War in the Name of Peace: Interview with Jean Bricmont, Author of "Humanitarian Imperialism" | Mostly Water

n 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation lacked any mandate from the United Nations when it attacked Serbia. In Afghanistan, the U.S. continued bombing in 2002, even when the government that replaced the Taliban asked it to stop (lest the civilian death toll rise).


And the United States asserted a highly disputed entitlement to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iraq a year later, citing bogus claims that the country had weapons of mass destruction and had played a role in the Sep 11, 2001 attacks.


In his new book Humanitarian Imperialism, the pacifist intellectual Jean Bricmont exposes how human rights have been used to justify military exploits that he regards as legally dubious and morally odious.

yes, it always the same...

starting some war on some made up, or just plain stupid reason...

i wish humanity would grow up...

*snore*

x1a4,

you are a propagandist. if not, then please give me some of that kool aid (still waiting for some from the other propagandist thread you started)

War is occasionally unavoidable, but it should be an extraordinary last resort. If it comes to kill or be killed it may not be possible to remain a pacifist, unless you're in denial.

What we must stop doing is engaging in military activity without declaring war. It's clearly not what the framers of the Constitution intended. Congress should never give tacit or explicit authority to engage in prolonged military activity without approving an explicit declaration of war. Not doing so is cowardly, dishonest, and leads to wars not supported by the people. Of course, executives that take advantage of vague approval for military action to seize more power are evil. We've been doing this crap since Vietnam, and it's wrong.

That's what gets me - the incredible audacity and hypocrisy these European propagandist pacifists have.

What Jean Bricmont conveniently ignores is that he would be taking it up the ass from hordes of invading Nazis right now if it weren't for the interventionist policies of the US, UK and other allied countries.

That was totally wrong, and is close to invoking godwins law, in ww2 the US had a very non-interventionist foreign policy, hence why it only got involved when it was directly attacked. im not a pacifist by any means, but making up false reasons to go to war is just dishonest and stupid, heck id have more respect for them if they said "were going to war coz they insulted my mum" than making up BS stories to justify it.

The UK and the US did nothing to win the war, Russia won the war against the Nazis.

And how did the west thanked them? The Cold War, the reason for millions of deaths.

Did the West do any good, in the last 50 years? Invading one country after another, which needed no intervention.

Instead of stopping genocides in Africa we decided to drop napalm on civilians, to supply dictators with WMDs, and destabilising a half of a continent.

What an achievement. And yet after 60 years of failures you still aren't smart enough to see that you failed miserably and go on making the world a more dangerous place.

nicely put

The U.S.S.R.'s hands are far from clean, in regards to the Cold War. The deaths of millions of Russians at the hands of their own government cannot reasonably be laid at the feet of anyone outside of the country.

You've got a point, otherwise. If you want to understand why we keep having these "Wars for Peace", look into who runs the U.S. and Britain, along with most of the rest of the world. The Round Table groups. The propaganda they use to sell these wars to the public has very little to do with why they go to war.

Yeah, I forgot about the Russians being at Normandy.

And, without the Russians Japan would have never fallen....

the nazis were defeated in Stalingrad, The US und UK did what they can best, annihilate cities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Normandy wasn't as important as the US media wants you to believe. Americans are not taught others win the war because this would harm the image of their own.

He talked about Nazis controlling the UK.

Japan wasn't even mentioned.

Battle of Stalingrad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every war is sadly based on some dude thinking they are high and mighty over the other. GET OVER YOURSELFS Its harder to build and create then to destroy be a real man

I am inclined to think that Pearl harbor was needed to motivate the people to go to war, although many people already saw the need of it.
Although the influence of Russia's regarding the demize of the Nazis might be downplayed in some places. Considering the USSR and the English/US/other met at Berlin, i doubt it is reasonable to say they did nothing. I dont think there is a good measure for determining what 'won' WWII. For one, you could give the Russians credit, but you could also say a large part was the Russian winter and terrain. (Or the wake-up call Russia had learned from invading Finland. Ok got that from Discovery )
Stalingrad might have been a(/one of the) turning point(s), but that does not mean it won the war. If it is 2/2 and a guy scores, that does not mean he won the game, although people are silly enough to react as if it is emotionally.
As for the bombings, no doubt in afterthought they bombed too much/indiscriminately. On the other hand, the destruction of German industry and morale did help a lot to defeat them.(And german rockets did land in Britain regularly.)The Western allies(and western axis) where much better to war prisoners relative to the Russians(/axis in the East).(Prisoner of war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Well the Germans wanted to control Eastern Europe very bad and they sent most of their top equipment and units there and got defeated, I don't think the Russians planned getting invaded. So yes, perhaps not all credit goes to them. The stupid megalomaniacs on the German side should also get some credit for their own defeat.

Destroying arms production facilities isn't quite the same as killing civilians with huge fire storms.

From my impression, they did not aim so well back then; blanket bombing. I guess it should have been a weigh between the casualties of the longer war with less bombing or a shorter war with bombing. Obviously always try to hit military/industrial areas or to block transport routes. Will still make 'collatoral damage'. Actually in hindsight, i dont think they bombed too much, considering the death camps, a speedier war would save more people. However, that was probably not what they were thinking.(I am not at all sure whether their reasons were good ones.)

I do have the notion that bomber squads often just bomb because commanders (probably correctly)think that the feeling of being tied down not doing much would demoralize the pilots. Perhaps also to justify having the planes. If true, that would suck, obviously.

No matter how you twist the war evidence in iraq, the President did not lie intentionally, we still have the bills to prove that iraq had WMD [], the bottom line is, if you don't believe that this war is necessary, you can ask me how WE the Lebanese people lost our country because we were pacifist, we were accommodating the illogical till it is too late, what do you want that islamic terror be on you door steps...don't be fooled that the threat is not real, it is real...

Welcome to the forum.

The fact that Islamic, or any terrorism, is a real threat is indisputable. The wisdom of attacking Iraq when and how we did is highly disputable. War is an immense undertaking, and must be completely justifiable, strategically sound, and be fully supported by the people. Wouldn't it have been better to finish the job in Afghanistan, rather than refocusing resources on someone who had nothing to do with the major terrorist attacks? Iraq has done much more harm than good to our fight against "real" terrorism.

yes, iraq had no sound resons behind it...

and is it me or is there talk about iran, with iraq still not finished?