? UN doesn't have economic/political interests besides.

[Gobalopper]

How does the UN not have interests? It is comprised of countries all looking out for what is best for them.

[Egeides]

How does the UN not have interests? It is comprised of countries all looking out for what is best for them.

I always tend to bring to individual...

"How is a jury not having interests? It is formed of humans."

Humans always have interests, but some are less on one specific side. UN has some staff that isn't espescially attached to ONE country, that doesn't have national elections, interests, etc. How do you think a country is less biased than UN?

[Gobalopper]

Most of the big decisions in the UN are made in the security council which is made up of 15 countries, 5 of those being permanent. I will agree that in smaller issues outside of the security council the UN may think as one so to speak but even then countries are going to lobby to get the best outcome for themselves.

The security council should not be related to a jury because they aren't the same thing and do not share similar goals. I never said that countries are less biased then the UN. I said the UN is just a collection of biased countries looking out for what is best for them not what is best for other countries.

[Egeides]

Most of the big decisions in the UN are made in the security council which is made up of 15 countries, 5 of those being permanent. I will agree that in smaller issues outside of the security council the UN may think as one so to speak but even then countries are going to lobby to get the best outcome for themselves.

The security council should not be related to a jury because they aren't the same thing and do not share similar goals. I never said that countries are less biased then the UN. I said the UN is just a collection of biased countries looking out for what is best for them not what is best for other countries.

No problem with this opinion since my beliefs are close but what I am against is that you said USA was more competent to judge than UN, that was biased. What is better, one that decides or many?? We can't say that this planet is all on the side of military intervention... In fact there were massive protests (the biggest ever in UK, huge ones everywhere else, and even USA is not unanymous). So how would American politics be better than UN? How would ONE be better than MANY (supposedly more representative of a planet)?

[Gobalopper]

Why should a countries like China, France, or Russia dictate the national security of the US, UK, Australia, or any country for that matter? The UN should not be overbearing on an issue like this. There have been 12 years and 17 resolutions passed dealing with Iraq and all of them have been broken. The problem with the UN is that it can't come to a consensus and enforce its resolutions. Instead of enforcing the resolutions they pass more, what good is that?

War sucks everyone knows that. But if the UN has certain members, France comes to mind, that are completely unwilling to look at that option what good is the UN? Without the threat of force dictators like Saddam are never going to listen and currently the US and the UK are the only permanent members that are willing to do something about it.

[Egeides]

Ok, so you don't believe in UN effectiveness. But how is US effectiveness? Name me ONE damn case where the results were good... They placed Saddam there, also placed Iran Shah and Bin Laden. Not to name Pinochet instead of Allende by helping Pinochet (Allende was little to leftish). Same for many other latino and Middle East countries. The most actual case, Afghanistan, is presently going very bad with serious problems with the newly instaured government (corruption, warlord new internal wars with their new power... oil investment also went up), and so on.

Now let's look what is proposed for Iraq. There are three main persons that are proposed to replace Saddam, and none of them is of the democratic side. One was in charge of Saddam's Kurds massacres, two others are not promising better.

So, how is this intervention bringing anything better? Not to name interests at stake here. Many asked questions, W.Bush only answered "I am honnest, I swear there's nothing about petroleum", not giving a single argument nor showing opposition arguments. So how will USA bring better?

[emprworm]

Should we apply this to citizens too, each citizens beeing permitted to emprison the guy as "preemptive attack"?

Here, I wish to enter the more theorical part of it. It's not meant especially for USA, even if USA of course gives excellent exemples. Other exemples would be Bertrand Russell that proposed to nuke Russia as a preemptive attack. I'm kinda worried of the results of preemptive stuff applied as an international rule (everyone afraid of the other beeing permitted, IF HE IS STRONGER). I bet Rome and modern colonial countries (UK, France, Germany) used this! Isn't it potentially dangerous, not nly to be used falsely but also to escalate weapon races?

"Every nation has the right to its sovereignty and its decisions.

[Egeides]

Should we apply this to citizens too, each citizens beeing permitted to emprison the guy as "preemptive attack"?

Here, I wish to enter the more theorical part of it. It's not meant especially for USA, even if USA of course gives excellent exemples. Other exemples would be Bertrand Russell that proposed to nuke Russia as a preemptive attack. I'm kinda worried of the results of preemptive stuff applied as an international rule (everyone afraid of the other beeing permitted, IF HE IS STRONGER). I bet Rome and modern colonial countries (UK, France, Germany) used this! Isn't it potentially dangerous, not nly to be used falsely but also to escalate weapon races?

"Every nation has the right to its sovereignty and its decisions.

[Gobalopper]

The present motive is not anywhere close to nuclear, it has been considered but the chances are almost zero it will be used pre-emptively.

So invading Kuwait, gassing the Kurds, and torturing people aren't on the same level or worse then what happened in the Iran-Iraq war? Read this op-ed about the whole US support issue.

Bush made his first profits in 1991... what does that have to do with anything?

[Egeides]

The present motive is not anywhere close to nuclear, it has been considered but the chances are almost zero it will be used pre-emptively.

So invading Kuwait, gassing the Kurds, and torturing people aren't on the same level or worse then what happened in the Iran-Iraq war? Read this op-ed about the whole US support issue.

Bush made his first profits in 1991... what does that have to do with anything?

For Bush in 1991: end of Gulf war. His company, formed few months before, got contracts in Iraq.

About the article, pretty interesting. But still: Israel presently receives more agricultural help than it even has territory to harvest... From these agricultural things you can modify through laboratory. Same happened with Iraq: "agricultural help". I dunno for anthrax specifically though. But I know about bio-chemical in general. And it's wrong to take it away from Saddam WHEN IT DOESN'T TAKE IT AWAY. Why? Cuz the ones that will replace Saddam aren't better... Why puting aside democrats in post-Saddam and taking some people like that one in charge of Kurds massacre under Saddam?