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What is the biggest scream going on in this country? What is the one thing that almost everybody is holding their breath to hear? WMD. Why? Because human slaughter by evil dictators is not a good enough reason to do anything. It isn't here, so it doesn't affect us. It's none of our business, let somebody else take care of that problem, I don't want to spend my money on THAT!

What has been the major theme of the war in Iraq? Freeing these people who have been treated like animals by a devil, allowing them to take control of their country, human compassion, trying not to cause too many civilian casualties, soldiers with a military weapon in one hand and a bleeding baby in his other. The world expects a reason, a "we are threatened by them, they are a threat to their neighbors, they are creating wmd. If this country stood up and said, "We are going over to end this evil regime, because they are killing, torturing, starving and oppressing their people". We would have alot more enemies. Without the "legitimate" reason (WMD), this war would not have happened. What in the hell has happened to human compassion? The strong helping the weak, Not standing back and watching human lives being totally wiped off the face of the earth. The song, God Bless the USA, may be appreciated by some Americans, but I belief that alot of people just plain take it for granted. The Iraqi-Americans and the Iraqis themselves, haven't. </rant>

Your post raises some interesting points.

First off, I am as shocked, horrified, and genuinely sorrowful about the slaughters going on (not just in Africa...) as anyone can be without being present on the scene, or without having relatives who are victims. Please understand that, or at least take my word for it.

Our prosecution of the "liberation" of Iraq rested on two separate but related facts: 1) Iraq had financed and sponsored acts of terrorism against the USA; 2) Iraq's possession of WMD's constituted a 'clear and present danger' to the USA because they COULD be used against civilians in this country. Under commonly-accepted moral laws, these facts gave us the justification for prosecuting a war (under all the OTHER moral restrictions applicable.)

As you can deduce from the above, the United States had clear national interests (primarily self-defense) in Iraq's regime-change.

George Washington, TJefferson, BFranklin, and hundreds of other American statesmen have made it clear that the ONLY foreign-affairs mission of the USA is the national interest of the USA. It is fair to say that other US Presidents have ignored this dictum at their peril. (E.G., the presumption that Vietnam's fall would permanently harm the interests of the USA...)

There's the foundation.

Now as to the Just War: in an aphoristic definition which is accurate, Chesterton stated that 'the ONLY just war is a war of defense.'

The conflagrations in Africa simply do NOT rise to the level of harming the National Interests of the USA. Nor can we commence warfare in Africa under any possible stretch of the "just war" theory--a moral necessity.

There is NO justification for US involvement.

On the other hand, there IS, UNQUESTIONABLY, a justification for UN involvement. The UN should establish order, at the point of arms, if necessary.

Call Kofi Annan and wake him up.