. . . support the war. This is the emerging meme, mostly, interestingly, among people who are not themselves libertarians. Stand by for my post tomorrow: real progressives won't vote for Hilary Clinton.
The central problem that libertarians sort of tried to grapple with, and then gave up in favor of shouting with each other, is how to reconcile respect for sovereignty with libertarian contempt for the state--particularly in states like Iraq, where respect for human liberty was nonexistant. The libertarian literature on non-intervention as a principle in the face of vicious states has always struck me as inherently unsatisfying, and particularly, far to heavily reliant on positing previous US interventions as the primary cause of, well, everything bad in the world.
Yes, there can be other libertarian arguments against war--practical, Hayekian ones, based on the state's administrative abilities. But only the sovereignty argument arguably compels a libertarian to be against the Iraq war in order to remain a libertarian. And the sovereignty argument simply has deep problems.
A real non-interventionist has to accept that the United States should not have entered into World War II. Yes, Japan attacked us, but they did so because we were encroaching on their sphere of influence. Had we actually kept the navy within our territory, Japan would never have attacked, and we would never have entered World War II. And no, I'm not convinced by arguments that our intervention in WWI brought about WWII; our role, other than urging France and Britain to mitigate their vengeance, was fairly minor. Moreover, since we're not starting from some blank, non-interventionist slate now, this is not a compelling argument against entering into World War II at the time of World War II.
Some libertarians do accept that (as does Pat Buchanan). Most, especially the more moderate breed nurtured post-Reagan, can't accept a philosophy which means we should have allowed more millions to die in concentration camps, left the Russians and British to starve without lend-lease, etc. Their minds also turn to wondering how the American Revolution might have turned out had the French government adopted a similarly modest foreign policy.
If you are not willing to posit that Americans should stay home even when millions are being senselessly slaughtered, then you end up in sticky pragmatic arguments about the possibilities of inherently untrustworthy state power to counteract even more noxious state power, and how much in the way of cost we can reasonably be expected to bear in order to advance liberty. I don't think there's an inherently libertarian answer to those questions. Libertarians should be inherently more suspicious of the American government's ability to make things better than other groups--but by the same token, it seems to me that they should be inherently more suspicious of repulsive states such as the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
That doesn't mean libertarians who supported the war got it right; but I don't think that what they got wrong was ignoring libertarian principles.
Excellent article. Thank you for being one of the few in the mainstream media acknowledging that libertarians can be both Pro-Libery and Pro-Defense at the same time.
Our libertarian movement has been infiltrated by a number of leftwing isolationists. And lately, through the Ron Paul campaign, we're being infiltrated by rightwing isolationists. But we Pro-Defense libertarians are fighting back.
Eric Dondero, Chairman
Libertarian Defense Caucus
Real libertarians supported beating war opponents to death with two by fours.
As far as I can tell, sovereignty is just a strawman argument non-libertarians make because they don't know or care what libertarianism is really about. There's no need to reconcile respect for sovereignty with individual liberty, because respect for sovereignty is at best a means for protecting individual liberty. When the two conflict, there's no question that individual liberty takes precedence.
1. I think it is incorrect to posit that true non-interventionists would oppose entry into World War II. Self-defense is precisely when people assert we should intervene.
2. I don't agree that the United States in World War I was that minor, though its certainly debatable.
3. The central part for me (as I'm uninterested in what the libertarian or non-libertarian thing to do was) echoes Larison's response to your claim about the USSR being an argument for intervention. I agree with him, and it's a basic point-- the collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrates that we don't to militarily engage another nation in order to effect change in that nation, or for that nation's threat to diminish.
That's "Hillary." Two L's.
And you should make sure to qualify that by adding "in the primary." If as seems likely she gets the Dem nomination, you can be sure that Progressives will vote for her (with more or less degrees of enthusiasm) instead of staying home and enabling Giuliani or whoever the Rep nominee is to inflict further damage to American ideals.
Incidentally, since you ask, I DON'T plan to vote for Hillary in the primary in Texas. My vote remains with Bill Richardson, hopeless though his cause may be. Edwards lost my vote with his lackluster handling of the Amanda Marcotte/Melissa McEwan affair, among other things. Kucinich would make a terrific Interior or HHS secretary; alternatively he should stay right where he is, get a bunch of seniority and become a powerful committee chairman in the Congress; those guys can get things done too. Obama needs to be Veep first, as Edwards did in 2004. Hillary is too willing to compromise on what should be core ideals in order to "get things done." Some of that is necessary but not when you have to give a mile to get an inch from the other side.
A couple more; Biden: no way. He had his shot. I like Chris Dodd a lot but he has two big strikes against him in my book: he's yet another Northeastern Liberal, and he didn't find a way to prevent Joe Lieberman infesting the Senate. Richardson is the logical choice for the nation right now. Someone stolid, stable, intellectual, Latino, from the Southwest, strong on foreign policy, and more than anything else calm, rational, sane. Just the man to soothe the hurts inflicted on our reputation abroad and help us get through the hard times coming here at home, as we try to sweep up the ashes and tatters of America this administration has left us.
So naturally he has zero chance.
Oh dear, Megan, this is the first post that of yours that hasn't at least somewhat delighted me. Five points:
1) You've ignored the 'War is the health of the State' point. I don't think it's *merely* a pragmatic argument to point out the inevitable loss of liberty at home due to the actions and justifications offered by the wartime nation-state. It's a point about the inevitability of rights-violations under conditions of war.
2) I think you've also forgotten that libertarianism typically places much more weight on the act-omission distinction than other political philosophies. Many libertarians think they violate no duties if they tend to their own country or community and let the rest of the world be damned. I don't think that's that counterintuitive of a position anyway.
3) Don't we also want to make the enforceable/non-enforceable duty distinction here? Can't a libertarian hold that people should volunteer to fight in certain horrific wars but that they shouldn't be forced to contribute? That point, I think, was lost. I probably noticed it because its my position.
4) Bryan Caplan pointed out that consequentialism is more popular among libertarians these days. I think that explains some of the increased hawkishness. Traditional libertarians see respect for rights as involving non-interference. But younger, consequentialist libertarians tend to see the value of rights as something *to be promoted*. They support, as Nozick calls it, a utilitarianism of rights.
Note that pro-war libertarians often argued for the Iraq War in these terms, saying that the number of rights violations would be minimized. But most of us (myself included) think that the right response to a right is not to minimize its violation but to simply not violate it, independent of its consequences. So if you have a chance to stop ten violations of right X by committing one violation of right X, respecting rights to most libertarians involves not committing the violation. That's going to create a much more non-interventionist position.
5) Your response to (4) might be that everyone is a consequentialist when the consequences are bad enough. But I don't think that's true. There are many flavors of virtue ethics and deontology on which you can accommodate these extreme cases. I'd be happy to describe a few of the relevant positions.
In sum, I think that interventionist libertarians tend to have a much more consequentialist bent, and that consequentialist tends to be fairly crude.
This is not to say that the anti-interventionist libertarians have particularly sophisticated virtue ethical or deontological theories backing them up.
But you do have to wonder why nearly all of the major libertarian political philosophers have tended toward anti-interventionist positions.
Megan, I don't think any libertarian believes in national sovereignty as some sort of "right" on part with individual liberty. When we don't think our own elected representatives have the right to bar smoking on private property, how could we believe Hussein had a right to gas Kurds in Iraq? So, that is just a strawman.
Why do most libertarians take the noninterventionist stance?
(1) War is rights violation on a mass scale. Many innocent civilians will be killed. We know it is going to happen, so therefore we carry the moral responsibility for that decision. To justify such mass murder, the war must be absolutely necessary -- unavoidable.
(2) War always and everywhere entails the growth of government power, both in the run up to war, during the war, and long after the war has concluded. Spending, taxation, civil liberties violations, regulation -- all are aggravated by war.
(3) War is obviously the use of government force, and force should only be used to defend the individual rights of the governed for whom the government is constituted. Wars of choice do not meet this criterion. It is the same reason why libertarians do not believe tax dollars should be used for charity.
(4) Wars, like any government operation, tend to have unforeseen and unintended consequences. They are not guaranteed to go poorly, but when they do go badly they tend to do in spectacular fashion. Or, the negative consequences of one seemingly successful intervention are not felt until much later. This does not mean that wars should never be fought, but that they should only be waged when absolutely necessary.
This list is not exhaustive, but how all of this applied to Iraq is fairly obvious. The only fig leaf for believing the Iraq war was justified or wise was to say that it was necessary -- a form of pre-emptive self-defense. That required buying into the government's very, very shaky case that Iraq was an imminent threat or was tied to Al Qaeda. Anyone who did that may have been perfectly consistent in his libertarian views, but certainly was at least temporarily fooled.
I'm familiar with all the arguments, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone genuinely opposed to expansive state power could enthusiastically support a policy that involves the state killing thousands of people and attempting to build a new society and government overseas through coercive measures. A great many people of all political stripes were duped by the WMD hype into buying the "defense against an imminent threat" argument, but most of those people have since come to their senses.
The "grand crusade for freedom" rationale reeks of Wilsonian liberalism at its worst.
And speaking of Wilson, I'm sure you could probably find a historian somewhere in the world who agrees with your tangential claim that the effects of the US entering World War I were minor, but that's a decidedly rare opinion.
Wrong... the "central problem that libertarians" grappled with was whether to believe it when our government claimed that the war would be free and that we would be stopping Saddam from giving nukes to OBL. It's weird that when your government offered you everything (your life) for nothing (oil revenues will pay for everything and please go to the mall because this will be a cakewalk) you didn't stop to think the deal might be fishy.
"A real non-interventionist has to accept that the United States should not have entered into World War II. Yes, Japan attacked us, but they did so because we were encroaching on their sphere of influence. Had we actually kept the navy within our territory, Japan would never have attacked, and we would never have entered World War II."
The italicization of real means you're joking right? Your logic in most cases is very er... circuitous (I'm being magnanimous here) but if you really believe that this way of thinking would be the libertarian take on WWII you are even stupider than I thought. The way your mind leaps from place to place while still believing in its own linear logicality reminds me of an electron in its shell, neither here nor there but both places, and many others, at once. Works on a subatomic level but not in macro world where we all live.
Do your thoughts come out in a stream of (un)consciousness, admired by you as they spin out like gossamer? Or do you actually read what you have written, and with your long, slim fingers stroking your chin say to yourself, "That's good, pretty durn good?" College educated idiots... That's what the US has become. A country of self satisfied, sophistic(ated), solipsystic college educated idiots. Sad really. We were a great country once.
I think Megan has kicked that straw man to death quite enough. It's not that real libertarians will oppose all wars not fought for self-defense, its that real libertarians (who are not morons) would have opposed the IRAQ war. Her absolute desire to prove that facts don't matter is useful against said straw man, but facts do matter, and the LIBERTARIAN argument for the war was painfully weak - because the idea that Saddam Hussein was CURRENTLY treating his citizenry worse than they would fare in the entirely predictable sectarian violence is nonsense.
A Brad DeLong press corps statement seems appropriate for some reason.
Thanks, Megan. That was very well said. As a libertarian who supported the war, I appreciate your making that point so eloquently.
War is rights violation on a mass scale. Many innocent civilians will be killed. We know it is going to happen, so therefore we carry the moral responsibility for that decision.
So we shouldn't wage war to topple a government that engages in mass murder of its subjects, because doing so will kill some of its subjects?
Could you explain that in a way that makes moral sense? The United States, to date, hasn't killed anywhere NEAR as many Iraqis as the Baathist regime did. Is your argument really "it is better to do nothing and let ten people die than to risk killing one ourselves"?
Spending, taxation, civil liberties violations, regulation -- all are aggravated by war.
None of those things, with the exception of spending, were aggravated by the Iraq war (the war on terrorism is another story). I guess you could argue that liberating Iraq was too expensive, but then you're faced with the question of when it is acceptable to tax someone in order to save someone else's life, and before you know it you're stuck sitting with the Anarchists that always stink up Libertarian gatherings. Libertarianism usually accepts the notion that taxation in order to protect liberty is acceptable. Why is it UNacceptable when the liberty being protected belongs to non-Americans?
War is obviously the use of government force, and force should only be used to defend the individual rights of the governed for whom the government is constituted.
That's not a principle of libertarianism, although it is a belief held by some libertarians.
Wars of choice do not meet this criterion.
All wars are wars of choice.
That required buying into the government's very, very shaky case that Iraq was an imminent threat or was tied to Al Qaeda
It doesn't require believing that Iraq is an imminent threat. You're forgetting that the very fact that governments tend to be incompetent also means that governments are likely to miss an imminent threat until it is too late to do anything about it (I'm sure we can all think of dozens of examples from history).
All that it requires believing is that the Baathist regime would inevitably have posed a threat in the not too terribly distant future, which it undeniably would have -- especially if we followed the isolationist Libertarian policy of retreating to within our own borders, thereby removing the sole obstacle Iraq faced to its nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare plans.
The anti-war Libertarian position is that despite the fact that the government can seldom find its own ass with both hands and a map, allowing a hostile totalitarian regime with strong terrorist ties (undeniably to Islamic Jihad, questionably to Al Qaeda) to develop nuclear weapons is fine, because we'll be able to catch any threats once they become "imminent". This is not a belief that adults can really hold, in my opinion.
It is really very simple: the Baathist regime had no right to exist, and those who supported it -- like any supporters of totalitarian facism -- had no right to live. From a human rights perspective the real question was "will ridding Iraq of the Baathists kill more Iraqis than the Baathists themeslves would", a question for which the answer was and is "no".
On the American side, the question is "was this worth the money". That's a hard question. What's the cash value of human liberty, really?
About your WW II argument:
It is somewhat lacking, because the Japanese attacked US assets and even if they were threateningly positioned (what about the CUBA crisis?), the US didn't attack first and thus the US had the right to wage war, even by libertarian principles (though not by anarchist principles).
On the Eastern Frontline, the declaration of war against Hitler and his Axis was also valid, due to the fact that German submarines torpedoed US transporters.
One could argue that lending material help to the British might be an involvement in war. However, I think this is minor and doesn't necessarily constitute actually waging war.
@Rights-Violations:
If we remember WW II, the engagement in Europe and Japan led to a loss of liberty for Americans in many ways: Economic Liberty (wartime production), personal liberty (homeland internment camps for Japanese!!) just two of them.
So, I'd say that Libertarians should have an imperative on non-intervention and pro-self-defense.
Everything else has more in common with good old-fashioned conservatism and perhaps old socialism (remember the days were Left-Winged Partys urged nations into war: f.e. Germany's SPD right into WW I).
On the one hand, I believe the government has the right to defend the people from all enemies, foreign and domestic (as I suspect many libertarians do). This argues for an invasion of Iraq, especially on the (now obviously misguided) premise that they had WMD.
Where I went wrong was when, upon seeing that the mission also included building a new nation in Iraq, I should have said "my government can't build a tunnel under Boston that doesn't leak, how are they going to build a nation?". I'm not sure why I didn't say that, but given that the war was over in a month and yet we're still there almost 5 years later with a nation still left unbuilt, I think that was the problem with my thinking.
Dan,
>>Why is it UNacceptable when the liberty being protected belongs to non-Americans?
One seventh of all Iraqis have lost their homes (due primarily to the sectarian strife we've allowed). Do war-libertarians believe there's such a thing as liberty without property? And who told you that liberty has been increased or that we invaded to increase it... Dick Cheney?
>>On the American side, the question is "was this worth the money". That's a hard question. What's the cash value of human liberty, really?
Well, the question should include, "was this worth the deaths, serious injuries, and emotional trauma of our troops?" Remember to multiply the body count by seven to find the serious injuries... and that our government is probably lying about them.
>>All that it requires believing is that the Baathist regime would inevitably have posed a threat in the not too terribly distant future, which it undeniably would have...
We would have been threatened with greater loss by some fanciful Baathist/OBL connection than we are already set to experience? (Two trillion dollars and thousands of deaths and injuries.)
You seem like a nice person, and I mean absolutely no disrespect, but you're out of your element here, Megan. The most high profile libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, was consistently against the Iraq war from the beginning (when it was anything but easy amid the war hysteria). Their arguments are very good and I'd recommend reading them.
http://www.cato.org/subtopic_display_new.php?topic_id=43&ra_id=13
A real non-interventionist has to accept that the United States should not have entered into World War II. Yes, Japan attacked us, but they did so because we were encroaching on their sphere of influence. Had we actually kept the navy within our territory, Japan would never have attacked, and we would never have entered World War II. And no, I'm not convinced by arguments that our intervention in WWI brought about WWII; our role, other than urging France and Britain to mitigate their vengeance, was fairly minor. Moreover, since we're not starting from some blank, non-interventionist slate now, this is not a compelling argument against entering into World War II at the time of World War II.
My God -- where do you get your history? Must be the same place you learned economics.
There is virtually nothing in this paragraph that is correct. The Japanese attach on Pearl Harbor was part of a coordinated offensive throughout Southeast Asia designed to keep up out of the War.
When we entered WW I it was a stalemate and out entry massively changed the balance of power.
Is this some sort of test to see how much stupidity you can get away with?
Josh:
Where I went wrong was when, upon seeing that the mission also included building a new nation in Iraq, I should have said "my government can't build a tunnel under Boston that doesn't leak, how are they going to build a nation?"
So you're not willing to try? Even considering past sucesses in (West) Germany & Japan, you're willing to swat a few mosquitos but leave the pond intact?
Her point about WW1 obviously was not that the US entry had no effect on the outcome of WW1, but that our entry into WW1 did not cause WW2.
Japan attacked the US because we were interfering in the plans for the conquest of Asia, if we had not interfered they would not have attacked us. This is hardly controversial.
If what got us into WW2 counts as self defense, the Iraq war should count to, as the Iraqis fired missiles at our planes enforcing the no fly zone.
MM is too nice to say this, but a big reason for the difference in feeling between WW2 and the Iraq war is that the liberty we are fighting for in Iraq is for brown people.
By the time we entered World War I, afaik, unrestricted submarine warfare's effectiveness was already waning, while German and Austro-Hungarian food production had fallen far enough to risk starvation for population and troops. We accelerated the result, but we didn't alter it.
Our Southeast Asia policy was deliberately aimed at containing the Japanese, which is why they attacked us. If we had stayed home, conducting no Southeast Asia policy, which is what non-interventionism would advise, there would have been no war.
Even given that Japan attacke the US at Pearl Harbor, I don't see that as libertarian justification for entering World War II. Shouldn't we just have negotiated a peace treaty stating that we will not attack Japan under any circumstances? That seems more reasonable to me - it would have avoided all of the civilian deaths that we caused in WWII, of course. Moreover, negotiating a peace treaty with Germany would have been even more appropriate.
That all said, the most important US war that real libertarians should take issue with is, of course, the Civil War. States that voluntarily joined the union were not allowed to voluntarily leave the union? That is about the least libertarian position one could ever think of.
You can believe the invasion of Iraq was a principled intelligent decision, and you can make good arguments for your case. But you cannot call yourself a libertarian, or the concept of libertarianism ceases to have any meaning. Why people like Dondero keep insisting they are libertarians is beyond me, just admit that you grew up and decided libertarianism was too constricting a philosophy to be followed in the real world. That is what most conservatives do.
By the time we entered World War I, afaik, unrestricted submarine warfare's effectiveness was already waning, while German and Austro-Hungarian food production had fallen far enough to risk starvation for population and troops. We accelerated the result, but we didn't alter it.
Megan, if you know nothing about a subject, have the good sense not to speak about it. Your historical ignorance is shocking, although ignorance of the events on the Eastern Front in WWI is sadly all too common in the US. Do you realize that Germany had already defeated the Russian Empire and begun to dismember it by the time US troops showed up in force? The Ukraine was in German hands by 1918, food production would not have been a major issue for the Germans in 1919. I think there is very little argument that the British and French would have been forced to sue for peace if the US had stayed on the sideline.
Do you realize that Germany had already defeated the Russian Empire and begun to dismember it by the time US troops showed up in force?
And that the Germans had broken the war of attrition in the West with a massive and initially successful offensive in 1918, that very well could have succeeded if not for U.S. manpower and certainly if not for U.S. material support.
The prospect of U.S. assets, material and human, on the side of the Entente powers made a difference. Even if our sacrifice was trivial by comparison to what Britain and France endured.
The central issue to our soverignty as Americans is monetary policy. The Fed has enslaved us economically since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. They have successfully manipulated inflation to keep the American people from experiencing the true freedom that can be gained from the use of real money.
Ron Paul is a true man and patriot and I am proud to support him. Much love.
Sorry, Megan, but Vanya's first comment is correct- you can't support the Iraq invasion and wear the title of libertarian at the same time.
Well put.
"By the time we entered World War I, afaik, unrestricted submarine warfare's effectiveness was already waning, while German and Austro-Hungarian food production had fallen far enough to risk starvation for population and troops. We accelerated the result, but we didn't alter it."
Vanya and Brittain13 beat me to this, but it's worth reiterating that the Russian Revolution occurred and the Eastern Front collapsed shortly before US troops began arriving in force on the Western front, and the German offensive in 1918 came perilously close to breaking through and advancing on Paris. The Allies held a strong position in the Atlantic, but it is by no means certain that they would have carried the day without the infusion of American infantry.
It's possible to make a very strong case that US entry into WWI was unwise and unjustified, as my illustrious namesake did at the time. It's also clearly true that the decisive German surrender was a contributing factor in the rise of the Third Reich and World War II. But the flip side to this is that without US involvement, the war might very well have ended on terms much more favorable to Bismarck. That would have opened up an entirely different can of worms.
I do love how (now) pacifists here take exception to Megan saying that WWII would have been just as illegitimate and decry her ignorance. Errr have any of you actually read the history of American politics in the run up to WWII? Or the position of a number of libertarians in opposition to WWII post-bellum? Megan isn't going crazy here, as much as you might not like the implications for the stance that you take now.
I do find it interesting that so many "libertarians" have such a fetish for the sanctity of state borders. Would they take the same approach were these events happening within 100 miles of them in the same state? Within 100 blocks in the same city? Within 100 feet in the same neighborhood? Does a repeatedly elucidated threat become irrelevant once the aggressor is across some imaginary line on the ground? Are threats and provocative actions meaningless? Does the libertarian need to wait until the mob with torches and rope actually steps on his lawn/crosses the threshhold of his house before he can shoot?
Saying that the support of onanistic philosophers for avoidance of action ends debate is an absurd appeal to authority that is beneath a high school student. The "libertarians" above are merely nihilists and xenophobes, claiming that it is morally wrong to help others stop violations of their rights. It's not like the fascists, communists, or Islamists were or are going to be impressed by your non-interventionism. They meant/mean to take over the world, no matter your racist discounting of them. Trying to ward off the evil eye and burying one's head in the sand is not going to be effective.
I defend the Buchanan position on WW2 here.
"That doesn't mean libertarians who supported the war got it right; but I don't think that what they got wrong was ignoring libertarian principles."
I don't see this. It seems to me that most of what has gone wrong in Iraq was predictable from libertarian principles. Why do you think you got Iraq wrong?
It is true that some libertarians have a blind spot about the importance of culture and are prone to advocating policies that assume everyone has the same culture as upper class Americans. Hence the delusion that getting rid of Saddam Hussein would solve all of Iraq's problems.
Incidentally I had thought that a reluctance to impose our culture and customs on other peoples by force was a libertarian principle. Is that not true?
Hey (the poster, not the expression):
I think the whole bombing Pearl Harbor essentially killed off the entire movement in the US to stay out of WWII.
Also, if you think Iraq - a third-rate power surrounded by hostile neighbors across the globe - could mount any sort of existential threat against the most powerful nation in the history of humanity with a defense budget larger than the rest of the world put together and access to the world's largest nuclear arsenal, then you're smoking some pretty strong Afghan yak dung, my friend!
And tell me, would you have supported a war against Iraq if you knew beforehand that (a) it had no WMD; (b) would result in about 4,000 US military deaths (so far); (c) result in anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 Iraqi civilian casualites (we don't keep count of them, and icasualties.org only has data from April 2005 onward); and (d) cost about $500 billion so far?
Japan attacked us because we had cut off their oil(Yes, kiddies, the U. S. was once an oil exporter-a big one). That being the victim of a surprise attack would shame the U.S. into withdrawing from the world stage(and resuming oil exports) was one of the many misconceptions that the 1930's Japanese leaders(all educated at the best U.S. universities)had. Another was, having all of Manchuria, I mean Manchukuo, to develop/exploit, that conquering China was a good idea.
reduxredo,
One seventh of all Iraqis have lost their homes (due primarily to the sectarian strife we've allowed). Do war-libertarians believe there's such a thing as liberty without property?
Of course not, but we're smart enough to realize that there is no such thing as private property in a totalitarian fascist state. You say one-seventh had their property rights violated; I say six-sevenths gained property rights they'd never had.
And who told you that liberty has been increased
Iraq is now a democracy, albeit a democracy under attack by fascists, Islamic terrorists, and other undesirable elementals. Prior to that it was a state in which exactly one man had rights, and all others were subject to his every whim. That their liberty has increased is obvious to any thinking person.
or that we invaded to increase it
Why we invaded isn't a relevant consideration. Results are what matter.
The anti-war Libertarian position is that despite the fact that the government can seldom find its own ass with both hands and a map, allowing a hostile totalitarian regime with strong terrorist ties (undeniably to Islamic Jihad, questionably to Al Qaeda) to develop nuclear weapons is fine, because we'll be able to catch any threats once they become "imminent". This is not a belief that adults can really hold, in my opinion.
Oh, boy.
First, it most certainly not undeniable that Saddam or the Baath party had connections to Islamic Jihad (as if that's some sort of unified force) and it is not even questionable in regard to Al Qaeda-- they did not. Second, Saddam had no operable nuclear program whatsoever, and we had all the necessary intelligence to tell us that he didn't. All of our own intelligence told us he didn't have a nuclear program. Every last agency. And the UN weapons inspectors confirmed the same.
Something that adults can't do is continue to utterly misrepresent history to leverage their political ends.
Also, if you think Iraq - a third-rate power surrounded by hostile neighbors across the globe - could mount any sort of existential threat against the most powerful nation in the history of humanity with a defense budget larger than the rest of the world put together and access to the world's largest nuclear arsenal, then you're smoking some pretty strong Afghan yak dung, my friend!
In a single day of attacks, on September 11th, 2001, a semi-organized group of civilians based out of one of weakest and most pathetic nations in the world killed more civilians, and destroyed more property, on American soil, than Germany did during the entirety of our war with them.
What you and other isolationists naively fail to realize is that attacking the United States is much *easier* now than it was sixty years ago. Sure, we have nukes (and I'd love to hear a libertarian argument for how using them on an enemy nation could ever be justified). We have a big, big army. All that means is that after someone does immense harm to us, we can kill them, or at least people the same color as them, without too much trouble.
But it doesn't do jack to prevent them from attacking us in the first place. That's why we need to be more proactive now than we were sixty years ago.
First, it most certainly not undeniable that Saddam or the Baath party had connections to Islamic Jihad
Sorry, I meant "undeniable by educated and informed people". He's was paying people for suicide bomb attacks for years, doofus.
as if that's some sort of unified force
It is, at least as much so as Al Qaeda. Obviously any group of psychotic criminals is only going to be somewhat organized, though.
Second, Saddam had no operable nuclear program whatsoever
That's nice. I didn't say he did.
We know two things for certain:
(1): Saddam had no operable nuclear program, and
(2): Saddam had the means, motive, money, and intention of resuming his nuclear program once the sanctions ended.
Now I know what you're going to say -- that we could have kept the sanctions in place forever. Well, I'm arguing against the anti-war Libertarians, who favored ending the sanctions too. But even if we agreed to ignore the anti-war Ls and continue the sanctions, the political reality is that the sanctions were doomed -- the political momentum was decidedly in favor of ending them, although they did temporarily gain strength when people realized supporting the sanctions regime was their only shot at talking us out of invading.
LaFolette--more favorable to Bismarck??-I doubt he cared, being dead for twenty years.
This is bizarre. First a strawman, then the bland assumption of a conclusion. If you think you can argue convincingly that those sanctions were going to be lifted any time soon, be my guest. You might start by naming members of the administration who advocated just such an action - Bush, Powell, Cheney, Rice, . . . anyone who had any degree of credible influence.
And I suspect that what the previous poster was referring to with 'Islamic Jihad' was Al Qaeda. No credible links there at all either. Has most halfway informed people already know.
facts do matter, and the LIBERTARIAN argument for the war was painfully weak - because the idea that Saddam Hussein was CURRENTLY treating his citizenry worse than they would fare in the entirely predictable sectarian violence is nonsense. - Justin
Gotta say I agree with Justin here. Leaving Saddam in power means leaving someone ELSE's totalitarian government in place. Invading and setting up an entirely new government means staging your own massive government intervention. The libertarian case for the war relied either on the claim of the imminent Iraqi threat, or on an absurdly naive belief that a massive intervention by the US government would quickly give way to peaceful self-governance under a much less invasive Iraqi state. The latter belief ought to fail a number of different tests one would think libertarians would apply even in the absence of any knowledge of Iraq: skepticism about altruism (e.g. why would Iraqis voluntarily refrain from looting?), skepticism about the motives of the US government (why would the US government simply leave Iraq rather than acquire permanent bases and favorable terms for US businesses?), and so on.
I do love the total ignorance of history and recognition of incentives. You may have heard of danegeld, perhaps you've read Machiavelli. And maybe you've seen the progress of the North Korean nuclear program, always years away from getting a bomb together, signing a peace in our time pact with Jimmy Carter at Bill Clinton's behest. Then they had a fizzle last summer - funny and all, but very threatening and dangerous.
The isolationists believe that everyone else is peaceable and that hostile foreign leaders really only want peace if we can talk them out long enough (they seem to all have gone to Fletcher). I see the world as a Hobbesian environment full of murderous criminals simply waiting for the chance to steal from whoever possible. Saddam was no more than a Pirate in charge of a state, and he got the deserved fate of a Pirate. Took a little too long - he really should not have been taken prisoner - but the end result was nice.
It is very easy to be libertarian and have a very aggressive foreign policy, it just depends on how one sees the world. Sounds like many here are "libertarians" that wouldn't believe in an individual right to arms or self defense. For this to be meaningful you must live in a secure state and isolationism is inoperable in the world of transcontinental air travel and rogue nukes.
ou might start by naming members of the administration who advocated just such an action - Bush, Powell, Cheney, Rice, . . . anyone who had any degree of credible influence.
Sheesh, and you had the nerve to whine about straw men? The sanctions required international cooperation, Scent. Russia, China, France and Germany were already openly cheating on them, had deals signed and ready to go for when the sanctions ended, and were pushing for them to end.
Here on the other side of the Atlantic, the Left was regularly subjecting us to sob stories about how the sanctions were killing "millions" of Iraqi children. Sure, Bush didn't favor ending the sanctions, but guess what? He's not President for Life, and even if he was what do you propose he do to force the REST of the world to keep the sanctions in place? Threaten to nuke them?
And I suspect that what the previous poster was referring to with 'Islamic Jihad' was Al Qaeda. No credible links there at all either.
I *was* the "previous poster", and I meant Islamic Jihad when I said "Islamic Jihad".
Gotta say I agree with Justin here.
Justin's argument collapses under the slightest scrutiny.
All murder is either past tense or future tense. Either someone is going to be murdered (or not) or they have already BEEN murdered (or not).
The libertarian position Justin is defending is that preemptive war is wrong, so we can't intervene to stop future murder. To this he adds that we can't intervene because of past murder, either. So basically, no matter how many people a regime has killed, we can't militarily depose it -- and even if we think they may kill more in the future, we can't intervene THEN because they that would be "preemptive". Genocide is one of those things you get to cluck your tongue over while smugly arguing that any attempt by your government to prevent it is a violation of your rights.
Thought experiment: say a regime is butchering its citizens en masse -- tens of thousands a day. Your nation decides to put a stop to it. You prepare to invade. On the day before the invasion, the regime kills zero of its citizens. Is the invasion justified?
What Justin is really arguing is that the FUTURE suffering of the Iraqi people would have been less if we hadn't invaded. That's utter nonsense. In addition to whatever new genocidal purges and political executions Hussein inflicted during his remaining years, there's the fact that the regime would almost certainly have collapsed in the not-too-distant futures -- Hussein had no decent heir -- and the strife we're seeing now would have happened anyway. Except it would have been worse, because we wouldn't have been there helping to stabilize it, and the new regime would almost certainly have been another oppressive totalitarian one, probably Iranian-dominated.
Dan,
>>Iraq is now a democracy, albeit a democracy under attack by fascists, Islamic terrorists, and other undesirable elementals (DJINN?). Prior to that it was a state in which exactly one man had rights, and all others were subject to his every whim. That their liberty has increased is obvious to any thinking person.
Iraqis are in the middle of ethnic cleansing, have hundreds of thousands of strangers occupying their country (who they want out), and are regressing to warlord-ism and Sharia (which is the opposite of liberty). This is not an obvious increase in liberty.
You ask what the "cash value of human liberty" is as if this war isn't being paid for by taxes. You remember what taxes are, right? They're something a government gets from you when it points a gun at you and tells you to give it money. Are you sure you're a libertarian and not just a Republican?
Uh, Dan, I think it's pretty obvious that the 'previous poster' I was talking about was the one you were replying to. Not complicated.
Further, you did not name any names, you did not give any specifics to support your contention. Nor was what I asked for a 'strawman'. Look up the definition of that fallacy. Nowhere did I state that was a sufficient requirement, but it is most assuredly a requirement that for your argument to be valid, there must be credible people, people with the requisite authority actively trying to lift those sanctions. Note that it is a necessary requirement; not a sufficient one.
In any event, you have done nothing to support your position (a typical failing on these boards, I must say), preferring instead to rely upon argument by assertion.
Care to try again?
Hey Dan...
"the strife we're seeing now would have happened anyway. Except it would have been worse, because we wouldn't have been there helping to stabilize it, and the new regime would almost certainly have been another oppressive totalitarian one, probably Iranian-dominated"
And your evidence for these assertions comes from Faux News? These reasons for our 'preemptive war" in Iraq were all invented by the Bush administration after the scary WMD evidence was shown up as a fabricated lie. In 2003 we weren't going to have to do nation building because a beautiful country would blossom on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates born out of the wellsprings of gratitude for the shackles of Saddam being removed. The talk of a bloody ethnic schism was dismissed by folks like Dan as pessimistic whingeing by weak kneed 60s holdouts. There would be a quick mop up of 'dead enders' and then the oil would flow and pay for the whole adventure. Smart bombs and laser guided bullets would only hit the bad guys and no US soldiers (what exactly is a 'troop' anyway) would get hurt. You were full of it then and you're full of it now. There are more terrorists, less stability and oil costs $100 a barrel. Remember what it cost before the war started?
Around $25. Do you think it costs 4 times as much to get out of the ground now as it did then? You are an idiot, much the same as Miss McArdle who lives in a fantasy world where because you can make it up in your own beautiful mind it just might be true. Get a grip. You have been used and abused by men much cleverer than you for their own economic ends while you play your stupid little Libertarian this and that game... pathetic losers.
Hey hey hey:
All I needed to know. And indeed suspected.
I see two options. Either you're right, in which case I'm gonna go out and blow my brains out tomorrow because I don't want to live in that kind of hopeless dystopia, or you're wrong and in fact are just as much a sociopath as bin Laden.
Unfortunately there are a significant number of people who agree with you.
Iraqis are in the middle of ethnic cleansing
Rule of thumb: anyone using the term "ethnic cleansing" is trying to make the creation of refugees sound like genocide.
Yes, redux, some Shiites have moved away from Sunnis and vice-versa. This is worse than having your wife fed into a wood-chipper... how, exactly?
have hundreds of thousands of strangers occupying their country (who they want out)
You're overlooking the fact that while they want us gone, they ALSO are glad the Hussein regime is gone, and want the country stabilized. So sorry -- try again.
and are regressing to warlord-ism and Sharia (which is the opposite of liberty).
You can't "regress" from totalitarian dictatorship to "the opposite of liberty", dipshit. The former IS the opposite of liberty. Furthermore your claim that they are trending towards warlordism and Sharia is simply out of touch with reality; Iraq is doing nothing of the sort.
This is not an obvious increase in liberty.
It is not an obvious increase in liberty to you because you decide what to believe on the basis of what your ideology tells you should be true, rather than by observing reality. The Iraqis consider themselves more free, and by any objective measure they ARE more free. There's no doubt on the subject. If you think they are not more free, you are objectively wrong.
They're something a government gets from you when it points a gun at you and tells you to give it money. Are you sure you're a libertarian and not just a Republican?
Are you sure you're a libertarian and not just a self-centered prick? Libertarians recognize the need for taxation so long as it supports legitimate government activities that protect liberty in a way which could not be done privately. I think that situation applies here, both to American liberty and to Iraqi.
you did not name any names, you did not give any specifics to support your contention.
You demanded the names of specific Bush administration officials. I explained that the Bush administration wasn't the issue. As specific examples, I cited the countries that opposed the sanctions and explained why those sanctions would have ended up being lived. That's good enough.
You want specific people's names? Start with Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, and Kofi Annan.
Here is a New York Times article decscribing how -- as of mid-2001 -- the USA and UK were being pressured to narrow the sanctions against Iraq. Anyone who paid attention to international relations prior to 2001 -- a list which admittedly includes depressingly few libertarians -- was well aware of the growing international hostility to the sanctions regime. Google it if you don't believe me; I'm done explaining that the sky is blue and water is wet.
And your evidence for these assertions comes from Faux News?
It comes from following Iraq and other totalitarian governments for many years. See, I'm something of a rarity -- a libertarian who actually cares if OTHER people are free. I don't watch Fox News, although the fact that you use the loony-left label of "Faux News" (as if it were more "faux" than any other channel) tells me all I need to know about the caliber of your political intellect.
These reasons for our 'preemptive war" in Iraq were all invented by the Bush administration after the scary WMD evidence was shown up as a fabricated lie.
I'm sorry that your paranoia has led to delusions. You've fallen victim to the Bush equivalent of the reverse-Hitler fallacy -- that because Bush says something, it must be a lie. Try to think rationally. We already know that in the absence of a strong totalitarian government Iraq would have collapsed into sectarian strife because, duh, it happened. So the only real question is, was the totalitarian government of Iraq likely to last? The obvious answer, to anyone who paid attention to the regime, was "no". The regime was entirely dependent on Saddam, who had no heir, no real chain of command, and no interest in establishing either. There was no clear successor. Furthermore, the government had already been dramatically weakened by the events of the 1990s. It is very, very unlikely that it would have successfully weathered Hussein's death.
I'm sorry you feel that this is all propaganda invented by the Bush Administration. I would suggest that you read fewer ideological hit-pieces and more non-fiction.
There are more terrorists, less stability and oil costs $100 a barrel. Remember what it cost before the war started?
Economists agree that the invasion of Iraq had little to do with the rise in oil prices. Demand for oil has risen dramatically in the last few years; that is what drove prices up. The Iraq war caused a momentary spike, but these days they are exporting more oil than they were allowed to under the sanctions regime. You're simply so blinded by hatred for your political enemies that you blame them for everything, whether doing so makes sense or not.
As to your claim that there are "more terrorists", there simply isn't any evidence for that.
Rule of thumb: anyone using the term "ethnic cleansing" is trying to make the creation of refugees sound like genocide.
The term was invented by the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia. They were trying to make their own actions sound like genocide?
No, you did not 'explain' anything. I gave _examples_ of what you would need to come up with. So far you haven't. So far you've been very evasive. If you're really that sure you're right, you should have absolutely no problem tossing off a few names and cites.
And your sayso is supposed to be 'good enough', eh? Look, this isn't difficult. What's your evidence?
Blink. _you_ get to tell _me_ what I find to be acceptable evidence? okaaaay. You need to retire that word 'explained', btw, or at least use it the way other people do. No, you did not provide specific examples. You named some names which you said were specific examples. Learn the difference(hint, evidence.)
And uh, Dan? Your piece is from an opinion page, which - wait for it - doesn't back up anything it says with cites and figures. It is also pre-911.
This is supposed to be convincing? You're even less convincing than Powell was when he made his infamous U.N. presentation.
Did libertarians support the Iraq war?
The two groups that speak for most libertarians are Cato and the libertarian party and I don't believe that either supported the war.
Did libertarian leaning republicans support the war?
Maybe some did and some didn't.
I kind of fall into that group. I was highly skeptical about the Iraq invasion, but at the end of the day I believed our leaders (rep and dem) that they were truly an imminent and dangerous threat. That turned out to not be false. My thoughts were "Ok you guys must know someting, but you damn well better be right" They weren't and then they botched it afterward.
So in restrospect the liberarian case for war was weak.
I don't think being a libertarina means being a total non interventionist, just that deference should be given to not intervening. Clearly if there is an imminent threat most libertarians would be for intervening.
Personally I am willing to intervene (with the rest of the world powers) to stop genocide and other atrocities. I personally believe this is similar to defending your neighbor when he is being mugged. I have some moral responsibility to defend him. But this assumes that my actions are likely to make things better, that we have a high probabiity of sucess and that the benefit is worth the cost. I also think if we can't convince the rest of the civilized world to get on board in these situations we ought to reexamine our assumptions.
In retrospect Iraq failed most of these test and I doubt it could have been sold to the public without the now false WMD claims.
Uh, Dan... Hello wake up and smell the coffee...
Dan says..."The Iraq war caused a momentary spike, but these days they are exporting more oil than they were allowed to under the sanctions regime."
Meanwhile in the real world...
"Iraq intends to increase crude oil exports to two million bpd by the end of this year, the minister added. Last week, a ministry spokesman said the aim was to raise exports to about 1.8 million bpd in the same period. Typical production in the years before the U.S. invasion of March 2003 was around 2.5 million bpd, with exports of up to 2 million bpd."
Dan you just make things up and believe they are true. In the real world we call that delusional.
23 November 2007 (AFP)
"Iraq has boosted its oil exports to almost two million barrels a day (bpd) after reopening a pipeline to Turkey and hopes to sharply raise output in 2008, a senior oil official said on Wednesday.
Falah Alamri, director general of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation, told an international security forum that exports were now about 1.8 to 1.9 million bpd."
The latest numbers Danny boy, still well below "sanction era" exports...
As far as hating Bush, if the ventriloquist's dummy is cursing you out, you'd be a fool to hate the dummy, now wouldn't you?
Libertarians in pursuit of spreading our belief in liberty should abhor and try to depose a dictator. Libertarians should also fear our own government's ability to reform foreigners.
So it boils down to this:
Yes. We should work to dismantled the Iraqi government and overthrown Saddam. We shouldn't have asked our government to do it.
The only problem with this conclusion is that if we libertarians were to follow through with our free will and try to depose Saddam, we would be considered terrorists.
There are a bunch of problems with your post on libertarianism, the first of which is that your history isn't accurate. Before dismissing the arguments about WWI, you ought to know something about it besides the boilerplate you get out of a college history text.
1. American intervention into the actual conflict was decisive. The western front had been fought to a standstill by the end of 1917, even after the collapse of the Russian Empire. The Germans launched a major offensive in early 1918, knowing that the Americans were going to arrive, which they did in March and April. But that offensive had petered out in time for the Americans arrived. Had it not been for the American intervention, it's likely that WWI would've resulted in a negotiated settlement among the remaining powers on terms that were more or less stable. But the American shifted the balance of power in favor of the Allies, but withdrew those forces after the war without which this unbalanced peace could not be sustained.
2. The British and the French each owed the U.S. between $3 and $4 billion. Other allies owed another $4 billion. If you go read the actual papers of the peace conference, you find that the French, in particular, and the British, to a lesser extent, were quite willing to forego the "punitive" reparations on the Germans, if the U.S. would forgive large portions of the debt, which the U.S. was not willing to do. So the point about the Wilson urging the French/British to mitigate their vengeance only goes so far. What's more, Wilson was essentially the architect of the peace. That hardly counts as minor.
The rest of your post is full of similar kinds of nonsense.
"By the time we entered World War I, afaik, unrestricted submarine warfare's effectiveness was already waning, while German and Austro-Hungarian food production had fallen far enough to risk starvation for population and troops. We accelerated the result, but we didn't alter it."
Vanya and Brittain13 beat me to this, but it's worth reiterating that the Russian Revolution occurred and the Eastern Front collapsed shortly before US troops began arriving in force on the Western front, and the German offensive in 1918 came perilously close to breaking through and advancing on Paris. The Allies held a strong position in the Atlantic, but it is by no means certain that they would have carried the day without the infusion of American infantry.
This assumes that the Allies should've carried the day in the way that they did. The German offensive collapsed as American troops were arriving. It's likely that there would've been more stalemate for the next year or so, before a negotiated settlement was arrived at.
The point is not that the U.S. necesarily changed the outcome, which was to halt the Germans, but that the U.S. changed the political dynamic, allowing the British and the French to achieve a temporarily dominant position over the Germans that they COULD NOT SUSTAIN absent American troops, which is why within 20 years, Europe was back at war.
This is just the defense version of the nanny-state, dressed up as glibertarian philosophy. To quote someone much smarter than I, real libertarians are about as common as pieces of the True Cross.
"National Sovereignty" really confuses a lot of libertarians.
All libertarians respect individual soveriegnty: we each have the sovereign right to defend ourselves or others against agressive force.
However, some libertarians mistake nations for indivdiuals and think that nations, as nations, have inherent sovereignty. They forget that governments derive their just powers only from the consent of the governed.
The government of a country has legitimate sovereignty only to the degree its citizens have freely delegated that sovereignty to the government. A government that uses agressive force against its own people to control a country has no legitimate claim to "national" sovereignty.
There is nothing un-libertarian about a democratic government going to war to free the people of another country controlled a despotic regime.
However, before advocating even a just war a wise libertarian will keep in mind that the government is not likely to administer such a war any more effectively than it fights the war on drugs. Also, a wise libertarian will reflect on the fact that the Commander-in-Chief is going to be a politician like Bill Clinton, George W Bush or FDR. Even with the best intentions there will be unintended consquences. Most wise libertarians will in fact end up be reluctant interventionsists.
=======
An analogy:
A kidnapper's individual sovereignty does not give them the right to take hostages in their house.
Our individual sovereignty does give us the right to join forces to break into the kidnapper's house and force the kidnapper to free the hostages. If we do our reasonable best to avoid harm to the hostages then the kidnapper is really the person responsible for anyone getting killed.
Dan,
>>Rule of thumb: anyone using the term "ethnic cleansing" is trying to make the creation of refugees sound like genocide.
This is the common (and appropriate for Iraq) definition of ethnic cleansing: "forcibly displacing or exterminating an ethnic population from a particular area in order to assert the identity and power of another ethnic group." No confusion there, Dan... You just type into a Google window "define:ethnic cleansing".
>>Yes, redux, some Shiites have moved away from Sunnis and vice-versa. This is worse than having your wife fed into a wood-chipper... how, exactly?
The word "some" is extremely wishy-washy and doesn't make much sense when applied to one seventh of the population (oops, number may be much higher: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=67 ). I don't see why the wood-chipper is so totemic to war-supporters like you. There are constant non-wood-chipper based IED attacks in Iraq. Are those liberty murders?
>>You're overlooking the fact that while they want us gone, they ALSO are glad the Hussein regime is gone, and want the country stabilized. So sorry -- try again.
What does our presence have to do with their country being stabilized? It's not now. It doesn't look as if we'll ever get the job done. Our "surge" has lead to no visible improvements in the central government.
>>You can't "regress" from totalitarian dictatorship to "the opposite of liberty", dipshit. The former IS the opposite of liberty. Furthermore your claim that they are trending towards warlordism and Sharia is simply out of touch with reality; Iraq is doing nothing of the sort.
Your view of Iraq is fanciful: http://www.newsweek.com/id/42453 . Along with a country under a dictator, I include a region of constant mass murders, civil war, and ethnic cleansing (see above definition) in the low-liberty category. You seem to think that having lots of non-state actors committing murders is an obvious increase in liberty over a centralized murder plan.
>>Are you sure you're a libertarian and not just a self-centered prick? Libertarians recognize the need for taxation so long as it supports legitimate government activities that protect liberty in a way which could not be done privately. I think that situation applies here, both to American liberty and to Iraq.
You asked what the cash value of liberty is. It's a stupid question. Our government lowers our liberty when it taxes us. Eventually we'll pay for Iraq, even though we were told it would cost nothing. And your "cash value" statement avoids the costs to our troops (American citizens), which is kind of weird. Most war-"libertarians" at least include the deaths, dismemberments, and 15 month tours in the equation. However, I rescind my imputation that your "cash value of (Iraqi) liberty" statement seems Republican. It sounds more like something a Democrat would say.