![Hundie Jo [Dot] Com](http://www.hundiejo.com/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache2/7d6a910bbe08845c0836a517a70936d5.png){kind=small}
Henry Imler March 21st, 2006
There are those that ask if the war is worth the cost in dollars and human life. The gateway pundit answered the human life question back in December of ‘05 with his post: A Look at How War in Iraq is Preserving Life
When you run the numbers, less people are dying as a whole since the removal of Saddam. I have talked about this before with The Nature of Civilian Deaths in Iraq and The Iraqi War saved lives. Read my thoughts on the second aniversaryof the Iraq War.
Besides the numbers aspect, these people now live with a chance to
be free. They are well on their way there. There is still a lot of
shite to work through, but liberty and choice for 26,074,906 people is worth it on humanitarian grounds alone, never mind the strategic reasons behind having an ally next to Iran.
- Philosophy
- Comments(16)
I dealth with this issue a couple of months ago here
Yea, I almost forgot about that post. I like alot of it from both sides - i’ll have to deal with your objections… For now I need to get to bed. It is 1:16am and I need to be at work at 8ish.
I always found less people dying to be better. Of course we will have
to see how things go after the US withdraws a little more.
Also, when a minority that was repressed finally gains equality, it
seems like it always causes a little bit of violence and turmoil. Look
over there at the Sunni’s and Shi’ites, and then compare that to say
the civil war here, or even the Civil Rights movement, or perhaps even
the labor riots during the industrial revolution. Really, to not expect
a long period of conflict, is silly. I admit I thought silly things
once too.
Smiles, this is what I need to deal with
Interesting, being that the Bush adminstration so cleary did not expect a long conflict.
I agree with you - it was quite reasonable to expect a long conflict,
but unfortunately those in charge did not expect such a possibility.
And your “less deaths are better” argument breaks down pretty easily as
a justification. If you are killing 20 people, and I kill 19 people in
order to get you to stop, is it worth it?
Lets see, it is wrong to allow 20 people to die. It is also wrong to kill 19 people.
Both are wrong. Which is less wrong?
In light of that analysis, I think a person is morally obligated to kill the 19 people, if those are his only two options.
Then again it is a false dilema. I could change it to protect the lives
of zero, or protect the lives of one. I guess then the it would be
morally correct to protect the lives of one.
Smiles, when I include in the argument that there are only two options,
do nothing or kill to protect, you can’t call that a false delema.
Ok, so really what I did was reverse the argument, and saving one
person over saving no people sounds a whole lot better than killing 20
or killing 19. I am reversing the argument to make it sound more moral.
Isn’t that cheating, or are you trying to do the opposite of what Dave
was doing, trying to make it as immoral sounding as possible?
But just because something is “less wrong” does not make it right.
If I have the option to steal ten dollars or to kill a person, it would
be fairly clear that it would be “less wrong” to steal ten dollars than
to kill a person. But that does not mean that we choose to kill that
person.
I agree with you that it is “less wrong” to kill less people than were
dying before. But that does not justify the action as right. —–
But Dave, which action am I morally obligated to do? If it is to save
the most life, then I must choose option 2. Is not the deffinition of a
“right” action that which I am morally obligated to do?
Do think we are doing wrong by not doing anything to help the people in
the Sudan? We are not killing them. We are letting them die. I would
say that it is wrong to do nothing. There are wrong actions and wrong
inactions. Sometimes I think the wrong inactions can be worse than
wrong actions. Since we have to make the choice out of those two (in
this hypothetical situatioin) it is the right desicion to make. Hence,
we are justified.
I don’t get that. Did you mean to say that it does not mean we choose to steal the $10?
This
assumes that there are only two options. You are assuming that the only
way to reduce the number of people dying in Iraq was to go to war, and
I simply do not think that this was the case.
I
am not sure that this is the definition of “right” action, but lets
assume that it is. But I need to go back to what I just wrote above.
Just because option A (going to war) is better than option B (doing
nothing), this does not mean that we are morally obligated to choose
option A. We need to look at option C, D, and E to see what truly is
the best.
I agree that less people are dying now than were dying before. So “now”
is better than “before”. But that simply does not mean that the U.S.
chose the correct action.
Yes.
For the purposes of building a moral theory, I had to frame an argument
that has only two options. I have yet to see anyone deal with the
two-option situation to my satisfaction.
With that said, I will admit that it is a false dilemma that there were
only two options about how to deal with Iraq. However, from the
following options:
I don’t see any that would lessen the loss of life that going to war did.
Those are the five basic possibilities that I can see. There can be
variations to each of those. Out of the five basic courses of action,
there is no reason to suspect that any of the other four would have
less loss of human life than what we have seen.
Stay the Sanction Course
This, in my opinion is worse than war. At least with the war option,
the county can begin to get better. With sanctions, especially, with
Saddam, the Iraqi populace suffered and starved.
Leave Iraq Alone
We know from Charles Duelfer’s report that once we left Iraq alone, then he was going to resume his weapon programs and there is no reason to suspect that he was going to release his iron grip on the populace.
Try as hard as possible to covertly overthrow Saddam
I think this would lead to worse violence than we are seeing now. I
think that it would also result in a much worse government than we see
now over there. More than likely such an overthrow would result in a
hard-line Islamic state similar to Iran, or perhaps Iran adsorbing the
Shi’a parts of Iraq, or perhaps one of Saddam’s sons rising to power in
his place.
Try to restore relations and economic aid in exchange for reforms / help to the Iraqi people
See the first two.
What do you think Dave? Are there options that I missed? Would any of
those options lessen the loss of life that is/was occurring?
I want to hear more about sports. Get this topic over with and move on.
Isn’t that what we have? We have an Islamic state that is supported by Iran. Not much different.
Those five options are probably fairly accurate.
I do think that option five could have been a better and minimized loss life, but it is diffucult to say.
With that said, I am still not sure that the ends justify the means,
and I am still not sure that Iraq is much better off now than before.
Interesting stuff!