Is State Sovereignty just an excuse to protect terrorists, dictators and tyrants?

Question

Why do people decree "State Sovereignty" a reason for not deposing Saddam ??
The most ridiculous argument an activist or diplomat can make in defense of a dictator like Saddam Hussein is that the tyrant cannot be deposed because of his nation Sovereignty. The notion that America did not have the authority to overthrow one of the worst dictators (over 1,000,000 civilians killed during his reign ) that ever walked the face of the earth because of state sovereignty is absurd.

Based on that logic : Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan are unable to be touched because they too are sovereign nations.
The genocide in Rwanda, for example, has been mourned theatrically in retrospect – Europeans especially will weep over corpses, but will do nothing to protect those still alive. In America we call this cowardice!

The sole purpose for any government is to protect its citizens. A state that kills its own people has no legitimacy! NO MATTER WHAT THE TYRANNT RIDDEN UNITED NATIONS SAYS. Knowing what we all no now about the mass graves and torture chambers, WMD attacks, and countless other severe infractions of” international law”, how can any moral person state that Saddam should have been left alone?
Sovereignty cannot be an excuse for uninhibited savagery. Saddam was a HITLER to his people. People who objected to the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime on grounds of state sovereignty are the moral descendents of those who looked away from Hitler’s crimes. The difference today is that those who condone mass murder pose as moral arbiters and demand to know what right America has to decide which governments are tolerable and which are not. The answer is simple. “When the forces for good fail to act, the forces of evil triumph.” And America is the worlds essential force for good. No amount of fashionable anti-Americanism will change that. And though we may not always have the blessing from the rest of the world to depose dictators, tyrants, murderers and terrorists we will surge forward and do what we know is right. The world will be better for it.

We must not fear to act when action is necessary, moral and possible. Whenever the situation allows we should act in concert with our natural allies and those apprentice states moving toward mature freedom. But when we are forced to stand alone in a just cause, we must not hesitate…Let history judge us.

I see we have a bunch of high school drop outs commenting on here tonight. OH well.

Answer 1

State Sovereignty, that's the excuse that Bush used for not going after the terrorist in Pakistan.

Answer 2

Sadly, we did not fight Hitler because of what he did to Germans. We never intervened in Cambodia when Pol Pot killed over 1,500,000 Cambodians. We now sit silent as many more Africans are killed in brutal genocide. And, we did not topple Saddam because Bush was concerned about the suffering of the Iraqi people. After all, it was Bush's father who supported, armed and trained Saddam and his men when it suited "our interests" for him to be strong in Iraq and against Iran. It was state sovereignty that Bush Sr. used so effectively as a reason to get many to help in the fight against Saddam when he invaded Kuwait and threatened to do the same against Saudi Arabia. The concept of respecting the sovereignty of a country became part of international agreements to put an end to those who would invade another country, like Hitler and Saddam, guaranteeing international cooperation against such behavior. Bush's invasion of Iraq offended many countries around the world, for this act violated the sense and tradition of this principle so that the US could further its national interest. No matter how "well intentioned" this may have been, it is the same kind of logic all histories bad men have used for their invasions of other countries. For the US to do this, it has nearly made invalid the principles of state sovereignty that so many worked so hard to establish.

Answer 3

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were aggressive States that attacked others, so therefore your logic doesn't work. Did you know that the grandfather of our current president did business with Nazi Germany?

So tell me, did the US step in and stop the genocide in Rwanda or did it standby and watch 800,000 people be slaughtered? I'm going to go with the latter.

How about when the US supports these dictators and tyrants you despise so much? Take a look at Latin American history from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Your narrow-view of history is disturbing at best. Your nationalism, on the other hand, make me want to puke.

Answer 4

If we had a leader who himself was not a member of the forces of evil your argument would carry a little more weight. When the Kurds were actually being gassed in the 80's and the United Nations attempted to get the U.S. to sanction Saddam we declined to do so. Some of the gas used in the attacks may well have been provided by us back when Saddam was our friend because we were gunning for the Ayatollah.

Answer 5

The concept of sovereignty applies only to civilised society. The head of group consisting of people who believe in docoity, terrorism etc., cannot be called a state or apply the principle of sovereignty. In case of saddam, people of his country believe in civilised socoiety and therefore it is state with respectable people. Thus in such a situation to help people who due to circumstances are ruled by a person who does not believe in respect to human beings is not wrong.

Answer 6

Most of the world believes Bush is the most dangerous man on earth. Much more dangerous than Saddam.

Would you be OK with all those nations combining to remove Bush and hang him?

After all, sovreignty is BS, right?

Answer 7

Very simply, state sovereignty is a way of respecting the borders of another country.