No.
My point is - how can we question the motivations of our governments when we dont understand them?
How can we qualify moral judgement that we arent able to comprehend?
And how can we condem our governments actions when we are not aware of the consequences?
It is to the government to defend their policies against the voters. If the voters give the government the benefit of the doubt then we have a problem. Then the government can get away with anything. Just pick a scenario from history where we now believe something bad happened.
The point is, you do not give the government the benefit of the doubt, ever. They are not to be trusted. If they want to start a war they better make a *** good case.
So you don't question their motivations. You question their actions. You can't ever question their movitations because they are not always know. When a war is started the real motivations are never stated.
About moral judgement. I don't think governments make any moral judgement, ever. First off, they all read Machiavelli. Now this doesn't mean they believe it. But they do know its lesson: If you want power to do 'something good' you will lose it. The only reason to want power that lets you keep it is if you want power because of its own sake. People that have power on average tend to care less about ethics, morals and ideology than those that do not have power. Because using power for these makes you lose it.
Even if this were not to be true, this idea is highly influencial. In the end it doesn't matter if it is really true. What matters is if those people believe it.
And about the consequences. No one knows about the consequences. But people do make educated guesses. For example, CIA predicted that an invasion of Iraq would increase terrorism. So the US government knew this. Other people predicted this as well. Middle east, Iraq and Al Quada experts analysing the outcome of the war before it started warned against this as well.
More striking, this was exactly the reason why Bush sr. didn't want to invade Iraq and backed Hussain just after the war. Hussain was allowed to supress as serious shi'ite uprising because it would create unstability in the region. This uprising would probably have overthrown Hussain in 1991.
So no, I don't think we should know the consequences.
Its all very well to use the logic 'killing civilians is bad, hence war in Iraq is bad'. But if that were the case, you have to ask why did they do it in the first place? Is it because the US administration is EVIL?
Of course not. No one is really evil. The only thing that comes close is people that think they are but actually have serious mental health problems. Now people like serial killers may kill 10 or 20, sometimes more but often less. But then look at the people killed by nation-states. Look at the casualties of war and at famine, arguably intentional in some cases, caused by nation-states. They are much much much bigger. Nation-states don't have brains. So they can't have a mental disease either. This means that all those terrible acts commited by nation-states are rational ones. I guess that in a few cases there are nation-states governed by single people with mental health problems so I guess it can happen. But there is generally a coup attempt. An example is Hitler, I guess. Though most of the things he did and that we think are 'evil' were backed by his advisors. Not all of them were. But the coup attempt failed.
This means that nation-states going for war do have some rational reason behind their war. The fact that civilians die is often considered quite insignificant. No one in the Israeli government cares at all about the Lebanese people that are killed, except for the fact that it is bad for their media war, for their image. Imagine if they really cared about the people killed under their responsibility. They wouldn't be able to sleep. Furtermore, it would mean that 18 Israeli lives are at least as valuable as 400 Lebanese lives(don't know if these numbers are up to date or accurate, but it should come close.)
No, it doesn't work that way. The people in the Israeli government feel it as their duty to protect their people no matter what. No matter how many killed by Lebanon.
Ethics aren't considered. Consequences are just incovinient factors they feel they don't control and are thus not responsible for. If the consequence of the IAF bombing a building used by Hezbollah is that the 20 people inside die, well then they blame it on Hezbollah. Even when they have seen children play just outside the building.
This is the war statecraft works. Statecraft doesn't work in the same way you and me treat or family and friends. The people in a government feel both the pressure, reponsibility and the intoxication of power. They do not act like you would expect a human to act. They shouldn't be treated as humans either. While governments and corporations do have the rights of humans, and more rights, and while they consist of humans, they do not have souls or a conscience. No, eventhough these people are often nice and responsible, the nature of the government of corporation they consist of is totally different. One can really say it turns humans into monsters without them realising it. For example, look again at the revealing Albright statement. This while she was a mother of three herself. This shows the truth about Stalin's infamous death and statistic quote.
Topic: Enough is Enough and you are right