Secondly, and here I just cannot fathom your reasoning: If Iraq never attacked or threatened us, how in God’s name can our illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral war there have anything to do with Islamic terrorism? It cannot be self-defense, by definition, if we were never threatened.

Thank you for a thought provoking response. I think you made some great points and I wish I could respond to them all right now. But for now let me just mention a few:

If you agree that Clinton also lied over Iraq and was hostile to it(he bombed it all the time) why was he not taken to task for those lies? Why does the left only attack Bush but gives Clinton a free pass? The left wing venerates Clinton and villifies Bush.

Next Point: Who would I bomb in Darfur? The official government in Khartoum. Give the President of Sudan an ultimatum: Let in UN peacekeepers and put an end to genocide or you( and your palaces and other treasures) will be held directly responsible and the United States Air Force will dole out your punishment. And by the way, you erred when you mentioned that our government said it was not a genocide. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called it a genocide as far back as 2003 if I recall correctly.

Last point: I disagree with your presumption that we are in a war of aggression, hence the Nuremberg laws are inapplicable here. Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Under the aegis of the United Nations, America fought Saddam and expelled him from Kuwait. He signed a peace treaty that was blatently disregarded. He was suppossed to not kill Kurds in the north or massacre Shia in the South, which he most certainly did. He was suppossed to open up his country to weapons inspectors who would have full and unfettered access to all of his palaces and facilities. Instead he toyed with the inspectors for years and finally just kicked them all out in 1998. So you see, he violated the peace treaty and therefore we had a right to respond.

But on a deeper level, I must tell you that we just see the world differently. This is not just a war against Iraq. We could pull out of Iraq tomorrow and not much would change. Iraq is just one battle. Nor is this a war on “terrorism” for terrorism is just a tactic.

This is a war against radical Islam. It is Islamic terror we are fighting. We are at war with anyone who believes in, supports, or gives safe harbor to Islamic radicals. We have been attacked time and time again by Islamic radicals. And I believe we are not in a war of agression but are simply trying to defend ourselves for ISLAMIC aggression. Therefore, under the important Nuremberg principles you cite, I contend that we have every right to defend ourselves against Islamic aggression.

As with so many things, including illicit surveillance, Bush is not the first to diminish our constitutional rights, although he’s been the most damaging. Clinton clearly lied or ignored contrary evidence(essentially the same thing) about Iraqi WMD. He surely knew of Saddam’s son-in-law’s testimony that Saddam had destroyed the WMD by 1995. After his confession Iraq did a document dump that affirmed his statements and helped fill in gaps in the U.N. inspection team’s reports.

In 2004 Hans Blix noted that the western intelligence agencies for years had been far too willing to accept at face value dubious testimony from Iraqi defectors.

Clinton exercised great hostility toward Iraq, but he didn’t start a lunatic war.

At least you’re consistent about invading countries that don’t measure up to your moral standards, including America. I really doubt you, as an American, would have been pleased to see your country invaded, but who knows? The point is, the Constitution does not allow military invasions across the earth for any reason, good or bad, except for our “common defence.” Our common defence does not include warring in Iraq, or bombing Serbia, or protecting South Vietnam, ad infinitum. Britain and France have no such restrictions as the supreme law of the land. We do.

There is no theoretical difference between making war to spread democracy, and things such as trampling states’ rights to affirm civil rights, or picking our pockets to fund a welfare state, or any number of issues we feel are so important we may trample the law and the Constitution to do them. It’s off the point, but clearly America’s use of illegal shortcuts to do what it thinks is right has actually been pernicious to us and the world.

And now to ask you: how do you distinguish our war of aggression from wars the Nuremberg protocols condemn? Sorry, “noble intentions” are not a Nuremberg justification–in fact, intentions are irrelevant, for what should be obvious reasons. Our government already said that Darfur was not genocide, before political pressure was brought to bear. Since there is no good guy in that conflict (read up on it), which side would you bomb, and what unintended consequences are you willing to bear?

R. Nelson, can you explain a few things to me?

First, why did you not address my question? I ask again: Do you think Bill Clinton was lying when in the mid and late 90′s he said Saddam had WMD and was a serious threat to our national security? Were John Kerry and Hillary Clinton lying when they said the same thing in 2002?

Second, you asked a very good question in your analogy to slavery in 1840. Well, actually, yes, I think Britain and France would have been justified if they invaded the United States in order to stop a horrible crime like slavery. You see, I think ALL human beings are created with fundamental and inalienable human rights. The basic rights are embodied in our Bill of Rights. Any government that violates those rights is not a sovereign state but nothing more than a criminal gang. And we have a right to work to undermine such regimes and rescue people from oppression. As M.L.K. once said, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” If it were up to me I would have already bombed the government of Sudan for promoting a genocide in Darfur.

Blackwater claims that it is saving the US from training these men with their excessive costings being because it costs money to train the men. Were not the majority of Blackwaters men trained by the US military in Special ops teams like the Rangers and SEALS. It cost Blackwater how much to train Rangers and Seals after they poached them from the US Military. To be blunt these men that have left the Rangers and SEALS to work for an increased monetary fee instead of the Pentagon and the President of the United States.

If these Men are so Gung Ho why isnt the Pentagon madatorally recalling these men back to Active service. With Stop loss and all the other excuse used on the Average soldier being abused Why are Special Forces Personnel being allowed to escape the Dragnet of the Military.

Anyway, to answer Timmerman’s question with a question: By what authority does the federal government take our money and our children to war against countries that do not pose a threat to us? We have acted in the most lawless possible way America can.

Consider that our glorious adventure in Iraq (now they can vote!) has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, maimed countless more, and displaced millions. Oh, I get it. We’ll pistol whip the victim into accepting our gifts.

Who gave us the right to settle other countries’ internal affairs? The Nazis were principally condemned at the Nuremberg trials for waging aggressive war. If our war with Iraq was not such a war, perhaps Timmer would be so good as to explain what would be. Suppose Britain and France decided to invade America around 1840 to put an end to the slavery of millions and the persecution of indigenous tribes. How exactly, on your grounds, Tim, would you argue that they wouldn’t be justified in attacking? Or does do-gooding at the point of a rifle only work in one direction?

Legally, constitutionally, and morally our invasion was unjustified. And pragmatically, too, as an overview of America’s countless meddlings and interventions over the past 110 years shows that we’ve typically worsened matters, not improved them. Our idiotic intervention in the colonial European war, WWI, guaranteed WWII and, ironically, the formation of a new country named Iraq.

Tim asks for evidence that Bush and his fellow warmongers lied. I could fill pages, but let antiwar.com correct his ignorance. Rather, let’s up-end Tim’s question. How do you know that Bush and co. sincerely believed that Iraq posed a threat to us? From a lunatic named “Curveball”? Hydrogen gas-making trailers trumped up as WMD petri dishes? Aluminum tubes that various admin. experts said were inapplicable to uranium refining? From convicted felon Chalabi? Bush believed what he wanted to and rejected the rest. This is pure dishonesty. As the Downing Street memo points out, “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” All the memos are well worth reading.

I suspect you despise and distrust Clinton, except the one time he agrees with your warmongering. Ah, the infallible intel of Clinton, who bombed abandoned terrorist sites and medicine factories. And all those western intel agencies, drinking out of the same tainted cup and thus spewing the same nonsense. E.g. , the Niger yellowcake forgery.

Four times Tenet and the CIA told the Bushies that the Niger document was a crock, but Bush put it into his Cincinnati speech anyway. Made great copy.

In sum, we waged an aggressive war under a pack of lies and have caused vast human suffering and even more,instability in the Mideast. But hey, we’re America, and we do as we damn well please.

And this is a pure colonialist, or neo-colonialist, if you prefer, approach. The French had the Foreign Legion, the British the native troops of the Rag and other native regiments recruited from the most poverty stricken corners of the empire, the Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese, their motley squads of misfits, sociopaths, and adventurers who would hardly be missed by the home fronts. The Roman army of the frontier in the last two hundred and fifty years of the Roman Empire had devolved from a citizen army-an army in which one had to a Roman citizen to be acceptable-into an almost entirely mercenary organization from mid-level officers on down. We all, I hopefully assume, are aware of what happened to these empires.

You on the other hand are a disloyal ingrate. You, and people like you, bite the proverbial hand that feeds them. Why don’t you stop making excuses and just move to another country right now? Put your money where your mouth is! In 2004, the majority of the American people voted for President Bush and Vice President Cheney ( guys you call Hitler), we here in the good ole U S of A call that an election, and so I guess the majority of Americans are like Adolph Hilter too, at least in your perverted eyes.

So if the President and his entire administration and the majority of the American people are like Hitler, why are you still here?! Because you have a big fat mouth but no backbone. So stop talking already and start packing. Go move to Venezuela or Cuba and practice your Spanish and then, once you formally renounce your American citizenship you can tell the world how evil your former country is.

PS: Why don’t you read the “Phaedo” sometime? In that great work you might learn a thing or two about loyalty to your country, perhaps Socrates knew a thing or two about that.