QUOTE:
"If Saddam Hussein indeed has any weapons of mass destruction, invading Iraq will ensure that he use them. If he does not have such weapons, then invading his country will be unjustified."
-As to the first, the fact that we face a great evil prepared to behave in the manner of an even greater one does not negate our responsibility to rid the world of him. If anything, his willingness to use his WMD (assuming he has them) heightens our responsibility to remove him from power.
As to the second, the argument is so fatuous as to barely be worth responding to-- but we'll give it a go. Tell the Kurds and the Shiites, who have been regularly violently oppressed, that there is no justification for removind Saddam from power. Tell the student demonstrators in Iran who are looking for a reliable ally in their fight against the Muslim cleric extremists that there'd be no justification in proving that a secular, pluralistic Muslim state is a possibility.
Frankly, I'm unconvinced we even need to be teleological when it comes to Iraq. Unless you're prepared to argue that there is some good greater than Liberty, you have to accept that exchanging a less-free government for a more-free government is always and everywhere a good thing. The only two alternative views one can take, both of which are represented in this quote-- cowardice or love of tyranny.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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