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comment by d_e_solomon
d_e_solomon  ·  4047 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The problem with the drone war that no one’s talking about

The problem is that there is no guarantee that the UN will ensure that an action is moral or just. Russia continually vetoes any action against Assad in Syria. On the other hand, the only reason that the Korean War happened is that the Soviet Union decided to boycott the UN. Let's not even discuss the issues in Kosovo or Rwanda wrt the UN.

I suppose my point is that UN or NATO approval is not necessary nor sufficient for moral military action.





MattholomewCup  ·  4047 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're correct that it's not necessarily moral. However, having an actual, enforceable system in place does mean that at the very least there's some kind of rhyme or reason to what happens. As it stands there's nothing stopping anyone from doing whatever the hell they want and the UN effectively can't do a thing, even if it's against the geopolitical rules we (countries) all, ostensibly, agree to. When any non-justification gets through without so much as a sanction or a dirty look, the system is -- well, it's not even broken. It's just non-existent, and I'd rather live in a world where some law was preventing any country from doing anything at any time.

You are philosophically correct, I want to stress that - I don't think that giving any organization the ability to decide what is and isn't allowed wholesale is inherently good. But I think it's better than letting world power governments get away with literal murder because of their power. I would consider that an outright failure of the organization to "protect individual human beings, not to protect those who abuse them."