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2 - The Right War for the Right Reasons
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- By Robert Kagan, Contributing editor of the Weekly Standard; Senior associate Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Author of Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard; Co-author (with Lawrence F. Kaplan) of The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission
- Edited by Gary Rosen
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- Book:
- The Right War?
- Published online:
- 10 August 2009
- Print publication:
- 08 August 2005, pp 18-35
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- Chapter
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Summary
With all the turmoil surrounding david kay's comments on the failure to find stockpiles of biological and chemical weap-ons in Iraq, it is time to return to first principles, and to ask the question: Was it right to go to war?
Critics of the war, and of the Bush administration, have seized on the failure to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But while his weapons were a key part of the case for removing Saddam, that case was always broader. Saddam's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction was inextricably intertwined with the nature of his tyrannical rule, his serial aggression, his defiance of international obligations, and his undeniable ties to a variety of terrorists, from Abu Nidal to al Qaeda (a topic we will not cover in detail here, rather referring readers to Stephen F. Hayes's reporting in this magazine over the past year). Together, this pattern of behavior made the removal of Saddam desirable and necessary, in the judgment of both the Clinton and Bush administrations. That judgment was and remains correct.
It is fashionable to sneer at the moral case for liberating an Iraqi people long brutalized by Saddam's rule. Critics insist mere oppression was not sufficient reason for war, and in any case that it was not Bush's reason. In fact, of course, it was one of Bush's reasons, and the moral and humanitarian purpose provided a compelling reason for a war to remove Saddam.
Liberty, Equality, Honor
- William Kristol
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- Journal:
- Social Philosophy and Policy / Volume 2 / Issue 1 / Autumn 1984
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 January 2009, pp. 125-140
- Print publication:
- Autumn 1984
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- Article
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As today's battles rage between those who march under the banner of liberty and those who unfurl the flag of equality, even an engaged partisan might be forgiven for occasionally wondering whether the game is, after all, worth the candle. For one thing, neither party simply rejects the other's principle – properly understood. Egalitarians routinely emphasize that their concern for equality is, also, a concern for true liberty; thus Michael Walzer, writing “In Defense of Equality,” finds it “worth stressing that equality as I have described it does not stand alone, but is closely related to the idea of liberty.”1 Libertarians tend to be less enthusiastic in their embrace of equality, but almost all endorse some form of equality or other – for example, equality of political rights or equality before the law. It would seem, then, that the differences between egalitarians and libertarians are really over the meaning and scope of equality and liberty, and that putting the issue as one of equality vs. liberty may be misleading.
More important, one can wonder whether either the egalitarian or the libertarian combination of the principles of liberty and equality is worthy of support. What society has exalted personal liberty, has taken rights more seriously, than ours? Yet who can easily dismiss Solzhenitsyn's charge that our worship of freedom has resulted in “destructive and irresponsible freedom” being granted “boundless scope,” leaving us defenseless against “the corrosion of evil”?2 The cause of liberty against tyranny surely continues to command our support; but what conclusion ought we to draw from the facts that liberty in absentia seems so markedly more attractive than liberty in practice, and that the qualities manifested in the struggle for liberty seem so superior to those that come to the fore once liberty is secured?