Wars waged by the US are inevitably imperialist; that is part of the toothache. But are they also irredeemably so? Can the local good-the protection of these people or that city-never outweigh the global problem that human rights are, at best, invoked inconsistently and hypocritically, and at worst to excuse any and every war? Humanitarian warfare, clearly bad in principle, often looks good from the standpoint of a particular people at a particular moment, when they are threatened with death.
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