What do we owe Iraq? America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting the troops home, devotes little attention to why we.
Table of contents
If you can get past your own partisan issues and listen to Feldman with an open mind, you'll come away with a much better understanding of Iraq and what to do about it. Condoleezza Rice always takes the concept of "Nation Building" with pleasure into her mouth and tries to explain with frown to the audience how important this task is.
On the occasion of the 1st World War the United Nations formulated guidelines which were still whisked a little with the ideology of the colonial time and carried a little of the gesture of a patriarchal guardianship into themselves, though. After the second World War one lost something of this arrogance and put as an aim into the centre only, that a nation, political ethically lagging behind at that time Germany , should be brought by the introduction of democracy to the global community standard. Cases like Kosovo or East Timor seemed to confirm the correctness of such a target.
In the case Iraq an additional thinking effort must be done. While Condoleezza Rice still compares Germany with present Iraq a little school girlishly and assumes that everything has to be fixed in the time window of four years, the expert Noah Feldman is there already a little more skeptical. Compare the educational level, the religion dependence, the power of the different population groupings and the complete missing of national feelings of guilt: Because the wave of terror-acts is not tearing off.
JSTOR: Access Check
Has there been this in Germany, that police stations were classified as collaborator collection places and regularly blown up into the air? Has there been this in Germany , that permanently seeped over the national boundaries from the neighboring countries Christian sympathizers to Germany, which wanted to help to cast out the Americans? The USA have completely underestimated the forming strength of Islamic solidarity and the connected high aggression level.
- Eternity Collar?
- Derarca the Faery Piper.
- Making Transnationals Accountable: A Significant Step for Britain;
Since the debacle was got going worldwide visibly now perhaps justified a little recklessly and wrongly? Unfortunately, the installation of a constitution suffices not at all like in Germany. The production of a civilian safety as an afterwards defined aim will take up substantially more time or is successful never -- and ends with an out throw of American know-all battalions as formerly in Vietnam. Noah Feldman does not mention this point, he likes to see a positive future, not the flashbacks of nightmare-views. Of course we all hope, there soon will shine the sun of peace and freedom in Iraq -- and the US will take a break, being a global ethic police This is not a discussion of what we owe Iraq, which Feldman states is a decent functioning government, but an analysis of the the issues involved in getting there.
The best parts, for me, were the examples from his experience such as the practical problems facing those who worked in the early occuption, his description of the Republican Palace, the meeting with the Lawyers Association. The heart of the book is an analysis of the issues involved in achieving the goal such as authority, occupation vs.
At one point the author, Feldman, talks about how the USA should have just replaced Saddam with someone more benevolent and not gone to war with Iraq. Feldman, just how would we have done that? Saddam was very determined to keep his postion in Iraq as leader. He even provenly employed doubles of himself to thwart any attempted assassination overthrow of him by plotters.
Also, Saddam killed over a million of his own Iraqis amd terrorized close to all of them while he was in power. Strong state you claim he had, huh?
- Tour Secrets 2!
- Artificial Intelligence - The Mission (Artificial Intelligence Trilogy Book 1)!
- Understanding Revelation Made Easy (First).
- ?
- The Bible in History: How the Texts Have Shaped the Times.
- .
- Fun Games to Play at Boring Meetings... : (without your boss knowing);
Terrorizing, national dictators often do manage to have strong states under their sway. Feldman, aren't you Jewish? He was bad for your Jewish cousins, if you are. Think about that for a while. Lastly, the USA has million people. Iraq had around 23 million. We have a right to put ourselves before them in importance due to our much greater numbers.
See all 4 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building. Set up a giveaway. Feedback If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
Would you like to report poor quality or formatting in this book? Click here Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Click here Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? There's a problem loading this menu right now. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations.
View or edit your browsing history.
Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Not Enabled Word Wise: Not Enabled Screen Reader: Enabled Amazon Best Sellers Rank: Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. Amazon Inspire Digital Educational Resources.
Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go. Amazon Restaurants Food delivery from local restaurants. ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics. East Dane Designer Men's Fashion. Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands. Noah Feldman is without doubt a person of great intelligence. Still in his thirties, he is already a professor at New York University Law School, and he moves with ease throughout the literature of economics, political theory, and law. He tells us that on his military flight to Iraq, where he was to serve as "constitutional adviser to the American occupation authorities," he was "hastily trying to teach myself some Iraqi colloquial dialect.
But he here attempts a task beyond his considerable powers. Feldman endeavors to show that America has a moral duty to continue its military occupation of Iraq. He does not say that the war itself was a good idea. Quite the contrary, the very fact that American forces have made a mess of things leads to their obligations to the Iraqis.
If America troops departed, Iraq would probably fall into chaos and civil war. To prevent this dire outcome, America must guide the Iraqis to democracy. Fortunately, duty and interest coincide. If America fulfills its duty to the Iraqis, its own interests will be enhanced. A stable, democratic Iraq will reduce the terrorist threat to our country.
Our author is right that past actions can generate new moral obligations.
Mises Review
I ordinarily have no duty to pay for your medical expenses; but if I have sent you to the hospital through my reckless driving, then I am liable. But the "moral obligation" he conjures up worsens the bad situation it is supposed to ameliorate. Wisely, Feldman does not maintain that the American invasion of Iraq was justified.
In fact, he presents, though he does not fully endorse, one of the best brief arguments against the war that I have seen, though it rests on a contestable premise. As he sees matters, terrorism poses the greatest current threat to America. Hostile states can be deterred through the threat of overwhelming force directed against them: With terrorists, the situation is different.
Access Check
Lacking a fixed territorial base, terrorist organizations do not fear a military response. The American invasion, by destroying a stable albeit repressive state, added to the terrorist threat: Invading Iraq in , defeating and then disbanding the Iraqi army, created in Iraq a weak state — or maybe no state at all — in lieu of the strong one that had existed. The invasion and its aftermath thereby inaugurated a rich, new potential breeding environment for terror.
Here libertarian readers will at once interpose an objection. Should we not welcome the demise of a strong state, rather than mourn its passing? Surely this question answers itself. As I have already hinted, Feldman does not give this argument his full support. He ascribes the argument to "foreign-policy realists" and advances against it an objection. Strong states may themselves be breeding grounds for terror. Only a stable democratic government, or at any rate a regime that enjoys popular support, offers safe protection against terrorism. The repression attendant on a dictatorial system may generate terrorist resistance of its own.
Terrorists who have as their target a repressive government will not threaten the United States unless they think America is responsible for the hated regime. By avoiding intervention into troubled areas, America can largely escape what Feldman believes to be the greatest threat that we now face. The war may have been unwise, but America now controls Iraq. What are we to do? If we, repenting the unwisdom of the invasion, immediately departed the scene, chaos would ensue: Such a state would be much worse than Afghanistan as a breeding ground for terror — but far more important, it would spell disaster for the lives of ordinary Iraqis, tens of thousands of whom could die in riots or civil war.
Our interest in preventing terrorist attacks thus coincides with our moral duty not to abandon the Iraqis to chaos and death. Feldman fails to provide a convincing argument that American withdrawal would lead to this result. In the current situation, various rival Iraqi groups — Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, etc. Why would this change if there were no American troops present?