| A strange loop.
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| A strange loop.
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Libertarian with a Small 'L'Down below the "More..." link below is a Libertarian Party press release, which demonstrates a major reason that I cannot be a member of that party, despite my generally-libertarian political and philosophical leanings. In summary, the release is an example of the Libertarian Party belief that foreign intervention is always wrong. Certainly, they would make the exception that if we were to be attacked, the nation that attacked us could be fought overseas. However, they tend to not draw any connections between September 11 and anything else (including Afghanistan - I don't have the letter but it was somewhat like the one below in tone).
What bunk! I certainly can see a principled position which states that if the US were to withdraw to the status of minor power, we'd be in far fewer wars. This is likely true. It's even possible that, with the European addiction to social spending and the Chinese tendency to only care about power in a regional sense, rather than in a global sense, we would not be in many wars if we didn't aggressively defend our interests overseas. The problem is that this approach takes account of neither the lethality of modern weapons (one attack with nuclear weapons on an American city is unacceptable) nor of the presence of non-state actors in foreign affairs. In other words, the Libertarian Party is stuck in the 1780s. And what a shame, because libertarianism is a direct child of the Enlightenment. If only we could harness the desire for minimalist government and individual natural rights, there would be a great value in the Libertarian Party. As it is, the party is a bunch of crackpots with a few useful people involved. Here is a quote from the press release:
As the war winds down it's clear what its legacy will include: the
death of thousands of innocent people; more embittered, anti-American
Arabs in search of revenge; another frustrating foray into nation-
building; massive economic costs for the American people; and a
framework for expanded, global war.Is that really worth celebrating?
Given all of this, yeah, it's really worth celebrating.
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OP-ED FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100
Washington DC 20037
World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org
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For release: April 16, 2003
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For additional information:
George Getz, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222
E-Mail: GeorgeGetz@hq.LP.org
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What have we really won in Iraq?
By Geoffrey Neale
Iraqis have been freed from the clutches of a ruthless dictator, and
that certainly is worth celebrating.
But what else has been gained from the speedy victory over Saddam
Hussein's regime?
Thus far the main justification for the invasion -- to protect the
United States from weapons of mass destruction -- remains unfulfilled,
since no such weapons have been found.
A secondary goal of the invasion -- to bring genuine democracy to Iraq
-- appears to be a long shot at best, according to most foreign policy
analysts.
Over 100 coalition soldiers were killed, wounded or taken captive.
An uncounted, and perhaps uncountable, number of innocent Iraqi men,
women, and children were killed or maimed, and a nation of 23 million
people lies in smoldering ruins as looters pick through the rubble.
The graphic TV images of the U.S. bombing campaign broadcast on Arab
networks may yet spawn "a thousand bin Ladens," warn terrorism experts,
while no evidence suggests that the region is now more favorably
inclined toward the United States.
U.S. taxpayers will soon fork over $80 billion for a "down payment" on
the war, and the ensuing occupation and reconstruction could cost
hundreds of billions of dollars.
An expanded war -- perhaps targeting Syria or Iran -- remains a
distinct possibility.
So even as President Bush prepares to declare victory over Iraq, it
seems fair to ask: What, specifically, has the United States won?
Only one tangible benefit springs to mind: the satisfaction of knowing
that millions of repressed people can now breathe the fresh air of
freedom.
But most Americans tacitly agree that toppling a dictator is an
insufficient reason to invade another nation. Otherwise, they would be
demanding that the U.S. government overthrow equally dictatorial
regimes in Burma, North Korea, Cuba, China, Libya, Sudan, and Saudi
Arabia.
Another potential benefit -- achieving democracy -- is considered at
least five years away by most foreign policy experts, who point out
that the Middle East has no tradition of democracy and no active
democratic movements.
James Dobbins, a U.S. diplomat who helped oversee nation-building
efforts in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, says, "It
isn't like the first day of Genesis, where the secretary of defense
passes his hand over Iraq and says, 'Let there be democracy.' "
In the short term, any leader who appears to be handpicked by the
United States, as President Hamid Karzai was in Afghanistan, will be
seen as illegitimate.
Even if genuinely free elections were to occur soon, Americans might
not like the results. Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy
studies at the Cato Institute, points out that Shi'a Muslims, who
comprise over 60 percent of the Iraqi population, could elect a leader
with close ties to Iran's religious mullahs.
A second possibility, Preble notes, is that Kurds could choose leaders
demanding full-fledged independence from Iraq.
A third, chilling possibility is that the newly liberated Iraqis could
end up electing another Saddam Hussein. That scenario could unfold if
several candidates were to split the votes of Shiites and Kurds,
allowing the Sunni Muslim minority to unite behind a former Baath Party
official.
As the war draws to a close, it appears that the U.S. government has
invaded a sovereign nation to confiscate weapons that may not exist and
create a Western-style democracy that may never exist.
But it gets worse: This "victory" could end up making the entire world
a more dangerous place, thanks to Bush's shocking proclamation that a
U.S. president has a right to launch a pre-emptive strike against any
nation that he deems a potential threat.
"If" a foreign leader has weapons of mass destruction, the argument
goes, he "might" give them to terrorists. Therefore the United States
has the right to launch an offensive attack, destroy that regime and
kill thousands of innocent people in the process.
But why should such a "right" extend only to the United States? Nearly
every nation faces a threat, real or contrived, at some point.
Imagine what would happen if other nations adopted Bush's kill-first,
ask-questions-later policy.
Might nuclear-armed India launch a pre-emptive strike against its
bitter rival Pakistan, or vice versa? What if belligerent North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il, or an Iranian government that is reportedly close
to acquiring nuclear weapons, suddenly sense a threat to their national
security?
Unfortunately, the argument isn't just theoretical. On Monday,
Australian Prime Minister John Howard sparked outrage throughout
Southeast Asia when he asserted the right to launch pre-emptive anti-
terror strikes against other nations in the region.
Malaysian leaders immediately denounced Howard, and said such an attack
would be considered an act of war.
Nonetheless, the precedent has been set. The doctrine of pre-emptive
strike may soon pose a greater threat to world peace than Saddam
Hussein ever did.
As the war winds down it's clear what its legacy will include: the
death of thousands of innocent people; more embittered, anti-American
Arabs in search of revenge; another frustrating foray into nation-
building; massive economic costs for the American people; and a
framework for expanded, global war.
Is that really worth celebrating?
About the author: Geoffrey Neale is national chair of the Washington,
DC-based Libertarian Party.
This could use a serious fisking!
Even if every pessimistic opinion and prediction were true (obviously I think they are not), the simple point of bringing freedom to MILLIONS, which the author pooh-poohs, was well worth the comparitively insignificant cost to us. I am positive that the Iraqi people would even more vehemently say the relatively small cost to them was worth paying for the gift of liberty this libertarian apparently deems of little value.
Posted by: Brian on April 22, 2003 10:26 PMI agree with the article. I disagree with the individual denouncing the article. It is not naive to say that the US should involve ourselves with only our country. Nor is it wrong to say we should avoid "nation building" and intervention in other countries. The critic of the piece cited 9/11 as a reason why we should get involved in foreign entanglements, Afghanistan. However, let us re-examine why 9/11 happened. Osama Bin Laden declared war against the US for enetering Saudi Arabia, in response to us attacking Iraq and Kuwait. Well, if 9/11 happpened because we were involved in foreign disputes, doesn't that stand to reason that maybe America should not involve itself in foreign disputes?
Posted by: Mark Alan G. on August 4, 2003 10:34 AMThere are two ways to approach the issue. One is to look at what we should have done in the past, and should by extension do in the future. The other is to look at what we must do now.
There is, as I noted, a principled case for non-intervention as a generic national strategy. I would probably have to argue against that case between the start of WWII and now, but it is a case that can be made. It is in fact a case that could have been well-made between the end of the Cold War and the start of the Gulf War. It cannot be made now.
After WWII, the US began to disengage from the world again, as is our wont. The three general exceptions were those places where we had ongoing occupations resulting from the end of the war: Germany, Japan, Korea, and the Pacific islands. The Cold War erupted before we were able to disengage from those obligations, though it should be noted that in each case we were able to turn those areas we controlled over to local, democratic governments. Still, we couldn't leave militarily, except for the Pacific islands, or the results would have been disastrous. Ask the former South Vietnamese how disastrous.
We couldn't morally abandon our mandates (nor, later, our allies, after they had converted to self-government) to conquest; nor could we have survived the loss of foreign markets as Communism closed them down, had we chosen not to oppose Communism (at least, not without a large and sustained economic collapse); nor could we have avoided being drawn into a third world war - this one nuclear - had we done so (since we wouldn't have allowed the Soviets to militarily conquer Europe). Even ignoring the fact that Communist sympathisers would quite possibly have been able to gain real traction in the US had we not been fighting the Cold War, and as our fellow democracies overseas succumbed, we still would have been compelled to fight a third world war because of the other factors noted above.
After the end of the Cold War, the argument could have been made that we should withdraw from overseas commitments. Once the decision was made that Iraqi control of Kuwait's oil was not economically acceptable to us, nor was it politically acceptable to have Hussein grow in prestige and real power, then at that point the disengagement argument went away again.
Until the war with Iraq was ended, we were required to be engaged in Iraq. Due to Iraq's failure to comply with cease-fire terms, the war never really ended. Before the situation was finally resolved, with the US invasion and the deposition of Hussein from rule, we were attacked on 9/11. This has embroiled us in a was, of which the completion of the Iraq war was merely a campaign. Afghanistan was also merely a campaign in that war, rather than a distinct event.
This is a war of national survival, and it is one we will be fighting for probably as long as we fought the Cold War. We will, in fact, be fighting this war until militant islamism is as much of an influence on Muslim societies - particularly Arab societies - as is Naziism an influence on modern Germany.
Then, and only then, can we discuss whether America can withdraw from overseas commitments.
