Ken, I think it's situationallly dependent. The need for justification is inversely proportionate to a state's power IMO. Because our adversaries are currently in a weaker position, any kind of legal justification has greater relative utility for them.
When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. - Louis Veuillot
I understand your point but I wonder if
that is not an attitude born of Judeo-Christian moral and legal tradition which much of the world has not accepted and likely will not adopt.Originally Posted by AmericanPride
Including, in a way, the US. We have for over 200 years been willing to flout convention, the desires of many other nations and the 'law' when it suited our purposes. Most other nations have done the same. You are absolutely correct that it is situationally dependent, I agree on that aspect but I'm not at all sure that most will see any added utility to themselves. I think some will object to the idea on principle as being 'preemptive' and thus wrong on all levels while most will accept it to one degree or another. Rather, I think the potential impact will be in the US and other European hearth nations (and nations influenced by that hearth) in the form of objecting to action without the justification.
I also strongly suspect such objections will be ideologically based unless the provocation is extreme in which case it will be supported regardless of justification. We humans are a bloody and vindictive lot...
Given my belief that laws require an enforcement capability or they end up just like padlocks -- keeping honest people honest -- that 90% solution, it's hard to say how it will play out. We'll have to see, I guess.
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