- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
-
1 The Case for Regime Change -
2 Liberal Legacies, Europe’s Totalitarian Era, and the Iraq War -
3 “Regime Change” -
4 In the Murk of It -
5 National Interest and International Law -
6 Just War against an “Outlaw” Region -
7 Moral Arguments -
8 A Friendly Drink in a Time of War -
9 Wielding the Moral Club -
10 Peace, Human Rights, and the Moral Choices of the Churches -
11 Ethical Correctness and the Decline of the Left -
12 Pages from a Daily Journal of Argument -
13 Liberal Realism or Liberal Idealism -
14 Iraq and the European Left -
15 Guilt’s End -
16 The Iraq War and the French Left -
17 Tempting Illusions, Scary Realities, or the Emperor’s New Clothes II -
18 Antitotalitarianism as a Vocation -
19 Sometimes, a War Saves People -
20 Gulf War Syndrome Mark II -
21 “They Don’t Know One Little Thing” -
22 “Why Did It Take You So Long to Get Here?” -
23 Full Statement to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003 -
24 The Threat of Global Terrorism - Contributors
- Index
Wielding the Moral Club
Wielding the Moral Club
- Chapter:
- (p.152) 9 Wielding the Moral Club
- Source:
- A Matter of Principle
- Author(s):
Ian Buruma
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
This chapter discusses the different opinions and criticisms, mostly apathetic, made by media personalities on the war in Iraq. Those who opposed it have perfectly valid reasons to be critical of US foreign policy, especially the neoconservative revolutionary mission. Those men who backed the decision of Bush know what it is like to live under the cosh. In an article published just before the Iraq war started, Ramos-Horta remembers how the Western powers “redeemed themselves” by freeing East Timor from its oppressors with armed force and asked why the Iraqis should not be liberated too. He has stated a case that must be answered. Unless, of course, one really believes that the problems of faraway peoples are for them to solve alone, and that we have no business intervening on their behalf against tyrants, and that any attempt to do so has to be, by definition, racist, or colonialist, or venal.
Keywords: Iraq war, US foreign policy, Bush, neoconservative revolutionary mission, Western powers, moral authority, tyrants
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
-
1 The Case for Regime Change -
2 Liberal Legacies, Europe’s Totalitarian Era, and the Iraq War -
3 “Regime Change” -
4 In the Murk of It -
5 National Interest and International Law -
6 Just War against an “Outlaw” Region -
7 Moral Arguments -
8 A Friendly Drink in a Time of War -
9 Wielding the Moral Club -
10 Peace, Human Rights, and the Moral Choices of the Churches -
11 Ethical Correctness and the Decline of the Left -
12 Pages from a Daily Journal of Argument -
13 Liberal Realism or Liberal Idealism -
14 Iraq and the European Left -
15 Guilt’s End -
16 The Iraq War and the French Left -
17 Tempting Illusions, Scary Realities, or the Emperor’s New Clothes II -
18 Antitotalitarianism as a Vocation -
19 Sometimes, a War Saves People -
20 Gulf War Syndrome Mark II -
21 “They Don’t Know One Little Thing” -
22 “Why Did It Take You So Long to Get Here?” -
23 Full Statement to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003 -
24 The Threat of Global Terrorism - Contributors
- Index
