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"Regime change", and "Is it easier to be idealistic in comfort?"

  
 
lentil
08:51 / 12.08.02
To be honest I’m not entirely sure whether this needs a new thread, as we already have the “Third Gulf war and the Inevitability Thereof” topic going on, but some of the stuff I’m thinking about is outside the parameters of that thread…

Last night I met a guy from Iraq, only the second I’ve met in my lifetime. He has been living in London for the past three years after having to flee Iraq when a false charge was made against him by the secret police. He seemed keen to talk politics, so I told him I’d be interested to hear his views on TWAT and Bush’s intended assault on Iraq in particular. I was very surprised to hear him say that he wholeheartedly supported a campaign with “regime change” as its aim, his reasoning being that Hussein was an evil bastard who was overwhelmingly responsible for his peoples’ plight and that to leave him in power when the Western nations have the ability to remove him was the greater of two evils.

So… what do people think about this? Specifically, is this a situation where our governments are forced into choosing between two paths of comparable moral reprehensibility? Should we, if possible, remove Saddam Hussein, and would this be a palatable act if it could be achieved without warfare? Is that even remotely possible? And, assuming that if a military campaign could remove him and lead to his replacement with a functioning democracy (big assumption, I know), would the end in any way justify the means?

The exchange also got me thinking on a more general level about the ways we form opinions about political matters, specifically how this is affected by proximity to the issue. It’s easy for me, with my relative wealth, freedom and comfort to say that war is never the answer because it offends my lovingly nurtured moral sensibilities, but is my opinion devalued by my lack of specific experience? Or, conversely, is one better able to make sound judgement when one is able to apply a dispassionate consideration of the arguments? Does my relative distance actually add validity by stopping me from basing my views on strong emotional responses?

Lots of questions I know but I’d be very interested to hear what the barbe-mind has to say on this.
 
 
gozer the destructor
09:15 / 12.08.02
Thing is lentil, this is one dude and over the last few weeks everyone has seen loads of footage of mass parades in Iraq of Sadam supporters. I think it's important to remember that the governments of England and the USA are responsible for their respective countries and not for countries that have selected their own leader (and here I am thinking along the lines that if you do not remove your leader you agree with her/him). Because it's not just sadam they want out, is it? they want arrafat out as well, they have already changed the leadership of afganhistan (for no political reason-pureley economic).
 
 
lentil
11:04 / 12.08.02
I did consider adding a disclaimer to say that i was reading this guy's comments strictly as his own opinion and am fully aware that he doesn't speak for Iraq (perhaps particularly so as he hasn't been there for three years). My shock at hearing him express support for Bush was the impetus for starting this thread.

Regarding the pro - Saddam demonstrations, matey last night would have said that this was a product of the climate of fear and distrust created by the regime – people are scared to express any criticism of the government for obvious reasons, and I don’t think you can discount the possibility that in some cases people will be scared of being seen to express less support for the government than their compatriots. Even if their support for him is genuinely felt, they do live in a country where the media is entirely state controlled so it’ll probably based on lies.

I have to admit that I know nothing about the means by which Saddam gained power, but I can’t imagine that he was chosen by the people of Iraq. I’m prepared to be shown up over this. I agree entirely with your distrust of the US & UK governments’ motives, but I’d like to remove that from consideration for a moment, which is why I said

”assuming that if a military campaign could remove him and lead to his replacement with a functioning democracy (big assumption, I know), would the end in any way justify the means?”

In my original post. I’m not saying that this should be treated as a standalone issue, or that track records should be ignored, but I would like to consider the question of the rights and wrongs of “regime change” intervention from the hypothetical point of view that its result would be the establishment of a “real” government, of a form decided by the people. You may argue that it’s unhelpful to talk hypothetically about a situation which is so palpably real and has potentially disastrous consequences for the world, but I can’t see another way to separate “Should the more powerful/secure nations remove an undeniably monstrous dictator” from “The end result will inevitably be massive civilian death and a puppet regime at best, and besides our governments obviously do not give a shit about the people of Iraq”.

[Hi Gozer – where ya bin?]
 
 
gozer the destructor
11:56 / 12.08.02
I understand what your saying but any government is a regime. The decisions that are made by governments to remove or set-up other administrations be they semi-democratic or other, all result in the oppression of the working majority in those countries one way or another, democracy is supposed to be about let the people decide not the government.

{cheers man, ah been chilling wid some other possies but ah be back for a bit now, pm me if you wanna go for a drink sometime)
 
 
Axel Lambert
14:03 / 12.08.02
they have already changed the leadership of afganhistan (for no political reason-pureley economic).

Hm. Surely this also had something to do with September 11?
 
 
No star here laces
14:12 / 12.08.02
My response to the Iraqi expat is that he is broadly correct - it would be better to get rid of Saddam than to leave him there. I have no doubt that the man is a c*** of the first order.

BUT, as gozer says, you can't trust the motives of the western powers. Regime change in Iraq only has moral force as part of a wider program to eliminate all dictatorial regimes in favour of democracies. Similarly you'd need to deal with all these dictators in order of evil-ness, or human rights records. Which would place the US in an interesting position with respect to China.

I disagree that any government put in place would inevitably be a puppet regime, but admit that there is a good chance of that. But even a puppet regime is better than a genocidal dictator as far as the people of the country are concerned.

The civilian death issue is a harder one to deal with. But this is also partly Saddam's responsibility - if he cared about his people he shouldn't expose them to this just to hang on to power for a couple more years.

Not being a Bush apologist or nothing, likes.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
14:35 / 12.08.02
I guess that a lot of my dislike for these actions is on the grounds that it is normally being spun as being done *purely* for the good of the people, when in the cases of both Afghanistan and Iraq they are being done for the good of the American administration and their oil interests.

Though if they came out and actually said "This autumn, we're going to war to try and distract your attention from how the President is ruining the economy!" I like to think I'd still object to it on any number of other reasons.

To answer your question; hmmmm. The fact is that in this case, as with Afghanistan, as with Kosovo, as with most wars, we're going to kill an awful lot of his people if we do manage to get him. IIRC Robert Fisk wrote a number of brilliant articles several years ago about how NATO spun the whole operation in Kosovo to make it look like a success but after-the-fact investigations couldn't verify any enemy casualties, just civilians caught in the crossfire. And news media is complicit in this, because if they told the truth, they would be cut out of future briefings from the military.

In the case of Iraq, the means already outweigh the ends, millions of people dead, children dead, uranium-saturated missile debris from the first war slowly poisoning hundreds, and Iraqi hospitals that lack any kind of treatment facilities.

I doubt that America will kill Hussein. They'd need to go in on foot for that, and they lack the stomach for casualties. Countries around the area like Saudi Arabia aren't giving them permission to use their land this time and they don't have any cohesive military support in Iraq to do the dirty work. They'll probably drop a lot of bombs and hope he's been sitting in his palace and they get lucky.

I'm not sure on the question of proximity and opinion, certainly I'm less exercised on the issue than an Iraqi dissident for who it's literally life and death, but there are British people who support a war and those who don't. I would certainly be prejudiced towards a stranger writing that we shouldn't go to war than a stranger who said we must, but that's my personal feelings of pacifism and looking for alternatives to killing people.

And Liars, September 11th was the excuse.
 
 
Axel Lambert
15:52 / 12.08.02
Hmmm. So what would this economic reason for overthrowing the Taliban be?
 
 
Naked Flame
16:47 / 12.08.02
Massive oil reserves.

we've gone over this before in some detail, but the gist of it is, there's a lot of oil left in that part of the world, and the West was, if not actively supporting, then at least passively supporting the Taliban, because it looked like they were going to be a stable (if repressive and murderous) regime, and were interested in exploiting the oil. When they finally told the oil companies to shove it, Western attitudes changed fairly rapidly.

IIRC, and if any of this (dis)info can be trusted, plans to enact a regime change in Afganistan were already well underway prior to 9/11: the events of September made it that much easier to sell.
 
 
Axel Lambert
17:03 / 12.08.02
Even if what you're saying is true, why would the September 11th events be just an excuse to enact an already existing overthrow plan, and not ANOTHER reason to topple the Taliban???
 
 
Hieronymus
18:17 / 12.08.02
To further rot this thread, I don't beleive Sept 11th was the sole or major reason for the Taliban overthrow, though, as with the jingoism Bush has gathered to supplement his agendas, it provided an opportunity for Haliburton to put pipeline down through Afghanistan with little or no resistance. As I understand it, that was the panic Cheney had regarding his recorded minutes with certain energy companies. He didn't want it to look like they staged TWAT in Afghanistan simply to supplement his favorite energy corp's activities. Brought about strictly for economic reasons? No. But was the opportunity blisteringly capitalized upon? Certainly.

Mr. Midas has nothing on these guys.
 
 
Naked Flame
22:00 / 12.08.02
Agreed, DM.

Back to the matter in hand, though: the major problem I have is that I can't for the life of me begin to figure out where the US administration draws its moral authority from in this. I know that Hussein is a cocksmoker of the first water. But equally, it's common knowledge that America helped him build his army and propped him up for a long time.

Problem two: there's no-one to take over the leadership if Hussein goes, given that we already encouraged the revolutionaries into giving it a go, then withheld our support. Removing an oppressive regime doesn't transform things in itself- look at what's happening in Afghanistan these days.

I'll admit that my thinking is informed by woolly idealism. But in the long term it's important that Hussein's rule is ended by Iraq, not by America: these unilateral interventions store up bile and emnity on a global scale, and that can only be a bad thing for American (and global!) security.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
12:49 / 13.08.02
Liars- If America had gone into Afghanistan without the 'excuse' of September 11th Russia for one would not have been very happy. Don't forget, they fought each other there through intermediaries in the 80s, so tensions are high.
 
 
lentil
13:16 / 13.08.02

Broadly speaking , I agree with Lyra’s “it would be better to get rid of Saddam than to leave him there. I have no doubt that the man is a c*** of the first order.”. But some interesting points have been raised regarding moral authority. Lada says “the means already outweigh the ends”. This could be taken in two ways; either that so much wrong has been done that any further intervention would be supremely arrogant and would simply add to the moral untenability of the West’s position, or that as we’ve already royally fucked up millions of lives we should waste no time in doing whatever we can to put things right. We can’t rectify the past but perhaps the weight of guilt provides a greater impetus for action. I’m kind of surprised to find myself favouring the latter interpretation, but as others have said my distrust of our governments’ motives and pessimism about the results prevent me from advocating intervention.

Lyra says that “Regime change in Iraq only has moral force as part of a wider program to eliminate all dictatorial regimes in favour of democracies”, whereas Flame (and Lada?) seems to identify lack of moral force as coming from past American injustices. Same concern, different frameworks. In Lyra’s model consistency of approach (which necessarily involves a much wider- ranging programme of “global policing”) would go some way to justify action in Iraq. Well, yes, it would locate the action within a moral/ ideological rather than economic framework, but the problem I have with it is that it smacks of imperialism and the arrogant attitude we “civilised” democracies have toward the developing world. This ties in to what I see as the major problem with the proximity/ opinion question: the argument that emotional distance from a subject allows greater reflectivity and a more balanced viewpoint carries a lot of weight, but applied to this subject it carries a strong whiff of a patronising “We know what’s good for you, little people” attitude.

Flame’s “But in the long term it's important that Hussein's rule is ended by Iraq, not by America” is a good point, but is this at all likely, or even possible? Given the control he has over the country a revolution would be extremely difficult to bring about, and given the strength of his propaganda machine many citizens would probably not want revolution. Mao is still revered all over China; there was a great outpouring of grief at Stalin’s funeral. OK, these are not exactly comparable, as there was no regime change at the end of either of their rules, but I throw them in to illustrate the emotional control dictators can wield over their people.

If adherence to pacifism leaves your hands tied while people suffer avoidably, does this at some point begin to run contrary to your idealism?

(not sure what I think about that one, will return)
 
 
No star here laces
08:03 / 14.08.02
Now, you see Lentil's post just clarified a lot for me, so I'm going to go off on one now...

lack of moral force as coming from past American injustices...

I cannot and will not accept this as a good argument. It smacks of the doctrine of 'original sin' to me. How can past actions be a good way to judge the morality of an action? Surely the morality is contained in tthe action itself and not in the history of the parties involved? We would all accept the possibility of a person with a history of evil doing something good, and vice versa. And therefore it must also be possible that America could be doing something right despite the mistakes they have made in the past.

Now I'm not trying to argue that it is necessarily right to go to war with Iraq, right now, but I do think that disagreement with America in the past is no reason whatsoever to disagree with any present and future actions.

The second thing is this comment:

the problem I have with it is that it smacks of imperialism and the arrogant attitude we “civilised” democracies have toward the developing world

Now I know exactly where Lentil is coming from on this one, it does feel wrong in many ways because it is uncomfortable for us to be reminded of imperialism.

But there is a very big problem with this whole argument. Morality should not be seen as relative. If someone does something wrong that is part of their own unique culture (Suttee, female circumcision, cutting the hands off thieves, discriminating against 'untouchables', whatever...) then that thing is still wrong .

If someone who did something wrong is caught and prevented from doing more harm by a corrupt system, then that is still justice.

You can't excuse wrongdoing on the grounds of culture, just as you cannot do it on the grounds of genetics ("It's not my fault, sir, my daddy was a murderer too"). Just as you cannot abdicate from your moral responsibility to act to correct wrongdoing just because it is historically sensitive for you to do so.

The way you act now - the things you let happen or don't let happen are what is important. To bring history into it is to make excuses. If we really want to abandon the legacy of colonialism then we ought to have no qualms about interfering in the affairs of former colonies where it is our moral obligation to do so.

This whole post has very little to do with Iraq, btw.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:45 / 14.08.02
The waters are very muddy here... as Lentil says, "given the strength of his propaganda machine many citizens would probably not want revolution..."

In which case, if (and I admit I'm stretching your point here, Lentil, not putting words in your mouth) we managed to install democracy there, RIGHT NOW, and he was still "popular", then would we still have the right to complain? And, even more hypothetically, what if he (or any hypothetical dictator) won by a landslide in a fair and just vote? Then where would we stand?

Don't get me wrong... I dislike the man. I just think if we're (by "we" I mean the West in general, not any of "us" personally) gonna get caught up in the whole "regime change is necessary because he's evil", then we really should be examining our reasons for helping him out and/or turning a blind eye when he was being just as, if not more, evil. (The gassing of the Kurds, for example.)

I take Lyra's point, that it's still justice even if enacted by the corrupt (though I dislike the wording), but this whole thing does kind of smack of justification after the fact. It's kind of like if they'd never bothered arresting Peter Sutcliffe for murdering women, but had gone back later and done him for having a fake numberplate.

Of course, all this could easily become ancient history in (say) ten years' time, when we decide the guy we've replaced him with's a bastard as well...

I have no answers. But at least we all seem to be trying to show our working-out!

Just had to add this- sorry, got carried away... realise that's all horrendously off-topic. Personally, I think it's difficult to deny that distance does make idealism easier. You can see this in the relationships between your friends, you can see it at a national level, and of course you can see it at an international level. This is why the "why can't we all just get along?" plea, admirable and wonderful though it may be, is doomed to failure. It is well-nigh impossible to have any perspective from within a situation in which you are involved. Conversely (and this is the fucker) it's also kind of tricky to have the experience and the immediacy of one in which you're not.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:04 / 15.08.02
How can past actions be a good way to judge the morality of an action? Surely the morality is contained in tthe action itself and not in the history of the parties involved? We would all accept the possibility of a person with a history of evil doing something good, and vice versa. And therefore it must also be possible that America could be doing something right despite the mistakes they have made in the past.

Now I'm not trying to argue that it is necessarily right to go to war with Iraq, right now, but I do think that disagreement with America in the past is no reason whatsoever to disagree with any present and future actions.

This probably deserves an entire thread to itself, but it strikes me that this is a pretty naive thing to say. If you want to get a good idea of a person or group of people's motivations for future actions and what the nature of those actions would be, any consistent pattern that has been demonstrated in the past is *surely* one of the most reasonable indicators. That is unless there has been, ironically, any significant regime change that suggests any different, and there really hasn't been in America.

Moreover, this is also exactly the same rhetoric that's used by centre-left/liberal apologists every time America/Britain goes to war.

"Okay, so we did some bad things during the Cold War, but now the Berlin Wall has fallen we're going to only intervene for good, humanitarian reasons. Surely everyone must see that Saddam Hussein is evil? Let's go stop him! Or at least bomb some innocent people to shit. Nobody mention Panama."

"Okay, so we did some bad things during the Gulf War, but now the Democrats/Labour are in charge we're going to only intervene for good, humanitarian reasons. Surely everyone must see that Milosevic is evil? Let's go stop him! Or at least bomb some innocent people to shit. Nobody mention East Timor."

"Okay, so we did some bad things in Kosovo*, but now the tragedy of 9/11 has taken place we're going to only intervene for good, humanitarian reasons. Surely everyone must see that Osama Bin Laden/Saddam Hussein/anyone else we feel like is evil? Let's go stop him! Or at least bomb some innocent people to shit. Nobody mention Israel/Saudi Arabia/take your pick..."

You get the idea. I'm currently reading Chomsky's World Orders, Old and New, and it's very good on this point - sort of pre-empts the "why are the terrible things the US did/does in the past/present relevant to this instance where they want to do *good*?" argument that's always being thrown at Uncle Noam...

*Actually, I think Kosovo is recent enough that it's still being held up as an example of noble humanitarian intervention, but you get the idea.
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
13:24 / 19.08.02
"why are the terrible things the US did/does in the past/present relevant to this instance where they want to do *good*?" etc.

I doubt anybody is arguing that past behaviour has nothing to do with motive, but motive and morality are not necessarily linked. The argument was that any action with morally positive consequences, on balance if nothing else, might be considered good regardless of the motives past and present of whatever agency carries it out. Or, to put it another way, if Saddam gets kicked out by the Americans and whoever else tags along, and this ends up improving quality of life in Iraq, does it really matter that they're only going in to secure oil and votes? (Unless I've read it wrong, again.)

I think it certainly matters if you're examining the morality of the agent, but I don't think that automatically carries through to the action.
 
 
Naked Flame
14:56 / 19.08.02
The argument was that any action with morally positive consequences, on balance if nothing else, might be considered good regardless of the motives past and present of whatever agency carries it out

By this argument, Hitler might be considered good because the Second World War forced a Europe-wide move away from totalitarianism, and a revision of popular opinions surrounding Judaism, leading to the creation of a Jewish homeland. But wait- what about those Palestinians? 'On balance' is a very dangerous phrase.

(Threadrot- I think I just about escape Godwin's Law here. I'm not comparing as such. It's cheeky, though. Sorry.)

The end usually doesn't justify the means, because there's usually an alternative set of means if you think about it. And in cases where the stated ends are vastly different to the implied ends and actual results, the whole idea of ends and means becomes extremely sticky indeed.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
15:07 / 19.08.02
Lots of 'ifs' in this debate... the most glaring of which is the assumption that removing Saddam will have any kind of positive consequences, for anyone. Certain political enemies might get reprieved or released, true. I think that's about it for the instantly forseeable consequences... and the reason for this is precisely because of the lack of any appreciable morality involved in the action - it's amoral, not immoral. The Bush administration just wants Saddam gone, and their own authority imposed on the country. Like the man said, votes n' oil, just like Afghaistan. And they don't have a viable alternative to Saddam, just some vague shilly-shallying about installing a democracy...

If you're going to subscribe to the reductivist Western idea that societies evolve towards democracy, a concept the Bush administration has been tacitly marketing all the way through TWAT, then the idea that you can 'instal' democracy must be Irony Actualized, and I claim my no-prize for spotting it.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
16:33 / 19.08.02
I just want to say "Yay Stoatie!" for in many ways articulating my position a lot better than I ever could. International Politics in many ways is the turning of a blind eye to bastards as long as their our bastards.

I think the thing about judging (in this case it was America but it could be anyone) a country on it's present actions rather than the past is misguided to an extent. The first example I can think of is Cuba. American policy has been more or less consistent towards Cuba since the Revolution, just periodically getting tougher on the means by which the struggle is pursued. If you attempted to discuss the situation without acknowledging the background (and I'm not going any further with the Cuba thing because my knowledge is sketchy) you can't get far. This Iraq situation has history going back decades which must be considered. Politics is also the art of the long game. If you believe the Afghanistan oil theory this was to safeguard oil supplies for around 2015 IIRC.
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
12:25 / 20.08.02
Flame: That's exactly what I did not mean. Hitler as an agent should be judged on motives, but even he must have done something right in order to be elected. The fact that he than decided to throw WWII certainly calls his earlier motives into question, but I'm not convinced that makes the actions themselves automatically reprehensible. And as for the Big Fight itself, that's exactly why I said "on balance". As in, weighing benefits against cost. Although I do agree it is a dangerous qualifier since each concept is hard enough to measure by itself, never mind comparing the two.

I agree with you when you say the end justifies any means, but it does not follow that there are always means which don't need justifying.

Throwing Lyra's earlier statement about justice under corrupt regimes into reverse, if a just regime becomes corrupted, how does that reflect on earlier judgements, made before the corruption was noticed?
 
 
Naked Flame
21:06 / 20.08.02
Morlock- seems to me that frequently the benefits happen in spite of, not because of, the motives of the powers-that-be.

I don't think it's possible to 'weigh benefits against costs.' Financial benefits? Civil liberties? Lives saved? versus human suffering? death? exploitation? aren't your 'benefits' what happens when humans give up on the 'costs' and start, umm, being nicer to each other?

I better face it. I'm too fluffy for this world.
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
16:49 / 21.08.02
seems to me that frequently the benefits happen in spite of, not because of, the motives of the powers-that-be.

I never claimed otherwise. I was arguing that the motive behind and morality of an event are not connected.
And yes, all my benefits are things that occur naturally if people were nicer to eachother, but you may have noticed that not everybody acts as nicely as they should. If you wanna make 'em, there will usually be a cost.
Here, the benefit would be the removal of one not-very-nice dictator type, an end to crippling sanctions etc. The cost will be another bootprint on a nation's right to govern itself and, if the usual strategy is employed, large scale loss of civilian life, severe damage to the country's infrastructure (what's left of it) etc, etc.

Oh, and apologies for my truly awful typo in my last post. Meant that I agree when you say the end doesn't justify the means. I'd edit it, but it feels too late.
 
  
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