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Post 60

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 4:10amSanction this postReply
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Matt: "Well, read Cameron, Duncan, Regi, Chris etc's posts and other writings on the matter in this thread and elsewhere. The arguments have been explained over and over and over. To put it very mildly, the basic argument is that the invasion was seriously counter-productive to US/western interests in the fight against al Quaeda and the wider, cultural, fight against islamic fundamentalism."

Linz: Please don't insult me by suggesting I didn't already get these piffling apologies for "arguments." One would have to be a moron not to grasp anything so facile. I have answered this rubbish, "over & over," as only Joe & a couple of other folk here seem to grasp. It amazes me the way the aforementioned Saddamites keep proffering the same pseudo-arguments as though they hadn't already been answered. Seems thay must be as intellectually deficient as they are spiritually bankrupt.

Linz

Post 61

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 8:55amSanction this postReply
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Matthew,

Linz: Blamed - by evil Muslims & their Saddamite appeasers.
 
Matthew: Not by this non-Saddamite non-appeaser who wishes the west would concentrate on smashing Islamic fundamentalism rather than piss about fighting tin pot socialist shitheads who could've been dealt with without the loss of a single courageous western soldier.
 
Hear hear!

Regi




Post 62

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 8:59amSanction this postReply
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I'm certainly not trying to insult you Linz. You are the one throwing insults around. I actually defended you against certain others on the anti-invasion side when they began insulting you on another thread. If you've read the arguments Chris, Regi et al have made then whatever your opinion of them you should be able to realise that those arguments are not based on support for saddam, anti-americanism or any other such offensive nonsense. I understand your stance, though I disagree with it - hell apart from the constant insults and ludicrous accusations I actually respect it. You seem incapable of affording the same courtesy to those on the other side.

Regi, thanks for the words of support.

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Post 63

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 9:15amSanction this postReply
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Regi raises some very pertinent issues:  He's right; I don't think we can ever live in a risk-free world, and it is dangerous to think we can actually control for all these uncertainties.  That's why one of the most important functions that government can undertake in this current global situation is to be vigilant and accurate in the gathering and dissemination of intelligence.  One thing the 9/11 commission shows us is that the tragedy of that horrific day was a tragedy for U.S. intelligence. 

Yes, I believe that force is only legitimate when used in retaliation, but that does not mean that one must sit around waiting to be attacked.  If your intelligence shows an imminent attack, you have every right to strike first before the damage is done, or to take appropriate defensive matters---if the time-line is too short---to minimize casualties, and to strike back with catastrophic consequences for the enemy.

It is because there is so much tyranny in the world, however, that one cannot base a foreign policy on the notion that governments should free oppressed peoples from evil tyrants.  Rand made the argument that a free society has the right to take such actions; but I read that "right" very narrowly. A free society would have a voluntary military and voluntary taxation.  The US is relatively free (compared to other nations), but it is not a free society as Rand envisioned it.  So, as far as I am concerned, it does not have the right to just pick and choose who it will "liberate."  But it does have the responsibility to defend the individual rights of its own citizens.  That's the nature and purpose of government.

Not even Rand believed that the US should have invaded the Soviet Union, and we all know how much she loathed the Soviets.  She was also against US entrance into World War I, and spoke very clearly about how the US should have avoided entering World War II, especially on the side of the Soviets.  She was adamantly opposed to Lend Lease and to aiding Stalin and believed that Hitler and Stalin should have slaughtered one another.  On Linz's grounds, Rand herself should have been called a "Hitlerite."

If you do not make imminent or actual threat to individual rights your guiding criteria for the retaliatory use of force, you are left with wishy-washy humanitarian arguments or with a wishy-washy debate over who has the right to liberate whom... and the criteria become non-objective.  Why liberate Iraq and not the Sudan?  The Sudanese government is currently engaging in bloody ethnic cleansing, where thousands of people have been murdered and more than a million driven from their homes.  The Human Rights Watch claims that this is on a par with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 people.  Why not invade the Sudan?  And what about Nigeria where Christian militants of the Tarok tribe have just killed 500 Muslims?  Do we invade Nigeria?  The list goes on and on and on.  There is simply nothing to justify the invasion of one country and not the invasion of another if you believe that the U.S. has a right (though not the obligation) to be the world's enforcer of morality.

The question remains:  At whose expense? 

Presidential Candidate George W. Bush rightly indicted the Clinton administration for its forays into nation-building and humanitarian flights of fancy in foreign affairs.  Now, President George W. Bush has become the Chief Cheerleader in defense of this policy of humanitarian "liberation" and "democratic" nation-building.  I preferred Bush as a candidate.  That Bush knew that the policy of nation-building was pure folly.

Joe raises some very good issues concerning colonialism and its goals.  I agree:  one cannot simply smash a regime and then walk away as if nothing happened.  I may have been against this war in Iraq, but I do not believe that anything will be achieved by simply walking away and leaving a huge power vacuum there.  That doesn't mean the US should stay there forever.  And there is no guarantee that a new group of thugs won't take over anyway.  Let's face it: the US has a long track record of empowering thugs in the Middle East.  Perhaps if this government got out of the habit of empowering thugs to begin with, it wouldn't have to go back into these regions to attempt to clean up the mess to which it partially contributed.

And the joke is:  Now, the US is in Afghanistan and is, once again, empowering warlords and former Taliban leaders.  I suspect that some dark forces will prevail in Iraq as well.  To the south, we have a Shi'ite majority that would like an Islamic theocracy.  In the center, we have a Sunni population that yearns for the return of Ba'athist butchers.  And to the north, we have the least militant group, the Kurds... who frighten both Syria and Turkey, both of which have sizable Kurdish populations yearning for the day when a Greater Kurdistan becomes an independent country. 

The US has stepped into this minefield and, like Colin Powell said:  The US now owns it... it owns the hopes and aspirations of millions of people, many of whom can't stand one another. 

Let's be clear about one thing:  Colonization never got rid of the terrorists; all it did was postpone the inevitable.  The moment the British got out of India, the bloodshed continued between Hindus and Muslims.  The British created Iraq out of Mesopotamia, and what has been left behind is a continuing tribal nightmare.  Even the Soviets can be looked at as, essentially, colonizers; the moment the Soviet Union collapsed, all the old bloody tribal and ethnic rivalries re-emerged.  They never went away.

This does not mean that I would have preferred a world dominated by the Soviets.  But it does mean that what often happens is a simple turnover:  The colonial power exercises its ability to retain a monopoly on the coercive use of force; it owns the weapons and subjugates the population, ostensibly to create regional stability.  Inevitably, it becomes the criminal.  And when it finally decides to leave, it opens the door to all the old criminals. 

The British were most successful in countries where British subjects themselves settled and created their own British societies (take a look at America, Canada, New Zealand, etc.); they were least successful in countries where they simply tried to graft Western ideals onto indigenous populations.  Most of those countries adopted British ways because their intelligentsia were trained in British schools, but they ended up becoming, for the most part, illiberal democracies always on the verge of catastrophic ethnic and tribal civil war.

So that's why I don't believe that colonization per se falls within the legitimate functions of government.  And in the long-run, its track record is very mixed, and terribly expensive to human life, liberty, and property.

Note, however, that I am not an anarcho-capitalist.  I rejected the argument against action in Afghanistan, even though I recognized that many of those problems were rooted in the US support for the mujahadeen.  That did not stop me from advocating a swift response in the wake of 9/11.  And, quite frankly, I advocated a similarly swift response back in 1993 when elements of the same group attacked the WTC the first time.  If this country had responded with overwhelming force back then, 9/11 might never have happened.  So much for me being an "appeaser."

Costs are relative, however.  In Iraq, no fly zones and sanctions may have been expensive to maintain, but I see no problem with the logic of my position.  These things were nowhere near as expensive as the incredible cost of $4 billion per month to maintain an army of occupation, or the hundreds of billions of dollars it is going to take in US taxpayer money to create a new welfare state in Iraq.  (As an aside, this reminds me of that classic film, "The Mouse That Roared"... where a country on the verge of collapse declares war against the United States precisely because it knows it will lose, and that the US will financially support it forever.)

I should make one point about the first Gulf War, however.  That war is but another portrait of US hypocrisy.  The US encouraged Iraq to invade Iran because the US hated the Iranian theocrats who had toppled the oppressive Shah whom the US had hand-picked. I'm sure the Reagan administration thought it was legitimate payback for the hostage crisis.  So, the US turned a blind eye, so-to-speak, to all of Hussein's murderous actions in that war; it gave the wherewithal to Hussein to produce chemical weapons, and it was during that period that we had to deal with the obscenity of a Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein. 

When Hussein turned his global ambitions to Kuwait, the US objected, belatedly.  In fact, there is some conflicting evidence that the US may have actually given Hussein a green light on that invasion.  But the US was not concerned with propping up Kuwait; it was far more concerned with propping up Saudi Arabia, and it was in Saudi Arabia's interests that the US launched the first Gulf War.  Is it any coincidence that this George Bush is doing much the same in carefully guarding the US-Saudi relationship, a relationship that his own father prioritized? 

Hypocrisy.  This country sleeps with the Saudis; it is a relationship that goes back 60 years because of oil, because of monopoly oil concessions, ARAMCO, and incestuous business-government ties.   And the US support for these relationships has empowered a regime that feeds on Wahhabi fanaticism, and that exports that ideology to the rest of the Muslim world.

The time has come for a new foreign policy, where the US stops weighing the better of two evils.  It is time to stop choosing between evils, and to start doing what is right for the protection of the individual rights of American citizens. 

But because there is an organic tie between domestic and foreign policy, as Rand herself argued, I think we must also recognize that such a fundamental change in the latter won't happen, until there is a fundamental change in the former.

Post 64

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 10:39amSanction this postReply
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Chris,

Very good points and examples, too many to comment on and done so well, it would be impertinent of me to try.

You introduced these two ideas separately, but I would like to put them together:<p>

Yes, I believe that force is only legitimate when used in retaliation, but that does not mean that one must sit around waiting to be attacked.

But doing something is only moral under the following condition:

If you do not make imminent or actual threat to individual rights your guiding criteria for the retaliatory use of force, you are left with wishy-washy humanitarian arguments or with a wishy-washy debate over who has the right to liberate whom... and the criteria become non-objective. 

If not "waiting around" and "doing something" means attacking or invading sovereign nations because we suspect they might have something that someday possibly might be given to someone else who might possibly use it against the United States, sometime, we might as will go blow up the rest of the world right now and be done with. At least that will leave us free to deal with the terrorists that are a very real threat to every American citizen, the US Government.

Regi


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Post 65

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 1:38pmSanction this postReply
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Colonization: I hate all the assholes who go around blaming former colonizers, such as the British, for fucking up the third world and middle east!!!
The colonizers did not produce the primitive third world shit holes of today, those countries did it to them themselves!!!!  You still see all those tribalistic people there crowding in and on top of trains built 100 years ago by the evil colonizers!!!! Still working in those crumbling buildings built by the evil colonizers!!!! Living off broken-down industries started by the evil colonizers!!!! Using the language of the evil colonizers!!!! Flocking to live in the countries of the evil colonizers in preference to their own!!!!

I guess if Iraq becomes another shit hole in the future, people will say Iraq would have been a civilised and prosperous country if only the allies hadn't invaded!!!!

You want to tell me that they are not responsible for their own lives!!!! That they cannot use their minds anymore because of the evil colonizers!!!

Fuck off!!!!


Post 66

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 2:29pmSanction this postReply
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Oh Marcus, you've made my day. What a great riposte to wake up to! Hahahahahaha! I've a shitload of FreeRad material to plough through today, but this will keep me chortling all day long. Brilliant! Thank you! :-)

Linz

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Post 67

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 5:31pmSanction this postReply
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Nice, Marcus.  It's good to see someone defend the (limited) benefits actual Western colonization for once.  There have been horrors unfit for civilized society perpetrated by Westerners, but by and large colonization--while it probably shouldn't be in the foreign policy of a free society--has been pretty beneficial to the "dinky little savages( ? )" . (Oh, I hope I catch hell for that one.)

But I don't think colonization is the issue.  The issue (aside from being the Nuclear Question, which seems to have been poked and prodded into submission) is should the United States and its "coalition of the willing" have taken it upon itself to liberate the Iraqi people?  The rest stems from that, and all the instances of past wrongs and past collusions and past friendliness or whatever are irrelevant; the people living right now, today, have choices to make, no matter who was in bed with whom ten or twenty or especially fifty years ago.  All that stuff is good for history classrooms, but it solves not a thing--take a look at (oh, this is a tried and true standby) the Israeli-Palestine problem.  Have those people ever let past dealings slide in hopes of creating peace? NO.  But that's enough of that.

----------------

A key phrase has been tossed about often enough, so I don't see the harm in throwing it out there again:  A free society has the right, not the obligation to liberate a slave pen.  It's very similar to saying I have the right to give some beleaguered bum at the corner five dollars, but not the obligation

Certain ruffian elements within (and, I daresay, constituting) SOLO however  claim that to ignore the bum's plight for the sake of your own selfish requirements makes you a supporter of whatever is "holding the bum down".  (....maybe the bum really is being oppressed?  Maybe he's not just suffering the malaise of worthlessness people seem born with these days?)

One is forced, simply by the phrasing of that oft-cited quote by Rand, to ask the labeller of Saddamites:  If it is not an obligation to give the bum five dollars, or liberate a slave pen, why is it that if I choose not to make liberating people my goal in life--a noble goal, but people justifiably choose different goals-- I am a supporter of Saddam Hussein?  Why does withholding my five dollars make me the bum's oppressor?  I can hear it now: 

"Oh, you  (::gave that bum five dollars:: or ::liberated Iraq::)?"
"Yes, I did."
"Why?"
"I would be a supporter of oppressing (::the bum:: or ::the Iraqi people::) if I didn't."

This sounds like an apologetic socialist in the guise of a productive capitalist! Not a life-loving Objectivist!

If anything, Dr. Sciabarra's citing of US involvement in the region gives one the impression that we do, indeed, have an "obligation" to go in and liberate all those poor little savages we helped oppress with our oil money. (This isn't true for lots of reasons in my opinion, and I think Dr. S agrees with me there.) 

That's the only "obligation" I can see, in any relationship between the West and the "Arab World".  I have yet to see any true obligations stated by the "non-Saddamites" (whoever thinks I'm wrong, that is) which should make me feel bad for not fulfilling a duty I owed to someone, or myself.  

How does not bearing the burden of unchosen obligations make me a Saddamite? 

And if the Saddamite labellers see this thing as a right, like I do--not an obligation--then the condemnations have to stop.  There are no grounds for condemnation if a thing lacks the force of true, moral obligation.  (i.e. to one's self.)

And another thing!  Is it just me, or did the juicy rant by Dr. Bachler frighten the bejesus out of anyone else??  I mean, the photo directly to the left of the thread gives one the impression of calm, good-natured humor.  It's hard to jive the hilariously venomous prose with the kindly visage, and not think "Norman Bates." 

Hehe,
J

(Once again, despite my medication, edited for pornographic content.)

(Edited by Jeremy Johnson on 5/08, 6:18pm)


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Post 68

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 6:08pmSanction this postReply
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I've just gotta say it:

Marcus Bachler fucking ROCKS.
 
 
 
Thank you for your attention.




Post 69

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 12:15amSanction this postReply
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I've been following this thread with interest & am surprised by the bitter divisions it's caused. How can any freedom-lover not support the removal of regimes that deny individual rights and/or support terrorism? The nuclear question is essentially a red herring; after all, as an earlier poster pointed out, conventional weaponry is capable of being just as destructive. No, the real issue is whether one truly supports the removal of evil regimes, regardless of whether such actions will make the liberator unpopular in the Arab World, or indeed anywhere else. The choruses of gleeful "I told you so!"s over the problems being experienced by the US-led forces in Iraq at present are sickening in the extreme. Rather like the socialist who professes to care about his fellow man while tightfistedly clutching his own wallet, supposed liberty-lovers who would look the other way in the case of a Saddam are appalling hypocrites.

Did we learn nothing from the experience of Neville Chamberlain?! The handwringers who advocate appeasement would do well to heed the bleeding obvious: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing."


Post 70

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 2:11amSanction this postReply
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See posts like Marcus's are just the sort of thing that makes people dismiss Objectivists as cultists.  Really, if you're going to comment on Colonization you'd best find out somethng about it first.

I bet Marcus wouldn't find colonization so great if he was one the Africans that the Colonists made work down in the gold mines.  If an African worker complained the usual procedure was for the boss to amputate one of the workers limbs.  Great huh?

Or how would Marcus like to have worked on one of the British plantations in Jamaica?  Workers complained there they were beaten until they were black and blue.

Marcus:  Your latest article is moronic, and you are a moron.

(Edited by Marc Geddes on 5/09, 2:13am)


Post 71

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 2:33amSanction this postReply
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Hi Marcus,

The colonizers did not produce the primitive third world shit holes of today, those countries did it to them themselves!!!!  You still see all those tribalistic people there crowding in and on top of trains built 100 years ago by the evil colonizers!!!! Still working in those crumbling buildings built by the evil colonizers!!!! Living off broken-down industries started by the evil colonizers!!!! Using the language of the evil colonizers!!!! Flocking to live in the countries of the evil colonizers in preference to their own!!!!

Some of the other posters may have more to say about this but the way I see it, the important question is why those former colonies haven't progressed much beyond that stage of development, and why so many have become tribalist "shit holes". Just my take on it but in a large number of our third world colonies Britain ruled in a harsh and even authoritarian manner, trying to force civilisation down the throats of people that weren't ready for it and had no desire to have it. Which of course hardly creates a culture open to liberty (and remember that for Rand, culture tends to trump politics) then in the 1950s/1960s  those countries were decolonised in a way that left them open to tin pot socialist pricks setting up their own authoritarian regimes. Read Chris' link about Herbert Spencer (from his post 54 above) if you haven't already. So while I wouldn't say that colonisation was entirely responsible for what's happened in the third world, I certainly don't think it helped. Also, that doesn't mean that the British Empire was all bad, countries such as Australia, NZ, Canada etc have turned out relatively well, due perhaps, as Chris suggested, to the presence of a large number of British settlers rather than trying to force our rule on a largely primitive people.



Hi Derek,

How can any freedom-lover not support the removal of regimes that deny individual rights and/or support terrorism? 

Don't take this the wrong way but if you've read the thread then you should understand what the position is.


the real issue is whether one truly supports the removal of evil regimes, regardless of whether such actions will make the liberator unpopular in the Arab World, or indeed anywhere else. 

Popularity with the arabs (or lack thereof) is most definitely not a factor in the anti-invasion argument (as far as I'm concerned anyway).

The choruses of gleeful "I told you so!"s over the problems being experienced by the US-led forces in Iraq at present are sickening in the extreme.

I agree, though I don't see any anti-invasion SOLOists engaging in such choruses.

Rather like the socialist who professes to care about his fellow man while tightfistedly clutching his own wallet, supposed liberty-lovers who would look the other way in the case of a Saddam are appalling hypocrites.
 
Did you notice that a number of the anti-invasion camp are talking about dealing with Saddam by alternative measures?


Did we learn nothing from the experience of Neville Chamberlain?! The handwringers who advocate appeasement would do well to heed the bleeding obvious: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing."

Who, exactly, do you think is advocating appeasement? By the way Chamberlain's real mistake was getting the British into a situation where we would have to go to war if Poland was invaded.

Marc,

There's no call for insults! I can actually see where Marcus is coming from, though I completely disagree :-)

MH

Edit - added the comment to Marc, who's post I hadn't seen before.

(Edited by Matthew Humphreys on 5/09, 2:38am)


Post 72

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 3:31amSanction this postReply
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Jeremy, I can see where you're coming from as far as obligations.  But I hear the opposite in that phrase.  I hear people saying that we indeed to have a right to invade, but only if we're perfectly moral and free ourselves, and we're in danger of being destroyed ourselves.  Of course the right to invade is then just a right to defend ourselves from "imminent attack", and has nothing to do with that phrase at all.  In other words, they're paying lip service to the right and immediately arguing that there is no such right.  Of course, not all of the anti-Iraq war people use that argument, just as not all the pro-Iraq war people imply an obligation. 

Marcus, bravo!  Enough of this determinism crap!  It's just another way to blame the western world for every problem that exists in the world.  It's a pathetic argument.  Good job exposing it.

Chris, you made a really strange point, and I can't fathom why.  You said the Gulf War was an example of hypocrisy for the US.  I can't imagine why you'd make such a stretch.  It'd be like if a man occasionally beat his wife, and then when he didn't, you call him a hypocrite!  You're denouncing his better action because previously he did something bad!  Not to mention hypocrisy is not just an inconsistency, but specifically when you say one thing and do another.  Does the US claim as a policty that it won't interfere when a country invades others?

MH, you always talk about taking care of Hussein by other measures.  And yet the only measure cited in this thread is leaving him alone, because he wasn't an imminent threat to the US government.  Or more specifically, loosening the sanctions against him.


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Post 73

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 5:39amSanction this postReply
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Heya Joe.

I've yet to read a pro-invasion argument that hasn't been laced with accusations of cowardice, evasion and hypocrisy--and the occasional wind-baggish, side-splitting insult.  So far as I can tell, there are no pro-invaders who don't see freeing Iraq as a moral obligation.  This can be the only reason for calling someone a freedom-hater: they've withheld effort in the fulfillment of a true and moral obligation.  Did we have an obligation to the people of Iraq?

If it's seen as a right by some pro-invaders, then they must show why that right should've been exercised when and where it was exercised, as opposed to three years from now--or three years ago; or in another country, like China or ummm...Iran.
As one anti-invader, I see it as a right, unlike some who declare even a pretty damn free nation like the US shouldn't wage war because of its statist practices.  It's a lot like my argument against using the atomic bomb against Japan: it wasn't necessary, but it also was not wrong.  It was "simply" war against evil. 

War in Iraq was not necessary because:  1) Iraq was essentially dead in the water after Desert Storm, with little apparent or even covert influence in world affairs aside from bilking the UN's oil-for-food-program and had very little to do with al Qaeda, and 2) the US had no obligation to free the Iraqi people. 
It's nice to say: "Look at that!  We gave those poor people freedom." Hopefully, that warm fuzzy afterglow of victory was not the only reason for going to war, but the lack of evidence to the contrary is giving me doubts.

While the war in Iraq wasn't necessary,  I also don't think it was entirely immoral.  It was and is being waged against evil people, and any battle against evil is a blow for freedom.  But there are such things as limited  resources, and "priorities of fire", and diverting even a scintilla of our magnificent armed forces to a theater deemed peripheral in importance at best in the war against terrorists can be harmful to our goal. 

What was our goal on Sept. 12, 2001?  Free the Iraqi people, or find and kill every madman willing--and able and trying--to repeat what we all saw the day before?  From what I can tell, the pro-invaders are actually taking the more dovish approach in this "War on Terror".  Where I and those sharing my thoughts simply wish to go in and quietly and tactically kill every last one of these fucksticks without fanfare or dramatic invasions and statue-topplings, the pro-Iraq-invaders want to topple every last evil Muslim regime on earth, whether they had anything to do with terrorism against the US or not, whether we had an obligation to free the oppressed population or not, simply because we might be able to afford the expense and would enjoy the thought of freeing some hapless, helpless people with large, unbelievably expensive "Campaigns For Freedom" like something out of an altruistic Pope's wet dream.  That is dovish.  That is soft and appeasing--maybe not to evil regimes, but certainly to statism and malevolent altruism. 

Withholding our sanction of war against a particular tyrant with no ties to harming our nation does not make we proud, hawkish anti-invaders the appeasers of tyranny, just as you were not a proponent of female castration by not laying siege to Taliban-era Afghanistan single-handedly--a scheme that would be similar in scale and results to a "Campaign For Freedom" led by America across the face of the Muslim world. 

This should be a "Campaign of Finding and Killing Evil Fucksticks".  Nothing more.

Edited for....uhhh...yeah...whatever.

(Edited by Jeremy Johnson on 5/11, 12:08am)


Post 74

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 5:43amSanction this postReply
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Where I and those sharing my thoughts simply wish to go in and quietly and tactically kill every last one of these fucksticks without fan-fair or dramatic invasions and statue-topplings, the pro-Iraq-invaders want to topple every last evil Muslim regime on earth, whether they had anything to do with terrorism against the US or not, whether we had an obligation to free the oppressed population or not, simply because we might be able to afford the expense and would enjoy the thought of freeing some hapless, helpless people with large, unbelievably expensive "Campaigns For Freedom" like something out of a altruistic Pope's wet dream.  That is dovish.  That is soft and appeasing--maybe not to evil regimes, but certainly to statism and malevolent altruism. 


Right on Jeremy!!

Joe, I've discussed alternative scenarios in several other threads on this topic on HQ and I think also on the Yahoo forum. Off the top of my head liberalising trade policy (to give the iraqis a taste of freedom), covertly assisting opposition groups within Iraq and potentially even assassinating Saddam were all suggested. These are all options that would have meant less loss of western troops.

Edit - added response to Joe.

(Edited by Matthew Humphreys on 5/09, 5:54am)


Post 75

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 6:50amSanction this postReply
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Matthew, Jeremy,

See  Logan Feys' excellent post repudiating the arguments for invading and occupying Iraq in the "Giving in to the Terrorists" thread.

I would be interested on your comments.

Regi


Post 76

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 7:36amSanction this postReply
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I'm glad Logan is against the war, but I couldn't care less about what effect it has on the minds of Arabs who might someday grow to hate America.  I've been raised--and have learned--to hate lots of things, but I don't go around killing women and children.  There is no excuse for it, no matter the offenses of our government.  I'm sure Logan agrees with that?  The notion of ideological determinism as an exculpating factor for terrorists' actions is absurd.  All men can choose.

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Post 77

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 7:58amSanction this postReply
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Okay, let me begin by asking for a clarification.  Marcus, just wondering:  Are you calling me an asshole for having brought up the issue of colonization?  Let's make one thing clear:  My raising of the issue of colonization is not blaming the British for the state of the Third World or the Middle East.  Quite the contrary.  My comments above show that virtually nothing the British did was able to alter the tribalist cultures on which they attempted to graft their institutions.  There are noble exceptions, but these exceptions are almost uniformly among British cultures that were, in essence, fully transplanted to the host countries:  the American colonies, the Canadians, the New Zealanders, etc.

If that point merits you to tell me "Fuck off!!!!"... then, you're just not reading carefully enough.

Nevertheless, we are downright stupid if we don't understand that colonization has had deleterious consequences for the West.  World War I was, in essence, a collision among colonial powers, and the death throes of that colonial system reverberated throughout the rest of the 20th century.  The British were at their best when they simply united their colonies under a growing free market and the rule of law; they were at their worst as the statist elements of their system came to predominate.  Today, those statist elements pervade virtually every political system on the planet.

And, quite frankly, I'm appalled by those who would defend colonization because it had its "benefits."  I thought that on an Objectivist forum, most people would not be utilitarians who would judge a policy by the greatest good for the greatest number.   If Western civilization is superior---and I believe it is---it will win out:  through free trade and cultural engagement, through ideas and values, not through force of arms.

Derek asks:  "How can any freedom-lover not support the removal of regimes that deny individual rights and/or support terrorism?"  Phrased that way, nobody would disagree.  The issue is, again:  At whose expense?  Nobody is stopping you or anybody else from supporting any such war on the planet.  But when American men and women are transplanted to a hostile culture, and billions of taxpayer dollars are invested in the enterprise, and those men and women start coming home in "transfer tubes" (the administration's euphemistic phrase for coffins), questions are raised.  And the central question remains:  Was this regime change necessary to the security of the United States?  Period.  You drop that criterion, and, as I said, everything is permitted.

And I must admit some curiosity:  If this enterprise continues, and this administration, or the next one, decides to bring back conscription, because there aren't enough troops to bring "democracy" to the rest of the Middle East, how many of you will continue to make apologies for this policy of "regime change"?

Joe says:  "I hear people saying that we indeed ... have a right to invade, but only if we're perfectly moral and free ourselves..."

That's not what have been arguing.  What I have been saying is that if you adopt as the criterion the maxim that a "free society has the right to invade and liberate any slave-pen," you get yourself stuck in a quagmire:  First, there is a problem because this society, though relatively free is still not a genuinely free society; second, and more importantly, there is no way to distinguish among slave-pens once one has dropped the crucial test:  Are such slave-pens a threat to US security?

Since that test is the most important test for any military action, it doesn't matter to me that the US falls short of a free society.  All that matters to me is whether the US is protecting the rights that I do have as a citizen of this country.  And that is all that should matter, because that, at bare minimum, is the nature and purpose of any government.

Joe writes:  "Chris, you made a really strange point, and I can't fathom why. You said the Gulf War was an example of hypocrisy for the US. I can't imagine why you'd make such a stretch. It'd be like if a man occasionally beat his wife, and then when he didn't, you call him a hypocrite! You're denouncing his better action because previously he did something bad! Not to mention hypocrisy is not just an inconsistency, but specifically when you say one thing and do another. Does the US claim as a policy that it won't interfere when a country invades others?"

No, the US claims as a policy that it will defend its allies.  The problem is:  The US has had so many "allies" because its so busy sending foreign aid to every Peter, Paul, Mary, Tom, Dick, and Harry. Everybody is a US ally, it seems.  And Iraq was one of them in the mid-to-late 1980s.  I cited an article on this issue in this L&P post:

 
Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States' public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not derail Washington's attempts to forge a better relationship, according to newly declassified documents. ... The documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit National Security Archive, provide new, behind-the-scenes details of U.S. efforts to court Iraq as an ally even as it used chemical weapons in its war with Iran. An earlier trip by Rumsfeld to Baghdad, in December 1983, has been widely reported as having helped persuade Iraq to resume diplomatic ties with the United States. An explicit purpose of Rumsfeld's return trip in March 1984, the once-secret documents reveal for the first time, was to ease the strain created by a U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons. The documents do not show what Rumsfeld said in his meetings with Aziz, only what he was instructed to say. It would be highly unusual for a presidential envoy to have ignored direct instructions from Shultz. ... [T]he administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold military goods to Iraq, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological agents, worked to stop the flow of weapons to Iran, and undertook discreet diplomatic initiatives, such as the two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, to improve relations with Hussein.

Alas, once Hussein decided to invade Kuwait, and threaten another US ally (Saudi Arabia), the US was suddenly abhorred, but not abhorred enough to have built up Hussein to begin with.  That is what I mean by hypocrisy:  This government has simply had a history of playing one evil against another, and then, acting morally indignant when one of the evil regimes bites us in the ass.  Stop funding and supporting and sanctioning evil and this won't happen.

Interestingly, that first Gulf War brought us some superb pearls of wisdom.  Take this comment made in 1992 (which I cited here):


If we'd gone to Baghdad and got rid of Saddam Hussein — assuming we could have found him — we'd have had to put a lot of forces in and run him to ground someplace. He would not have been easy to capture. Then you've got to put a new government in his place, and then you're faced with the question of what kind of government are you going to establish in Iraq? Is it going to be a Kurdish government, or a Shia government or a Sunni government? How many forces are you going to have to leave there to keep it propped up, how many casualties are you going to take through the course of this operation?


Thank you, Dick Cheney.


Post 78

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 1:19pmSanction this postReply
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I haven't yet read most of the posts in this thread, but it seems, as usual with war-related topics, that people are talking over one another and not actually considering the issues they raise or answering their questions directly (I've tried posing nearly identical questions several times in different times and places and never gotten a thoughtful reply, only dismissals and evasions.)

Anyhow, to answer Jeremy's question...No, there is no excuse for terrorism or murder.  Anyone who engages in it ought to be killed or incapacitated, regardless of their culture or personal motivations.  I am concerned about the attitudes and beliefs of Arabs to the extent that they encourage terrorism.  Terrorists don't just wake up and exercise free will in a vacuum and decide to be evil terrorists.  A rationalistic Objectivist might view things that way, but in reality, most people's views are heavily influenced by culture.  So when the U.S. government (or a radical cleric or any other group or person) does things to inflame Arab cultural animosity toward America, it does matter.  It will encourage more people to choose to support or become terrorists who will plot attacks on Americans.

-Logan


Post 79

Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 1:29pmSanction this postReply
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That makes sense, Logan.  But I don't like the idea of our tactics--right or wrong--in the war against terrorists being determined by the low self-esteem or ideological vulnerability of those we seek to eliminate.

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