The NAP is the idea that people shouldn’t use force on one another- that goes for nation states unless they were directly threatened. That is- that people would go up to them and start terrorist attacks, bomb their ports, or do those kinds of things. Is the NAP still valid if the government knew about what would happen? Can a government (like the United States) claim that it has just cause in a war- if it knew that certain events were going to happen but did nothing about it? Like in World War II FDR knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor, and the Bush administration knew in advance but did nothing about 9-11 (they received several warnings, and failed to stop the hijackers before they did it)?
And hypothetically if a war with Iran is on the horizon- and they’re planning for one now (http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article21745.html)- can we say that the war is justified even if the allies provoked Iran into this hostility? Does the NAP still apply here? In these cases the other country attacked first- but we knew about it, and, our governments manipulated the events to lead the people into war.
I do agree that a nation has a right to defend itself. But I don’t know if they have a right to provoke hostile action against them so they can start a crusade around the world for oil.
You can dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist if you may- but I would wager that most governments in history- or at least within the United States have known about certain threats in the foreseeable future, and have acted on the assumption that they were going to happen- rather than preventing them from happening. So… what do you think? Am I right to question the validity of the NAP in these various cases?