Suppose a government has two available justifications for a contemplated act. If it chooses to justify its behavior under one of them, it does not follow that the act cannot be justified under the rationale it did not choose to invoke. The justification is still valid, and if it applies it may justify the act even if the government did not invoke it.
(Fernando R. Tesón, "Ending Tyranny in Iraq," Ethics & International Affairs 19 [September 2005]: 1-20, at 4 [italics in original; footnote omitted])
Note from KBJ: Some of you may recall that I made this point many times in this blog, back when the war in Iraq was in the news.
