Quote on invading a country

[L-C 0]

The following is a paragraph from the essay Collectivized "Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness, page 122 in the Centennial Edition:

A slave country has no national rights, but the individual rights of its citizens remain valid, even if unrecognized, and the conqueror has no right to violate them. Therefore, the invasion of an enslaved country is morally justified only when and if the conquerors establish a free social system, that is, a system based on the recognition of individual rights. [bold mine]

What about defensive action against a country such as Iran? Does this mean that if the US were to destroy that country's government, it would be obliged to implement a rights-upholding alternative, rather than leaving the aggressor in ruins and only returning if they come to pose a threat once more? I assume thermonuclear strikes against Tehran and other important targets would be equivalent to invasion in this context, if used for the same purpose: toppling the country's rule and power to attack the US.

Or am I missing something?

[Arnold 0]

The following is a paragraph from the essay Collectivized "Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness, page 122 in the Centennial Edition:

A slave country has no national rights, but the individual rights of its citizens remain valid, even if unrecognized, and the conqueror has no right to violate them. Therefore, the invasion of an enslaved country is morally justified only when and if the conquerors establish a free social system, that is, a system based on the recognition of individual rights. [bold mine]

What about defensive action against a country such as Iran? Does this mean that if the US were to destroy that country's government, it would be obliged to implement a rights-upholding alternative, rather than leaving the aggressor in ruins and only returning if they come to pose a threat once more? I assume thermonuclear strikes against Tehran and other important targets would be equivalent to invasion in this context, if used for the same purpose: toppling the country's rule and power to attack the US.

Or am I missing something?

A good question. I don't think she meant one was obligated to set things up, but rather that the moral cause must be towards that goal of establishing individual rights. That no citizen of the invaded country would be subject to enslavery by the invader, since the invader is only interested in fighting for individual rights. An important point is the motivation; that it seeks an improvement of the rights of individuals, primarily of it's own citizens, and does not exploit the conquered citizens.

My own take on this would be, that after throwing out the Taliban, to have left them to sort their own affairs out - with a deadly warning - behave yourselves or we will be back just long enough to remove your threat, again.

[Carlos 0]

The following is a paragraph from the essay Collectivized "Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness, page 122 in the Centennial Edition:

A slave country has no national rights, but the individual rights of its citizens remain valid, even if unrecognized, and the conqueror has no right to violate them. Therefore, the invasion of an enslaved country is morally justified only when and if the conquerors establish a free social system, that is, a system based on the recognition of individual rights. [bold mine]

What about defensive action against a country such as Iran? Does this mean that if the US were to destroy that country's government, it would be obliged to implement a rights-upholding alternative, rather than leaving the aggressor in ruins and only returning if they come to pose a threat once more? I assume thermonuclear strikes against Tehran and other important targets would be equivalent to invasion in this context, if used for the same purpose: toppling the country's rule and power to attack the US.

Or am I missing something?

I'm not sure what the context of her comment is, but there is no responsibility for the nation-building or civilizing of a nation that you have rightfully retaliated against. It is not my moral responsibility to worry about what happens to individuals in Iran after I launch missile strikes against their country in an act of self-defense. Whatever suffering falls on "innocent" civilians there is the fault of the Iranian government, not mine; it is their fault for creating a "lifeboat" situation where I must choose between my citizen's lives or theirs.

As a similar example, if a terrorist were holding an innocent civilian as a human shield while spraying bullets into a crowd of people, would police be at fault for shooting at the terrorist and accidentally killing the human shield? The blood of the human shield is not on the hands of the police; it's on the hands of the terrorist for creating a "lifeboat" situation where police must choose between the death of a few vs many innocent people.

[Carlos 0]

What about defensive action against a country such as Iran? Does this mean that if the US were to destroy that country's government, it would be obliged to implement a rights-upholding alternative, rather than leaving the aggressor in ruins and only returning if they come to pose a threat once more? I assume thermonuclear strikes against Tehran and other important targets would be equivalent to invasion in this context, if used for the same purpose: toppling the country's rule and power to attack the US.

War is horrific but morally-just as self defense, and it's as simple as that. The aggressor initiating war creates a situation where there is no choice left to free men that can avoid the destruction of innocent lives. All that is left is to minimize the destruction by responding harshly to the initiator of war, i.e. by fire-bombing Dresden, or dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whatever becomes of those cities afterwards is not our responsibility; there's no morality when standing in front of a gun, you just try to minimize the destruction as much as you can.

[L-C 0]

If I may, I'd like to include some more text to provide a better context for the question. The following directly precedes the original quote:

"It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses. This right, however, is conditional. Just as the suppression of crimes does not give a policeman the right to engage in criminal activities, so the invasion and destruction of a dictatorship does not give the invader the right to establish another variant of a slave society in the conquered country."