Citation #1

Antic, Miljenko. ā€œIraq War (2003-): Was It Morally Justified?ā€ Politička Misao, vol. 46, no. 1, 2009, pp. 88ā€“113.

Summary

This article starts with the theory of just war explains the difference between aggression and self defense, after that author argues with some arguments in the favor of the intervention in Iraq. And it states that invasion on Iraq was not morally justified, in the war U.S. was showing aggression not the self defense also explained why the USA under Bush wanted so much the democratization of Iraq. For example, according to Chomsky (2007: 156), ā€œin 2002, Washington embraced Presidentā€™s Bushā€™s vision of democracy by supporting a military coup that very briefly overturned the Chavez governmentā€. And Chavez was a democratically elected president. So, why was the USA willing to sacrifice so many American soldiers and Iraqi citizens to bring democracy to Iraq, simultaneously destroying a democracy, the USA did not originally justify the aggression by claiming that it wanted to bring democracy to Iraq. Only when it became obvious that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD), did the story of democratization start to be important. The most logical explanation is that the USA attacked Iraq neither because Iraq possessed WMD19 nor because it was important to the USA that Iraq should be a democracy. The reason was Iraqi oil.

Reflection

I agree with this article because this argues that the US-led invasion of Iraq was not morally justified. It was all the aggression of U.S. government to Control over Iraqi oil that should improve security of supplies to the US, and possibly the UK, with the development and exploration contracts between Saddam and China, France, India, Indonesia, and Russia being set aside in favor of US and possibly British companies. And a US military presence in Iraq is an insurance policy against any extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia. The article also shows the arguments that are in the favor of that war and explains how they are wrong.