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The selfish liberation of Iraq

Arthur Silber, whose “Light of Reason” blog I generally admire, is not very happy so it seems with our own Perry de Havilland for his recent dig at Jim Henley over the outcome of the recent Iraq war. Now, I am not going to revisit this increasingly well-flogged dead horse.

No, what I want to consider is a more general issue of principle. Arthur is a follower, in broad terms, of the ethical egoist philosophy set out by the late Ayn Rand. Rand denounced all those philosophers who enjoined Man to sacrifice his happiness and values for some other, usually mystical or collective, “good”. Instead, she set out an alternative, the “virtue of selfishness”, questioning why it is wrong for man to acquire and keep a value, including non-material ones such as respect, and freedom.

Arthur’s basic disagreement, so it appears, with those like Perry and I who have advocated toppling Saddam seems to rest on the idea that is is “altruistic” and hence wrong, to wish to liberate countries such as Iraq. No truly “selfish” libertarian could possibly endorse such regrettably altruistic behaviour, particularly if it costs blood and treasure. Force is only ever justified, on this view, if one has been directly attacked already and has the names, addresses and confessions of the attacker.

I think Arthur misses a key point. Consider the following – suppose that it is clear (and it is) that the bulk of Iraqi people hate Saddam and want rid of him (the Baathist thugs who benefitted from his rule are naturally not so keen). Suppose that the Coalition’s armed forces regard it is a great value to them that they should serve in forces which enable them to liberate folks from tyranny. This would be even clearer if they were funded like mercenary armies by consenting adults rather than through coercive taxation. Well, if these sort of considerations apply, the liberation of Iraq is a deeply “selfish” act on the terms that Rand would have seen it. It is a positive sum-game for both the liberators and the liberated.

Now of course none of the above resolves the more immediate issues of whether Bush and co exaggerated the WMD threat, whether Iraq was the most pressing issue after 9/11, or whether Saddam was clearly in direct cahoots with terror groups. My point is more fundamental. Many isolationists seem to have elevated the non-initiation of force principle to the level where it inadvertently seems to endorse the existence of particular nation states, including those run by the most brutal folk imaginable. What is so libertarian about this? Why should an Iraq, Soviet Union or a Nazi Germany’s national borders be accorded the same respect as those of a liberal democracy?

By all means let us preserve good manners in the libertarian parish. But those who argue that intervention a la Iraq is always and everywhere wrong are not, in my humble opinion, entitled to claim that those who differ are not libertarians.

And by the way, 99 percent of the stuff on Arthur’s blog is just brilliant.

32 comments to The selfish liberation of Iraq

  • Paleo4ever

    you neocons/statists/liberpousers make me sick! will you please stop pretendign to be libertarians. everyone knows that real libertarinas are ANTI-WAR. done, end of discussion. no go post on NRO or faux news about how glad you are to murder iraqi children.

  • Doctrinaire libertarians will always have a problem with military initiatives such as Operation Iraqi Freedom. That’s not a problem for Operation Iraqi Freedom, but it is a problem for libertarians.

    War and foreign policy are areas orthodox libertarian thinking can’t easily cope with, because they’re inherently bound up with collectives — armies, governments, nations. Therefore the central tenet of libertarian thought, ethical individualism, does not apply to them. All manner of incoherencies flow therefrom.

    For further thoughts on this subject, please see: The Conservative-Libertarian Schism.

  • T. Hartin

    Johnathon, I think you cheated here:

    “Suppose that the Coalition’s armed forces regard it is a great value to them that they should serve in forces which enable them to liberate folks from tyranny.”

    What you are saying is that the “selfish” reward gained by the armed forces members is the satisfaction of their altruistic desires. That maneuver completely collapses Randian thought about altruism, so that any altruistic act becomes selfish because it satisfies the personal, hence “selfish” desires of the actor, even if those desires are to act altruistically.

  • you neocons/statists/liberpousers make me sick!

    And the bad news will follow when?

  • Well, shucks, Johnathan. I was all set to get angry again — but how can I after your last sentence? It’s not fair, dammit! Ha. Okay, I’m much calmer now — and I hereby apologize to Perry if I got too personal in my own comments. But it has really gotten to me over the last months that many people attribute motives to everyone who may have opposed the war with Iraq, for any variety of reasons, motives that are usually not true (with the exception of some hardcore Stalinists left around somewhere). In any case, yes, let’s certainly move on. I do plan to address some of the other issues you raise, Johnathan — in particular, why I myself reject the “isolationist” label entirely, and why I do NOT accord the same respect to any dictatorship that I do to a free (or even semi-free) country, even indirectly. I hope to have it up sometime tomorrow (or maybe late tonight).
    And, having taken many deep breaths over the last few days, I now offer my very best wishes to all of you on this splendid blog.
    Very cordially,
    Arthur

  • … and by the way, whilst I agree with the Randian antipathy to what they call ‘altruism’ (which is to say their rational rejection the notion that an act can only be moral if it is completely devoid of self-interest), one must realise that much of the rest of the world does not actually define the word ‘altruism’ that way.

    But your main point is correct… I wanted to see the people of Iraq (and elsewhere) free (or at least freer than they were under Ba’athism, which is the best I can hope for at the moment) because I see that as also being in my interests and thus I am not, by the esoteric Randian fundimentalist definition of the word, motivated by altruism.

  • We are big boys and girls here, Arthur… I can take a bit of criticism without taking it personally.

  • Elizabeth

    The morality of self defense is not subjective and the way I look at it… if you are defending yourself (and I viewed the US intervention in Iraq as ultimate self defense) you are acting with morality.

    The idea is self preservation NOT to be altruistic.
    Ayn Rand viewed dictatorships as criminals and though she said that free nations are not obligated to free others sacrificing themselves while doing so – they are right to do so if necessary.
    (I’m paraphrasing and I believe this is discussed in The Virtue of Reason.)
    In my view it is necessary to protect and defend ourselves.

  • As someone who cannot fit into the conventional political spectrum no matter what I do, I naturally gravitate towards libertarianism. But now I find myself weary of all this labeling going on in the libertarian camp (in attempts to tell people what they should be thinking — an altruistic pursuit if ever there was one!).

    I find myself wanting to think independently, without fearing that someone will tell me I am not being true to my own principles simply because I dare call myself a libertarian. I mean, what gives here?

    Suppose I hate bullies, and there is a nasty, aggressive one who goes after people without provocation. Suppose further that I decide to take him out lest he sneak up and whack me upside the head. That could be characterized as selfish (because I stopped the bastard), or as altruistic (because the bully was attacking others I saved from further violence). I fail to see why the latter reason should prevent me from taking action which directly benefits me, and I fail to see how the existence of altruism renders an action morally wrong. Defense of others could in many circumstances be a form of self defense.

    For that matter, is it not altruistic to post a comment (or even speak one’s mind) if one cares what other people think? Then why say anything?

    I am confused, but still tired of labels. If anyone reading this is also tired of being labeled, please accept this apology for my act of caring!

  • MayDay72

    A couple of thoughts…

    In response to Eric and as I believe Francis is alluding to above…

    Libertarianism is the practice of applying (or attempting ot apply) several basic rules (non-initiation of force, self-ownership, etc.) to “real world” issues that challenge us in our daily lives (i.e. taxation, property rights, etc.). Libertarianism is not a shopping list of issues that we are required to agree or disagree with in order to wear the label “libertarian.”

    That is to say that we can disagree on some issues amongst ourselves without labeling one another “statist” or “collectivist.” When someone disagrees with conventionally held libertarian “orthodoxy” it is first best to examine the argument to determine if the person is trying to apply libertarian principles (even in an unorthodox way) to an issue.

    I have recently read arguments (including posts in this blog) of libertarians taking “unlibertarian” sides on issues such a drug decriminalization and abortion. These individuals are not members of the Great Global Socialist Cabal they are merely libertarians taking an unconventional (and unpopular) view of an issue but doing so in a consistantly libertarian manner (at least in their own minds).

    Forcing individuals to pass a litmus test of issues in order be considered an member of a political or philosophical ideology should be left to the those of the extreme right and left of the political spectrum…

  • The Randian rejection of group needs is extreme, and like many other “perfect” social theories, does not correspond to the actual facts of human nature. A lot of human nature is a hard-wired legacy of evolution, and is “designed” to fit the survival needs of small hunting bands of proto-humans. Mother nature goes for what works, not necessarily what is consistent. Part of our evolution is group-oriented, and part is individual. Any social theory that ignores these facts of human nature (both on the individual and group level) is doomed to failure. LIke Mother Nature, I like to go with what works.

    The complication is that the group-oriented instinctual tendencies, which work for small groups, do not necessarily scale. Nations are not hunting bands.

  • veryretired

    I generally refrain from posting in any comments section because of the uninterrupted nitpicking that goes on, (the last time I was told by some Weasel that I used the wrong word—horror overcame me and I needed several days of bed rest), but there are a few points to be made in this instance.
    The altruism-self interest debate is much too esoteric for the great majority of people because the definitions used are so very different and very emotionally charged. It was the fact that the US had little or no self interest in the Bosnian crisis that justified it for the left, so we were treated to the grotesque images of Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone and the rest of that clan of “peace” politicos marching up to the microphone in the Senate to loudly proclaim their support for the selfless adventure in Balkans, (under a Dem admin, of course), since it was not about oil. This made the campaign a humanitarian mission, and therefore good.
    These were the same screeching voices who vehemently opposed GW1 because there was oil involved, and therefore it was crudely (no pun intended) greedy and self-interested for the US to intervene. This “no war for oil” mantra was revived as one of the original objections to the possibility of GW2, and is still being referred to in the recent Wolfowitz flap as a prima facia proof that the war was immoral.
    Thus, for the left, and the many ordinary liberals who follow this line of thinking, the never ending involvement in the Balkans, going on for 7 or more years now, cannot be questioned or protested, even though it is a MILITARY action, because it is humanitarian(read:altruistic) endeavor. But preventing a known savage dictator from acquiring another countries’ oil(Kuwait), and setting himself up to either dominate or even occupy the primary Middle East producer(Saudi Arabia), must be opposed because it is so clearly in the self-interest of the US, and, by extension, the world business and trade system. That the job needed to be finished 12 years, and 47 million words in the UN, later changes nothing as far as this opposition is concerned.
    Until one realizes that there is nothing that could ever sway certain people to support a military action by the US in which the object is the fulfillment of a perceived self-interest of the liberal democratic capitalist system, their continued vehement oppostion seems mysterious and obtuse. It is not. It is predicated on a deep and abiding hatred of liberal democratic capitalism, and nothing that seems to promote that system is acceptable.

    Now, from the libertarian side, comes opposition based on exactly the opposite reading of the situation. The war is described as a humanitarian effort to liberate the Iraqi people, and the strict constructionists of the Randite view reject this altruistic justification, and criticize anyone who calls themselves libertarian and supports the war. This oppostition is also principled and somewhat mysterious, as one wonders how anyone committed to individual rights and human freedom could object to getting rid of Stalin Jr. and introducing the Iraqis, and through them a large and hopefully interested Arab community, to the possibilities of life in a constitutionally validated political system which respects individual rights.
    The purist of the Rand school, I would contend, makes 2 errors in this position. The first is the all too obvious fact that the rest of the world does not think or define the values involved in this matter as the purist does. The average American citizen does not object to the idea of a humanitarian motive, indeed, it is persuasive to a great many liberal and conservative citizens who might otherwise oppose military action in a less exigent case. For the political narrative surrounding the promotion of the effort to eschew this motive as “impure” and, therefore, unmentionalble as a justification would be foolish in the extreme.
    Secondly, the atmosphere of “politically correct” speech limitation prevents the spokespeople for the action from laying out the obvious aspects which enhance the self-intersts of the US in this situation, as this would be “bragging” or “insensitive”, etc. Contrary to much of the doom and gloom purveyed by the media, which must always seek out conflict, scandal, and problems of some kind, it seems that the reaction to the Iraqi regime’s quick fall is beneficial to the US. The average Iraqi is not particularly hostile, and, while there is still conflict, some progress is being made. Those who disparage the possibility of success in rebuilding Iraq as a democratic society seem to forget that the UK and the US are directly responsible for the present existence of several functioning democratic states around the world, some of which were not particularly receptive to constitutional principles before they came under our tutelage. Other nations in the Mideast and around the world are wary of a more assertive US, especially if they have been overtly hostile to our interests in the past. It cannot be a bad thing for the US to have the likes of Syria, Iran, North Korea, and some European states as well, operating with a little more concern that the US might just be less of a pushover and more likely to let the chips fall where they may. If this attitude is impolitic in today’s refined intellectual climate, then I must confess to being an unrefined blue collar guy who doesn’t mind it one bit that the image of a few US aircraft carriers in the Sea of Japan might disturb the rest of Kim Jong Il. He probably has nightmares to rival Caligula’s already.
    I certainly don’t disparage Mr. Silber or the various ideas of Ms. Rand. I found her writings to be especially valuable in identifying and understanding some of the psychological and mental contortions I see all around me. But I don’t believe her ideas are a straight jacket, nor are her disciples qualified to convene another Council of Trent, baptizing some and casting others out into the darkness of heresy to wail anf gnash their teeth.
    If others wish to comment on this post, or not, it is a matter of little concern to me. I do not argue with statists and others who feel the world doesn’t live up to their standards. I hope there is one person somewhere who will read this and think that I have said one good thing which helps them understand what is going on. Since I am too flawed to be a purist myself, their opinion means little to me, a mere mortal. I find this blog to be a valid attempt to combat the pervasive statist mindset in society, and certainly hope I have not abused your hospitality with this lengthy posting.

  • Question of the Day

    Surfing the blogs and reading the usual suspects in the usual propaganda outlets, I get the impression that the war hawks have settled on a response to the WMD snipe hunt fiasco and the broken promise of democracy fiasco. This is to respond to every bit of bad news — and every new sign of the administration’s bad faith — by snarling the question: “Well, would you have left Saddam in power?”

    This is the right-wing question de jour because they believe it puts opponents of the war in an impossible position. Say “yes,” and it doesn’t matter what else you say, the attack machine has you in its cross hairs. Say “no,” and the obvious response is “so what you are bitching about?”

    It’s a clever tactic — in a cheap, Mayberry Machiavelli sort of way. The kind of thing Grover Norquist and his storm troopers might think up at their little lunches and pass along to the RNC and its mouthpieces at Fox News.

    But it’s only a short-term fix, because the mess in Iraq is now the sole property of George W. Bush and the U.S. military. Saddam is gone, if not forgotten, and constantly reminding the world of his evil ways can only obscure the utter incompetence of our Iraq adventure for so long….

  • Scott Cattanach

    Sorry, the link above should have been

    http://billmon.org/archives/000197.html

  • Eric,

    The Randian rejection of group needs is extreme, and like many other “perfect” social theories, does not correspond to the actual facts of human nature. A lot of human nature is a hard-wired legacy of evolution, and is “designed” to fit the survival needs of small hunting bands of proto-humans. Mother nature goes for what works, not necessarily what is consistent. Part of our evolution is group-oriented, and part is individual. Any social theory that ignores these facts of human nature (both on the individual and group level) is doomed to failure. LIke Mother Nature, I like to go with what works.

    On the contrary, I believe Rand understood this hardwired need for ‘group-think’ very well, better than most philosophers, but she believed that morality required overcoming it with rationality. Just because humans have certain tendencies, it does not follow that we have to resign ourselves to them.

  • Jonathan: True, we can override our instincts temporarily to accomplish specific ends. But this requires continous attention and is not sustainable by default. Consider by anology the breathing reflex. We can hold our breath or regulate our breathing when we are paying attention to it, but our breathing is automatic and instinctual by default. Building a social system that depended on strictly regulated breathing at all times (somehow) would be doomed to failure. This is why Socalism and the “New Communist Man” is such a crock – it’s just not natural for people to behave that way, and the special behaviors needed can’t be sustained, except in small voluntary enclaves.

    While it is very possible to have a society that emphasized the interest of the individual more (and I am in favor of that), group needs and the instincts to fufill those needs cannot be denied in the long run either. I have always had the feeling that a healthy minarchist society would have more than a simply “robust” civil society – in fact in most communities it could end up being positively intrusive (and the places where it wasn’t wouldn’t be nearly as nice). While not using state force (laws and police), such societal forces for conformity to the local norm would probably take the form of shaming, shunning and the threat thereof. If you break the rules badly, your relatives and neighbors could make your life living hell. This *is* perferable to having the state get involved because you have choices: a) you can change your act and get with the program, or b) you can move somewhere else more congeinal to your personal proclivities, or c) you can take the heat for as long as you can stand it.

    But goup needs will be expressed somehow, and “libertarians” who expect to escape all that are deluding themselves.

  • Johnathan

    Paleo4ever – says that libertarianianism = anti-war, end of discussion.

    With that sort of attitude, sir/madam, you are unlikely to have much impact on the unconverted. I was trying, I thought, to float some ideas about whether the case for war of liberation could ever sit within the context of our broad philosophy. I think this is something worth engaging in.

    And the anti-war crowd could do themselves a favour by actually taking more care to look at the sort of folk they associated with, such as the ANSWER folk.

  • Eric Coe, I salute you. In practise, group interests DO predominate over individualism. They do it both in terms of their power over the human heart and in their capacity to achieve goals.

    In-group/out-group identification is something we in the west have become very bad at over the last forty years. Insomuch as individualism tends to obfuscate group identity and group goals it is very debilitating. This explains why neo-marxist identity politics, for example, has been able to make such unwelcome progress over the last forty years. A society atomised into self-interested individuals has no defence against group activity within.

    Without, however, is another matter since individuals have no impact on the global stage other than to promote inaction and, by extention, pacifism. Ah, you will say, but group self-interest is the issue here. Well, yes and no. Nations do not have the luxury of pursuing self-interest in all circumstances.

    As a jewess – and no group is more self-identifying than the jews – I wonder what Ayn Rand would have felt about Chamberlain’s self-interested appeasement of Hitler, and his eventual, altruistic declaration of war in support of Poland?

  • Johnathan

    I may be wrong, but I thought that Rand was against the US entry into the WW2.

  • If that is the case I defer. But did her objections undergo any change with the post-war public revelations of the death camps? Or did she remain true to herself, even to the point of opposing the liberation of Belsen, Auschwitz and the rest?

  • cydonia

    Johnathan (and others)

    It is quite wrong to suppose that anti-war libertarians have jumped blindly into bed with the loony folk at organisations like A.N.S.W.E.R.

    To the contrary, you are unlikely to find a more vitriolic excoriation of A.N.S.W.E.R than Justin Raimondo’s (very funny) piece at anti-war.com.

    Raimondo is of course vehemently anti-war, but nobody can seriously question his libertarian credentials and he is no more taken in by the loony lefties at A.N.S.W.E.R. than the rest of us.

    Cydonia

  • Cinquo

    i question Justin’s “libertarian” credentials. he is a a political Lenninist who has a fetish for true arch-statist nationalist/socialists such as Pat and the rest of the paleoconservative blowhards. true he is anti-liberation and pro-tyrant, but he is apprently pro-nationalized industry, “guarenteeing” every American a job, against brown people entering the country, etc.

  • Elizabeth

    If anyone is interested in reading more about Ayn Rand’s views on foreign policy – etc…
    read the Playboy Interview with Ayn Rand. I don’t have the link available to grab at the moment – but it is easy to find with one google search.

    Ayn Rand was born to a Jewish family in Russia.

    As well – I believe someone in comments equated Objectivism to anarchy and that is hardly the case.

  • cydonia

    Cinquo

    Re. Raimondo:

    1. “i question Justin’s “libertarian” credentials. he is a a political Lenninist”

    In his means, maybe, not his ends. And why not? If only libertarians could be as successful as Lennin at realising their goals!

    2. “who has a fetish for true arch-statist nationalist/socialists such as Pat and the rest of the paleoconservative blowhards.”

    He is sympathetic to Pat B because the old-right and the anti-war libertarians agree on certain important issues -including opposition to the bloated Federal Warfare State. Nothing unlibertarian about that, is there? It’s surely sensible politics to make alliances with people with whom you share common cause?.

    3. “true he is anti-liberation and pro-tyrant”

    Not sure what you mean. The “true” has me confused. And where is he “pro-tyrant”? (unless you mean that being anti-war makes somebody ipso facto pro-tyrant, in which case the statement is an empty one)

    4. “but he is apprently pro-nationalized industry, “guarenteeing” every American a job”

    Whaaat? Where’s your evidence for this?

    5. “against brown people entering the country, etc.”

    Libertarians can reasonably disagree on immigration, given the existence of a massive welfare state and the partial supression of private property and contractual rights. I’m all for free market immigration but current immigration law is nothing of the sort. Again, this is a perfectly reasonable libertarian perspective. I guess that many (most) on this board would agree that an unlimited immigration policy would be unworkable, given the current welfare State (unless one regards immigration as a means of subverting the Welfare State, but that’s a question of strategy, not principle)

    Cydonia

  • Eric,

    I believe we are in agreement. The hard-wired instinct for group-think can potentially be a good thing if it is channeled without violence, in the form of shaming, shunning, boycotts, etc.

  • Kit Taylor

    I am confused, but still tired of labels. If anyone reading this is also tired of being labeled, please accept this apology for my act of caring!

    Kit: Amen!

    I like “classical liberal,” amongst all these other spikey and frightening terms it has a certain warmth and nobility. Whilst all this deep philosophy is all jolly interesting on the level of academic thought, but all I want is as much freedom as a peaceful society can absorb.

    Cydonia: I’m all for free market immigration but current immigration law is nothing of the sort.

    Kit: Free immigration is a rather different moral entity to free trade. Just like buggery, free trade is a consensual act between an individual who wants to give (export) and an individual who wants to recieve (import). But immigrants can travel from country to country without anyone wanting them to.

    Heavy metal jew Ilana Mercer is always banging on about this sort of thing over at (where else?) WorldNetDaily.com.

    Mayday72: I have recently read arguments (including posts in this blog) of libertarians taking “unlibertarian” sides on issues such a drug decriminalization and abortion.

    Kit: Never understood pro-abortian libertarianism. Euthanasia is a personal choice some people (not me) consider immoral, but abortion is murder by simple logic. Liberty requires that an individual’s body is their own property, and because only time separates the genetically unique embryo/foetus/Mekon-like infant thing from the rest of us it is entitled to the same protection from violent theft as the rest of us.

    Perhaps there will be a juicy thread on the topic soon.

  • T. J. Madison

    Once again:

    THE GOAL: More freedom of action for all humans.

    THE STRATEGY: WHATEVER WORKS.

    If statism gets us more freedom, we should use statism. (seems unlikely) If global US hegemony gets us more freedom, we should support US hegemony. If minarchy/kritarchy/anarchy/etc. get us more freedom, we should support those. If strong property rights are necessary for more freedom, we should implement them. “Libertarian principles” are useful to the extent their implementation futhers THE GOAL, and no further.

    Important caveat: we want LONG TERM freedom. Any plan which yields freedom today and annihilation tomorrow is a bad plan.

    Everyone here is getting all heated because they think there’s a dispute about ETHICS. There isn’t — the dispute about TACTICS. We can sort all this out empirically like rational people.

  • cydonia

    Kit:

    “Cydonia: I’m all for free market immigration but current immigration law is nothing of the sort.

    Kit: Free immigration is a rather different moral entity to free trade. Just like buggery, free trade is a consensual act between an individual who wants to give (export) and an individual who wants to recieve (import). But immigrants can travel from country to country without anyone wanting them to.”

    Kit, I think we agree with each other.

    What I was trying to say was that it is not unlibertarian to object to unlimited immigration, given the existence of a Welfare State.

    As with so many issues, in a libertarian society the point just wouldn’t arise. In a society of pure private property, nobody could emigrate to where they weren’t wanted, in just the same way as (even now) nobody can emigrate into my house if I don’t want them there. So all immigration would be consensual (like trade). That’s what I meant by “free market” immigration.

    Cydonia

  • T. J. Madison: Yes. Practicality is the essence to me. It is my judgement (biased, of course, since I am an American), that a global US hegemony at this time in history will most likely further the long-term cause of freedom world-wide. The US has a very good track record as a world power – far better than the has-been imperial states of Europe that critisize it (the Axis of Weasels). I basically agree with the “Neocon” diagnosis and prescription for how to deal with the threat of Islamic terror and the dangerous states in the ME.

    But that is today – and tomorrow things might be different. As a US citizen that loves my country and the liberties I do have, it is in my interest to make sure that “mission creep” or corruption does not overwhelm our good intentions in this large undertaking (in Iraq and elsewhere). It is in my interest to make sure that “hegemony” (the pre-emminent power to make things happen) does not morph into “empire” (power for the sake of power). The largest danger in this regard is another major hit in the continental USA, like 9/11 or worse. We got the misbegotten “Patriot Act” as a result of the total panic on the floor of congress after that event (and the anthrax mailings). I hate to think what a repeat would do.

    Proactively preventing this by taking the fight to the enemy (who is not just the Taliban or OBL, but an entire diseased culture) is entirely justified and prudent. It’s a sharp departure from reactions in the past, but as the cliche goes: “9/11 changed everything”.

  • Much more now on all of this at my place. The general link will take you there; it’s at the top.
    Best,
    Arthur

  • Richard Garner

    Suppose there is a big bully. He has bullied lots of others quite severely. Now, suppose I tell everybody that this bully is capable of hurting me, so I will get him first. I then bomb the bully’s house, killing, as it turns out, a good number of his victims, but possibly not even killing the bully himself.

    Then, much to my embaressment I can’t find any evidence that the bully was even a threat to me, in capacity or intention. Is it right to me to pass off my actions as actually being intended to protect the victims from the bully? Can I now say, “ah well, but look at the victims we have saved (apart from the dead ones – an inevitable part of saving the other; in fact lets pretend we haven’t killed them by referring to some collective category that all the victims belonged to and say we liberated that entire category whilst not actually saying that we only liberated some of them and killed others)?

  • Calixto

    As I recall, Rand explicitly stated that tyrannies and dictatorships did not have any rights that free nations need respect, and that whenever it was in the self-interest of the free nation, it could invade and depose the tyranny.

    I don’t have the quote or the source at hand, but I do know that she stated this several times.

    The woman was quite a hawk, in favor of the Mayaguez incident, the Vietnam War, a blockade (not just an embargo) on Cuba, and an embargo of the entire Communist block.

    The only question here, assuming Ms. Rand was here considering the situation, is whether deposing the tyrant Saddam was in the US and UK’s interests.

    I personally think that is the case. Others may disagree.