Samantha wrote:
I am saying generally that no country has the right to interfere
with another sovereign country accept under conditions of war.
### How about when a few of percent of the population, mainly well-armed
young men, engage in the wholesale slaughter of large numbers citizens of
that country (let's say, 5 000 to 10 000/day, as in Rwanda a few years ago,
or in Cambodia)? Are we ethically bound not to interfere? Do you think that
the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, which ended the slaughter, was an
immoral act? (plese answer yes or no) Or was the total indifference to
Rwanda the ethically correct approach?
As you point out later, noninterference is usually conducive to peace but,
as Neville Chamberlain's mistake shows, sometimes peace is worse than war.
-----
Afghanistan did not attack us. Terrorists did. No matter how
you twist it, there is a bit of a difference.
### The US attacked the terrorists and their government backers, not
Afghanistan's people.
----law and diplomacy today. If you say that we are charged with the job of protecting/securing individual rights globally or at least have every right to do so then this is tantamount to a declaration of nearly global war.
### No, this is in fact the declaration of the Pax Americana: "If you kill enough innocent people, we'll come and bomb you, especially if you also make us lose too much money".
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:20 MDT