ABSTRACT
Significantly, ethical considerations have become a major preoccupation in dominant political circles since the end of the Cold War between the West and East (the North/South conflict, it is argued, continues). President Bush proclaimed the moral defence of the ‘new world order’ against ‘evil monster’ Saddam Hussein in 1991. Tory Premier John Major talked of going ‘back to basics’, Labour PM Tony Blair preached a ‘moral crusade’ and boasted for a while of pursuing an ‘ethical’ foreign policy. The Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999 was, according to the rhetoric, ‘humanitarian’ while the 2003 ultimately disastrous invasion of Iraq by US/UK forces was justified at the time as being in defence of the human rights of the oppressed Iraqi people.
