Paleoconservatism and the war in Iraq, Part III
In the two previous posts in this series (here and here), I argued that the war in Iraq can clearly be defended from the point of view of traditional just war theory, as expressed in the undeniably conservative Catholic manuals of ethics and moral theology widely used before Vatican II. For this reason, those paleoconservatives and traditionalist Catholics who claim that the war is "manifestly unjust" -- such as the editors of the recent anthology Neo-CONNED! -- have no credible basis for this allegation. But this naturally raises questions about why they would make such an allegation in the first place, and why they have been so extremely vituperative in their criticism of the war and its defenders. These are the questions I want to address in this third and final post in the series.
No doubt some would suggest that various non-rational factors – personal grievances, resentment at the political marginalization of paleoconservatism, etc. – account for the polemical excesses in question. Perhaps this is part of the story. But there are also some substantive philosophical reasons why paleoconservatives have not only opposed the war, but have done so in such an excessively polemical way. As it turns out, however, these reasons have nothing essentially to do with just war theory, traditional Catholicism, or conservatism. Indeed, in some cases they are even radically at odds with the latter.
Anti-war paleoconservatives can, I think, be classified into four main categories. Each category represents a distinctive temperament or philosophical outlook that accounts for its adherents’ violent opposition to the war. They are, for want of a better set of labels: 1. The anarchists, 2. The Third Positionists, 3. The isolationists, and 4. The cultural pessimists. I should say that I am somewhat uncomfortable with this classification. In particular, I am uneasy about lumping the first two categories together with the last two. For as we shall see, there is in fact nothing the least bit “conservative” (paleo or otherwise) about the first two groups, and many paleoconservatives would probably rather have nothing to do with them. Still, some members of the first two groups do seem to regard themselves as paleoconservatives and/or are often so classified by others. And sometimes (as in the Neo-CONNED! anthology, for example) members of all four groups seem willing enough to join ranks in a broadly “right-wing” anti-war alliance. So the classification has a sociological basis, even if it is philosophically unsatisfying. Anyway, let’s examine each of these categories in turn.
1. The anarchists:
Anarchism is usually considered a left-wing tendency, but there is a right-wing variant, an offshoot from libertarianism that takes the principle of laissez-faire to the absolute extreme, advocating the complete abolition of government and the privatization of all the services it currently provides, including defense, police, and courts of law. Often referred to as “anarcho-capitalism,” its best known proponents are Murray Rothbard and David Friedman (son of the more moderate libertarian Milton Friedman). Some libertarians, and for all I know maybe even some anarcho-capitalists, support the war in Iraq. And even many libertarians who oppose it have expressed their opposition in measured tones, faulting the judgment but not the motives of the war’s defenders.
However, the followers of Rothbard’s brand of anarcho-capitalism, centered around such online publications as LewRockwell.com and Antiwar.com, have been polemical in the extreme. By their lights, it is impossible to support the war in Iraq without being a “warmonger” and a “fascist” (indeed, a “Red State fascist”), a drone-like puppet of “The Maximum Leader” (i.e. George Bush) glued to the “Fox War Channel” and taking his marching orders from the “National (Socialist) Review.” In short, the style of “argument” deployed by Rothbardians rarely rises above the level of the most vulgar leftist pamphleteer, and there is little in the Rothbardian “analysis” of the war that couldn’t be enthusiastically endorsed by an aging hippie or a young Maoist. Indeed, the visitor to one of these websites is sure to find the latest Chomsky or Michael Moore production duly publicized and cooed over.
To be sure, there are Rothbardians who would frankly acknowledge their broadly left-of-center sympathies. But most of them seem clearly to be culturally conservative, and several of them write as often for expressly paleoconservative publications as for anarcho-capitalist ones. Moreover, many of them are avowed Catholics, sometimes of a traditionalist bent. Whence their uniformly extreme hostility to the war, then, given that it is, as I have argued, perfectly defensible from the point of view of the undeniably conservative Catholic just war tradition?
The answer lies in the radically subversive and paranoid nature of the Rothbardian picture of the world, which can, I think, fairly be summarized as follows: (1) Private property rights are absolute, so (2) Taxation is theft, and therefore (3) Government, which relies on taxation to fund its purported “protection services” (police, military, etc.), is intrinsically immoral. Indeed, since (4) A mafia racket is the paradigm case of extorted payment in return for “protection,” then (5) Government amounts to nothing less than a gigantic criminal enterprise and its officials are the worst sorts of gangsters. But then, since (6) The Mafioso’s standard line about being nothing more than an “honest businessman” is a cynical pretense, then (7) The reasons government officials give for their actions can generally be dismissed as a smokescreen intended to hide their true motives.
These claims are explicitly put forward by Rothbard in several places (e.g. The Ethics of Liberty), and the analysis presented by Rothbard and his followers of the history of American foreign policy in the 20th century suggests some further corollaries, which follow, in any case, from the theses outlined above: Since (8) The United States government is by far the most powerful government on earth, it follows that (9) The United States government is also the greatest criminal enterprise on earth. And given (7), then (10) Whatever reasons the officials of the United States government give for a certain course of action (e.g. going to war), we can safely dismiss them, or at least regard them as highly suspicious, since it is likely that they are intended to distract us from some hidden and sinister motivation. In short, the United States is in the Rothbardian scheme of things an “Evil Empire” and its actions in the world can be presumed to be the chief source of international tensions. Opposition to the war in Iraq, then, follows as a matter of course, and any evidence or theory, however crackpot, which indicates venality or dishonesty on the part of American officials is reflexively given the benefit of the doubt.
One of the many striking things about this worldview is how closely it parallels Marxism. The Marxist regards capitalist labor contracts rather than taxation as the paradigm of exploitation, and would emphasize a worker’s claim only to the fruits of his labor rather than to external resources. But otherwise the basic structure of the system is eerily similar: the Marxist regards the state, which safeguards the profits of the capitalist, as the chief agent of capitalist oppression, and consequently regards the United States, which is both the most powerful state on earth and (at least by reputation) the most capitalist country on earth, as uniquely evil. Moreover, the Marxist theory of ideology advises us to consider every official rationale for state action as a smokescreen for vested interests. And Marxist and Rothbardian alike regard human history as a long nightmare of oppression from which we are only now awakening thanks to the advent of a sound economic theory, the application of which is our only hope for liberation.
Indeed, Rothbard and his followers seem in other ways too to ape standard Marxist themes. Despite their fervent adherence to capitalism, they regularly denounce large corporations (Halliburton, big oil, big media, etc.) as government’s partners-in-crime, manipulating its officials to their own ends and beholden to its favors; they speak and think in capitalized abstractions, substituting “The State” for “Capital” and endlessly analyzing “its” motives and actions; they divide society into inherently hostile classes, the exploiters (government officials and recipients of governmental benefits) and the exploited (taxpayers and those subject to governmental regulations); they have a tendency to reduce all social and political problems to economic ones; they believe that when a “stateless society” is finally achieved, many of the social problems previous generations regarded as an inevitable part of the human condition will disappear, having in reality been generated by state oppression; they constantly attribute selfish financial interests and other hidden motives to those expressing dissent from the Rothbardian line and/or support for American policy; and they often evince a greater sympathy for what the Marxist would refer to as the “objective allies” of their cause than for those who might seem notionally closer to them. Hence, just as certain Stalinists were quite happy to ally with Hitler against the capitalist West while vilifying Trotskyites and other heretical communists, so too are Rothbardians constantly excusing or minimizing the crimes of various dictators as long as they oppose the United States, while excoriating less extreme libertarians and free-marketers for “selling out” to “The State” and its officials. (See here for discussion of several examples.)
Another striking thing about the Rothbardian worldview, especially given that several of its most prominent adherents are avowed Catholics, is how thoroughly incompatible it is with the Catholic, natural law, and just war traditions. For example, the very first condition of Catholic just war theory is that war can only ever be carried out by a state, and never by a private individual or organization. But Rothbardians hold the state to be intrinsically evil, and insist that it is precisely private security firms alone, motivated by profit and providing a commercial “service” like any other, who can legitimately take military action. Rothbardianism thus flatly contradicts Catholic just war theory, so that a war fought on Rothbardian grounds would have to be regarded as “manifestly unjust” from the point of view of that theory. And yet Catholic Rothbardians, of all people, often claim that they are merely following just war theory in condemning the war in Iraq!
The natural law tradition and the popes have also constantly taught that property rights are not absolute; Rothbardians say they are. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly taught that the state is a natural institution ordained by God; Rothbardians say the state is a mere human creation, and an inherently evil one at that. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly taught that citizens have a duty to pay taxes within just limits; Rothbardians say that all taxation is immoral. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly condemned the thesis that society is a war between hostile classes, and insist on an organic view of society in which each component, including government, complements the others; Rothbardians, like Marxists, divide society into exploiters and exploited. The natural law tradition and the popes, while acknowledging the legitimacy of the free market within just limits, have constantly condemned dogmatic adherence to the principle of laissez-faire; Rothbardians regard the slightest deviation from laissez-faire as unjust. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly insisted that it is at least possible for a wage freely agreed to on the market to be nevertheless unjust; Rothbardians insist that the market wage can never be unjust. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly insisted that there can be no natural right to do what is intrinsically immoral, such as using illicit drugs and viewing pornography; Rothbardians insist that everyone has a natural right to do these things, even if immoral. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly condemned abortion as inherently unjust; Rothbard, in The Ethics of Liberty, describes the unwanted human fetus as a “coercive parasite” and a “parasitic invader,” and holds that a woman has a “perfect right” to abortion. The natural law tradition and the popes have constantly taught that parents have an obligation in justice to provide for their children while still minors and that children have an obligation to obey their parents; Rothbard says that parents who refuse to provide for their children, while callous, do them no injustice thereby, that children of every age have an “absolute right” to run away from home, and that it would be “enslavement” for parents to refuse to recognize this right.
Now I was, I should acknowledge, myself once committed to the theses labeled (1) and (2) above (though Nozickian considerations, and conservative ones, kept me from ever moving on to the others), but it was precisely an immersion in classical natural law thinking that gradually convinced me to abandon them. And it is astonishing how anyone familiar with the Catholic natural law tradition could think Rothbard’s system compatible with it. Yet Catholic Rothbardians frequently accuse pro-war Catholics of disloyalty to the pope. On their view, it seems, Catholic supporters of the war in Iraq are forbidden to disagree with a pope’s merely prudential judgments, but the acolytes of St. Murray of the Holy Anarchy have a special dispensation from obedience to centuries of unbroken papal teaching on matters of moral principle.
It is equally obvious that Rothbard’s system is utterly incompatible with conservatism, “paleo” or otherwise. The conservative upholds authority, and realizes that this does not mean authoritarianism but rather a middle ground between authoritarianism and anarchy. The conservative distrusts political abstractions and understands that any view which assimilates all governments – local and federal, democratic and autocratic, Roosevelt’s, Reagan’s, and Hitler’s – to a single analytical model, as if their differences were less significant than the fact that they are all instantiations of “The State,” is crude ideology rather than serious political thought. The conservative upholds a vision of politics, economics, and social order in general that is either identical to the natural law conception described above or at least very close to it. And so forth.
It is clear, then, why those Rothbardians who regard themselves as “paleoconservatives” and “Catholic traditionalists” would oppose the war in Iraq with such vitriol. But the very reasons which explain their fierce opposition also completely undermine their claim to be consistent in their conservatism or adherence to Catholic tradition. (And in fairness, it ought to be noted that many paleoconservatives and Catholic traditionalists have themselves been extremely critical of the Rothbardians in their ranks.)
2. The Third Positionists:
National Socialism used to present itself as a “third way” between capitalism and communism. Apparently it still does. Something called the “International Third Position” presents itself as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated global economy, and draws its inspiration from various anti-Semitic, nationalist, socialist, and national socialist lines of thinking. These people are, thankfully, so marginal that there would be no point in mentioning them at all except for this: as it happens, the editors and publishers of the Neo-CONNED! series seem to be prominent figures in this “movement” (“prominent” being a relative term). See here and here for some details.
Now, there’s certainly no mystery why people with such views would oppose the war in Iraq. Like all opponents of capitalism, they are bound to regard the United States with hatred and suspicion. Like all nationalists, they are bound to despise the American tendency to emphasize a shared creed, rather than blood and tribe, as definitive of national loyalty, and to fear the export of this tendency. Furthermore, national socialists cannot help but have a soft spot for Baathism, which is of course but the local Arab franchise of their system of thought. And anti-Semites will oppose any policy that might benefit Israel. (No, that is not meant to imply that anyone who criticizes Israeli policy is an anti-Semite, so please spare me any irate comments on that score.)
There is also no doubt that this kind of thinking is incompatible with conservatism, Catholicism, and natural law theory. As I have noted elsewhere (here and here), national socialism (like its components nationalism and socialism) is just one post-Enlightenment modernist ideology among others, a pseudo-scientific hodge-podge of crackpot economics, vulgarized Darwinism, and biologically reductionist race theory. Like Marxism, it is an attempt to supplant the traditional Judeo-Christian conception of human nature with a purely materialistic one. Like other versions of what Hayek called “constructivist rationalism,” it supposes that human society can be re-conceived and restructured from top to bottom, in line with some novel system of categories that is purportedly more rational and scientific than traditional modes of thought. Like leftist thinking generally, though, it also sometimes manifests a contrary tendency, toward Luddite-ism and a “back to the land” nostalgia that contrasts an idealized peasant life with the decadence of the modern city-dweller. This faux antiquarianism, appealing as it does to an invented past a la Rousseau, is more reflective of the romantic and irrationalist strains within the Enlightenment than of the natural law or conservative traditions.
In fairness to paleoconservatives, it must be emphasized that most of them would no doubt strongly condemn this sort of stuff, and not want to be associated with it. Moreover, I suspect that many if not most of the contributors to the Neo-CONNED! volumes had no idea they were getting themselves involved with some questionable people. But the popularity of the volumes in paleoconservative circles has, however inadvertently, given these people some influence. So it is worthwhile pointing out how here, as with Rothbardianism, what seems like “paleoconservative” or “traditionalist” criticism of the war in fact stems from attitudes that every conservative and traditionalist ought to shun.
3. The isolationists:
Isolationism is a perfectly respectable attitude, and given its prominence in American history, it is understandable why many paleoconservatives would regard its abandonment as a betrayal of conservative principle. Moreover, critics of the war motivated primarily by a pragmatic desire to avoid foreign entanglements, rather than by some extreme ideology a la Rothbardianism, have avoided the excesses of the most shrill critics.
Still, isolationism is not in fact essential to conservatism; certainly there is nothing in the tradition of conservative thought from Burke to Scruton that requires isolationism as a component of conservative foreign policy. Rather, isolationism seems to be a contingent feature of the early American experience, an artifact of the circumstance that the United States started out its existence safely sheltered (apart from the wars of 1775-83 and 1812, anyway) from goings-on in other parts of the world, in an age when two large oceans sufficed to provide such shelter. Indeed, if anything it reflects the liberal component of the American founding, a desire to disentangle the new world as far as possible from the old and its Ancien Régime. Any conservatism that defines itself in terms of isolationism is, accordingly, merely seeking to codify liberal precedent. To this extent, today’s “paleoconservative” is really just yesterday’s “neoconservative.”
Isolationism is also no part of the just war tradition, as should be obvious from the survey of that tradition provided in the first two posts in this series. Of course, this does not mean that isolationism is incompatible with either conservatism or just war theory. The point is just that it is has no essential connection to them. A conservative or a just war theorist, qua conservative or just war theorist, may or may not also be an isolationist. In any case, isolationism is, in my estimation, a mistake. Given the global economy and the possibility of bringing a nation to its knees with a suitcase-sized nuclear weapon or a vial of toxin, it is folly to pretend that what happens elsewhere in the world need be of no concern to us.
On the other hand, the sort of world government or quasi-government advocated by some of the contributors to Neo-CONNED! also seems dangerously utopian. The values that motivate most of the people who, as things now stand, would end up implementing and administering such an institution – bureaucrats and activists of the U.N., European Union, and Amnesty International stripe – are diametrically opposed to anything recognizably conservative. Nor, I think, is this merely a contingent fact reflecting current circumstances. For given that a world government would be tied and answerable to no one nation in particular, its officials would inevitably become out of touch with the thinking of ordinary citizens and come to see their allegiance as belonging primarily to other bureaucrats, and indeed to the world bureaucracy itself. They would also tend to see the world in terms of the dangerous abstractions that underlie socialism and other forms of constructivist rationalism. As Roger Scruton has argued, workable political institutions can only function against the background of the sort of shared sense of values and identity provided by a nation and its culture. Finally, a world government would be a monopoly, and subject therefore to all the problems any monopoly exhibits; worse, it would be a monopoly with a world army.
If isolationism and world government are unworkable, though, what alternative is left? Here’s one possibility: a government that is powerful enough to preserve world order on its own, but not so monopolistically powerful that other governments might not in principle come to compete with and challenge it if it should ever become overbearing and corrupt; a government which is tied to a particular nation and answerable to its citizens so that it has some tether to real world facts and, through elections, a built-in correction mechanism; and a government of a nation in which the Judeo-Christian moral code every conservative treasures is still operative and has an influence on policy. I submit that the United States is only nation on earth that fits this bill.
Does this mean that the U.S. ought to intervene at will around the globe wherever trouble occurs? Not at all. The principle of subsidiarity, which is central to the Catholic and natural law traditions, tells us that problems ought to be handled by those who, because of special obligations and intimate knowledge, are closest to them, with larger and more encompassing agencies intervening only when smaller ones cannot do the job on their own. Applied to the question at hand, this seems to imply that the presumption is always in favor of regional crises being handled by regional powers – European problems handled by European governments, South American problems by South American government, and so forth. American intervention would not be called for except where American wealth, military power, and the like make the U.S. the only power capable of dealing with a problem. And American power should also be used only where American interests are clearly at stake. This principle of acting only when enlightened self-interest calls for it benefits the U.S. itself insofar as it will make it less likely that American lives and treasure will be lost without good cause. But it also benefits other countries insofar as it makes it less likely that the U.S. will inadvertently do harm by acting out of idealistic sentiment disconnected from concrete reality. Self-interest has its drawbacks, but it does at least force one to pay careful attention to objective facts.
If you want to call this “empire,” I have no objection, as long as it is kept in mind that what I am talking about is neither a pagan empire of the Roman sort – raw self-interest without enlightenment, as it were – nor airy-fairy Wilsonian idealism – pseudo-“enlightenment” without self-interest. That is a false choice. Nor should conservatives dismiss such an idea out of hand, especially not if they have (as many of the Neo-CONNED! writers do) any sympathy for the Catholic and natural law traditions. The history of Western Civilization is, after all, a history of empires (some of them Catholic empires) – the Christianized Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the Holy Roman Empire and its Austrian successor, the Spanish empire, the British empire, and so forth – that for all their many flaws often did much good, not the least of which was defending the West militarily from a thousand years of relentless jihadist aggression. If it has fallen to the United States to pick up this ancient mantle, then it has every right – indeed a duty – to pick it up.
4. The cultural pessimists:
This brings us at last to the cultural pessimists. These are people who think that the United States is not only going to hell in a hand basket, but has already gotten so close to its infernal destination that it has become effectively pagan and bereft of any vestige of the Judeo-Christian moral inheritance. Even mainstream conservatives, on this view, are merely the respectable face of this corruption, insincere “neocon” sycophants to power whose talk of family values is just a ruse to win over the votes of hapless red state bumpkins. For the cultural pessimists, when the United States acts around the world, it is not to defend Western civilization but only to spread an antinomian liberalism and destroy all traditional morality in the name of a bogus “freedom.” In the words of Neo-CONNED! contributor John Rao, America is “decadent, belligerent, and incorrigible” and the war in Iraq is just the latest chapter in its campaign to spread the ethos of Hollywood and the Castro District across the entire globe, by force if necessary. To hear these people talk, you’d think that the next item on the Bush agenda is to invade Vatican City, arrest and try the pope, and impose upon the tiny populace of priests, nuns, and Swiss Guards the full leftist cultural program: abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, the works.
The irony, of course, is that it is the European political elites whose opposition to the war the paleocons regard as so heroic who are the most keen to wipe out every last vestige of Judeo-Christian moral influence on public policy. They regard the Bush administration as a medieval throwback, and the president’s opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem-cell research as the Inquisition redivivus. Many among them seem intent on outlawing any expression of traditional sexual morality within the boundaries of the European Union, and on proclaiming abortion as a universal human right. They ridicule the president for referring frequently to God, and indeed even to Jesus Christ specifically, while the European Union refuses to insert even a bland historical acknowledgement of the continent’s Christian heritage into its constitution. Not surprisingly, the Vatican regards the United States under Bush as its most reliable ally on fundamental moral issues, and frets that the European continent has become almost totally apostate. And yet it is the Bible-reading family man Bush – rather than the womanizer Gerhard Schroeder, or Saddam’s good friend and business partner Jacques Chirac, or José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who took Spain out of Iraq while bringing homosexual marriage into Spain – whom the paleocons want to label “Caligula.”
What accounts for this lunacy, I think, is that certain paleoconservatives paradoxically both underestimate and overestimate the degree to which contemporary Western society has gone to the dogs. They underestimate it to the extent that they think that if the Republican party and mainstream conservative movement really were genuinely conservative, then abortion would by now be a distant memory and the idea of same-sex marriage would still be confined to the pages of absurdist Swiftian satire. They overestimate it insofar as they conclude from this false conditional and the denial of its consequent that the antecedent must be denied as well, i.e. that in general Republicans and so-called conservatives are really just liberals in disguise. The truth, I submit, is in fact simultaneously more hopeful and more depressing than that. The majority of people in the mainstream conservative movement and among its writers and thinkers really are committed to the same Judeo-Christian moral inheritance that paleoconservatives want to preserve. But many of the fundamental institutions of our society – the universities and schools, most of the press, government bureaucracies, corporate boards, and so forth – are permeated by an ethos that is diametrically opposed to that inheritance, and this ethos has also come to prevail in an enormous portion of the electorate. The upshot is that conservatives can gain power only by softening their message – and even then, it seems, now only in very close elections – and then find that once in power it is incredibly difficult to implement a truly conservative program. The bureaucracy and the electorate just don’t want it, or at least don’t want to fight for it.
Now it is no doubt true that too many conservatives have imbibed too much of the liberal sensibility that pervades our culture. They are overly sensitive to the charge of being insensitive (hence the label “compassionate conservatism”). In defending conservative positions, they resort too frequently to arguments that halfway buy into the individualistic and therapeutic premises they ought to be combating (suggesting, for example, that abortion may hurt women’s self-esteem, when what matters is whether it amounts to murder). But this sort of thing reflects muddle-headedness, weakness of will, and an excessive concern with political packaging, rather than cynical insincerity.
It is also true, as I have just acknowledged, that the United States has moved very far away from traditional Judeo-Christian morality. Operationally, the United States is at best a 45-55% conservative country. This means that there is no guarantee that the trends deplored by all conservatives, paleo and otherwise, can be reversed. But it also means that the U.S. has a better shot at reversing them than any other major Western nation, given that most of the others have become almost completely secularized and liberal. The glass is probably not even half full, but it is also still a good way from being empty. American conservatives, unlike their European and Canadian counterparts, have a real shot at preventing same-sex marriage, putting limits on abortion (including possibly overturning Roe v. Wade), and keeping euthanasia at bay. At the very least, they will almost certainly be able to preserve the right of conservatives to express their views in public and pass their values on to their children. This is cold comfort, to be sure, but it may be more than will soon be possible in Canada and Europe, where the “soft totalitarianism” of political correctness threatens to make it impossible for parents to provide their children with a traditional moral and religious education, for a priest, rabbi, or minister to preach traditional sexual morality, or for a church to decide on the content of its creed without state approval. (Click here and follow the links at the bottom for several examples.)
Paleoconservatives should remember that their own standard bearer Pat Buchanan said in 1992 that the first President Bush “is on our side” in the “cultural war” – this about a man who was less conservative on moral and social issues than his son is. They ought also to acknowledge the invaluable work neoconservatives have done in restating and defending traditional moral truths in the only language liberal policy makers understand, that of social science. And if they fear that such an approach threatens to give away too much of the philosophical store to liberalism, the right thing to do is to supplement it with a rigorous presentation of more traditional arguments, not snipe and jeer from the sidelines. Nor, in any case, have neoconservatives lacked moral courage in upholding unpopular conservative positions in the face of liberal ridicule. The journal Commentary has repeatedly run articles critical of the reductionistic pretensions of Darwinians. Stanley Kurtz, in The Weekly Standard and elsewhere, has argued vigorously against same-sex marriage. First Things has consistently defended the legitimacy of bringing not only conservative but even specifically religious arguments to bear on issues of public policy. And so forth. It is hard to see in such “neoconservatism” the liberal Trojan horse of paleoconservative fantasy. And it is ludicrous to suggest that the war in Iraq is somehow part and parcel of a diabolical “neocon” plot to spread leftism throughout the globe – especially given that the war is, as I have argued, eminently defensible on traditional conservative principles.
Conclusion
It is a very serious thing to go to war. The president’s critics have been correct to demand a justification for such action, and to reserve the right to raise questions about its progress and prospects for success. There is nothing unpatriotic or objectionable about merely opposing a war or questioning the wisdom of those who support it.
But it is also a very serious thing to accuse a president of “manifest injustice,” to characterize one’s own country as a force for evil in the world, and smugly to tell one’s countrymen that the blood of their sons and daughters has been wasted in the service of that evil. Critics of the war who make such outrageous (and, I have argued, unsupportable) claims disgrace themselves and dishonor their country, and that they fail to perceive this disgrace and dishonor only compounds the offense. It is especially disgraceful when self-described conservatives do this, adopting the shrill rhetoric, “hermeneutics of suspicion,” and slash-and-burn tactics of Marxists and other enemies of everything conservatives regard as the prerequisites to a humane and rational political order.
To say that such people provide aid and comfort to the enemy is not a cheap exercise in hyperbole, but a statement of cold hard fact. The bin Ladens of the world are convinced that the United States is, in Rao’s words, “decadent, belligerent, and incorrigible” – that it is the chief source of evil in the modern world, that its leaders are corrupt, and that its people have no stomach for a protracted conflict with the forces of Islamism. Their fondest wish is to humiliate the United States the way they humiliated the Soviets in Afghanistan. A pullout from Iraq, especially on the grounds that the war was a “manifest injustice” grounded in deception, would completely vindicate them not only in their own eyes but in the eyes of much of the world. And that a sizable number of Americans, on both the far left and the far right, more or less endorse their analysis of American policy can only reinforce their sense of the justice of their cause and fortify them in the pursuit of their goal.
Critics of the war rightly point out that bin Laden has specified certain elements of American foreign policy – support for Israel, the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia, and so forth – rather than a hatred for “freedom” as the source of his hostility to us. But they err in thinking that this fact supports their position. First of all, that bin Laden or anyone else objects to a certain policy, even to the point of being willing to kill over it, by itself does nothing whatsoever to show that the policy is an unjust or even unwise one. Presumably Hitler was opposed to Lend-Lease program and Stalin to the Marshall Plan, but no sane person would consider this a good reason to think that these policies were bad.
Secondly, the reason bin Laden opposes the policies in question has nothing to do with the Leninist theory of imperialism, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, or any other analytical tool the most shrill critics of the war have applied to American policy. Rather, the bin Ladenists see all American and Israeli actions in light of the 1,400-year conflict between Islam and the West. For them, America is, first and foremost, not the chief exemplar of capitalism or statism, but rather the modern successor to the Crusading powers of Western Europe, and Israel a kind of reincarnation of the Crusader kingdom. The “injustices” they perceive are not at the most fundamental level economic or political in nature, but religious: America’s sin, and Israel’s, is to have usurped the “rightful” claim of Islam over former Muslim territories like Palestine (territories which, it must be remembered, Muslims themselves acquired by military conquest), and to have interfered with the exclusive right of Islamist rulers (i.e. people like bin Laden) to determine the political and cultural goings-on of the Muslim world. The reason bin Laden does not like the Arab rulers America has supported is not because they are dictators but because they are not his kind of dictators. And his war is not a war of liberation but a war to subjugate, or re-subjugate, the entire Islamic world, current and former – including Iraq, including Israel, and perhaps including even Spain and beyond (given his references to “Andalusia”) – and bring it under the rule of the mullahs. Imagine the Taliban in power from Madrid to Indonesia and you’ll have a sense of what drives the bin Ladenist to blow himself up, along with innocent men, women, and children – everything is permitted in his mad quest to reverse the “humiliation” of centuries and restore the glory of the Caliphate. And should anything like it ever be restored – even if only through a patchwork alliance of states ruled by like-minded mullahs – only a fool would imagine that it would be satisfied to remain within its historical borders.
Paleoconservatives, given their purported regard for history, should of all people recognize that this conflict cannot be understood except in such long-range terms. They should reject with scorn the simple-minded notion that our enemies’ hostility can be tidily accounted for in terms of recent American foreign policy, and mollified by a return to isolationism. This is a war, not for oil, not for Halliburton, but for the West itself. Our enemy is far weaker militarily, but potentially stronger spiritually, willing to die to the last man for his cause and utterly untroubled by self-doubt and dissension within the ranks. And that is an advantage that could matter more in the long run. Reasonable criticism, loyal opposition to the administration in power, is one of the glories and strengths of the West. But a brand of paleoconservatism that seeks to cast doubt, not merely on the wisdom of a particular military action, but on the very legitimacy of the modern West itself, threatens to become what James Burnham said liberalism was: an “ideology of Western suicide.”
Comments
I read as much of this as I could, and I found nothing new here whatever. It is a restatement of the usual calumnies alongside a reiteration of a fantastical hallucination that George Bush's Messianic crusade—rooted in a lie, resulting in killed innocents on all sides, leaving nothing its wake but seething anger and civil war—has something to do the defense of the "West."
John Paul II was right that this war "threatens the fate of humanity"; Benedict XVI has even called for a tightening of just war standards to make it impossible for such imperial impositions to be seen as just: "There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war.'"
To come to defense of this war and attack its opponents with vehemence strikes me as a sad waste of your intellectual powers.
Why expend such righteous anger in the defense of bloodshed and destruction? Why do it in the name of Catholic piety? This is part of your repudiation of the libertarianism you once embraced? This is where your evolution as a thinker has led? Who can't but wince?
Posted by: Jeffrey Tucker | March 20, 2006 3:21 PM
Well, I've never engaged, as far as I can remember, in any of the extreme rhetoric you cite here, though I do very broadly speaking oppose the Iraq war for paleocon types of reasons.
I think you dismiss the "isolationist" objection far too swiftly. You seem pretty unworried about any objections anyone might have to a quasi-empire. Sure, isolationism isn't "of the essence of conservatism." But what is? 'Conservatism' can have a lot of definitions. (There are neocons of the Jeffrey Hart school who would hold that being pro-life isn't "of the essence of conservatism.") So that's not really a very important point.
More relevant, I would argue, is that the anti-empire attitude is an important outgrowth of certain ideas that should be important to conservatives, that they shouldn't toss out lightly. Take, for example, small federal government. It can't really get very small, and taxes can't be cut back very much, if we have to maintain our armed forces all over the place. What about the idea of loyalty to a specific country and of military service as an expression thereof? My impression here is that "national interest" is a fairly loose category, despite the reference to its being "clearly at stake." This impression is only strengthened by the reference to "preserv[ing] world order." If the latter is in any degree our goal, then "national interest" can be construed fairly elastically and need not refer to some real, specific, and urgent threat to us from the specific country in question. And the reference to letting Europe or South America deal with its own problems is hardly comforting, given the weakness and relative poverty of the governments in those places and the implication that we'll step in if they can't. Given widespread U.S. trade interests, we have an interest in peace and order almost anywhere in the world. We could (and I think, often are) talking about sending our armies to fight in places and for causes where our national interest is quite broadly understood and where the threat to it is certainly not of urgent moment or a matter of overwhelming danger. What does this do to patriotism, to the attachment to the local, even to the emotional support for our military in the civilian population? What about the dangers of global over-extension, which I think can be seen even now? What about the push to utilize women more freely, including in combat, to keep the AVF in sufficient numbers-on-paper? What about the danger, already realized, I would argue, that we will get our notion of "national defense" entirely backwards, so that the aggressive war against Iraq is regarded as a matter of "defense" while the policing of our own borders is left to go to the dogs?
It seems to me that we are already seeing the problems with empire-maintenance; yet there is a curious indifference to all of this from the neo-con perspective. I don't know why. Is it just that since anything that might be called "isolationism" is regarded as impossible, there seems no point even in _talking_ about the problems with where we're going? The trouble is that the defense of the war in Iraq just doesn't offer, to my mind, any comfort to those of us who see America's global involvement as getting too big, too spread out, etc. Should we be scaling back _at all_? If so, where? What are we to expect from this sort of policy proposal but more expansion and less (to my mind healthy) nationalism and localism?
I'm happy to admit that the British empire did a lot of good. But I would challenge the implication that the founders of our country had no particular opposition to foreign wars or empire building and that our early isolation was merely a matter of coincidence! It seems to me that some fairly hefty measure of isolationism follows from the very notion of limited government and delegated powers. If nothing else, the initial taxation structure could never have supported an empire. I find it rather hard to believe, though it appears to be true, that my fellow conservatives just aren't bothered at all by the image of our "picking up the mantle of the British empire." One doesn't have to regard all empires as intrinsically evil to think that this wasn't the original idea and that we conservatives should have some serious hesitation about adopting such a vision of our country.
About cultural pessimism: Certainly the rhetoric you describe is over the top. And it is scarily naive for these paleocons to take seriously the idea that someone like bin Laden has some sort of legitimate grievance or gripe against America, because America is so decadent, blah, blah. Your take on what the Islamic terrorists are up to is quite right.
That being said, we shouldn't overlook at least one concern, which may point to other problems as well: It has been reported (by the Population Research Institute, I believe) that in Afghanistan, after the American conquest, feminists were brought in (under the auspices of the UN, perhaps, but with U.S. agreement) to "help" the women by promoting abortion, widespread birth control availability, and sex education programs for the young. If this is true, this seems to be a straightforward case in which the U.S. provided a route for the spread of things many conservatives do regard as evil. We shouldn't _just_ dismiss the idea that the U.S. may in some cases be a "force for evil in the world," and if this sort of thing can happen when there is a pretty good guy with culturally conservative inclinations in the White House, how much the more would it be the case if the maintenance of our quasi-empire and the various military actions were being orchestrated by a Democrat?
This is already too long, but one final comment: I just don't see the "defense of the West" thing in the war with Iraq. Would an attack on Iran also have been a "defense of the West"? How about conquering Syria--say, next year? How about tackling our "good friend," Saudi Arabia, which bankrolls suicide bombers? The truth is, there are tons of really bad Islamic countries out there, full of bad guys of exactly the sort you describe. I suppose attacks on any or all of these _could_ be described as the "defense of the West." But that very fact should make us tighten up our standards for the use of that phrase, applying it, say, to the conquest of Afghanistan (harboring the very man who had just killed our civilians) but not to Iraq. We don't really want to go out and conquer nearly the whole Middle East in the name of the defense of the West.
Posted by: Lydia | March 20, 2006 3:53 PM
Terrific posts! I loved the conclusion.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz | March 20, 2006 3:58 PM
Hello Jeff,
You say you read "as much of this as I could." Apparently you "couldn't" read much of it at all, at least not of parts I and II, since I there provided an extremely detailed case for the defensibility of the war from the point of view of traditional just war theory, and also showed why it is insufficient to appeal to JPII's and B16's (prudential and non-binding) statements on the matter. Instead of trying to answer my arguments, though, you simply re-assert, without argument, the usual Rothbardian line about Bush's "lies" etc.
I also showed, in part III, why it is dishonest and hypocritical for Rothbardians (like yourself) to play the "more Catholic than thou" card given that their position is utterly incompatible with both just war theory in particular and Catholicism in general. I notice that you do not even try to answer this charge either, perhaps because it cannot be answered. If you think it can be, though, I invite you to show how the various Rothbardian claims I cited can be reconciled with the natural law tradition and the teachings of the popes, including JPII and B16.
Re: the waste of intellectual powers, here's a suggestion. Why don't you and other Rothbardians try for once to deal with criticism in a serious and intellectually honest way. That means actually reading the arguments of those who criticize you and attempting to formulate a cogent reply rather than smugly tossing off a question-begging dismissal. It also means refraining from the usual Rothbardian technique of calling anyone who criticizes you a "fascist," "sell-out," "statist," "neocon," or "warmonger," questioning their motives, etc. etc. This quasi-Marxist stuff is tiresome and unbecoming -- and, I submit, eats away at the intellectual powers of those who indulge in it.
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 20, 2006 4:03 PM
Hi Lydia,
I wasn't saying that all paleoconservative critics of the war engage in the shrill sort of criticism I described. My targets in this post are only those paleocons who have engaged in it, such as the contributors to Neo-CONNED! Also, I did note that those who are motivated primarily by isolationism have been less shrill than the others.
The point of my remarks about isolationism was not to provide a detailed case for the opposite point of view, but rather just to show that there is nothing in conservatism that requires isolationism or rules out what paleocons sometimes call (misleadingly) the "empire" view I would defend. So paleocons are wrong to suggest that those who reject isolationism have thereby rejected conservatism itself, or have become Wilsonians, or whatever. But yes, a positive case for my view would require a more detailed treatment.
Re: "empire" and the size of goverment, it isn't clear that there is a necessay correlation between empire and big goverment. E.g. the British empire was administered by a government that was miniscule by modern standards, and it was only as the empire dissolved that Britain turned into a gigantic welfare state. Secondly, since most federal spending goes to social programs and the like, it is hardly plausible to suggest that it is military spending that is keeping taxes too high.
The many other issues you raise are all important, and answering them would require developing the sketchy principles I put forward (which were all I needed to put forward for my purposes here). To address just a few of your points, the U.S. has been an "empire" already for over half a century, but that doesn't seem to have affected our troops' sense of patriotism. And women in the army is surely a product of egalitarian social engineering rather than military necesity.
I don't doubt that empire wasn't the "original idea" of the founders, but that isn't really the question. The issue is whether isolationism is as feasible or desirable today as it was in their day. My claim is that conservatives can disagree about this and remain conservatives.
Your point about the "population control"/pro-abort types insinuating themselves into Afghanistan and elsewhere is very well taken, and such people must be stopped at all costs. My point was just that the "cultural pessimists" are mistaken in treating the U.S. as a monolith, as if everything that happens on its watch is the product of a single coherent philosophy. The truth is that there are at least two visions competing for control of policy, and the responsible thing to do is to support the right vision and fight the wrong one, rather than damn them both as if they were just two sides of the same coin.
Finally, re: the "defense of the West," my point concerned the "war on terror" (which really means the war on jihadists) in general rather than just Iraq specifically. What I was trying to say is that (a) whatever you think of the war in Iraq, criticizing it on the extremist grounds I've been objecting to provides aid and comfort to the jihadists, and (b) whether or not you think we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, we're there now and a defeat will only provide a massive boost to the jihadists.
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 20, 2006 4:41 PM
You know, Ed, I tried to give your piece a fair reading but I had a hard time slogging through the insults and mischaracterizations and caricatures and broad brushes and strawmen--none of which you apparently recognize, so utterly convinced are you that you can't possibly be mistaken in the claim that the slaughter of innocents abroad is a great way to see the natural law realized--and then the best you can do is accuse me of insulting you! You are bitter and misguided and, though I have no idea why, I'm sorry for you.
Posted by: Jeffrey | March 20, 2006 8:53 PM
Okay, Ed, I do accept that you don't have space to develop the entire argument for one side on the expansion vs. isolation issue.
So I'll just push one point: In talking about the probable deliberate importation of culturally objectionable material in the wake of a U.S. conquest, you say, "The truth is that there are at least two visions competing for control of policy, and the responsible thing to do is to support the right vision and fight the wrong one, rather than damn them both as if they were just two sides of the same coin." I certainly agree that the relatively culturally conservative vision of some Republicans isn't the "other side of the same coin" from the vision of many Democrats. But your response here does smack to me of the idea that it isn't such a problem if government is big so long as the right guys are in charge. This is meant to be an analogy. As far as I understand you, you're saying that it isn't such a bad thing for us to be in charge in a lot of other places in the world so long as we responsible conservative succeed in making sure that the right vision is promoted in those places and not the wrong vision.
Well, just to begin with, if this claim about Afghanistan is true, it doesn't look like that's working, even under Bush. Second, aren't we conservatives supposed to be the ones who say that power should be limited just _because_ it's so hard to control how it is used? I think it's important to take a hard look at my point about a Democrat in the White House. We're talking about having the U.S. be de facto in charge in more and more places as opposed to pulling back on our worldwide military involvement. It should be *obvious* that this power will be badly abused (as that is judged from a socially conservative perspective) when the "other guys" in the culture wars are in charge of our own government, as they inevitably will be at times. Isn't there an argument against anything empire-like in the very fact that when America is promoting corrupt values (as she sometimes to some extent will be), she will be promoting them much more effectively and pervasively if she has something like an empire?
Posted by: Lydia | March 20, 2006 10:19 PM
Jeff,
Let me try one more time. Here are three straightforward questions, and if you answer them so that I can better understand your view, perhaps we can have a constructive exchange:
1. Please explain how you reconcile your Rothbardian belief that the state is intrinsically evil and that only a private firm can legitimately provide defense with the first criterion of just war theory, viz. that _only_ a state can legitimately engage in war.
2. Please tell me how it is that you justify your practice of ignoring papal statements critical of capitalism, laissez-faire, the just wage, the non-absoluteness of property rights, the state as a natural institution, etc. while criticizing Catholic defenders of the war for not agreeing with JPII's and B16's criticisms of it. (If you think that there is some principled reason why the first can be ignored but not the second, it is hardly unreasonable to ask you to explain what that reason is.)
3. Please explain why, if JPII and B16 intended their views on the war to be binding on Catholics, then-Cardinal Ratzinger said what he did in the 2004 letter I quoted at the end of part II of this series. Why would he let pro-war Catholics, but not pro-abortion Catholics, off the hook if, as you claim, we defenders of the war favor "the slaughter of innocents abroad"? And if you think Ratzinger did not mean to imply that Catholics needn't agree with JPII on the war, then why wouldn't he have made that clear in a letter that addresses war specifically and was written in the context of an election in which the war was a central issue?
If you think any of these questions rest on misunderstandings of your position, please explain how exactly. And if they don't rest on misunderstandings, then please let me know what the answers are, because I'd really like to know.
It seems to me that if you really want to have a discussion about this, and not just tell me what a "bitter and misguided" fellow I am, then you'll answer these questions. Surely that's a reasonable request?
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 20, 2006 11:03 PM
Hi Lydia,
No, I am very far from taking the view that "it isn't such a problem if government is big so long as the right guys are in charge." Government is obscenely large, and though I'm not strictly a libertarian anymore, my views about the proper size of the federal government haven't changed all that much.
But war is a legitimate function of the federal government, and the Afghan war was surely a just and necessary war. So, since we had to fight it, there's no use in complaining that there are bureaucratic dangers in doing so -- we just have to deal with those dangers. And since I assume you're not an anarchist, I assume also that you'll agree that there are at least a few other things the federal government can legitimately do. But those functions will also involve the dangers you're rightly concerned about; they aren't a unique problem for my view.
And all I mean by saying that we need to support the right vision and fight the wrong one is the obvious point that all things being equal, it's better to have people in power who share your values than people who don't. I wasn't denying that government bureaucracies and programs have intrinsic disadvantages and dangers (just like _everything_ has certain disadvantages and dangers).
Finally, in re: the question whether it's better to have an "empire" or not considering the dangers, I don't think this is something that can be settled a priori. Yes, there are obviously certain dangers (e.g. of a public choice kind) of having a government with "empire"-like responsibiities. But if there's also a military necessity of having such a government given the threats we face, then we may simply have to put up with those dangers and deal with them however we can. Of course, you might deny that there is a need for such a government, but the point is that the issue has to be decided by weighing the contingent circumstances, not by stipulating from the get-go that we simply must never have a government with such responsibilities. In any case, since we should definitely shrink the government domestically anyway, this would solve a great deal of the problem. (Though this is, of course, Bush's greatest failing.)
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 20, 2006 11:23 PM
Yes, of course the dangers of expanded responsibility and power around the world aren't an absolute a priori argument against any given war or other foreign intervention. But it could well be a good argument for trying to avoid empire-like responsibilities, for raising the bar very high. Something similar can be said on the domestic front. Any liberal who favors various government programs can say to a conservative, "There's no point in talking about the dangers of big government. You have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether this or that program is necessary." But a conservative could legitimately disagree that the only two options are a) never talking about the dangers of big government as a warning to try in general to keep government small and to raise the bar high for govt. intervention or b) deciding a priori that the government has no legitimate functions or that some specific program just can't be legitimate just because government should be small, without looking at the merits or lack thereof of the arguments for the particular program. What you do instead is to start out with a prima facie "bias" against big government which causes you to require some pretty darned strong arguments for the institution of a new program. And args. that strong are very often not forthcoming, so you usually oppose new programs and bureaus.
Now, the analogy to foreign intervention is obvious. If you start out with what I would consider a proper "bias" against our taking on responsibilities all over the place, this bias based on a legitimate recognition of the dangers of too much responsibility and influence all over the world, especially since our own "bad guys" are in power sometimes, you will then keep the bar raised very high for our going into some new country and meddling with it, taking on great power and responsibility there. (Conquering and rebuilding it being very nearly a limiting case of this.) And you will, I submit, view with serious misgivings the idea that the U.S. should pick up the mantle of some other empire. That this doesn't *absolutely* rule out this or that intervention isn't really that important of a point. It's a matter of how hard you try to avoid interventions, how concerned you are about having too many of them, taking them on too easily, etc. And this is as legitimate a conservative approach at the foreign level as it is at the domestic level.
Posted by: Lydia | March 21, 2006 9:05 AM
I don't think the analogy entirely works, Lydia, for this reason: military action, as everyone agrees, is a proper function of the federal government if anything is; but most of what the federal government now does domestically is not within the boundaries of its proper functions. It has, domesticaly, usurped functions that are appropriate to individuals, families, churches, and local governments. And this judgment is not only a prudential one but in part a principled one: it violates the principle of subsidiarity, and, in part, people's property rights over their tax money, insofar as the federal government forces people to pay for programs it has no right to implement. (I may no longer think all taxation is theft, but some taxation is!)
So, to a large extent I think government's proper role domestically can be determined a priori. Taking on "empire"-like responsibilities abroad, though, is mostly a question of how best it can best fulfill its proper role of ensuring the nation's security, and that's why it's largely a prudential question. You may be right that the bar needs to be set high here, but conservatives can legitimately disagree about whether that bar has now been reached.
In any case, it's important to keep in mind what my point was in raising these issues. All three posts are intended to show that the paleocons who have expressed the greatest vitriol against the war in Iraq -- and I acknowledge that not all paleocons have expressed vitriol -- have no rational justification for doing so. Contrary to their accusations, the war is neither a violation of just war principles nor a violation of conservative principles. Re: the issue at hand, my point is just that isolationists have no grounds for saying that supporters of the war have abandoned true conservatism. But I wasn't trying to provide a thorough critique of isolationism.
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 21, 2006 1:03 PM
One part of natural law that I did not know about is that it supports "an organic view of society in which each component, including government, complements the others." That view does seem to be inherently incompatible with an empire, since the focus of an empire is at least partially geared towards societies other than its own.
"This is a war, not for oil, not for Halliburton, but for the West itself." I dispute that oil and Halliburton were not involved in the calculus for war. Adding more specifics to what Lydia criticized, Halliburton was an opponent to a bill that forbids human trafficking by government contractors. Since Halliburton utilizes so many subcontractors, they claim they cannot be responsible for the trafficking done by others, even though they - and by extension the US taxpayer, are paying the bills.
If we are to defend the West, it should start by defending our own laws and institutions against corruption. That is why the imperial powers claimed by GWB to override any law or treaty that would hinder him in even the slightest way are actively undermining the war effort.
Posted by: Step2 | March 21, 2006 3:38 PM
Ok, Ed, I will do as you ask.
1. The upshot of your lengthy article is to justify the Iraq War (this is a tragic waste of your intellectual skills because war in our times is grave evil, and it makes me sad to see your intellect and conscience sullied by such an endorsement). On the postulate concerning legitimate authority in particular, it means precisely that: war can't be conducted by rogue bands of marauders pursuing selfish ends. It has nothing to do with baptizing the nation state, led by an imperial executive, as we know it; indeed, the nation state didn't even exist when just-war principles were formulated. Moreover, this postulate is clearly not meant to limit the ability of individuals or groups of individuals to defend themselves, even against their own states, even to the point of tyrannicide: St. Thomas, Suarez, Juan de Mariana. More fundamentally, to say that the decision to go to war belongs to the nation state does nothing to support your case. There are others strictures that limit war. "For it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention." (I apologize for not taking you seriously on this supposed objection before; I couldn't believe that you meant it seriously.)
2. As for Papal statements, the view of Cardinal Manning, that he wanted a Papal Bull every day with his breakfast, did not prevail at the First Vatican Council; the ultramontanists lost the struggle to make the Pope infallible in matters of politics (it is thanks to the intervention of liberal Catholics such as Newman and Acton, his infallibility is restricted to matters of faith and morals). You really must learn to distinguish the ordinary from the extraordinary magisterium, as JP2 and B16 so clearly have in their social teaching. As a further note, you are hardly the first new Catholic who has been awe-struck by the vast feast presented to you so generously and suddenly by grace: the Papal statements, writings of saints and theologians, traditions, and much more. But you must pace yourself. It is a grave error to engorge yourself and demand that others follow on the pain of sin.
3. I agree JP2 and B16 did not intend for their views on the Iraq War to be binding on Catholics. Their pastoral opinion should be taken seriously, but not as infallible teaching (on the same grounds, Catholics are not required to support the minimum wage). In any case, it was my impression that you were saying that anti-war Catholics were not being faithful to Church teaching. If you are willing to grant that we are not going to Hell for opposing mass death by state violence, I have no argument with you oin this point.
4. Let me add a final note touching on a related matter about the impact of faith on a person's life outlook and politico-moral demeanor. Catholicism is an extremely heady experience, especially for people new to the faith, and no one explained better why this is so than St. John of the Cross in the "Dark Night of the Soul"—the great merit of which is not so much in its description of spiritual maturity but in its observations concerning its beginnings. To be touched by God, and then cradle in his arms as a mother cares for a new born, is an experience that is at once impossibly beautiful for those intent on spending their first years with faith in prayer and contemplation but also dangerously destabilizing for those who are too quick to apply their knew knowledge to intellectual matters. I once heard a great priest who told a convert not to write anything purporting to apply the faith to world affairs for three years after enlightenment but rather pour his energies into prayer and spiritual development.
Let me know if you have any other questions, and feel free to write me privately.
Posted by: jeffrey | March 22, 2006 9:08 AM
Jeff,
I'm glad to see that you have now at last tried to make a substantive response to what I wrote, though I'm sorry to see that you are still intent on attacking straw men and making gratuitous ad hominem remarks -- thereby doing the very thing you have accused me of doing (unjustly, I think).
I'm also sorry that you're "sad" about my views. I'm sad too -- sad that you seem so incapable of attributing anything but the worst motives and intellectual defects to anyone who defends the war. I think that my posts -- especially the first two -- show that a reasonable person inspired by just war theory could support the war. Such a person might be mistaken (though I don't think so), but not necessarily dishonest or morally deficient. That you appear unwilling to grant even this much shows, I think, that it is not really just war theory but something else that motivates your hostility, and I have suggested that that "something else" is Rothbardianism.
That was the point of part III of the series -- to show how it is really elements distinct from, and in some cases at odds with, just war theory and/or Catholicism that motivate the hostility of paleocon critics of the war. And there is in fact nothing ad hominem in what I wrote about Rothbardianism. Rothbardians really do relentlessly use the abusive and insulting language that I cited, really do attribute base motives to supporters of the war, etc., and they really do take the radical (some would say extreme) positions I have atrributed to them. If you think that I am wrong about this and have somehow mischaracterized the Rothbardian view, please specify exactly where -- don't just assert that I have done so, without explanation (as you have in your earlier comments).
In re: your specific points:
1. This is so full of problems that I'm not sure where to begin, but here goes. First, you are simply mistaken about what the "lawful authority" condition requires. Check out e.g. the various manuals I cited in parts I and II, which merely re-state the traditional view: they are all quite explicit that the norm is that it is specifically a _state_ that must fight a war, and not private individuals, even where those individuals are otherwise acting from good motives. Private individuals defending themselves from an immediate attack and rebellion against a tyrant are allowed, but they are also explicitly said to be exceptions to the general rule, and justified by emergency. (Moreover, as I noted in post I, the latter case is treated by the manuals as falling outside of the category of war per se.)
Second, the question of the nation-state is totally irrelevant. There is nothing in the tradition and the manuals that says "By the way, this doesn't apply to nation-states." Indeed, the manuals I cited (which were all written in the 40s or 50s) -- and indeed, all the authors and manuals going back centuries -- are obviously intended to apply to modern states and not just pre-modern ones.
Third, the 19th and 20th century popes who issued so many documents against liberalism, socialism, etc. and in defense of the state as a _natural_ institution were all quite obviously writing in an age of nation-states, and they obviously meant what they said to apply to contemporary states. That doesn't mean they would be happy with all aspects of the modern nation-state, of course, but the point is that they don't regard it as per se illegitimate, as Rothbardians do.
Fourth -- and to deal now with your most ridiculous accusation -- I never said that a war's being declared by a state _suffices_ all by itself to make it just, but only that it is in the ordinary case a _necessary condition_ (though not a sufficient one) for its being just. And in doing so, all I did was reiterate what the just war tradition says. Obviously there are also "other strictures that limit war," as you say -- indeed, I spent most of parts I and II talking about them!
Really, Jeff, if you can't see how incredibly cheap this particular shot of yours was, then I despair of your ability to engage in a serious and fair-minded discussion.
2. Give me a break, Jeff. Nothing that I said commits me to ultramontanism. Indeed, you and other Rothbardians are the ones who have pretended that Catholics who disagree with certain prudential statements by JPII and B16 -- including off-hand remarks made by Cardinal Ratzinger in a newspaper interview, of all things -- are somehow insufficienly Catholic or disloyal to the pope, and I was simply calling you on it. You can't consistently reject some non-binding statements yourself and then criticize others for not accepting other such statements.
On the other hand, at least certain teachings that you apparenly reject are _not_ in fact non-binding in the way you suppose. Since you know so much about the ordinary magisterium, you know that it too, and not just the extraordinary magisterium, can be infallible. Certainly it has at the very least a very high degree of authority -- so much so that a Catholic cannot withhold assent from a principle of faith or morals that is part of the ordinary magisterium. In particular, when popes and Church documents have constantly re-affirmed a teaching, especially if they have done so for centuries, and even more especially when they have done so for two millennia, then it is hard to resist the conclusion that the teaching is irreformable. Certainly, again, it cannot be dissented from and has a presumption in its favor.
Well, such teachings as that the state is a natural institution, that property rights are not absolute, that the just wage can diverge from the market wage, etc. are all long-standing teachings of this sort -- in some cases they have been re-iterated for centuries, in all cases at least for a century or so. So there is (again, at the very least) a very strong presumption in their favor. And yet you dissent from them, while condemning those who merely disagree with a prudential judgment of a pope. If you want to try to show that you are somehow within your rights to dissent from them, you are free to try, but since your position is at the very least prima facie implausible, you really ought to try to be more charitable with those Catholics who disagree with you on the war.
I am also mystified by your pompous statements about my "newness" to Catholicism, given that I am a cradle Catholic, duly baptized and confirmed at the usual times, with 12 years of Catholic school under my belt, etc. Perhaps what you have in mind is the fact that I was away from the Church for several years -- years which (as I suppose I have to add to certify myself beore the Tucker magisterium) included the study of many of the Church's great thinkers as part of the course of study for my various degrees in philosophy and religion -- before returning a few years ago. In any case, you really ought to get your facts straight before shooting off your mouth. In your sanctimony and ignorance you're only embarrassing yourself.
3. I am glad to see you admit that the statements in question are non-binding. Perhaps you will kindly let the rest of the Rockwell gang know this, so that they'll stop badmouthing Catholics who support the war as hypocrites. And I agree, by the way, that no Catholic is bound to support minimum wage laws; they are, I think, bound only to the view that the just wage is not always necessarily identical to the market wage, and may disagree about whether this is merely a hypothetical possibility, whether legislation is the appropriate response to it, etc.
I am, however, appalled by your ridiculous suggestion that I have claimed that Catholics _must_ support the war. Indeed, I have explicitly said that Catholics and just war advocates generally can legitimately disagree about the war. (You're the one who seems to think they can't.) Of course, since you have admitted that you "couldn't" read my entire series of posts, perhaps you didn't see this. So here's a wacky suggestion for you: why don't you try actually reading what someone writes before criticizing it? You'll save yourself embarrassment, and also save us both valuable time.
4. More condescenion about my supposed "newness" to Catholicism. I've already addressed this.
Let me add one more point, though. The ONLY reason I have brought Catholicism into this at all is that the book I was reviewing, Neo-CONNED!, is so nauseatingly sanctimonious about its purportedly "traditional Catholic" perspective and claims to show that all real Catholics must regard the war as "manifestly unjust." Some Rothbardians have taken the same attitude. None of these people has any right to complain, then, when they are called on their hypocrisy and misrepresentation of Catholic teaching.
So, if you want to give a sermon, direct it to them, not to me.
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 22, 2006 5:03 PM
Ed, I never said that you had to be against the war because the Pope was against it. I'm sure that you agree, in principle, that there is much more to the Catholic faith than signing up to become an echo chamber for every Papal homily. At least this is what you sometimes say. But then you turn around and demand that libertarians repudiate sound economics because Paul VI made some missteps in his economic logic. So strange is this impluse on the part of the newly converted to root out what they wrongly believe is doctrinal deviance and excommunicate!
In any case, let's be clear on what is at issue here. It is you who equated fear of the US military with the "fear of God," you who provided a circuitous defense of torture, you who have signed up to fight this war from your laptop in the name of the Catholic faith, you who snear at anyone who has a slight doubt about veracity of State Department press releases, you who have cast out Rothbardians from Catholicism (behold your brilliant and fair-minded and analytical mind at work: "the acolytes of St. Murray of the Holy Anarchy have a special dispensation from obedience to centuries of unbroken papal teaching on matters of moral principle"), and you who, as a moral philospher writing about politics, can't be bothered to make elementary distinctions between moral and political rights in the course of your narrative. I'm sure if you keep it up, you will decisively win this argument you are having with your former self.
Last year at this time when we talked about war and public policy, I had the impression that you hadn't gone full way into the war camp. We talked charitably and nicely and agreed on many things. I certainly had the feeling that we would have enjoyed our polite sparring for many hours more. You were engaging and you seemed to listen and said plenty of things worth listening to--if not in your public speech (though everyone treated you politely) then certainly during the informal conversation after. Then a year later I find a full series of blogs that take the most extreme position out there in defense of US imperialism, no different in its conclusions from the bloody nationalist filth you can hear on any right-wing talk radio show.
And for what? A war and occupation in which many tens of thousands of actual people have been mudered for no reason. It's just ghastly and horrible. How I recall so well the day that the lunatic Bush, who believes that he is God's instrument on Earth, swore that he would fight a war so long as he had power: how well I recall my naivete in thinking that my daughter might grow up in a world in which the US didn't blow up another country every two years.
What was I thinking? An outbreak of peace and liberty so long as the US empire lives? Not likely--as far less likely so long as intellectuals stand ready to blog and write on behalf of all this destruction and death as the fulfillment of the natural law.
Ok, I'll end there but with a recommendation. I've already suggested St. John of the Cross. It is incredible powerful and directly applicable to your case in particular. Let me add to the list: Rothbard's History of Economic Thought (now in an affordable edition). It has several chapters dealing with the subject of faith. I promise that you won't be disappointed. It will broaden your sense of the intellectual possibilities that exist within the framework of Catholicism. Nor will you continue to speak the way you do about Rothbard's legacy after reading this very mature work.
You are sure to have the last word since this is your blog, and I will undoubtedly be more vituperative and insulting than ever. I'll try to avoid the temptation to write again, in hopes that should we bump into each other again, long after Bush has left office, long after Iraq is on its way to becoming a normal country again, long after your war fever has subsided, and long after you are more at home in the arms of the faith you have embraced, that we can be friends and discuss issues with mutual respect as we have done in the past.
Posted by: jeffrey | March 23, 2006 8:30 AM
Jeff,
First of all, I am more baffled than ever about your bizarre insistence on continuing to refer to me as "newly converted," especially when, as I've already informed you, I am a cradle Catholic. In any case, all this condescending stuff about how my alleged "newness" to Catholicism is what lies behind my pro-war views is just a silly distraction. Why don't you simply show me what is wrong with my arguments, instead of claiming over and over again that there is something wrong with me personally? For example, why don't you make an attempt to show that the war cannot be justified on the basis of the criteria spelled out in the manuals, which I quoted at great length? Is it because -- as I think the quotations show -- the manuals so clearly show the war to be defensible? In that case, your real disagreement is not with me but with the manuals themselves. But then, unless you want to dismiss the authors of the manuals too as warmongers, murderers, slaughterers of the innocent, etc., you really ought to give the overheated rhetoric a rest.
Second, and again I have to repeat myself, I was not the one who brought Catholicism into this; the Neo-CONNED! editors and authors did, as also have certain other paleocon critics of the war and in particular certain Rothbardians. There is nothing illegitimate in pointing out some inconsistencies in the arguments of people who use their Catholicism as a weapon against supporters of the war.
Third, I never demanded that libertarians "repudiate sound economics." This is a straw man. My comments concerned ethics and moral theology only, and are compatible with wide disagreement on economics (including disagreement with Paul VI, whose economic views did indeed leave much to be desired). For example, I have already explicitly said that while I think the just wage teaching is probably binding, there can be legitimate disagreement about whether minimum wage laws are a good way to implement it. In short, it was Rothbardian rights theory that I was criticizing, not Rothbardian economics, about which I have no strong opinions. (Though as you probably know, among Austrians I've always been more partial to Hayek.)
Fourth, while you are right to note that there is a distinction in principle between moral and political rights, it is not relevant to the discusssion at hand, because Rothbard's political philosophy rests on a moral theory about the source and nature of natural rights in which the political conclusions are claimed to follow directly from the ethics. E.g. Rothbard thinks that we have an absolute natural right to our property (a moral claim) and he thinks this shows directly that all taxation is theft, and thus that the state, which depends on taxation, is inherenetly immoral (which are claims in political philosophy).
Fifth, since I have supported the war from the beginning, and indeed have always opposed the Rothbardian line on foreign policy, I do not know why you think that my views were any different a year ago. Perhaps you have falsely assumed, on the basis of the fact that I once agreed with certain specific claims associated with Rothbard -- concerning property rights and taxation in particular -- that I was once a "Rothbardian." In fact my former libertarianism was minarchist in its implications, and more inspired by Nozick and Hayek in its philosophical foundations.
Sixth, apparently you've never heard the expression "putting the fear of God" into someone, which just means something like "scaring the daylights out of them." I would like to assume this, anyway, because there is no way a reasonable and intellectually honest person would think that I was somehow equating "fear of the U.S. military" with "fear of God" and thereby divinizing the military.
Really, Jeff, what possesses you to put the most ridiculously uncharitable spin on everything I say? And what possesses you to continue to make one over-the-top unsupported statement after the other -- "tens of thousands of actual people have been murdered for no reason," "no different from bloody nationalist filth," etc. -- when such statements are entirely question-begging and thus fail to support your position?
Finally, in re: "You were engaging and you seemed to listen and said plenty of things worth listening to--if not in your public speech..."
So, my public speech was "not worth listening to." This speaks volumes about you, Jeff, and what it says is that you are simply incapable of processing the slightest and most gentle criticism of the Rothbardian worldview. In that talk, I raised several very serious challenges to the attempt to marry Rothbard to the natural law tradition, and did so in a polite and friendly way. Many people who heard the talk, including some who disagreed with it, have said that it was useful to them and raised an important challenge which needed to be considered. Nor did I ever hear a single substantive criticism come from you at the time. I have noted, however -- and I am not the only one -- that it is the one invited talk from the conference which has not been archived at the Mises Institute website. Apparently the Institute simply will not tolerate actual debate over the merits of Rothbard's views, and exists only to convert others to them. And you wonder why people often dismiss Rothbardians as a cult?
Posted by: Edward Feser | March 23, 2006 1:55 PM
What does 9/11 have to do with Iraq? More precisely: does 9/11 place the US in a defensive position in relation to Iraq? Let's read again:
"The risk of Iraqi WMD someday being slipped to terrorists for use against the United States was, post-9/11, plausibly seen as significant enough that continued Iraqi non-compliance could no longer be tolerated."
All throughout the argument you acknowledge that Iraq is not a menace in and by itself but you're still looking for reasons to fight that specific nation. I see lots of good reasons in your argument to justify war against terrorists but not many to wage war against Iraq. The Just War theory does not allow one to change the target from terrorists to nations just because one canont wage war against terrorists unless one invades a nation.
Congratulations for the site. Sorry if I misunderstood you.
Posted by: Paul | March 24, 2006 9:47 AM
I want to discuss the merits of the war against Saddam Hussein from first principles. The conditions for a just war are that it must be waged on the authority of the supreme civil authority, in a just cause and with a right intention. The secondary (prudential) requirements are that all peaceful alternatives to war have been exhausted, the expected gains from war must outweigh the costs, and there must be sufficient probability of success.
The patristic tradition holds that the use of armed force by the State against gross evildoers is morally good in its object. "Gross evildoers" here refers to civil rulers who impose on their own people, or on other nations, injustices comparable in their gravity to the consequences of war. If the use of war in this case were evil per se, then no State could could resort to it, as it is not permitted to do evil that good may come of it.
Right intention means a general intention to re-establish peace on the basis of a relatively just order. Without this intention an otherwise just war would be subjectively immoral for those in whom the ill intent is present, and for them only.
Where the facts disclose the existence of all the conditions for a just war, a government has an obligation in justice to defend its own country, as well as any other country unjustly attacked, provided that it is bound by treaty to do so. Otherwise, a government's duty to come to the relief of another nation binds in charity, absent any rule of international law which might convert this duty into one of justice.
The use of war by a State against gross evildoers is good in its object, though it may be morally vitiated not only by a bad intention, but also by circumstances. I have in mind here the circumstance that it is in breach of international law, taken as a whole. The fundamental customary law of nations defining the internationally wrongful act, and crime, of aggression, belongs to jus cogens, rules of international law which are so indelible that they cannot be modified except by another rule of international law of the same status. Any treaty rule (including a provision of the UN Charter) in conflict with jus cogens must give way, and if its conflict with jus cogens is categorical, then it is void.
Jus cogens condemns the use of armed force against the territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of another State. Lest the enforcement provisions of the UN Charter be held legally defective, it does not prohibit the use of force which is justified and reasonable in the circumstances:
(a) for the maintenance of international peace and security, and to that end for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, or for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, or
(b) for the prevention, suppression or punishment of acts classified as crimes under international law.
Jus cogens also condemns as aggressive the use of armed force in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, assuming no conflict with a rule of jus cogens which imposes a duty to use force.
Crimes against international law all belong to jus cogens and presently include, in descending order of gravity:
aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, slavery and slavery-related practices, and piracy. Genocide and crimes against humanity are on their face equivalent to aggression. Slavery and slave-related practices, and torture, become so if committed against a civilian population on a mass or systematic scale, in which case they enter the category of crimes against humanity.
The significance of these as crimes under jus cogens is that a State must not only abstain from them. Because they are crimes the State must in the nature of the case enforce them. By the jurisprudence of the Rwanda Tribunal the failure to do so can engage the criminal liability of political leaders (Kambanda case), though where the projection of a State's power beyond its borders is contemplated, geostrategic and international political considerations can excuse from the obligation (Kanyabashi case). The main point here, however, is that in any case a treaty cannot be invoked in relief of an objective duty of enforcement arising under jus cogens.
In the case of the Iraq war, it is not necessary to argue about weapons of mass destruction or any other matter concerning the UN Charter. Saddam Hussein's regime was already well implicated in genocide and crimes against humanity, and even though these crimes were not ongoing in March 2003, the United States and the United Kingdom were under an obligation to enforce the criminal law of jus cogens in the pursuit of suspected criminals. Furthermore, the UN Security Council promulgated Resolution 1483 within two months of the invasion, thereby legalising the invasion and occupation ex post facto.
The just cause for the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the objective fact that his regime was party to genocide and crimes against humanity. This is irrespective of the fact that the politicians argued diifferently in favour of the war. It is sufficient that the external facts of the case disclosed a just cause, whatever President Bush knew or believed. In that case, the invasion was neither illegal nor criminal, therefore the corresponding circumstance which would have vitiated its moral licitness did not exist.
The war against Saddam Hussein must of course be set in the context of the war against terror, or to put it more pertinently, the war against Osama bin Laden and all who stand with him. His public statements vindicate your contention that he sees the war as a religious war, a jihad on the grievance that the United States stands at the head of world unbelief, as an obstacle to the divine right of Islam to reconquer those lands which were lost to it in past centuries. This is true even though he makes use of political grievances to reinforce his cause.
The just cause of the United States and her allies in the war against al Qaeda arises from the enemy's threat and use of force for the purposes of imposing on the world a false religion, and of committing genocide and crimes against humanity both against non-Muslims who persist in refusing Islam, and against Muslims (such as the Shi'a) who are judged to be deviant. In the eyes of the jihadists, this is a holy war commanded by God Himself.
The Western answer must also be a Christian answer. Our counter-offensive must be reinforced by the conviction that Mohammed is a false prophet and that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh, who has the right to the allegiance of nations as such, and the right that His Gospel be preached in all the nations, including those under the sway of Islam.
Am I calling for an open and public Crusade? No, for two reasons. The first is that a Crusade, though never commanded by God, can be called only by the ruler of an officially Christian state or by the Pope as head of Christendom. Here and now, this is no longer a possibility. The just cause in a Crusade is that Christians, or a Christian State or the Church, are being subjected to injustices and persecutions of a kind capable of justifying the use of the sword. The soldier qualifies as a Crusader only if he takes a vow to crusade, and to accept the hardships of soldiering as a penance for his sins.
The second reason for not calling an open and public Crusade is that it would lose us our Muslim allies. It is vital that the Muslim world be kept divided from the terrorists and opposed to them. For this reason it is useful to exploit theological antagonisms so as to set against one another the extremist factions against one another, especially the Sunni bin Ladenists and their counterparts among the Shi'a.
Though the clear and present threat to the peace of the world comes from extremists whose methods are repudiated by most Muslims, it is in practice impossible or prohibitively difficult to conceive of a Muslim community which is not dangerously disposed to cultivating and harbouring these extremists. The grand strategy of the West, therefore, must in fact be the grand strategy of Christ and His the Church - to persuade Muslims that Mohammed is not a prophet, and that the Christian religion alone is the true one.
Posted by: Michael | April 28, 2006 12:34 PM
Why have paleoconservatives been so critical? I think that traditional conservatives – at least from what I’ve read and heard – have been critical for a number of reasons. (1) As you assert, America has a long history of isolationism, which has drastically changed in the past 70 years. (2) Many do not see the war in Iraq to be in America’s “real interest.” We probably will not gain anything from this war, and it may result in discrediting the US, a bloody civil war, and a general destabilization of the area. (3) Whether this war would meet any criteria for classical just-war theory certainly is certainly up for debate (4) Many see Bush’s Wilsonian foreign policy not only as naive, but as a repudiation of previous schools of foreign policy, which, explicitly or implicitly drawing upon the wisdom of Aristotle, recognized that different forms of government are appropriate for different cultures and histories. It is debatable whether global democracy (a) is even possible and (b) if it is whether it is desirable, as it may further lead to the deterioration of traditional norms of thought.
And, as you assert, I think there is a general resentment harbored by traditional conservatives against many of the neoconservatives. There is an implicit battle on the very meaning of ‘conservative’, a battle which neoconservatives are winning. (Vide WSJ op-ed pieces claiming that anyone opposed to a guest-worker plan is not truly a conservative, or anyone who does not support the Rice-Rumsfeld foreign policy is not truly conservative / patriotic.) What is often called “paleoconservative” today was just “conservative” 30 years ago. Is such resentment not understandable and possibly even warranted?
Posted by: Matthew Roberts | April 30, 2006 1:07 PM
Matthew Roberts:
(2) Many do not see the war in Iraq to be in America’s “real interest.” We probably will not gain anything from this war, and it may result in discrediting the US, a bloody civil war, and a general destabilization of the area.
One could argue that the Iraq war started in 1990 and never really ended. British and American planes were shot at by Saddam Hussain's Iraq for years in the "no-fly" zones. An Iraqi named Yasin mixed the chemicals that resulted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and, after the bombing, fled to Saddam's Iraq. Saddam never turned Yasin over to the Clinton administration for prosecution.
So, in some sense the Iraq war was inevitable. It was just a matter of when the American people would be sufficiently motivated to take on Saddam Hussain.
Saddam Hussain used chemical weapons against his own people and there is no evidence that Hussain converted to pacifism after that genocide. Saddam Hussain's regime did torture nuclear engineers who refused to help him build nuclear weapons. One such engineer was interviewed on the Discovery channel and spoke of his 19 days of torture.
The case for the Iraq war is pretty overwhelming to anyone aquainted with Saddam's regime over the past 20 or more years and is truly interested in defeating America's enemies abroad. I will be charitable and say that some paleo-conservatives don't know very much about events occuring outside of the United States and have not spent a lot of time studying foreign affairs.
4) Many see Bush’s Wilsonian foreign policy not only as naive, but as a repudiation of previous schools of foreign policy, which, explicitly or implicitly drawing upon the wisdom of Aristotle, recognized that different forms of government are appropriate for different cultures and histories. It is debatable whether global democracy (a) is even possible and (b) if it is whether it is desirable, as it may further lead to the deterioration of traditional norms of thought.
Perhaps in an ideal world, dictatorships and democracies would live peacefully side by side. But in the real world in which we live dictatorships and democracies are often at war, whereas democracies are rarely at war with other democracies. People wishing to keep America secure has an incentive to understand why dictatorships often wage war against democracies while democracies rarely wage war against other democracies.
(During the cold war "arms-control negoations"
were rarely held between Great Britain, France and the United States, even though they all possess nuclear weapons.)
So, it is obviously in the interest of the American people that more and more nations of the world topple their dictatorships and replace them with democracies. If oppressed people are unable to topple a Saddam Hussain or a Taliban regime on their own, America shouldn't be ashamed of itself for toppling these regimes.
How did Saddam Hussain gain power in Iraq? By murdering everyone who opposed him. Saddam was not placed in power by a vote of informed Iraqis allowed to choose among alternatives.
We can't be indiffernt as to whether Iraqis or Afghanis are oppressed by unelected dictators when both morality and self-interest demand that we prefer democracy world wide.
Is world-wide democracy possible? Just like other historical milestones, worldwide democracy will be impossible up until the time that it is accomplished.
In 1945 you could have said: "Germany? Democratic? Foolishly naive. Germany caused two world wars. The Germans are constitutionally incapable of democracy."
Ah, but Germany is a democracy today.
In 1970 you could have said: "Spain a democracy? The Spanish are old-line Catholics who prefer the stability that comes with tyranny.
But today Spain is a democracy.
In 1985 you could have said: "Eastern Europe will never be democratic because the Soviet Empire will not allow democracy to emerge. And the people of Eastern Europe are used to oppression and do not resist it."
How wrong those people proved to be in 1989-1993.
Posted by: AngelM | April 30, 2006 3:30 PM
Matthew Roberts:
(2) Many do not see the war in Iraq to be in America’s “real interest.” We probably will not gain anything from this war, and it may result in discrediting the US, a bloody civil war, and a general destabilization of the area.
One could argue that the Iraq war started in 1990 and never really ended. British and American planes were shot at by Saddam Hussain's Iraq for years in the "no-fly" zones. An Iraqi named Yasin mixed the chemicals that resulted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and, after the bombing, fled to Saddam's Iraq. Saddam never turned Yasin over to the Clinton administration for prosecution.
So, in some sense the Iraq war was inevitable. It was just a matter of when the American people would be sufficiently motivated to take on Saddam Hussain.
Saddam Hussain used chemical weapons against his own people and there is no evidence that Hussain converted to pacifism after that genocide. Saddam Hussain's regime did torture nuclear engineers who refused to help him build nuclear weapons. One such engineer was interviewed on the Discovery channel and spoke of his 19 days of torture.
The case for the Iraq war is pretty overwhelming to anyone aquainted with Saddam's regime over the past 20 or more years and is truly interested in defeating America's enemies abroad. I will be charitable and say that some paleo-conservatives don't know very much about events occuring outside of the United States and have not spent a lot of time studying foreign affairs.
4) Many see Bush’s Wilsonian foreign policy not only as naive, but as a repudiation of previous schools of foreign policy, which, explicitly or implicitly drawing upon the wisdom of Aristotle, recognized that different forms of government are appropriate for different cultures and histories. It is debatable whether global democracy (a) is even possible and (b) if it is whether it is desirable, as it may further lead to the deterioration of traditional norms of thought.
Perhaps in an ideal world, dictatorships and democracies would live peacefully side by side. But in the real world in which we live dictatorships and democracies are often at war, whereas democracies are rarely at war with other democracies. People wishing to keep America secure has an incentive to understand why dictatorships often wage war against democracies while democracies rarely wage war against other democracies.
(During the cold war "arms-control negoations"
were rarely held between Great Britain, France and the United States, even though they all possess nuclear weapons.)
So, it is obviously in the interest of the American people that more and more nations of the world topple their dictatorships and replace them with democracies. If oppressed people are unable to topple a Saddam Hussain or a Taliban regime on their own, America shouldn't be ashamed of itself for toppling these regimes.
How did Saddam Hussain gain power in Iraq? By murdering everyone who opposed him. Saddam was not placed in power by a vote of informed Iraqis allowed to choose among alternatives.
We can't be indiffernt as to whether Iraqis or Afghanis are oppressed by unelected dictators when both morality and self-interest demand that we prefer democracy world wide.
Is world-wide democracy possible? Just like other historical milestones, worldwide democracy will be impossible up until the time that it is accomplished.
In 1945 you could have said: "Germany? Democratic? Foolishly naive. Germany caused two world wars. The Germans are constitutionally incapable of democracy."
Ah, but Germany is a democracy today.
In 1970 you could have said: "Spain a democracy? The Spanish are old-line Catholics who prefer the stability that comes with tyranny.
But today Spain is a democracy.
In 1985 you could have said: "Eastern Europe will never be democratic because the Soviet Empire will not allow democracy to emerge. And the people of Eastern Europe are used to oppression and do not resist it."
How wrong those people proved to be in 1989-1993.
Posted by: AngelM | April 30, 2006 3:30 PM