In politics, good intentions cannot justify bad actions.

In politics, good intentions cannot justify bad actions.

8:55-9:28

Politics is a very enigmatic field which needs tact and knowledge to deal with own party, opposition and the constituents. The US along with a handful of other democracies are faced with many obstacles in the course of governance and needs an objective plan to tackle them with success. In the case of the government, politicians make laws in favor of the people and country as a whole to move forward. However there are many precarious situations that need varying degrees of government intervention and discussion. There are situations where regardless of how good intentions are by politicians, bad actions can not be justified.

First consider, when good intentions cannot justify bad actions. In the aftermath of 9-11, the Bush Administration along with the innocent families who suffer the loss of loved sought justice for the acts cold hearted terrorists who plot this attack. As a result, the United States declared war on terrorism and justified this action by potentially establishing democracy and peace as well as getting business partners in the oil business. The two major war fronts were Iraq and Afghanistan. In both scenarios, the US government and army tried to find the suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction and restore peace in divided societies engaging in sectarian violence. For instance, in Iraq the US government justified their entry into Iraq to convict Saddam Hussein for humanitarian and civil crimes such as the mass genocide of Kurds during the Gulf War period. Likewise, after toppling down Saddam Hussein’s autocratic regime the US army sought after oil and other commodities of value. Since the greed for oil and other commodities was evident to many, the US justified this bad action by offering to rebuild their torn up society by establishing an interim government under Nouri Malki. No matter how hard the US government and army tried to justify their bad intentions, the good intentions failed resulting in escalated into further violence.

On the other hand, there are situation when the opposite is true, where bad actions can be justified as a good intentions. For example, in the recent financial crisis and 2009 recession the government frantically tried to bring the American consumer market back to its feet by reassuring investors that recovery is on the way but would take time. The Obama Administration took some very drastic steps that were considered naive and signs of impulsive spending were criticized by Republicans. However, President Obama issued and gained approval of a bank bailout plan that would put money back in the pockets of many investors and financial institutions. Although, the concept of issuing bail out plans to prevent further escalation of deficit was viewed as a bad action initially, it was viewed as a beneficial action in the end.

All in all, it is circumstantial for when good intentions or bad actions will succeed. In cases where good intentions cannot justify bad actions are when an action such as invasion of Iraq does not benfit anyone in the end. On the other hand, situations such as the recession required a bad action such as the bailout for the benefit of the consumer market.