Don’t be distracted by Alex’s libertarian rhetoric on foreign
policy. It would not produce a very libertarian world. It would lead
to um…fiasco. Ask around in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or for that
matter Honest Europe. That’s most of the free world. Can anyone else protect Singapore or New Zealand?
Had Alex his way, the first Gulf War never would have
happened. Saddam and his sons would rule Iraq, owning both Kuwaiti oil
revenue and nuclear weapons, and probably itching for a rematch with
Iran. Sound like fun?
It is palatable to oppose the second Gulf War only because we fought the first.
Herr Cowen,
There was a Gulf War before the ‘first Gulf War†: That was the Iran-Iraq war. In that first Gulf War, we provided weaponry and technology to Mr. Hussein to create/sustain the monster†¦..reminds me of another gentleman we trained†¦.Osama something.
The Kuwait invasion was bold and vulgar but Iraq’s claim to the emirate is not entirely unfounded.
Yes, because then we had the hearts and minds of the Shiites theren and suicide bombing was not in fashion then. I think the best chance was in the early 90s for the US to intervene. However, Bush Sr. decided not to and the window passed. The last adventure of Bush Jr. was a folly and everybody should see that by now…
Actually, it does not follow that the first Gulf War would never have happened under a stricter interpretation of the Constitution. With the knowledge that the alternative to a declaration of war was doing nothing, Congress may well have voted for just such a declaration.
If you want to undermine that principle as a protection against unnecessary wars, remember that the latest Gulf War also passed a vote in Congress. So it might not be the barrier either of you think it is.
That’s a very shallow post from a such a smart guy.
I certainly caught that Alex did not say “no war” or “no government.” He said “a high bar.”
… I mean what does your rant mean Tyler, that a “low” bar is appropriate?
Tyler, that seems like an unusually dismissive post from you. If Alex had his way, I’d assume the US would never had propped up Hussein in the first place, nor would it have engaged in extensive interference in the Middle East over the past fifty years. People will commonly object to libertarian views by saying, “How will this weak government deal with problem X?” But this question misses the point. The proper response is, at least sometimes, “It won’t create problem X to begin with, so it won’t have to deal with it.” Of course, libertarians can be a little too optimistic about how many X’s are the result solely of the US failing to follow more libertarian policies.
Thank you, Tyler, for injecting a much-needed note of moderation into the discussion.
Kent Guida
I’ll second Kent. Fishbane, the nuke claim comes from what I remember of how surprisingly advanced Iraq’s circa GWI program was when they went in after the liberation of Kuwait. I don’t recall exactly how far along it was, but it was much farther than anyone thought possible. Add fifteen years and the increased money and economic influence/protection of having Kuwait’s oil added to Iraq’s…
Whining about support for Iraq in the war against Iran is silly. We didn’t want Iran to win! The best realistic outcome for the US would have been for eternal stalemate. Unfortunately Saddam got bored and decided to go after Kuwait and then dedicate himself to pissing us off. But letting/risking Khomeini have a big win wouldn’t have been a better outcome.
fsr wins the dumbest comment award, however. I don’t understand and feel the devasation that drugs or AIDS do to those who suffer them. Am I incompetent to hold policy opinions on whether and how the drug war should be fought, or whether my money should be taken and spent on AIDS research rather than other causes (or myself)? It is in fact those emotionally overwrought and too involved in an issue that are incompetent to judge an issue. We don’t go to war to maximize the mental health of those involved or that their families.
What could possibly have been wrong with a Saddam-Iran rematch? That 8 year war was the best one of the century. Two evil regimes duking it out instead of screwing with everyone else in the region. Everyone profited from that war except the participants. Its just too bad it didn’t last longer.
Why does jim keep throwing around the phrase “Manson-like cult?” Where the heck is he getting that from? Saddam was a bad dude, but he sure wasn’t a religious fanatic with a cult following–he was a very irreligious secularist with a lot of power that kept people in line. The fact that Saddam tortured and killed innocent people was bad, but I’m not so sure that the average person is any better off now with the chance to get killed not just by Saddam but by a Sunni or Shii death squad or some other random militia or by the US marines, or by corrupt Iraqi police, or by common criminals and thieves. Sure, the Kurds are better off, but the average Iraqi is probably not.
Ask around in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or for that matter Honest Europe. That’s most of the free world. Can anyone else protect Singapore or New Zealand?
Underlying Prof. Cowen’s argument is the unspoken idea that totalitarianism is efficient and easy, and that totalitarian regimes don’t suffer political pressure or economic destruction from imperial policies. This idea is at odds with almost everything else written on this site, and, once said, certainly isn’t what Prof. Cowen actually believes.
Imperialism rots the core of the country, destroys it utterly, and terror can only prop up the center for so long. Eventually it collapses on itself. There’s no reason to think that wide-ranging “free world” intervention is needed to protect countries from imperialism. Indeed, by containing imperialism instead of letting it flame out, the suffering of the people under the empire may be prolonged.
Of course, fundamentally, libertarianism is about individuals, not states. At the heart is this one truth: no one has the right to tax me. Period. Not to defend Kuwait, not to build highways, not to pay for medical care.
- Josh
Hindsight is always 20/20. Hindsight bias causes people to ignore the totality of the circumstances in the past. Many of the comments provide a good illustration of this.
Chairman Mao and Jason forget that there for much of the past fifty years there was a small entity called the soviet union active in the mideast. The choice was not iran or iraq the decision was how to juggle iran, iraq and the soviet union. By the way Mao bonus points of the not good kind for your “Herr cowen” crack at the start of your comment.
M Foody,
You win the entertainingly crazy comment award with your statement below.
“Saddam and his sons ruling Iraq would be a faster path to moderate open government than what we chose. Seriously what makes Saddam so bad?”
The fact that saddam started two wars in the region as mentioned in a previous comment is part of what made him bad for iraq and bad for the region, there are many others. Furthermore, the idea that saddam and his two ex sons would provide a faster path to moderate open government is simply laughable.
‘Saddam received support from the US…’
Very little, actually. Saddam was a Soviet client, he had MIGs, T series Soviet tanks, and probably chemical weapons assistance. His Mirages and artillery came from France.
Reagan reluctantly shared intelligence with Saddam when it was obvious Iran was going to defeat him. We gave him almost nothing in the way of weaponry. Our stance was that we wanted neither Iran or Iraq to win their war.
Btw, in Norman Schwarzkopf’s book, he details the meeting in which the King of Saudi Arabia gave Dick Cheney permission to bring in American troops to confront Saddam in 1990. He astonished Schwarzkopf by the speed with which he made the decision once Cheney showed the King satellite photos of Saddam’s tanks being readied for a push into Saudi Arabia from Kuwait.
With Saudi’s oil, Saddam would definitely been able to get nuclear weapons. He nearly had them anyway.
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought we fought GW1 as a result of Iraq invading Kuwait and threatening further adventures in Saudi Arabia, not because we knew about his nuclear program. So the fact that we stoped his advanced nuclear program looks a lot more like good luck than like clever policy choices. If he’d not invaded Kuwait, maybe Iraq would be another acknowledge nuclear power, like Pakistan and North Korea. I’m not so clear how this is an argument for an activist foreign policy. (“If you invade a lot of people for a lot of reasons, you’ll often find them up to no good in their countries?”)
Fighting the cold war containment battles did lead ultimately to some good–South Korea and Taiwan are apparently pretty nice places to live because of it. But it’s worth noting how often things didn’t work too well–the proxy wars in Africa and South America didn’t generally result in decent places to live. And neither South Korea nor Taiwan started as genuinely democratic regimes.
With so many comments from the “old power” school folk and so much talk about US interests in this thread, this discussion makes me wonder which of the two: Saddam’s Iraq or modern US is more dangerous for the rest of the world. US definitely has more popular control over politicians and pacifists, including libertarians, are free to speak their voice. On the other hand, US is much more powerful and has a worse track record: for a random person living on Earth in the last 60 years the chance of dying under US bombs or in a chaos after a US invasion was much higher than of dying from Saddam’s or Iranian bombs.
@TJIT:
“Where do the massive amounts of death and destruction the Soviet Union, China and other communist regimes have caused in the past 60 years fit in with your question?”
They mostly kept their terror within their borders, with the exception of Eastern Europe. I think that was which mic was refering to.
Secondly, making quick asumptions about others does not really further the discussion.
I don’t think we should have gotten involved in either Iraq war. Screw Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Until their crap involves us, we shouldn’t be involved with them.
I noticed one of the comments implied that the U.S is responsible for bin Laden. Ayman al Zawahiri actually wrote a book that described their experience in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. It’s called “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner”. In it he denies any connection between their organization and the U.S, C.I.A or I.S.I and asserts instead that their money came from donations from other Arabs. Osama himself was already very wealthy before he went over and that was one reason he was as prominent a figure as he was.
I’m not as convinced as jim that the average Iraqi is better off now than before we deposed that thug Saddam. The apparent widespread support for the insurgency, especially in the Sunni region, doesn’t give much support to that hypothesis. I suspect that the average Sunni is worse off, while the average Shia and Kurd is better off. But even there, my impression is that crime and violence were far less of a problem before the fall of Saddam. I wonder whether most Shia feel more safe in their homes now or with Saddam in power.
And if the country dissolves into civil war, it seems very unlikely that this will be better than what they would have gotten under Saddam. Sometimes, even a nightmarish police state isn’t the very worst that can happen to you.
Seriously, any of the millions of fathers that never had their daughter in any rape room. I think your main problem in thinking of this issue is confusing a problems outrageousness with its magnitude. The thought of state sanctioned rapes is awful. It bothers me a lot. But the thing is there were probably plenty of people that didn’t worry about it happening to them or someone that they loved. And they were right not to worry in the vast majority of cases. Now they have to worry more about crime and faction violence and being colateral damage. These concerns are less outrageous. They don’t get my heart pumping the way that torture and rape do. But they are a more real threat for more people. Knowing what I know now I’d like to think that I would be rational enough not to roll the dice on this one.
It is the difference between a shark attack and a deadly allergic reaction to a bee sting.
TGIT, I did not write anything about USSR or China. And I find the claim that USSR was more dangerous than US to a random earthling rather plausible (not so sure about China under Mao). But this is history now. The discussion here is about modern times, when US is much less constrained in their foreign policy.
‘(not so sure about China under Mao)’
Ask the Tibetans. Or the Russians.
Michael F
Do you have a daughter? If not, then SHUT UP about “knowing what you know”. If so, then i strongly urge that you rethink your definition of rationality.
Tom Grey – Liberty Dad,
“I note that Israel left Lebanon 6 years ago: the Jew-haters have not been building houses and wealth, they’ve been preparing for war.†
Nonsense. Lebanon underwent an impressive construction and economic boom over the last three years. It had once again become the cultural/entertainment/business hub of the Middle East.
Did they stockpile weapons? Damn straight! Just in case their friendly neighbor to the south decided to launch a third invasion and destruction of the country.
The sanctions and oil-for-food regime was a joke but that is more telling of the UN and Kofi’s son (both corrupt) than it is of Iraq strategy.
“Functioning democracy in Iraq?
a) no war, <1%
b) war, 90% (it’s arguably not yet functioning; it’s quite possible that the ‘civil war’ allows a strongman to ‘bring order to the galaxy’)†
More like:
No war: 60%
War: 60%
The difference: more bloodshed in the war scenario.
Are you equating a strongman with democracy? You must be enamored with G W Bush.
“It would have gone better if immediate municipal elections had be held, using ration cards for voter registration, and had elected local tribal leaders; and then the US should give local municipal bond loans to the elected mayors to rebuild as they see fit. (Less for Halliburton/ Bush friends).
It would be MUCH better if geo-districts had been used for US style local district voting, rather than Euro style party lists (leading to sectarian parties).
An oil-trust fund for all registered/ voting Iraqis would have reduced the poverty and the incentive to attack oil facilities.†
Familiarize yourself with the reality of Iraq. The election methods you mention are interesting but not feasible for the chaos that is Iraq.
A U.S. libertarian foreign policy at the time of WWI would have prevented most of this trouble.
“Don’t be distracted by Alex’s libertarian rhetoric on foreign policy.”
And don’t be distracted by any libertarian rhetoric coming from Tyler whatsoever — it’s just for show these days.
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