Failure of elementary logic
Reader comment on item: Iraq's Weapons & The Road to War

Submitted by Kevin Lee (United States), Jun 3, 2003 at 10:01

...If the war was about enforcing promises, does that mean that the United States has the authority to invade a country that breaks a contract for wheat, automobiles, or diapers? Of course not. Breaking a contract does not justify a war. That is not a difficult concept, and it is no surprise that this concept was never used to justify the war. It was used to argue that inspections would not work (because Iraq did not honor its promises), but Bush never claimed that Americans should sacrifice their loved ones because Iraq can't keep a promise.

The United States broke its promise to abide by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but no one claims that we should be invaded because of that. To do so would be patently ludicrous.

The real question, as everyone knows, was whether Iraq posed an immediate threat to the United States, and that question is very different from the one posed in this column.

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