"Have You Killed Anyone Yet?"

In a recent post, Dadahead asks how many wars have been launched based truly on "humanitarian" concerns and how often has that been an excuse to cover up ulterior motives? Dada says:

"One of the more dangerous ideas that goes unchallenged by mainstream liberals and conservatives alike is the right of the United States to wage war on foreign peoples as long as the professed motive is one of "humanitarian" concerns. Accepting such a principle effectively allows the U.S. to attack any nation at any time.... "

Whether the motive for warfare is humanitarian or realpolitik is always a matter of debate. Reasonable people can honestly disagree. Easiest to point to is American and Allied intervention against Hitler and Nazi Germany, although we know that there were several dissenters even after the dirty truth about the concentration death camps became known to the world. Some have pointed to Kosovo (Dada is not buying). The Kosovo war did end relatively neatly even though I have always suspected that apart from humanitarian motives, it had at least something to do with Bosnia and Kosovo being in the heart of Europe, as well as that it afforded Madeleine Albright to prove her "manhood". I recognize that there are some hot spots where indeed "humanitarian" intervention by the civilized world is warranted. One example in my own lifetime (but before most younger readers') was Indira Gandhi intervening in 1971, when a brutal genocidal civil war was unleashed in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by the Pakistani military powers based in the western wing of that nation.  Rwanda in my opinion, was even more deserving than Kosovo.  Currently Darfur and Myanmar come to mind.  Afghanistan under the savage Taliban deserved to be set right - even before 9/11 happened.  But regrettably, we have botched our current efforts there due to our preoccupation with the disastrous war in Iraq.

After justifications such as the elusive WMD's and Saddam's (non)involvement with 9/11 have proved to be patently false, the Bush administration and its supporters are desperately touting "humanitarian" reasons for the war in Iraq. Majority of the world and now a majority of Americans have seen through the lies and not even the most loyal Republican can say this any more with a straight face. We have seen evidence after solid evidence from people in the know, that Bush-Cheney Inc. planned to attack Iraq no matter what. The motives were many - none of them humanitarian. Helen Thomas, the Grande Dame of the White House Press Corp, who is routinely vilified by right wing hatchet men and women for her courage to question the administration's lies, has a nice wrap up of the role of Rumsfeld, the chief executor /executioner of the Iraq war. Not much of this is new but nonetheless worth a reminder, lest we start getting bamboozled by the warmongers' soothing spiel.

"It's time for President Bush to shake up his Cabinet, starting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and some of his cohorts at the Pentagon who have made so many costly mistakes.

Let us count the ways, starting with Rumsfeld's braggadocio "shock-and-awe" approach to the disastrous war in Iraq. Rumsfeld was a foremost adviser in urging President Bush to attack Iraq, using the 9/11 catastrophe as a catalyst, even though there was no involvement of Baghdad in the terrorist attack...."

Rumsfeld's cavalier disdain for General Shinseki's warnings, looting in Baghdad, poorly equipped US soldiers, torture at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the moral role of the US in preventing torture as an invading power, along with his rosy predictions of the outcome in Iraq, are well known. Rummy is always glib, sometimes funny and now we know, dead wrong on all counts. And sure as heck, he is no "humanitarian".

"An incident cited in a book titled Rumsfeld's War referred to a meeting of commanders at the Pentagon in 2003 when Rumsfeld pulled aside Air Force Gen. Charles Holland, the special operations chief who Rumsfeld thought was not aggressive enough. The secretary asked the general: "Have you killed anyone yet?"

Comments

[Joe]

Does group motive matter? I don't like the post facto humanitarian justification for the war because it just further demonstrates that the Bush Administration keeps lying to us. And I'm not a history buff, but I'd question whether any war has *ever* been fought *because* of humanitarian concerns (it is, however, difficult to ascribe motive to any government because different individuals will have different motives for the same joint action). But this war can either be justified or not based on its humanitarian outcome, and I don't see how "intent" is at all relevant to that determination.

On a side note, I can never figure out what George Bush wants. Permanent military base in the Middle East other than Israel? Check. Promotion of governments which will be beneficial to America's interests? Um... no. Only an idiot or a crazy person would have ever thought *this* could be good for America in any way.