Quote Originally Posted by JJackson View Post
...It was ever such, but I think we should acknowledge the bias we benefit from, and have a care to try and redress the balance a little when we can – perhaps that is my duty as penance for the crimes of my forefathers.
While I agree with the first statement -- and will add that the US has not done many things well -- I strongly disagree with the last one.

Your prerogative of course but I feel absolutely no need to to do penance for people who mostly did what they thought was proper in accordance with the mores of the time and based on the information they had available and do not believe anyone should feel guilty about that (though I realize a good many people profess to do so for some aberrant reason). It is entirely too easy to sit in modern comfort surrounded by masses of information with absolutely no responsibility and pass judgment on the decisions of others who had none of those luxuries and a vastly different standard That, IMO, is intellectually bankrupt regardless of the moral rectitude.

Learn from their mistakes and attempt to avoid repetitions, of course; apologize or be penitent -- not at all...
It is not that I dispute who did the sowing I do disagree about how the reaping is being done, and who is doing it. I do agree with the general trust of the ICISS report (linked to earlier) which makes R2P interventions the prevue of the security council, with an effective override by the general assembly should they feel the SC was wrong, and the UN constitutional allowance for the use of force but only on its authority.
We can disagree on that. Again, strongly. While it obviously your right to believe that the how and who are wrong; others would not agree. The US obviously does not nor do a number of other nations. Nor, I suspect, does everyone in the UK...

As for the UN, an organization that supports evil, is riddled with corruption (in the eyes of not just the west...) has no legitimate standing to dispense holy water on the use of force.
Wars by NATO, or some other military coalition, should have no more legitimacy than if the Warsaw Pact had self-authorised the invasion of somewhere it accused of fermenting democratic uprisings in Poland.
All war is 'illegitimate' and immoral. All -- however, some wars are regrettably necessary and the debating club that is the General Assembly and the stacked deck that is the Security Council has little legitimacy to my mind. The UN was established to deter war and to remove colonialism from the world scene. It has been totally unsuccessful at the former (as could have been and was predicted) and arguably entirely too successful at the latter. It needs significant reform before it can be trusted with the roles you wish.
The underlying problem is no country should be authorising interventions in any other country only the UN – in its capacity as the planets council of countries – can do this.
Again, strongly disagree. You might have a point if the bad guys in this world would accede to that or the UN was up to and did the job (they are not and do not); to tie the hands of those who mostly mean no harm to a bureaucratic folly for the 'right' to defend one self is the only hubris herein. I'm aware that the UK has recently removed the common law right of self defense from its citizens. Pity, that. Fortunately, most of the rest of the world has not. The US certainly has not.
Taking this right upon yourself - for any nation - is hubris (and before you point it out - yes the UK are at least of guilty of this as any power current or historical).
No, it's not hubris -- it is logical and the application of common sense that applies to the rights of man to the problems of the world, no more.