>My point was Brett Knowlton was wrong when he said that weapons are there
>to be used in self-defense: that there are times when it is
>appropriate--moral even--to use weapons not in self-defense, but to make
>one's adversary change one's mind.
>
>And since his most recent posts acknowledge this, I am somewhat satisfied.
>
>I am not completely satisfied because his claim that "...I support
>intervention in cases where genocide is taking place..." seems to me
>overbroad: such a doctrine would have committed the U.S. to intervene (i)
>in the Ukraine in the mid-1930s, (ii) in China in the late 1950s, (iii) to
>have assisted the Vietnamese in their intervention in Cambodia in the late
>1970s, and to intervene now (iv) in North Korea. Of these, I think that
>only (iii) would have been worth doing: in spite of ongoing genocide, I
>think intervening in the other situations would have been likely to do more
>harm than good.
Obviously I haven't explained myself well enough, so let me give you the whole picture. These are my views I'm putting forth, so forget about international law for the moment (although I believe there is a substantial overlap).
In order for intervention in the internal affairs of another nation to be jusfified, one or both of the following criteria must be met:
1) You are acting in self-defense, i.e. you have been invaded or attacked by that nation
2) genocide is taking place
But even when intervention is warranted, you STILL should ask the question of whether such intervention would make the situation better or worse. If you judge that intervention will worsen the plight of those being oppressed, or will lead to more severe consequences of another kind (i.e., total war with Russia to use the example of the Ukraine in the '30's), then it makes sense not to intervene. Intervention, even when justified, can still be the worst of bad choices.
Now, if this is what you mean when you say it is legitimate to use force to "change someone's mind", then OK, we agree.
Incidentally, I still don't understand why you brought up Nazi Germany as an example to support your argument. We did act in self-defense, and it became clear that they were also engaged in a program to exterminate Jews. So I don't see how this is an example of us wanting to "change someone's mind," at least in the simple meaning of the phrase.
Brett