Saddam Hussein got his day in court. This is better than what he gave his regime's many victims. Whether it's all "theater" as the gaunt defendant claimed at today's hearing, the public trial will show one way or the other. Amidst America's loss of lives, treasure, and credibility--and gain of next to nothing in its concrete national interest--the ouster of Saddam Hussein stands as one positive outcome of the war. Murder by the state is one of the great unpunished crimes of any, but particularly of our, age. Saddam's trial, and its expected outcome, should have a chilling effect on the killings and repression of other would-be tyrants.

At least the hawks and doves can agree in this, that the removal of Saddam Hussein is a good accomplished by the Iraq war.

Whether or not the war was justified is a different question than whether or not the war was just. In my humble opinion, a war against an evil regime cannot be unjust. And therefore, the war against Iraq was (is) just.

I find the divide in language that we use rather interesting. I speak of the war not being in our "national interest," while you speak of "whether or not the war was just."

That is a low threshold for justice as regards warfare isn't is Blue? For example if Poland, which has a more just regime than, say, the good ole USA as regards abortion, decided to attack, invade and occupy us they would necessarily be just in doing so. Or if France in the 1800's (or Canada even) had decided to invade the USA in order to end the scourge of legal chattel slavery (although it seems laughable to even think of France or Canada invading anything) they would also have been essentially just in their actions. Unless you want to argue that Saddam's regime's was uniquely unjust as opposed to the USA's or really any other country where humans (whether in the form of the one, the few, or the many) govern then your criterion of determining what is a just war is hopelessly general and would in fact justify complete international anarchy.

Am I falling into the trap of moral equivalence? Certainly not, I do think it is reasonable to say that some regimes are more and less just than others. My only point is that all regimes, because human, are to some extent unjust, and that therefore we need to have a higher threshold for what makes an actual war against any other sovereign nation a just war. I suppose in a way I agree with the obverse of what you said, that all wars are in fact JUSTIFIED, or justifiable (in so far, but only in so far, as any other regime is in fact not just) but not all wars are therefore JUST.

Ultimately though the very defining of the term "justifiable" is nonsens when separated from the root concept of "justice . . . so you are engaging in sophistry by making the questions of the justification and the justice of a war two separate questions. Cheers.

I would consider myself a Hawk but I was not thoroughly convinced that we should have gone into Iraq militarily or in favor of the war in any capacity.

However, I consider that a lot of smarter and better informed people in government than I made the right decisions. In retrospect (20/20), this may or may not be true but initially, it made sense.

The overall push by the powers that be that determined military action by us was necessary was that Iraq had WMD capabilities and would have eventually use them on us. Anybody who doubts that Saddam had them and would use them just has to look as far as what he did to his own people. Not much of stretch to think that given the capability Israel would have been next and eventually us.

As it turns out, even if our direction for going in in the first place had changed with what we know now, we displaced a brutal corrupt dictator who was committing genocide daily and who would have had the capability to launch biological or nuclear attacks on us at some point in time.

Our government, ultimately, did the right thing.

Good riddance to Saddam now let's get the hell out.

I don't want to be guilty of slight of hand. Let me see if I can remove the division by sorting out what I take to be the different issues.

National Interest - Whether or not the war has/will serve U.S. national security interests is a question that cannot be answered at the moment. If, as the Bush administration hopes, a new regime in Iraq leads to broader political reform in the Middle East, that will serve U.S. interests. The absence of WMD and the diplomatic strains have injured U.S. interests.

Justification - Given the Bush administration's judgment that, if Iraq possessed WMD, war served the national interest, and belief that Iraq possessed WMD, war was justified. In retrospect, the belief has turned out false. Thus, in retrospect, the war was unjustified. At the time, however, the justification was sufficient.

Justice - Deposing Saddam Hussein was a just act.

Perhaps it could be a low standard depending on its application to particular cases. I am not sure. Would I prefer Polish occupation to a regime that promotes infanticide? Again, I have never thought the question through.

Suppose we were not allied with Europe in the 1940’s. Would U.S. involvement in the war have been unjust? I think not.

It’s a hard question, that I’ll admit to not thinking through. I am inclined, however, to reject any notion of just-war theory that would condemn deposing a genocidal dictator because he had not explicitly attacked the United States.

“Ultimately though the very defining of the term ‘justifiable’ is nonsense when separated from the root concept of ‘justice’ . . . so you are engaging in sophistry by making the questions of the justification and the justice of a war two separate questions”

I don’t think so. Justification, as I understand it, is an epistemic notion, while justice is an ethical notion.

Props to Saddam! He was looking good, positively dapper, radiating hope and an earnest, palpable desire to be free. It's a tragedy, isn't it? And then you think of O.J. and what HE did, and you realize...was Saddam really worse? Doesn't Saddam deserve, say, Johnny Cochrane, arguing before the jury, "If the extermination of his own people doesn't fit, you must acquit. Testify!"

By the way, Saddam was wearing the following, per Fashionista magazine:

1. A Latchkey & Brothers suit, wool, with gold/emerald pinstripes (real gold and emerald)
2. Snodgrass patent-leather shoes
3. Ripkin & Shittolio shirt, fashioned from the very, very rare silk spun by the Rasputin spider (only 2 exist, and they both happen to belong to Ahmed Chalabi)
4. Cookla socks (for that "I'm imprisoned by I'm still feisty and...I'm still me goddammit!" look)

Saddam was spiffed-up and ready to rock 'n roll! Let's hear it for the boy!

O.k., so you were using justification as another word for "warrant." I follow you better knowing that except that (and I would have to think about this more) it seems to me that using the term justification as regards the reasons, guidelines, motives, etc., for doing a morally significant act would be a different use of the term than simply as one connoting epistemic warrant. In the latter case the question is "what can I know?" and in the former case (the practical or moral situation) the question is "what should I do?". That might be a place we should do some more investigation, since justifying a practical action seems to be a different use of intellect than justifying a belief.

But wait, what did anything I just wrote have to do with Saddam being on trial? That reminds me, isn't Milosevic still twirling the ICC in Hague around his finger? That trial has gone on for years so it will be interesting to compare the trial of Milosevic to the trial of Saddam.

brian i agree with you, but where do you start to investigate such a standing. a belief could be just that, a belief. however, to make a practical action "just" you better believe in what you are doing before you begin. justifying a belief is something that many believe makes a war just. Winning a war that has too many questions to begin with makes all the unjust come true. In this day in age we call it knowhow, and advancement in technology when something positive comes about, but if it takes three years to get a scumbag like Saddam Hussein brought to justice i call it a job well done. Put aside if you will all the innocent men and women who will end up dying on behalf of our country, some of whom will go to there grave not knowing what exactly it was they died for!