Why Liberals Oppose Unilateralism

"I am totally against unilateralism in the modern world," says French president Jacques Chirac, expressing the particular European distaste for any strong U.S. action vis à vis Iraq, but also making a much larger claim regarding the morality of sovereign power itself.

As I read Chirac's comment, the categorical nature of it made me suddenly realize how the opposition to unilateralism, about which we hear so much today, is of a piece with all the other familiar liberal positions, ranging from global gun control to campaign finance reform to anti-discrimination laws, that tend in the direction of the elimination of political and personal freedom.

What is unilateralism? It is a nation-state taking action, political or military, on the international stage, whether to defend its interests or to restore order in an area of the world that comes within its purview or responsibility. For example, when the United States intervened from time to time in Haiti over the course of the 20th century to restore a minimum of order in that desperate place, that was unilateralism. When the United States confronted the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that was unilateralism. When the U.S. sent massive amount of materiél to Israel at a crucial moment in the 1973 War, that was unilateralism. When the U.S. bombed Libya following a terrorist attack on U.S. service personnel in West Germany in the 1980s, that was unilateralism. When Israel rescued its hostages in Entebbe, that was unilateralism. When Britain sent a flotilla to win back the Falklands from the Argentinean junta, that was unilateralism.

Unilateral action by a state can be good or bad, moral or immoral, successful or unsuccessful, just like any other type of action. Therefore to be against unilateralism per se is to be against the very possibility of nation-state behaving in a responsible and helpful way in the world. The results of this attitude can be catastrophic. During the Bosnian war in the early 1990s, the thing that was most urgently needed was unilateral action by a strong power in the neighborhood to intervene and restore order. In the old days, such "Great Powers" as Germany or Austria would have been in a position to take on that vital task. But by the early 1990s there was no European nation ready and willing to act unilaterally, only the damnable U.N., whose "peacekeeping" missions made the situation far worse, while the European Union, founded for the very purpose of avoiding decisive action by its members, showed itself totally incapable of taking any steps to stop the slaughter. It was not until the United States stepped in, acting "unilaterally," that the immediate violence was brought to a halt (though the U.S. pursued a multiculturalist concept of order that made a permanent settlement in Bosnia impossible and required American and other troops to stay in the area indefinitely.)

Liberals are against unilateralism for the same reason they are against fundamental individual freedoms such as the private ownership of guns. Since liberals believe in equality, they are against power, because different people inevitably possess different amounts of it and so oppress each other. So liberals oppose private gun ownership, because it suggests differentials of power among individuals, which suggests inequality and oppression. For the same reason, liberals want to restrict the freedom of political organizations to buy political advertising because some candidates and groups will be able to buy more advertising than others, which suggests differentials of power, which suggests inequality and oppression (the recent campaign finance law is to free elections what gun control is to self-defense). And for the same reason, liberals oppose independent action by nation-states because such action suggests differentials of power and thus inequality and oppression. Since freedom of action by persons or polities and the resulting inequalities of power and influence are built into the very structure of existence, what liberals are ultimately aiming for is nothing less than the total repression of the natural order of things. The attempt to eliminate all power must lead to the concentration of all power in a global totalitarian state.

At the same time, even as the liberals and globalists keep pushing for a uniform world system in which no one will be allowed to act as a free entity in his own interests, they are also demanding a radical expansion of human rights. We must understand that this is not a contradiction. The freedom that the liberals seek to destroy is the freedom of men and nations to act responsibly in the pursuit of legitimate ends. The rights that the liberals seek to expand are the "rights" of human beings to have all their needs provided by society.

As an example of this agenda, consider Principle 1 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which was the basis of the final declaration of the recent U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development:“Human beings … are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”

Now it is one thing to say that a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature is — like happiness itself — a desirable good to which human beings ought to aspire; it is quite another thing to say that human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life. Leaving aside the fact that the demand is logically absurd (how can a person have a "right" to be productive?), it is clear that the liberals have transformed the procedural right to pursue a good life (or, rather, the right not to be arbitrarily prevented from pursuing it) into the substantive right to have a good life. Furthermore, since entitlements imply obligations (a point on which the U.N. is becoming increasingly explicit), it becomes the obligation of all nations to ensure the happiness of every human being on earth. In practice, of course, this means that it will be the duty of the functioning, free, law-abiding, and successful countries — meaning ourselves — collectively to ensure the happiness of everyone living in the disfunctional, unfree, lawless, and unsuccessful countries. In short, the total suppression of national sovereignty and of individual freedom within a global socialist regime. Such suppression, and such a regime, is the ultimate goal of the ascendant liberal ideology which John Fonte has dubbed transnational progressivism, but which could more appropriately be called transnational radicalism.

Bush throws the UN stuff at the UN. That's all pretty much just window dressing for the UN audience. The fact remains that there are significant and sufficient unilateral reasons for the U.S. to deal with Saddam. Like the fact that there are direct links to the 9/11 warriors from Saddam. Like the fact that he has totally ignored the terms of the cease fire from Desert Storm.

I suppose you think that Hitler should have just been ignored?

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
—Edmund Burke

What "rules" do you want to follow when your dealing with a mad man with nuclear , biological, and chemical weapons, who has broken every agreement he's ever made? Or, tell me: How many dead people will be enough for you to realize that maybe this is a War we HAVE to fight? Apparently 3000 murdered on 9/11 wasn't enough. So what will it take? Shall we wait until we are hit again? Sadam has had 3 YEARS to hide whatever he has. Do you think he's been baking cookies over this time period? Why do you suppose he threw out the UN inspectors in the 1st place? Do you think it was because he's NOT building an asenal of mass death? Do you think he's just a misunderstood guy and not a murderous dictator? Don't you think the fact that he killed 1 million of HIS own people with poison gas might be a reason to be leary of him. And, knowing that he's done this; Do you think he gives a rats ass about Koffi Anan & the UN, or for that matter , you , your family & friends and your sense of the "rules"? Do you honestly think this is a person who follows rules? We can't wait until he attacks and then say oops!! so sorry, we messed up. It's not like we haven't seen this kind of darkenss on the horizon before. A little more than 60 years ago, a similar debate was going on about Adolf Hitler. He (Hitler) kept saying, he didn't intend to harm anyone and we know what happened there. While Saddam doesn't have the large army, he doesn't need one to unleash havoc on the world. All he needs is a nuke, or a little small pox, or poison gas, and he can sell his stuff to people like Osama, and then what? Do you think if we leave him alone and let this joke of an inspection thing go down (his weapons are now either miles & miles under-ground or out of the country) that he's just going to peacefully continue torturing & murdering his own citizens and not bother us? Doesn't the fact that he was trying to amass weapons in the 1st place tell you something? What's his plan? Do you want to gamble with people's lives like this? In closing, I don't consider our Constitution or Pledge knee jerk Patriotism. It amazes me that people like you really have no idea how blessed you are (not stricly religious sense, you could say your blessed by the goddess or whatever you lefties are into) to live in this county . I mean we are kind and good most of the time. We try our best to treat people fairly and help them. We do this more than any nation on earth, and for this we are hated. I don't get the attitude, but I appreciate your intellectual honesty. I wish more people on your side would be up front about what you guys beleive.

"Unilateralism, by shunning any external criterion, presupposes that America is angelic, incapable of wrongdoing"
No it means us first, second and third. if others don't like it to bad. This is way of the world and ever will be. Multilateralism is the culturesmog of the collectivist rats to befuddle the strong and use the strength of the powerful against the very interests of the US as a kind of moral jujitsu. If something is of significant enough threat to US national interests that it needs to be dealt with we should do it (disposing of the Sandanista (communist) pests in Nicaragua for instance) the sole criterion should be US national interests not observation of some legalistic mumbo jumbo propagated by congeries of collectivists and crypto enemies such as China.

Welcome to FreeRepublic.

Unilateralism, by shunning any external criterion, presupposes that America is angelic, incapable of wrongdoing. Consequently, charters exist only for other nations.

I prefer the word sovereignty. We exercise our sovereignty by doing what needs to be done to protect our interests. Fortunately for the world the USA was founded on, and still rests mostly on, a Judeo-Christian foundation. So while we are capable of wrongdoing (most actions taken while clinton was in office) we seldom do wrong.

The judge of the USA is not the UN nor the rest of the world. We don't care what they think as long as they stay out of our way. Our sole Judge is God as related to us in our Judeo-Christian heritage. As long as we stay true to our founding fathers vision we will do OK.

Of course no matter what we do the rest of the world will hate us so we are not going to waste time worrying about them.

God Save America (Please)

Hell no. I'm opposed to this: Israel and the U.S. ignore the U.N. on a regular basis (or simply veto the stuff we don't like). Then Bush & Co. act mortified because Iraq ignores the U.N.

The hypocrisy is maddening!

We sit on the security council and have veto power. (why? because we pulled the worlds tail end out of hitler's hands. the free world exists solely because of us) So we use that veto power. I don't see any hypocrisy here at all. We are doing what is in our own best interest. What else would you have us do, surrender to our enemies?

GSA(P)

Iraq is deemed a "rogue" nation because they don't play by the rules that "good" nations do. We are going to topple Saddam because of this. What are these rules? Bush says Saddam flaunted U.N. resolutions. Problem: so does the U.S.

You need to pay closer attention. We are going to topple Saddam because he supported terrorism against us. We don't give a flying **** what the UN thinks. Our case delivered to the UN was only to let the euroweenies and the rest of the undeveloped world feel better about Saddams demise. We don't really care that he flaunted UN resolutions. We only care that he had the nerve to attack us and for that he must die.

GSA(P)

...but invading Iraq might cause more problems than it solves. If the Kurds, Sunis, and Shiites splinter into seperate fractions, will we hold the mess together?

No. The country of iraq will cease to exist. The pieces will be picked up by those neighbors (I'd guess mostly Jordan).

There is no evidence that Iraq has nuclear weapons, or that he was involved on 9-11.

There's tons of evidence that he is seeking nukes. Why let a madman get a nuke. There's also sufficent evidence that he has supported terrorism to take him out any way. Remember the President's speech after 9-11? We will hunt down terrorists and countries that aid terrorists. Saddam pays 25K to the families of pali terrorists. That's reason enough.

Just because he's an Arab does not make him suicidal.

But it sure does seem to contribute to the tendency

we're supposed to wet ourselves with terror and send 250,000 of our children to stop him? Ha!

If we had intervened early enough with hitler we wouldn't have had to fight WWII. Why wait when we know what his aims are?

"...this is a war we HAVE to fight" Really? Are you planning on attending?

I'd prefer to just nuke the place from here but if required to go I'd be willing to. (Unfortunately I'm a little older than I once was and in rotten shape)

Not all tyrants are hell-bent on world domination.

Saddam is a moslem. The moslems are bent on world domination. Saddam supports terrorists. Saddam cannot be allowed to pass WMD on to terrorists. If not stopped Saddam WILL pass nukes etc to his terrorist buddies.

GSA(P)

...what liberals are ultimately aiming for is nothing less than the total repression of the natural order of things.

That's because in their vanity, arrogance, and narcissism, "liberals" think that God mucked things up pretty badly, with His creation. But don't worry, they're here to "fix it all up" for us. If the price we have to pay to live in their "perfect world" happens to be the surrender of the hallmarks of our humanity (i.e., intelligence and free will), then what the heck: Ya gotta break eggs to make an omelette.

Thanks for a great post, Couer de Lion.

Attacking Iraq will inflame Arab opinion against us, creating legions of new terrorists.

You are totally wrong here. There will be no additional terrorists because all the islamics out there are already terrorists and already hate us. How can we turn them against us when they already are turned against us. From the other viewpoint the terrorists lose a major funding source and base of operations (and hopefully a whole lot of personnel).

It is also likely to spread whatever weapons Saddam has.

So we can spread the ones he has and stop production or let him continue to produce and spread the weapons anyway. Saddam is or will be passing weapons to the terrorists, the only variable is how many.

In addition, he will be more inclined to kick out all the jams if he knows he has nothing to lose (unlike the Gulf War when he restrained himself).

That's why we have to hit him now before he gets nukes. You see, now we can attack with some degree of mercy for the iraqi people. After he gets nukes we have no option but to turn iraq into a glowing parking lot to prevent those nukes from being used against us.

We, for our own security, control the door to the nuclear club and no one else is welcome in.

GSA(P)

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