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A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq

Book by Jose Ramos-Horta · 3 quotes · Iraq, Iraq War, War

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A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq Quotes

“Such impulses have displayed themselves very widely across left and liberal opinion in recent months. Why? For some, because what the US government and its allies do, whatever they do, has to be opposed—and opposed however thuggish and benighted the forces which this threatens to put your anti-war critic into close company with. For some, because of an uncontrollable animus towards George Bush and his administration. For some, because of a one-eyed perspective on international legality and its relation to issues of international justice and morality. Whatever the case or the combination, it has produced a calamitous compromise of the core values of socialism, or liberalism or both, on the part of thousands of people who claim attachment to them. You have to go back to the apologias for, and fellow-travelling with, the crimes of Stalinism to find as shameful a moral failure of liberal and left opinion as in the wrong-headed—and too often, in the circumstances, sickeningly smug—opposition to the freeing of the Iraqi people from one of the foulest regimes on the planet.”

LawJusticeUnited StatesMoralityIraqSocialismLiberalismIraq WarNatoInternational LawLeftismStalinismAnti War MovementGeorge W BushSaddam HusseinAnti AmericanismBa Ath PartyBa Athist IraqOpposition To The Iraq WarBa AthismPro War Left
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“Saddam's politics was the politics of the thug, of violence from the outset of his reign. Realism suggests that some people are not going to be tractable in response to purely peaceable overtures. Indeed, it certainly appears that some individuals, including notably Saddam Hussein, will cheerfully help themselves to a yard for every inch offered by well-meaning peacemakers. When we are dealing with customers as tough as that, there is no alternative to being tough ourselves.”

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Book:A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq
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