WELL; I'm purposely sidestepping the arguments involved in Dan Drezner's and Henry Farrell's on the Downing Street Memo to ask a hypothetical question which I think arises nevertheless from their arguments:
Suppose it were the case that the real motivation behind going to war with Iraq was based (in whatever way pleases you or you can think most probable) out of humanitarian impulses: is there any historical precedent for a state intervening in another state a. for solely humanitarian reasons b. without any objection from the rest of the world (that is, without some other significant country in the world thinking such an action violated international law)? And if the answer to the previous question is 'no,' is it morally acceptable to invent 'fake but plausible' reasons which would lie within the purview of international law (and thus allow an intervention to go forward and acheive the humanitarian result)?
I ask these questions to ask them, not as a rhetorical club with which to beat those who disagree with me: if one believes that there are some cases where other countries are obligated to act, how do they get around the traditional reluctance of other states to recognize humanitarian casues?
"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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