Iraq, human rights concerns, and legal justifications for war

[Douglas Edlin]

As I said in my previous post, "{T]here will be exceptions and 
disagreements about . . . whether a particular military engagement was 
motivated by national self-defense."  My aim was neither to defend the 
democratic peace argument nor to claim that particular instances of 
American military intervention support or disprove that argument.  I 
don't know if I subscribe to the notion of democratic peace, but the 
argument is interesting and seems worth considering seriously.  Everyone 
may not think so, though.

Doug

Earl Maltz wrote:

> And how precisely were we defending ourselves against Grenada and 
> Haiti?  (I would make the same point about Kosovo and, for that matter, 
> Bosnia, but I suppose that you could say that we were helping our 
> European allies contain instability in Europe).
> 
> At 05:03 PM 8/17/2005 -0400, Doug Edlin wrote:
> 
>> Since Mark may not want to take this up himself, following the 
>> "democratic peace" notion, there is evidence that, broadly speaking, 
>> democracies (at least well-established, liberal democracies) do not go 
>> to war against each other and they (usually) engage in military 
>> conflict against non-democracies only to defend themselves.  Of 
>> course, there will be exceptions and disagreements about what 
>> constitutes a liberal democracy and whether a particular military 
>> engagement was motivated by national self-defense.  This point is 
>> addressed in various ways by, among others, Bruce Russett, Spencer 
>> Weart, Samuel Huntington, Michael Doyle, Anne-Marie Slaughter and John 
>> Norton Moore.
>>
>> Doug Edlin
>>
>> Earl Maltz wrote:
>>
>>> Can you spell Grenada?  Vietnam?  How about the invasion of 
>>> Kosovo--an attack on the territory of a sovereign nation (what was 
>>> left of Yugoslavia)?
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Douglas E. Edlin
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Political Science
>> Dickinson College
>> P.O. Box 1773
>> Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013
>> 717.245.1388

-- 
Douglas E. Edlin
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Dickinson College
P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013
717.245.1388