http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/bad-reasons-for-bombing-syria/
President Obama Saturday laid out the case for a military strike on Syria. He evoked the same rationales Secretary of State Kerry and others, including some conservatives, have been articulating for the last week. We’ve heard of “international norms,” “common understandings of decency,” the “international community” that codified a “normal prohibition against chemical weapons” in the Chemical Weapons Convention, the need to act to deter other rogue states like Iran, and the imperative to punish “crimes against humanity.”
Almost as an afterthought, the necessity of putting teeth into America’s credibility and prestige in order to defend our interests was mentioned by the President. And he vaguely asserted that the gas attack was a “serious danger to our national security,” though it’s hard to see how “making a mockery of the global prohibitions on chemical weapons” endangers our security. Terrorists and their state enablers like Iran and North Korea don’t abide by such “prohibitions.” But that fuzzy national security argument was swamped by the waves of delusional internationalism and dubious psychologizing about the motives and calculations of ruthless dictators and autocrats. The fact is, the only reason to use American military power and risk American lives is to advance our interests and defend our security. Evoking some fantasy “international community” complicates and confuses that critical criterion.
Start with the chimera of “international norms” and “common understandings of decency.” Such statements imply a universal moral standard shared by all peoples, one which international agreements and institutions codify. The proscription of torture, the protection of non-combatants, the humane treatment of the wounded and prisoners of war, and the ban against using certain kinds of weapons are the sort of presumably universal beliefs that are enshrined in international law.
But where is the evidence that such norms exist in fact rather than in language? Certainly not on the pages of history or your daily newspaper, which are filled with serial violations of such norms, including by signatories to these various conventions and agreements. What can be found is the eternal truth that nations pursue their interests by whatever means they can, and different peoples have different attitudes towards the legitimacy of violence and its acceptable victims, particularly in Muslim Arab lands. Thus nations sign treaties and join transnational institutions because they think doing so will serve their interests, not because they share some “international norm.” Their participation is based not so much on shared values, as on treaties signed because of perceived utility.
