Don Hynes asks the following, somewhat rhetorical question in his July 28 post on Vantage Point:

If the U.S. were not the controlling military & economic force in the world, would there not be sufficient grounds for the international community to consider war crimes prosecution against the U.S. for the invasion and occupation of Iraq?

This reminded me of Adam Shatz's article in The Nation about a year ago, entitled "The Left and 9/11." These were the questions with which he ended his article:

Why does the left oppose war on Iraq? Do we oppose it because the US government's reasons for going to war are always deceitful, or because the United States has no right to unseat foreign governments that haven't attacked us first, or because this war is ill-timed and is likely to backfire? Do we oppose it because it's unilateral and illegal under international law, or because the American government has failed to put forward a coherent vision of Iraq after Saddam? As with Afghanistan, there are more than two ways to be for or against an intervention in Iraq. Like the war on terror, the debate on the left over the uses of American force has no end in sight.

Mr. Shatz asked these in the aftermath of 9/11, after the American victory against the Taliban in Afghanistan and I am not sure if we've been able to answer them yet. This is not a concern just for the self-identified "left," which by all accounts seems to be a small albeit passionate minority in the US. If we were to dispense with ideological classifications, we'd find that similar questions have yet to be answered convincingly by those who have been supporting our administration's war and subsequent occupation of Iraq:

Why do Americans support the war on Iraq? Do we support it because the US government has always been justified in going to war, or because the United States has the right to unseat foreign governments that are antagonistic toward us even if we don't have credible evidence of any imminent threats from them, or because this war is well-timed given our recent victimization and that we're more than likely to prevail militarily? Do we support it despite the warnings and the opposition from our allies and most of the world because our unique superpower status makes their perspectives irrelevant and makes us immune to international law, or because we trust our government to "do the right thing" in Iraq after deposing Saddam? Lastly, do we support the war because the Iraqi people were suffering under Saddam's brutality and it behooved us to liberate them; if so then would we have supported the war if the president had presented this as the primary reason to attack Iraq?

Getting back to Don's question, here's what he says in his answer:

The optimism that has fueled America�s progress as a nation is also its deepest flaw, a lack of reflection, of penetrating self-examination that great power demands.

This raises more questions in my mind. Do we appreciate the awesome influence and power that we project far beyond the oceans that flank us? Are we prepared to see that we may not always be benevolent in the ways in which we do this? Do we, as a democracy, take responsibility for the effects of these, or is it enough to let our government deal with these as it sees fit?

--aslam

4:44:40 PM