That Death Toll
There is something morally creepy about the way the White House responded to the news — released as inconspicuously as possible — that the 2,500th American soldier has died in Iraq.
"It's a number," said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow.
Yes, and so is 5,000, and 10,000, and 15,000. Is there is no amount of American bloodshed that would trigger a reassessment of the ideological fantasy that US power can transform Iraq into Kansas?
Comments (136)
To add more ammo to your argument, O'Reilly on his radio program today advised that we should run Iraq "just like Saddam ran it." Isn't this the same guy who went on and on about how evil Saddam was in the build-up to the war and for months and months after the invasion?
http://www.callingallwingnuts.com/2006/06/19/oreillys-solution-run-the-place-like-saddam/
Published: June 20, 2006 6:45 PM
At first I thought the price tag in dollars would force the Bush team to stop the war. I was wrong.
Then I hoped that "successes" of capturing Saddam and the others would lead them to declare victory and stop the war. Wrong again.
Now we are up to 2500 dead and guessing 10000 wounded seriously and am praying that this will force the Bush team to stop the war... I do not expect success.
Then it occured to me:
It isn't his money.
The successes weren't successes.
And most importantly, It isn't his kids or relatives being slaughtered!!!!!
Published: June 20, 2006 7:23 PM
This war is not about regime change, WMD, terrorism, or democracy. It is about imperialism and establishing another foothold in the middle east. They are building bases and setting up troops for the long-run. Bush has already said the exit strategy is for a new president to contemplate. This has all been planned for years. They will only work outward as federal spending on Halliburton contracts has shot up 600% between 2000 and 2005. We need to stop this Romanesque march beyond our borders and the manipulation of our currency before it all comes tumbling down. Unless you'd like to suffer through the tumble.
Published: June 20, 2006 7:43 PM
"Is there is no amount of American bloodshed that would trigger a reassessment of the ideological fantasy that US power can transform Iraq into Kansas?"
This would be an appropriate question if there were actually any significant number of people in any significant positions of authority who actually believed that US power could transform Iraq into Kansas.
Published: June 20, 2006 9:29 PM
"Before the 19th century, wrote Mises, "only the soldiers fight; for the great majority war is only a passing suffering of evil, not an active pursuit."
As much as I respect Mises when he writes about economics, I find this statement hard to believe. Had he read War and Peace? Was he aware of the 80 year long struggle of the Dutch Republic against Spain in which the Spanish murdered more civilians than soldiers? It just doesn't square with what I've read about warfare in history. The civilians always suffer far more than the soldiers. How did Mises think armies survived before modern warfare? They pillaged and raped the civilians of the surrounding countryside!
And the king tried not to waste troops? When the human charge was the primary offensive weapon? It seems the opposite to me. War has become more humane, not less.
Published: June 20, 2006 9:40 PM
Let me first say that I, a sencond-rate federal employee, am not worthy even for consideration,amongst those who proclaim so diligently liberty, non-violence and voluntary society. Yet let me offer my humble opinion. Mises, Rothbard and Today's Austrian economists are right about economics: but the Libertarian cause needs a multidisciplinary approach. Historians, specializing military history? Umm you might think the proper noun for that is Neocon! But we do exist. I mean there has to be more blokes like me out there. and we (us libertarian military historians) need to take Hoppe's, Tannehill's, and Rothbards work and put it to the test.
Published: June 21, 2006 12:18 AM
To Address RogerM, Mises was waxing nostalgic over the 18th Century Warfare of pre-Napolianic vintage. The 18th Century was characterized by relatively limited warfare in light of the 17th Century. The 1600s saw, the Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, The Dutch-Spanish Conflict and last but not least: the Ottoman Empire's Wars against the Catholics to the west and the Orthodox peoples to the east. It was a very Brutal epoch. it was the last convulsions of the middle ages and nothing less the the territorial monopoly state (1648) emerged from it. The 18th Century, in contrast was a chain of numerous, but limited wars.
Published: June 21, 2006 12:27 AM
Total War seems to surge and receede like a tide throughout history. when I was in College, I professor characterized the Wars of Roses as "a big gang war, a grand Hatfield and Mcoy affair and the vast majority of England enjoyed prosperity in spite of it" (he was trying to refute Tudor Propaganda of Richard III). My point is, Mises was talking about those times.
Published: June 21, 2006 12:32 AM
Closet Anarchist in the Military: Use your forces for good not evil.
Published: June 21, 2006 1:01 AM
*winks* (to do that would be the answer to payer and the fullfillment of dreams)
Published: June 21, 2006 1:27 AM
Untill then, I urge all concerned to read J.R. Hummel and Joseph Stromberg's writings. It's a good place to start, but a larger body of literature needs to be generated.
Published: June 21, 2006 2:49 AM
"War has become more humane, not less."
It never ceases to amaze me how a certain Roger M thinks burning massive amounts of people alive with napalm and nuclear weapons (a napalm-like substance was even used in Iraq) amounts to some achievement of humane warmongering. But then he's safe where he lives. I'd never wish on him what he wished on the Iraqis (and they got).
Published: June 21, 2006 7:10 AM
Like I said, he's a statanist; he worships statan, the personification of evil in the world.
Published: June 21, 2006 7:22 AM
I'm sure we'd find him in a foxhole, APO Baghdad...
Published: June 21, 2006 8:02 AM
Closet Anarchist:"My point is, Mises was talking about those times." I'll take your word for that. I can see where it might be possible for Europeans, who shared cultures, to restrain themselves in warfare. According to Israel in his history of the Dutch Republic, the Dutch were the first to show such restraint in war during their fight against Spain.
One of the problems with trying to fight a restrained war is that both sides have to agree to do it, or it doesn't work. Japan and Germany massacred civilians by the millions, and hid a lot of their military capabilities among their civilians. We saw something similar in Vietnam, with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese hiding among civilians. But such tactics have become common in the Middle East, where Palestinians, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the insurgents in Iraq wear civilian clothing and hide behind the women and children. If we refuse to kill the civilians they hide behind, they know that they will have won.
Gen. George Sada tells in his book "Saddam's Secrets" that Hussein built his command and control centers under civilian bunkers, hoping the US would be afraid of killing civilians. He also stored weapons and ammo in schools, mosques and hospitals. When the enemy uses civilians as shields, it's really difficult to avoid killing them. Either we surrender, or we kill them.
I think the US would like to fight a more restrained war, but the enemy won't let us.
Published: June 21, 2006 9:21 AM
Roger,
With this: "I think the US would like to fight a more restrained war, but the enemy won't let us."--I'll infer you believe that Iraq is a necessary Enemy; Please elucidate.
Published: June 21, 2006 9:28 AM
Roger M., within your own country, if you were faced with complete external military domination, what would you do?
Everything you decry "Saddam", you would do nothing less yourself in that position.
If the US wanted less war, the US could simply leave. This is a war of aggression, the US is the aggressor. To end the war would require nothing more complicated than walking away.
Published: June 21, 2006 9:49 AM
I don't know why people keep bringing up the "Death Toll" as if it meant anything. If you want to see a death toll for a war, try this site: http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm
At LEAST 618,000 deaths (boths sides) during our own Civil War. However unconstitutional and illegal this war on "Terrorism" is, it's still a war (although I can't recall anyone ever declaring war on a NOUN, and then creating a department to redefine the noun - Homeland Security). Soldiers die, period.
The big issue will be when they redefine "Terrorism/Terrorist" to mean YOU. And they will.
Hell, they're probably working on it right now.
Published: June 21, 2006 10:09 AM
There is no question the US government will lose its crusade in the middle east, it is just a matter of how long, how much money and how many corpses it takes before the U.S. is either thrown out or leaves. I think the pro war/ pro state people would be right at home with Stalin's quote "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." As long as someone else is doing the dying and the paying, they could not care less in their quest for power. Just sacrifice some more hapless sheep to the god of war. Might makes right after all.
Published: June 21, 2006 12:04 PM
At the risk of getting flames, I don't agree at all with Iraq policy, but some opinion on these boards is garbage. Other nations are violently influencing the Middle East region for their benefit (Russia, China, etc.) It is a "cool war". A stateless world is so far an exercise in wishful thinking.
Leaving the region to itself (and the possibility of theocratic fascists) is crazy - the contrary argument is also valid: our imperial meddling has destabilized the region and installed dictatorial governments (especially Iran). But I hear only the latter, never the former argument. Frankly that is a ridiculously biased opinion to the point of arrogance.
We can't even tell what is happening or who is doing it - it's likely everyone here is ignorant to essential facts, as governments hide their influential assets.
Published: June 21, 2006 12:46 PM
Jim,
Much of the 'fascism' in the MidEast was provoked by the US government or European governments like Russia in the first place. You're aware of that and I'm glad. Yet the libertarians don't advocate a 'do-nothing' approach, only for non-intervention. Not non-defense. It was called national defense for a reason. National meaning protecting the people and culture, not the government.
Libertarian writings on foreign policy have to spend so much time on offense and refutation that it seems there is barely any time allotted to explain the solution the libertarians offer.
History strongly seems to show that keeping away from enemies gave our nation and culture the powerful and safe status it has today, while those who leapt in the fray destroyed themselves and became weaker, such as the European powers. Our own damned decline started with WWI.
If our bureaucracy barely knew who the planners of 9/11 were, even in their massive incompetence, and knew of their efforts, why on earth couldn't the decision be quick and decentralized: eliminate them with no tolerance? Isn't that a more humane 'war'? Why did the state refuse to share its information? Its size, perhaps? So, why would a war require more of this state presence?
More property rights entail more technological advances in how to watch, survey and protect the property. I have reason to doubt that it would be stateless communities who would squabble against each other and refuse to share information of an impending attack; the government already did that ruthlessly with 9/11.
Of course, there is Friedman's challenges to what would happen when the evil islamofascidemons try to nuke the great libertarian confederacy. Why wouldn't the anarcho towns have nukes themselves, though?
I really really want to read the Hoppe selection of essays, "The Myth of National Defense".
Published: June 21, 2006 1:49 PM
M.E: "I'll infer you believe that Iraq is a necessary Enemy." If you mean do I think the war was justified, yes. Was it necessary? No. In my humble opinion, the greatest mistakes of the 90's occurred in this order:
1. The former Bush decided to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. That was totally unecessary.
2. Bush kicked Iraq out but left Hussein in power, knowing the crimes he had committed against Iran, the Kurds and Kuwaitis.
3. Bush encouraged the Kurds and Shia to rebel against Hussein. Then when they did, we watched him slaughter them by the hundreds of thousands.
4. Sanctions against Iraq impoverished the people, probably killed many, and made Hussein even stronger.
Invading Iraq was justified, but not necessary. We could have ended the sanctions, pulled our troops out and let Hussein continue abusing his people. He didn't threaten our access to oil because he needed to sell it more than we needed to buy it.
Curt:"Everything you decry "Saddam", you would do nothing less yourself in that position." Not true. I wouldn't target civilians nor hide behind women and children.
Published: June 21, 2006 2:01 PM
Roger M., yet that is exactly what the government of the USA does.
Published: June 21, 2006 2:05 PM
Curt:"yet that is exactly what the government of the USA does."
How so?
Published: June 21, 2006 4:17 PM
Roger,
Economic sanctions specifically target the weakest of the weak. You don't have to kill someone with bombs. As Stalin knew well, starvation and disease are just as effective and far cheaper.
Published: June 21, 2006 5:22 PM
If invading Iraq was justified, then invading Sudan, North Korea, half the nations in Africa and Latin America and China as well is justified... only if such things rest on the responsibility of groups who bear all the costs and profits of such 'ventures' on themselves alone and keep everyone else out of the scheme. Which, of course, is laughable... unless there was an actual threat we could *cough* find with *cough* intelligence. Then the former applies.
Published: June 21, 2006 7:35 PM
Brett:"...only if such things rest on the responsibility of groups who bear all the costs and profits of such 'ventures' on themselves alone and keep everyone else out of the scheme."
The Church has done much heavier lifting on the issue of a just war than has any anarchist, and the Church's thinking is much more consistent, logical and moral. Why should anyone accept the puny logic of anarchists? Any when has any anarchist group gathered enough military power to attack a nation like Iraq? Anarchists like to brag that they could take care of the bullies of the world, but it has never happened and never will. You power exists only in your mind. You'd all be dead if the state you love to hate didn't protect you. Dream on.
Published: June 21, 2006 9:38 PM
Libertarian writings on foreign policy have to spend so much time on offense and refutation that it seems there is barely any time allotted to explain the solution the libertarians offer.
I think Rothbard does a very good job of explaing the libertarian solution to war in "For a New Liberty":
"This example points up another characteristic of warfare: that revolutionary guerrilla war can be far more consistent with libertarian principles than any inter-State war. By the very nature of their activities, guerrillas defend the civilian population against the depredations of a State; hence, guerrillas, inhabiting as they do the same country as the enemy State, cannot use nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. Further: since guerrillas rely for victory on the support and aid of the civilian population, they must, as a basic part of their strategy, spare civilians from harm and pinpoint their activities solely against the State apparatus and its armed forces. Hence, guerrilla war returns us to the ancient and honorable virtue of pinpointing the enemy and sparing innocent civilians. And guerrillas, as part of their quest for enthusiastic civilian support, often refrain from conscription and taxation and rely on voluntary support for men and materiel."
So, if my understanding of libertarian theory is correct, every good libertarian should demand that his government withdraw completely from the world, because that minimizes state intervention. There is nothing immoral about an individual who travels to other countries to fight for freedom, but he would probably be alone in his quest, since we live in a statist world. That doesn't mean the individual should call upon the state to assist him. First, he must dismantle his own state, and then he can help others dismantle theirs.
Published: June 21, 2006 9:50 PM
What justified the murder of 20,000-30,000 innocent Iraqis by American forces? What justifies blowing limbs off women and burning their children alive? No war shill ever answers me that one. No rational position of the church condones or justifies it (although many irrational, bloodthirsty Evangelicals try). Justified violence never punishes the innocent.
Published: June 22, 2006 8:27 AM
Brett -- Sure, but too many arguments on these boards run like this -
1 - Markets are better
2 - American government sucks because they ruin markets
Fine. But if the nation down the street is shooting at you or takes your ability (by force) to buy food or essentials, it ain't a market. Dreaming of never-never land where there are no nations that would take advantage - and leveling foreign policy criticism exclusively on the U.S. is just garbage. Withdrawal should be reciprocal, guilt should be spread, noting failures and successes.
Guerrilla warfare - I see, if you shoot your enemy and run into a crowd of innocent people exposing them all to great risk - that's moral? Whatever ...
Paul D - Justifies? What a stupid argument ...as if there's some sort of fantasy world where we can fight without hurting non-combatants. "Bloodthirsty Evangelicals" ... ? Plenty of Christians object (and in fact are giving their lives to peacefully spread the gospel in Muslim countries), so this doesn't boil down to religion --- that's your own prejudice talking.
Published: June 22, 2006 1:17 PM
On the other hand, as long as we have people who want to kill other people and break things better to have them volunteer to leave the country to do it.
Published: June 22, 2006 1:33 PM
"You'd all be dead if the state you love to hate didn't protect you. Dream on."
How does the government who steals from you protect you at the same time? Where was the "greatest military machine money can buy" on September 11 2001. It was caught with its pants down. Where was the state when the 3000+- people were killed? They were out to lunch and have always been out to lunch. They can steal, invade and destroy, but they cannot defend and protect. Like the police, they show up to unroll the yellow tape.
The police and the military are just another form of parasite who suck resources from productive people. Who is dreaming?
This corrupt regime is destroying this once free nation one law at a time, and you think they are doing it to protect us? Who will protect us from the protectors? If not us who? Statists such as yourself are the ones who refuse to open your eyes and see that what you heard in civics class about the good of the state was nothing but lies and fairy tales.
Published: June 22, 2006 4:28 PM
Guys. This issue is easy to settle.
All those who support state sanctioned warfare should pay for it directly with their own cash, their own property, their own time, their own labour and the dismemberment and death of themselves & their progeny (who no doubt would voluntarily go marching off to war, just as they would have been taught to by their parents). The rest of us should pay nothing at all. Have nothing to do with it. Nothing. Everyone except the willing participants should be left alone. A fair and simple solution.
Recently a friend gave me an old copy of "Vanity Fair" magazine to read. There was an article about the young men and women who have returned from the Iraq war to the USA with permanent debilitating injuries. Most of the people in that article had missing legs or arms. One young man, all of 21 years of age, had one of his legs removed at the pelvis. It is unwritten but the suspicion is that the injury damged him in more ways than a simple amputation. He acknowledged that his life as he knew it is over. How will he find a wife? How will he have a family? At the end of his interview he rambles on about duty and nationhood and similar nonsense. Then he says he has to believe it was worth it and that those ideas mean something, but he is wrestling with some serious doubts. The next few years of his life are likely to see him begin to understand that the concepts he so happily worshipped and sacrificed his body (and mind) to are hardly worth what he has lost. He will likely suffer much more. Perhaps the bitterness will last the rest of his life. Suffering. What has he gained?
Few people are directly confronted by the cost of war as the young war cripples in the "Vanity Fair" article. Fortunately many of us do not need to experience such pain, anguish and suffering to realise that destruction achieves very little of value. There are good reasons why state worshipping war mongers should be the first and only ones who pay for their wars. They should pay for them directly; arms and legs etc. That way when the bills fall due they may actually learn what the costs actually are.
The Matai told us to avoid fighting. Good advice.
Sione
Published: June 22, 2006 6:11 PM
I am against the Iraq War for pratical reasons, but I want to remember a good historical foreign aid:
And what about the help of french government on american revolution?
Published: June 22, 2006 6:53 PM
Renato,
You mean we have the French to blame for the mess we're in now? Darn them to heck!
(just kidding)
Published: June 22, 2006 6:57 PM
Sione - Straw man. No one here supports warfare - whether it's a state doing it is irrelevant (that's the whole point of being libertarian). Just see no reason to bash America without context - you can bet many other countries are bad and would be worse without the restraining force of American military. Its a problem with man, not the country.
Published: June 22, 2006 8:27 PM
Paul:"Further: since guerrillas rely for victory on the support and aid of the civilian population, they must, as a basic part of their strategy, spare civilians from harm and pinpoint their activities solely against the State apparatus and its armed forces."
As Jim writes above, guerrilla war is exactly what causes civilian deaths. That statement shows how little Rothbard knows about warfare. Guerillas hide among women and children, using them as shields. So their enemies are forced to kill the women and children or let the guerillas go. That's what happened in Vietnam as happens today in Palestine and Iraq. If guerillas had any concern for innocent life, and any morals, they would hide in deserted areas like real men.
Sione:"All those who support state sanctioned warfare should pay for it directly with their own cash, their own property, their own time, their own labour and the dismemberment and death of themselves & their progeny..."
What you advocate is theft. Let the "warmongers" pay the costs of protecting us. We'll live off their sacrifice. That's the kind of twisted thinking I've come to expect from anarchists.
Published: June 22, 2006 9:23 PM
How? Its their costs and responsibilities. How is that theft?
Published: June 22, 2006 10:00 PM
And, why wouldn't a stateless community have no information about a threat to their property?
The warmongers go to private war over a perceived threat to their land. They can say it is their 'sacrifice' for other lands, but the stateless nations have no obligation to pay for their private war.
That means the anti-war community isn't protected. But do they want protection? Why can't they give their own protection?
The government is not the nation. There are more authorities that bring order to a society other than a government that forces all within its 'sovereignty'. There are voluntary authorities that stateless communities would be wise to sign up for, be responsible for and support cost-wise, if they want that private group's protection.
Why is it that the first word and evidence about terrorist threats came from decentralized intelligence systems, yet big government prevented that information from being shared?
When pro-war Christians try to argue if we aren't forced to be spied on and taxed and marched by the government to kill tyrant in land x, they always forget that government usually created tyrant x and land x. Why is one authority forcing everyone to fight for its own agenda better than free groups who wage their own fight?
Ok, now I can hear people saying, "well, once tyrant x is on the loose, whether or not the gov created him, he's still out there and is going to kill us."
Who watches the property that agents of tyrant x plan to invade?
Who decides what individuals have plans to destroy lives and property?
Who actually reports it efficiently?
It isn't the Departments.
Published: June 22, 2006 10:10 PM
Oops, that was three hours of sleep talking. "Why would a stateless community have no information..." Is what I meant. :)
Published: June 22, 2006 10:16 PM
This corrupt regime is destroying this once free nation one law at a time, and you think they are doing it to protect us?
You don't get it. He's religious. Now, what does the bible teach about evil? That it cloaks itself in the guise of good - and that's exactly what the state does. I'm not a Christian, but if you read any religious literature (Bible, Koran, whatever), you'll find elements of truth in there, and this is one of them: the state is the literal biblical evil. Jesus was an anarchist. Roger M is a statanist.
Published: June 23, 2006 12:58 AM
Rob writes:
"The big issue will be when they redefine 'Terrorism/Terrorist' to mean YOU. And they will. Hell, they're probably working on it right now."
Rob, they are not working on it. It is already done! Here is a link to the PDF of the "Terrorism and Security Awareness Orientation for State Employees" given to all VA state employees: http://www.virginianewssource.com/images/VATerrorismManual.pdf .
Under "international terrorists", we find the usual suspects - Hamas, Al Qaeda, etc.
Under "Domestic", we find "property rights activists", "anti-government and militia movement", "religious extremists", and many more. Almost everyone is a terrorist already. FBI training manuals contain the same info and include a heading called "right wing extremists", but I can't seem to find a link at the moment.
Published: June 23, 2006 1:17 AM
JimB
Everyone on this thread? You speak for yourself, not for the other contributors.
Now, did I mention America? Did I "bash" America? Who or what is America anyway? Is it you? Is it me? Is it RogerM? Is it TT or is it Paul or Vince or someone else entirely? Is it all of them or none of them or some of them or whichwhatever? What is this entity to which you refer?
If no-one supported war then no-one would defend partaking in it. Think on that.
Making war is not excused because "it's the Nature of Man". Such a trivial approach means accepting the doing of evil deeds as necessary, unavoidable and justifiable (in which case, what is evil?).
Volitional choice IS an essential part of the "Nature of Man." Making war is an expression of a particular volitional choice made by certain individuals. In general, individuals make their own choices and then act on them. They may make the wrong choices. They may decide to do great evil. It's better if they don't.
The position is that people should bear the cost of their own choices. Hence, people who choose not to initiate force, rape, steal, torture, destroy, kill, invade or engage in violent acts, should not be expected to support those who do.
Let state worshippers and war mongers live from their own finite resources and no-one elses. Actually, were this to happen there'd be a lot less state worshiping and war mongering going on! That's the cure right there.
Sione
Published: June 23, 2006 1:33 AM
RogerM
Ah, your comment reminds me of the old union days at the meatworks. The union bosses (communist to a man) used to claim that anyone who wasn't a member of the union was "stealing" from all the other meatworkers on the chain. They promoted the notion that the union "protected" meatworkers from the bosses (who were the enemy- funny idea that, somehow the guy who employed me was my "enemy"). Therefore anyone employed at the plant "owed" the union, hence must join and lend it support. OR ELSE. That was the important bit. OR ELSE. It's also the bit you left out. OR ELSE. Anyone that didn't get a union membership and pay the bastards would get bashed... by union toughs...
What you are up to is promoting a disasterous protection racket. Shame on you!
Putting it more bluntly, your argument relies on the same ideas as does the Black Power or the Mongrel Mob or the Mafia when they enter a restaurant or pub to demand tribute for "insurance." See. If the publican or restauranteur do not pay, then mysterious things start to occur. Like the daughter gets raped, or the son has an "accident" and his fingers get cut off or the business gets burned to the ground or the business owner gets murdered... Damn! That guy should have paid for "protection" from the gang (both meanings intended).
Exactly what you are into. Exactly the same stuff.
YOU are the one who is attempting to justify theft and worse.
Something you should learn now:
1/. I do not require your much promoted "protection". I didn't ask for it. I do not need you or it. I'd rather you and your kind (state worshipping war mongers) left me alone. Hence I do not want to pay anything towards your (plural) upkeep. I'd rather state worshippers and war mongers starve as they have no useful purpose. Many of my colleagues, family, business associates and friends agree with me.
2/. I am not a target of your "enemies" (who I may add, seem to multiply and, rather inconveniently for you, keep winning). You are the one with something to fear, as you are associated with and support those (your representatives and leaders) who made the enemies in the first place. Ever heard of "blowback"?
3/. State worshippers and warmongers are exactly the same no matter what "side" they are on. They are all the same. They all play the same game. That's another reason why I'd rather have those guys pay for their own activities, prosecute them directly against each other and bear ALL the costs themselves. Leave the rest of us alone.
4/. The state does not represent me. State worship and war mongering are not in my interests. I do not support those activities or the people who do. Their activities endanger me, my property, my wealth, my friends, business associaltes, colleagues & family etc...
RogerM, you should go bear the costs and consequences of your chosen lifestyle of hate, prejudice and violence by yourself. It is easy to demand the rest of us pay for your moral corruption and physical perversions (waging violence and war), but it is you who should bear the direct cost of it. Leave other people alone.
Sione
BTW you write "we'll live off their sacrifice" or some such nonsense. Leave it out mate! According to this line if some Black Power soldier gets stabbed down at the Flying Jug Tavern by the Neo-Nazi Boot Boys, then all the darkies in the pub are living off his sacrifice. What utter crap!
Published: June 23, 2006 2:07 AM
From Roger M:
"Paul D - Justifies? What a stupid argument"
Ah yes, Roger thinks having justification for violence against humans is a stupid argument. That explains a lot.
"...as if there's some sort of fantasy world where we can fight without hurting non-combatants."
It's the same 'fantasy world' where humans act and consider the consequences of their actions.
"'Bloodthirsty Evangelicals' ... ? Plenty of Christians object (and in fact are giving their lives to peacefully spread the gospel in Muslim countries), so this doesn't boil down to religion --- that's your own prejudice talking."
I'm a Christian, so it's not my prejudice talking. I'm disgusted when other Christians get this glint in their eyes at the idea of war — killing heathens overseas is such a welcome diversion from one's own moral emptiness.
Published: June 23, 2006 4:07 AM
Paul - Nonsense. People don't just act, they react to the situation their put in.
If the U.S. market for oil might be decimated, the U.S. reaction is - GASP - possibly reasonable! I don't agree with GW, think the embargo was sickeningly immoral terrorism, but have no love lost for Saddam and understand there's a decent argument on the other side. You can imagine the war we'd have to commit if the region was to turn entirely anti-U.S...
So why does America get nearly all the blame in complaint-time on Mises.org? Why not a celebration of what we have as the most morally instituted country on the face of the earth and a call to return to it's foundation?
It's bizarre. Libertarianism is showing too many elements of the left. The Left shows enormous hostility toward the out-group and psychologically projects to the point the left verbally support (and equate GW with) dictators and moral freaks in opposition to the U.S. Is that where this is going?
So I'm worried that kind of narcissism is taking over libertarian thinking (check out lewrockwell.com). You may have no state enforceable moral obligation to your fellow man - but that's not because there IS no moral obligation, but because man is so corrupt it is used for evil.
And you can be prejudiced against Christians irrespective of your Christianity.
Sione - Straw man garbage. No protection racket of the sort was promoted. No agreement of current policy was stated - only the argument for it specified. No pro-warfare opinion was written (no-one here is "pro-war" - there's a question as to what action would minimize war); in fact the opposite of all the above - You've got to get out of your own viewpoint long enough to actually read what has been said.
Published: June 23, 2006 8:24 AM
Sione:"Exactly what you are into. Exactly the same stuff."
You don't think you're exaggerating a tad? But that's what I've come to expect from anarchos. You can defend your position logically, so you resort to the tactics of the left, exaggeration and insult.
The free rider syndrome is recognized as a problem because it's tantamount to theft. And it's the reason that anarcho societies last only a few years and we don't have any today. Some of you have argued that anarchism is a new philosophy and that's why there are no anarcho societies today. But others have argued that anarcho societes have existed throughout history, early Pennsylvania being an example. Which is it? Is anarchism old or new? If it's old, why hasn't it lasted? Why are there no anarcho societies today? The answer is the free rider problem.
PaulD:"It's the same 'fantasy world' where humans act and consider the consequences of their actions."
You're living in a fantasy world if you think all humans consider the consequences of their actions. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait because of a dream, according to his closest generals. He thought Allah had instructed him to do so. How do you combat that with logic? Why is there so much war in the world today if everyone is so reasonable?
Published: June 23, 2006 8:58 AM
In my opinion war is sometimes justified - any historical sense at all shows that human groups, from families to clans to nations, attack each other, and that those who are not able to defend themselves may lose all they hold dear.
However, I think it's quite clear that this war is not a war of defense, but one of wholly unjustified aggression, so discussions about free riders are hardly relevant.
Rather, we should be asking - Why this war? Why is it still continuing despite the very real and very high present and future costs?
Llew has touched on a part of it - that the lives being lost are lives of a totally different social strata and are almost completely unimportant to those who have wanted this war - but it seems to me that no one is making the obvious points, namely that, more than the numbers of dead being a political inconvenience, (1) the war itself is a war FOR POLITICAL GAIN and (2) the financial costs also do not matter, since the dollars flow to FAVORED RENT-SEEKERS - and thus indirectly into the politicians' pockets, and (3) the costs are being passed onto others, especially to future taxpayers and to others outside the US who do not matter at all in the political calculus of US decision-makers.
This is theft and rent-seeking on a vast scale, pure and simple. We should not merely be mourning the heavy costs being borne by soldiers and Iraqis, but be enraged at the degree of costs being shifted to all of us by this foolish and counterproductive war, all for the sake of political convenience, ego and plunder.
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 23, 2006 9:51 AM
If you sincerely believe that the state is "protecting us" in a general and specific sense, then you must necessarily believe the required crushing taxation, surveillance, and sacrifice of life that accompany this service is justified.
This view holds protection services sacrosanct. Only a monopoly priest hood (state) is able to perform these services. Peons such as the individual or the masses are incapable of obtaining adequate protection through the division of labor.
Yet state protection has 2 problems: 1. The agency problem, who does the government serve? Themselves or the people who are forced to pay them without exception? 2. The layers and layers of competing bureaucracies, state and national that exist and each department's goal of acquiring more power and money which sounds a lot like political anarchy.
As has been written here before, when the state wields a simultaneous monopoly over law making and protection services, they have a license to steal and no duty to protect.
The whole 26 year US-Iraq war is the latest example of this war racket.
Published: June 23, 2006 9:54 AM
Roger M - Free riders aren't thieves - there's no willful participation but passive benefit. Your position would mean that I could - under the same logic - forcibly charge you (using the apparatus of the state) for enjoying my nice lawn because there's a "free rider" problem.
I think you'll find these objections not so much to the theory of libertarianism (violence allowed only the case of defense against violence), but the difficulty of implementation and the legitimacy of policy.
Published: June 23, 2006 9:54 AM
Roger M growled;
"What you advocate is theft. Let the "warmongers" pay the costs of protecting us. We'll live off their sacrifice. That's the kind of twisted thinking I've come to expect from anarchists."
How about this;
http://www.libertyguys.org/articles/detail.asp?ArtID=973
"Antiwar" is not at all the same thing as "pacifist". Yet the neo-cons and liberventionists (in defense of the illegal aggressive war in Iraq) persist in blurring the line between self-defense and agression.
Admiral Yamamoto, when asked (after his stunning attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor) if he had plans to attack the US mainland, said "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass".
This indicates he was smart enough to know two things; 1) America (at that time) was a society that still largely left its people free and armed, and; 2) No one fights more fiercely than when he is fighting for home and hearth on his own soil. This indicated that even Yamamoto (he of the daring daylight attacks and Kamikazes) understood the vast difference between defense and agression.
Today, we have a "professional" military, and are systematically disarming ordinary citizens while continually building up the armaments of the military and, increasingly disturbingly, private mercenary companies (i.e. Blackwater). We have no domestic capability for defense, having co-opted the state militias into the "National Guard", and we have taken weapons of self-defense away from law abiding citizens. The result of all of this "professionalism" and private soldiering? We are completely unconcerned about the security of our homeland, and are instead engaged in aggressive wars abroad.
It's time to bring ALL our troops home, now.
The myth of national defense (a HHH book title by the way) is that somehow it is superior to self-defense. Against superpowers armed with nuclear missiles, maybe there is some utility for some kind of national defense, though I doubt it. The truth is that there are no nuclear missiles, bioweapon-armed drones, or poison gas shells in Iraq, not for a decade or more previous either.
The real threat is that an imperial military will piss off a small, well-funded group of fanatics enough that they would conduct a daring daylight suicide attack against high-visibility targets in the US. Er....
Roger, I don't WANT your free ride, it offers me nothing but death and destruction. I have a 30-30, a 12-gauge, and plenty of ammo. So do some of my neighbors.
Published: June 23, 2006 10:12 AM
Tom - Agree. But are you persuaded there's no contrary argument that holds water? Honestly, does anyone here believe that pulling entirely out of the Middle East (goodbye house of Saud, hello Iran, welcome suitcase nukes) and letting Israel defend themselves with their only option (nuclear) and let crazies destroy markets all over the world ... The backlash would be worse. It's a fantasy to believe we could persist through those economic consequences without catastrophically increasing intervention. Current policy has to face current realities. The present option is friendly governments, containment of threat, then disengagement - and God help us if GW ends up uniting the Arab world against the U.S.
(And of course the irony is rich that the U.S. decimates Iraq when Saddam is in power then "liberates" it from Saddam -- then again it's not like Saddam didn't appear to be a significant threat).
There are certainly fools running the show -- that doesn't mean the actions are necessarily and fully wrong ...
Published: June 23, 2006 10:13 AM
Vince - You've no idea if Saddam had serious weapons or not. There's no way you could know unless you're better informed than the U.S. gov (let me know how you are if you are).
Published: June 23, 2006 10:23 AM
Well Jim, it's like this. The Iraqis were poor as church mice and the Saddam regime was dumber than rocks. They could barely keep their sewage treatment plants going, much less useable NBC weapons technology. And the USG's "intelligence" was coming from a professional con man and Iranian ally who was being paid $400,000 a month to tell Rumsfeld, Feith and Wolfowitz what they wanted to hear. Call me cynical, but I'd require a bit more before dispatching troops 5,000 miles away and spending a billion dollars a week.
So far, the only people ever to unleash a WMD/biological agent attack on Americans have been US government employees.
Published: June 23, 2006 10:54 AM
You're kidding Jim, aren't you?
For my background, I have worked in chemical weapons, specifically in their destruction under the UN Chemical Weapons protocol, so I know a little about the subject.
But one doesn't need any specialized knowledge to know the entire claim is completely bogus;
1) He didn't use them, even though he knew he was finished;
2) The US has not found ONE PIECE of evidence it is willing to share with the public in detail
3) The Bush Administration have been proven utter, complete liars on that and every other phony fraudulent justification for war.
Don't insult the intelligence of the fine people reading this by parroting these absurd claims. And if you actually believe them, you need to examine your own beliefs and convictions.
Sorry to be so blunt, but it is my patriotic duty to disabuse people of these harmful, incorrect notions. Even my dear mother is not spared;
http://www.libertyguys.org/articles/detail.asp?ArtID=1363
Published: June 23, 2006 10:54 AM
Apropos of this, from the LRC blog, 5 minutes ago;
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/010812.html#more
Writes Eric Margolis: "US Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, both Republican conservatives staged a press conference this week to crow weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Pro-war groups are making a great rumpus about this canard.
"It is deeply disturbing to see two American lawmakers promoting an absurd lie to the public and media, and making fools of themselves.
"Five hundred old artillery shells containing toxic agents mustard gas and nerve gas were found in Iraq, leftovers from the 1980-1988 war against Iran. These artillery shells were of medium calibre, to be fired from howitzers with a maximum rage of 18 miles. Their minimum 16-year old content were likely rendered largely inert by age and environment.
"More important, these were battlefield weapons intended for use against Iranian troops. Calling them weapons of mass destruction is a nonsense. We might as well call machine guns wmd's.
"Embarrassingly for the senator and congressman, the components to make the mustard and nerve gas in the shells came from our allies in Europe - Germany, Holland, Belgium and Italy - and was secretly financed by the US Dept of Agriculture through Italian banks. The legislators who made this claim are either fools or charlatans - or both."
Published: June 23, 2006 11:37 AM
Vince and Reactionary - Reread the comments posted. I'm not an apologist for the war: I think we run enormous risk in comparison to nearly-certain-to-fail payoff. However, the criticism remains: A lot of libertarians thought has turned Anti-American along the same lines as the left-wing. And if the war turns out badly, we'll hear chest-thumping about "how right we were" when in fact most of what we said (being dramatically inaccurate and biased) is just pure b.s.
As far as weapons -- they can be moved by truck and quite quickly these days and the desert is a big, big place. Maybe Saddam didn't have any. Maybe he did.
It's just not correct to play like WMD are the most important reason for invasion (Bush accidentally or foolishly made that the case). More likely it's a confluence of circumstances.
I note the UN is a governmental organization vastly inferior to almost anything else in getting anything done. To defer to the UN is to embrace even more socialism-communism. Giving every dictator and equal vote with better countries isn't my idea of a decent policy.
You've a duty to God, family, your friends, neighbors, and yourself - as God has given you your life and it is indeed to be valued. You've no "patriotic" duty whatsoever apart from that.
Published: June 23, 2006 12:19 PM
Jim,
My only point is there were many reasons to believe that the Saddam regime had no effective NBC technology (much less any NBC technology that was a threat to the US) and there were very few reasons to believe that he did. When gambling with other people's lives and money, the fiduciary should act on the surer thing.
And don't equate opposition to the war with anti-Americanism, though there is certainly plenty of that to go around on the Left. The Iraq war was intended to further Israeli interests, not US interests.
Published: June 23, 2006 12:39 PM
If Saddam even did have WMD's, by what right does only the US government have to invade and destroy the nation and not the WMD's? And by what right does it have to make everyone pay for it? And by what right does it have to spy on everyone else?
It seems that the neocons are now using the UN as their rationale, though. Libertarians never supported the UN.
And for me, 9/11 (and Pearl Harbor and WWI) is irrefutable proof that big government cannot protect lives and property from threats.
Many libertarians hate the government. But the government is not America. The majority that votes a government in is not America. America (was) an idea of a free land of liberty and property. That's what libertarians love and politicians say they love (well, they used to. America for neocons is a giant crushing entity of supreme magnificence and arrogance. Bush's America is a Roman Pagan God).
I deeply sympathize with RogerM. I think he and I are concerned about terrorism, have always been, not just because of 9/11. And I am doubtful of the government's ability to adequately defend lives against the terrorists. I really feel less safe than I did before 9/11. Yet according to Bush logic, that's proof of his magnificence. It's proof of his magnificence if I feel safe, too, somehow.
Published: June 23, 2006 12:40 PM
Jim B;
"A lot of libertarians thought has turned Anti-American along the same lines as the left-wing. And if the war turns out badly, we'll hear chest-thumping about "how right we were" when in fact most of what we said (being dramatically inaccurate and biased) is just pure b.s."
I disagree, There's a difference between being anti-war and anti-American. Most people here feel that difference most keenly. We are horrified at the socialist economics of many on the left, and are VERY leery of alliances with them. But this matter of empire is rapidly becoming a life-or-death situation (already has been for those in the military and Iraqi and Afghan people).
But please - as you point out re my earlier post - this talk of trucking weapons around Iraq is completely specious. With all of the "terrorists" we have captured and tortured, wouldn't we know where any significant weapons stores are by now?
And tell me this - if WMD was never a good enough reason, what possible justification is there that has anything to it? Please enlighten.
Published: June 23, 2006 12:41 PM
Brett,
I think the problem is that the sheer awfulness and scale of the 9/11 attack causes people to overlook a fundamental point: 9/11 was a criminal assault carried out by 19 men who died on the planes they commandeered. It was a criminal act, not an act of state. (It's also worth noting that the attack was so spectacularly successful only because the government has rendered airplanes gun-free victim-zone-pipe-bombs in the sky.)
As the esteemed William Lind would say, government militaries are simply not intended nor appropriate for responding to criminal assaults.
Published: June 23, 2006 12:53 PM
Brett,
You posit: "And for me, 9/11 (and Pearl Harbor and WWI) is irrefutable proof that big government cannot protect lives and property from threats."
Could you expand and/or possibly clarify that statement? In what sense are you referring?
Published: June 23, 2006 12:59 PM
Vince - Many libertarians articles I've read are adopting the left-wing "unidirectional view of evil" view -- the U.S. government is the most vile and dangerous institution on the face of the earth (and sometimes Christianity to the extent they support GW). It's true Muslims don't regularly steal 50% of my income and won't throw my son in jail for 10 years for pot smoking and don't (yet) have the capacity to create world wars -- but that's not for lack of motivation, just opportunity.
As far as trucking weapons - The whole "we didn't find WMD so they don't exist and therefore Bush lied" is just garbage - there's so many other possibilities no conclusions are warranted. Weapons certainly could have moved over the state line (Saudi Arabia?). What is warranted: we should roll back almost all the domestic Bush policy changes and fire 50% of gov workers and cut taxes as well.
So let's hear the context of decisions with due time given to the complexity of the threats we do face; it makes libertarian arguments stronger.
Reactionary - One would think if BNC really existed, the Bush machine would be heavily motivated to find it and produce it -- But Bush isn't in control like the posts here make out. There's hundreds of thousands of "policy makers" all with their own agendas (like the CIA) so I'd have to claim ignorance to the real situation.
Published: June 23, 2006 1:26 PM
Vince: “I have a 30-30, a 12-gauge, and plenty of ammo.�
I’m not saying you won’t defend your family and property. I’m saying you won’t defend anyone else’s. So if America had been libertarian during WWII, and had the Japanese attacked, they would have had an easy victory picking off the libertarians one at a time. Libertarians can only fight when their personal property is attacked, otherwise war is murder. So no neighbor could expect help from another. Also, many neighbors would rather surrender than fight and risk total destruction of life and property. This is why anarchism can’t stand up to an invader and dies so quickly.
There’s plenty of evidence that Iraq was behind the 1993 WTC bombing and the OKC bombing. They had tried to assassinate former president Bush. They had planned to blow up 10 airliners over the Pacific. They were trying to build a nuclear weapon to attack us with. But anarchists don’t want to fight until Iraqi troops land in Florida. I doubt you would want to fight if they blew up half of New York with a nuclear weapon, because it’s not your property so you have no justification for a fight.
Published: June 23, 2006 1:28 PM
Roger M - Under that theory you travel to Dubai and you can be legitimately drafted into their army ...
Published: June 23, 2006 1:39 PM
There seems to be two different debates going on here: 1) What kind of system of national defense is most consistent with libertarianism and 2) Was the Iraq war in particular justifiable?
When it comes to the question of the most optimal defense, to parapharase Rumsfeld, "You go to war with the defense you have, not the defense you wish you had."
I think any societies' ability to perform well in war and fend off invaders is rooted as much in culture, ideology and so-called "national will" as much as any specific set of institutional arrangements. Look at all of the backwoods, rag-tag armies that have defeated major powers in recent decades: The Vietcong, Khmer Rouge, Pathet Lao, Mujahadeen(sp?), the Algerian independence movement,etc. There are plenty of others who have been able to hold their own even if they haven't achieved complete victory: IRA, PLO/Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, FARC, FMLN.
These groups thrive because of their superior martial spirit and will to victory as opposed to imperialist nations that are either tired and worn out (like the Soviet Union) or so fat and lazy they run at the first sight of blood (the US and Europe). The Islamic insurgency is defeating the US "war on terror" for these reasons also. The Islamists are largely a stateless military enterprise. You could say that the Iraqi insurgents, the Afhan warlords, and al-Qaeda are examples of "anarchist" military forces since they are private and independent of any particular state. The governments of the Islamic nations are mostly Western puppets despised by their people and on the verge of collapse.
The best approach to foreign policy is the same approach a sensible person who encountered a street brawl of thugs and hooligans would use. Keep your eyes open, your head down, be prepared to come up swinging if you need to but never instigate anything or throw the first punch.
As for Iraq, the best position is that expressed in the above comments by "Reactionary". Iraq was a joke under Saddam Hussein. If the USG had left well-enough alone, his regime would have eventually collapsed like that of Nicolae Ceaucescu. As "Reactionary" says, the real beneficiaries of this war are the Iranians and the Israelis. That's the kind of thing early US leaders like Washington and Jefferson warned against when they spoke of "passionate attachments" and "entangling alliances".
Published: June 23, 2006 2:21 PM
Keith:"These groups thrive because of their superior martial spirit and will to victory..."
Not true at all! You guys need some serious history lessons. Here's the truth: Guerrilla fighters hide behind women and children because they're cowards. Western leaders lack the will to kill the women and children in order to get at the guerillas, so they tend to walk away from the fight.
Thinking Iraq under Saddam Hussein would implode is just plain ignorance. The USSR, China, Cuba, N. Korea are just a few examples of barbarous, poor countries led by stupid people who have lasted a long time (longer than any anarcho society since the Irish), and murdered millions.
Published: June 23, 2006 2:36 PM
Roger,
Guerillas "hide behind women and children" (that is, they go to ground) because it's a smart tactic for a vastly inferior force. The stupidest thing a guerilla force could do is engage a heavily armed military in open combat, like the foolhardy Polish cavalry charging German tanks.
And speaking of history lessons, get out a map and look at Iraq. Its borders were drawn with rulers by the British when they broke up the Ottoman Empire. World War One ended preemptively with the drawing of artificial borders and, one generation later, the parties picked up where they had left off with World War Two. Well, in Iraq, we're not just resuming World War Two; we still haven't finished fighting World War One. (Further proof of the adage that the British will fight to the last drop of American blood.)
God only knows what socio-economic forces we've unleashed from the current mess.
There was a great deal of conservative commentary against the Iraq war based on realpolitik and historical precedent that you seem to have missed.
Published: June 23, 2006 3:01 PM
Reactionary: Guerillas "hide behind women and children" (that is, they go to ground) because it's a smart tactic for a vastly inferior force."
Doesn't matter! It's still immoral and cowardly. In Vietnam, you're beloved guerillas would chop of the arms of the children of parents who helped the S. Vietnamese/American forces and pile them in the middle of the village to make sure no other villagers did so. In Iraq, they murder villagers who help the US, including their children. They murder shoppers in markets and worshippers at mosques. There is nothing admirable about them at all. But, hey, if you anarchos want to indentify with them, go right ahead. It doesn't surprise me. As I wrote in another post, anarchism destroys one's ability to distinguish good from evil.
Published: June 23, 2006 4:28 PM
Reactionary: "There was a great deal of conservative commentary against the Iraq war based on realpolitik and historical precedent that you seem to have missed."
Well said.
Roger,
The commentators I was reading in the months leading up to the beginning of the Iraq war were Scott Ritter (a US Marine and head of the disarmament program in Iraq), the regrettably late Colonel David Hackworth(one of America's most decorated combat veterans), Martin Van Creveld (a right-wing Israeli and the world's leading military historian), William S. Lind (one of the world's leading experts on guerrilla warfare), Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell (veteran Cold Warriors and longtime commentators on military and geopolitical issues) and others of this caliber. These are not exactly fellows who are "ignorant" about war and military matters.
"Thinking Iraq under Saddam Hussein would implode is just plain ignorance. "
That's what Jean Kirkpatrick used to say about the Warsaw Pact. Where are they now?
"The USSR, China, Cuba, N. Korea are just a few examples of barbarous, poor countries led by stupid people who have lasted a long time (longer than any anarcho society since the Irish), and murdered millions."
Saddam Husseins' atrocities, though numerous, nowhere approached the level of those of the gangster Communist states of the 20th century. Even at that, these regimes do not survive once their first generation of revolutionaries begins to die out. After Stalin's death, "revisionism" began to kick in leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Capitalism was de facto implemented in China after Mao's death and the purge of Mao loyalists like the Gang of Four. The regimes of Castro and Kim will eventually undergo a similar fate. Once Castro goes, Cuba will be a tourist attraction and Mafia haven like it was during the pre-Castro era. And North and South Korea will eventually reunite. The combination of the South's industrial and economic power and the North's military and nuclear power will make Korea into one of the major world powers.
Published: June 23, 2006 4:51 PM
" I think the problem is that the sheer awfulness and scale of the 9/11 attack causes people to overlook a fundamental point: 9/11 was a criminal assault carried out by 19 men who died on the planes they commandeered. It was a criminal act, not an act of state. (It's also worth noting that the attack was so spectacularly successful only because the government has rendered airplanes gun-free victim-zone-pipe-bombs in the sky.)"
Exactly. This reminds me of the Robert Higgs article about his speech at a wealthy event in St. Louis and him being bombarded by torturous 'questions' in the form of demands from the neocon audience. They felt all criminal activity that happens by the hand of non-Americans means that said criminals have no rights whatsoever and the state has all the power it desires to do no end to them.
Of course this follows that the state turns on its arbitrary domestic 'enemies', as history shows. But that audience was so far in the circus, and apparently now a minority these days.
Terrorists are criminals, not demons. Just f-ed up, quite insane people like so many holding and abusing authority in the world. Treat them like criminals, not a collective menace. It creates the whole Zoroastrian good n evil black n white good blob vs bad blob. We dive into the sins of collectivism by recognizing terrorists as such, and it empowers them.
They were mostly tinpot desert rogues, nearly ineffective, and it is only a similar gang that ballooned their power up to monstrous proportions and enabled and enables them now to inflict such hell upon us, and spread in influence and power in other nations.
Published: June 23, 2006 5:48 PM
JimB
My comments regarding protection rackets was provided to illustrate a problem with RogerM's statement, not yours. I rebutted your nonsense in a post addressed directly to you. It started with, "JimB". You may have missed it.
How about you read what was written FOR YOU? I addressed your assertions and also asked you some important questions. It'd be nice if you'd be honest enough to deal with that and not pretend to speak for RogerM (who is well capable of defending his own statements and ideas- how about you try to defend yours?).
As previously mentioned, you speak for yourself.
Sione
Published: June 23, 2006 7:51 PM
RogerM
You wrote: "But that's what I've come to expect from anarchos. You can defend your position logically."
Actually, I'm an Islander not an Anarchos. But yes! Sure can. Thanks for that. Perhaps I was a little hard on you. I'll elaborate a little.
You wrote: "You don't think you're exaggerating a tad?"
No I'm not exaggerating. The "free rider" excuse you mention is exactly what the union bosses used to drag out in an attempt to justify their regime. It's exactly what the Mongrel Mob, the Black Power and numerous other organised crime outfits do as well. The demand tribute from their victims for "protecting" them. They are the great "protectors" of the neighbourhood. Everyone "owes" them for their glorious sacrifices.
It's interesting to ask what the Mongrel Mob "protect" the neighbourhood from. The answer is, Black Power, another gang. See Black Power want to live off the people in the neighbourhood and do all the same things that Mongrel Mob get to do. MM know what the BP want. They know each wants to supplant the other and so they fight each other for the power to parasite from the productive people of the neighbourhood. The bad news is for the people in the neighbourhood. They get the OR ELSE bit applied no matter what. Seems to be what government is all about these days.
Now it's important to realise that those who make these wonderful "sacrifices" (such as the young war cripples I read about in "Vanity Fair") marched off voluntarily. I didn't ask them to go to war. Therefore I do not expect to be forced to pay them ANYTHING. They made the choice and they now bear the consequences. Do I benefit from their destruction as whole human beings? No. Do I benefit from their reduction to suffering? No. Even if I did, I didn't agree to pay them anything. No deal was made. No agreement was executed between me and the war boys and their war toys. No order number issued by my business & hence no valid invoice recognised. In the end their actions make very little difference to me, except that I'm being expected to pay towards ever more war. OR ELSE.
Turning now to Iraq. The real tragedy of the present mess in Iraq is the hundreds of thousands of people who want nothing to do with war and yet have had a war waged against them by state worshippers and war mongers of all stripes! They had no choice at all. I sympathise big time with them. Of course none of them get much consideration. Watching warfare is too much fun. All those high tech weapons. Boom! Boom! Bang! Turn on the cable vision to see the latest pyrotechnic action! Watch as another dozen rags get collateralised. Yeah man!
It is very important to understand there is a considerable difference between individual self-defence and the prosecution of an invasion overseas at the behest of the fuehrer.
I live in Australia presently, although I am not a citizen (and so thankfully do not have to vote). Were there any Iraqis lurking down in Canberra waiting to attack me? No. Was Saddam getting ready steal one of my cars? Thankfully not, although he may have been after the Suzuki RG500. On second thoughts, naaaaaaaah, probably not. Well then, perhaps he was going to send someone to syphon all my petrol. Yeah, that's it! Seriously though, I doubt he even knows I exist. I note that the Sadam regime posed no threat to anyone in Australia or Asia or the Pacific. None at all. He was the problem for those who lived in Iraq (and Iran, he definitely was trouble for them) and he would not have even existed as a generalissimo had not certain state worshippers and war mongers from North America and Europe put him in power in the first place. Now where do you suppose those ratbags got all the wealth to invest in that objective? And that is the point.
State worshippers and war mongers would not get very far if they had to directly bear all the costs of war themselves. They'd soon exhaust their resources completely. Or die. So the solution is simple. Let them pay for and bear the costs of their own activities.
Sione
Published: June 23, 2006 8:06 PM
"Why is there so much war in the world today if everyone is so reasonable?"
I never said everyone was as "reasonable", just that people act, actions have consequences, and those consequences determine good and evil. Moral people avoid the evil type. Killing an airplane hijacker is good; blowing up a plane of innocent people to get at the hijacker is bad. Even a child knows that, but you won't acknowledge it because calling it "war" somehow negates the moral requirement to justify one's actions.
Really, your argument seems to be that since Hussein didn't act in a rational manner, you need no justification to kill innocent people in return. The fact that you think justifying one's actions is a laughable argument shows how ridiculous your attempt to occupy some moral high ground is. Indeed, your arguments have revealed your position much more fully than even you probably intended.
Published: June 24, 2006 2:35 AM
Sione, When I wrote "You can defend your position logically," I meant "can't". I typed too fast. I have debated anarchos a long time on this web site and think you're seriously lacking sound reasoning for your position.
So you can't tell the difference between a mafia protection racket and the people defending themselves from outside threats by means of a state. As I've said before, that's typical of anarchism. Your anarcho religion destroys your ability to tell the difference between good and evil. Even though most children could understand the differences, I'll explain them for you:
The mafia charges you protection money to protect you from the mafia, not outside invaders. The mafia is in it solely for the money. The mafia will not help you against other criminals. On the other hand, most people willingly pay taxes in order to have a military to respond to outside threats, or a police force to respond to internal criminals. A few don't, such as anarchos, but the natural right to survival gives us the right to force the unwilling to pay those taxes; if we didn't, we would make ourselves an easy target for any thug, like Saddam Hussein, to take us over. We would be destroyed, in the same manner as all anarcho societies that have been destroyed in the past. In addition, via democracy we control the police and military. We can't control the mafia; they control us. We determine the amount of money we give to the police and military; the mafia determines the amount of money they take. The mafia are criminals; elected officials are mostly good people who serve at our pleasure; we can replace them at the end of their terms if we want. We can never get rid of the mafia.
Paul:"Moral people avoid the evil type. Killing an airplane hijacker is good; blowing up a plane of innocent people to get at the hijacker is bad."
Very poor analogy. Have you ever known Americans to blow up a plane to get at the hijacker? One of the reasons the 9/11 disaster took place was that we had made it illegal to risk the lives of passengers in an attempt to stop hijackers.
I assume you're arguing that killing Iraqi civilians to get to Saddam Hussein was immoral, though it's difficult to tell from your verbal epileptic fits. (You should be careful. You might hurt yourself.)
Saddam Hussein hid behind 500,000 troops, who hid behind the women and children of the nation. I guess your response would be to let him keep plundering and murdering innocents, even other Ameircans, as long as he didn't threaten you personally. So you don't care about anyone but yourself. My justification for killing those civilians is this: Either we kill them, or we let Hussein go. Those were the only two options. It was the lesser of two evils.(I know some of you are thinking about assassination, but many people tried that. He was too smart. Hussein was a very smart man. Those who wrote otherwise on this blog just didn't know him.)
Published: June 24, 2006 8:48 AM
P.S., The US military took extraordinary means to prevent civilian deaths in Iraq. No army in the history of mankind has taken the measures that our military took to protect civilians. A large part of the 2,500 US soldiers who died (which was the original reason for this blog) did so because we chose to put them at greater risk rather than put more Iraqi civilians at risk. It would have been much easier to bomb Fallujah and Ramadi from the air; But we decided to risk the lives of US soldiers going door-to-door rather than kill more civilians from the air.
Published: June 24, 2006 8:52 AM
Jim, yes, I'm persuaded there's no contrary argument that holds water, at least as far as (1) invading Iraq goes and (2) the motives of this Admninistration.
We have never seriously reconsidered our foreign policy after the fall of the USSR, and find policy considerations governed by creeping militarism and a rising War Department, rather than a goal-oriented State Department trying to maximize our long-term interests.
There is no strategic or regional threat in the Middle East that our presence does not eith create or aggravate. Oil is funigible, and there are many suppliers. Our propping up or establishing regimes just comes back to bite us harder in the end.
We are in Iraq simply for the reasons I indicated - the Administration realized that post-9/11 Americans would bite on a bait-and-switch policy with bin Laden and Saddam (which is the real reason why it was convenient NOT to "find" bin Laden), saw immense political upside to invading Iraq and immense opportunities for plunder, and was drunk on its own power and tired of dealing with Saddam and had no serious interest in considering the downside of invading, and thus dismissed all critics, at home or abroad.
Yes, there are some benefits to a ubiquitous Americna military presence, but these benefits are shared by all nations, and borne only by the US. Who is getting the better deal and making the wiser use of national assets? And what about all the downsides to having an irrating, in-your-face American miltary presence everywhere, staffed by young American know-nothings?
I do care about human rights, and issues of kleptocracies, poor government and lack of rule of law. We should definitely be pushing for better national management/governance, but to achieve these ends multilateral options are best.
Published: June 25, 2006 8:21 PM
My, my, you do have a high opinion of yourself. Actually you have not provided much argument at all, just the standard collectivist excuses & nonsense.
RogerM, your line is completely dishonest. What you are promoting is an organised evil of vast scale. Ignoring all your padding and puffery, here is a brief refutation of your position.
You speak of a collective, an "us", a "we". Us"? "We"? Of which collective do you speak? Who is it you speak for? Who do you represent? All Western nationals? All English language speakers? All those who follow Judeo-Christian cultural norms? All US residents? All US citizens? All US based neo-conservatives? The entire govt? Only its "mostly good people"? The present US administration? Small "c" conservatives? All collectivists? Or is it only those particular ones who happen to agree with you? Your gang perhaps? Yourself...?
You key assertion is this: "but the natural right to survival gives us the right to force the unwilling to pay those taxes".
You are asserting that you have a "right" to initiate force against other individuals. In other words you are asserting a right to steal, backed up with force and violence. You justify your theft on the basis that some other thug might take the opportunity to steal stuff that you want!
This is low hypocracy indeed! Previously you smeared innocent people (those who want nothing to do with your coercive and violent activities) as being involved in "stealing" and now you proceed to reserve a power of theft to yourself! They are not the thieves. It is YOU who are supporting acts of theft, stealing from other people, not those who want nothing to do with reckless and destructive war mongering and state worshipping.
What you promote is the situation where no man is to be left alone, unmolested. According to you, state worshippers and war mongers have a "natural right" to steal from all others. Anyway, since you have asserted this as a positive I challenge you to prove that you have such a "right." I'm betting you can't. There's a challenge for you. Have some guts and give it a go!
Moving along to the more trivial assertions. You wrote this wee treasure: "On the other hand, most people willingly pay taxes in order to have a military to respond to outside threats, or a police force to respond to internal criminals."
People are never allowed a free choice in the matter. It's a matter of pay up OR ELSE.
Were people to be given a free choice not to pay the exhorbitant taxes levied on their wealth, the vast majority would likely elect not to pay or, perhaps, pay only a small fraction. Now that is democracy in action! Let's put it this way, if your govt. sent a demand for tax to each citizen and in the letter of demand it was stated that payment was optional, who would pay? 5%? 2%? 1%?... And if some did pay something, how much of the demand would they pay? 5%? 2%? 1%?...
It is in the interests of the state worshippers, war mongers- collectivists of all kinds- that individuals are NEVER allowed to express a free choice in such matters. Ever.
BTW if you bothered to be honest about it you'd be forced to admit very little of the vast revenues coercively taken under threat by the state actually get consumed providing national or local defense.
Now, let's see your proof of your right to steal.
Sione
PS Had it ocurred to you that if the soldiers stayed at home with their families, none of them would have died or been injured in Iraq? And none of the Iraqi people would have been hurt by them. None. Nada. Zero. Zippo. No Iraqis collateralised at all.
The best "extraordinary means" was to do no violence at all. Well, fancy that. Who'd have thought it?
Published: June 25, 2006 9:01 PM
Sione, on the issue of "defense", I share your concern that the state has tendencies to hijack defense and use it for a tool of political control, political gain and to provide rents to favorites. The unfortunate the fact of the matter is that the state is not going away, so we will have to constantly struggle against these tendencies, which are much in evidence today.
However, I do think that we live in a Hobbesian world, and that societies that do not provide well for their own defense may fall easy prey to aggressive competitors. Have you ever read Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Guns, Germs and Steel", Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", or Stephen Pinker's "Blank Slate"? All provide useful discussions.
Published: June 25, 2006 9:41 PM
Tokyo Tom said;
"I do think that we live in a Hobbesian world, and that societies that do not provide well for their own defense may fall easy prey to aggressive competitors."
Interesting then that a handful of Somalians was able to drive away the most powerful military in the world. So too interesting was it that a relative handful of Lebanese were able to do the same.
As for Roger's assertion that I (or anyone) would fail to defend my neighbors, reread Yamamoto's quote, and my interpretation of what he was saying. Most Americans of that era knew something about self defense - today, most don't, having delegated the function to the "Defense" department, and the "Department of Homeland Security". We have been de-fanged and dis-armed.
And as for nuclear weapons, well who exactly let THAT particular genie out of the bottle?
Published: June 26, 2006 9:30 AM
Sione:"Were people to be given a free choice not to pay the exhorbitant taxes levied on their wealth, the vast majority would likely elect not to pay..." Exactly my point! And that would be true under anarchy as well. Few people would be willing to pay for the private army to defend an anarchist society, which is why none exist today.
The right to survival has a long tradition in natural law theory and trumps the right to property. In fact, the right to property is founded upon the right to survival. Natural law theory is the foundation of Western Civilization and the fount of our success. Anarchists are trying to dump centuries of careful reasoning tested by the best minds in history and proven successful, for a fabricated logic that's full of holes and has been proven disastrous multiple times. When you show me, with a present day example, or an historical one, not just the fantasy world that exists only in your mind, that an anarchist society can survive organized crime within and invaders from without, I'll consider it. Until then, it's just fantasy.
You can foam at the mouth all you want about the theft and murder committed by the US gov, but it doesn't matter. No one gave anarchists the right to overthrow centuries of established morality for your own private definition that suits your anarchist religion. If you knew anything about the history of the philosophy of morality, you would know that morality can only come from God. Anything else is just man's opinion, which is not binding on other men. Your use of the terms theft, murder, and morality demonstrate your dishonesty. You're dishonest because you're changing the definition of those words. That's a typical technique of anarchists: Change the meaning of words so that your system will appear logical. If you run into an logical obstacle, you define it away instead of meeting it head on.
You don't have a system of morality, because you can't show that it's either consistent with the nature of man or with revelation from God, the two primary tests of morality for millenia. The fact that no anarchist society exists today proves that it's inconsistent with human nature. If you were honest, you would call anarchism a system of ethics, or the Ten Suggestions, and you wouldn't try to redefine murder and theft to suit your purposes.
Published: June 26, 2006 9:30 AM
Roger,
Let's tone this down a bit. No one here is trying to convert you into an atheist here, or arguing against the need for morality.
Libertarianism, anarcho-capitalist version proceeds from a pair of universal moral standards;
1) I own myself
2) I own my justly-aquired property
The consequences of these two standards are all profoundly moral also. You can argue that this comes from God (i.e., God created man in his image and likeness and endowed him with a free will), or inheres in humanity with or without God, no matter. It is totally consistent with every moral system except communism, socialism, fascism, welfarism/warfarism.
I happen to be a Catholic, as are many, many people of the libertarian / classical liberal persuasion. Not all of them are anarchists, but all of them recognize the primacy of those two principles, since it is from them that all our other principles flow.
For example, if I own myself, then slavery is wrong, kidnapping is wrong, conscription is wrong. I cannot be forced to do anything without my rights being violated.
Similarly, if I own my justly-aquired property, then theft is wrong, taxation is wrong, and war against me is definitely wrong.
See? Universal, moral principles.
Published: June 26, 2006 12:13 PM
Vince,"See? Universal, moral principles." I wish it were that simple. How do anarchists get from the ideas in your post to claiming that all taxation is theft; all government is evil; all war is murder? They do so by claiming the right to property is absolute. By doing so, they have are attempting a moral coup.
Let's use monetary inflation as an example. Anarchists are rightly infuriated with the claim that fiat money is real money. It's not. Mises and others have worked out a sound theory of what constitutes money: It has to have value on its own and it must be accepted in the marketplace as a medium of exchange.
In the same way, true morality is not a matter of a trite reasoning. No one can invent morality out of thin air. Morality is discovered, not invented. Christians are fortunate in that we have Revelation that makes the job easier. Non Christians aren't left in the dark, though they have to work harder at it. Without Revelation, as natural law theorists understood, you have to work hard at discovering human nature and that which promotes its survivability and sociability. That has been the definition of morality for almost five centuries.
Anarchists are trying to change that definition and claim that morality is nothing but a few simple sylogisms based on the assumption that private property is absolute and anything that violates that right is evil. And that's dishonest and quite arrogant!
Published: June 26, 2006 2:06 PM
Roger,
To repeat;
1) I own myself
2) I own my justly-aquired property
These two 'syllogisms' are in no way supportive that 'private property' is an 'absolute'. They are a simple statement. Just because I own myself, does not mean I have the right to do anything I want. I am restrained by others' self-ownership.
Similarly, just because I own my justly-acquired property, it does not give me claims that supersede others' equally just claims. I own what I have purchased and/or mixed my labor with and/or defend, protect, and maintain for my own use.
These 'syllogisms' synthesize much of what is in Christian / Hebrew revelation, but also are profound in their own right. This means they are inclusive, unless your belief system does not permit one to own property.
Published: June 26, 2006 2:45 PM
Vince, Have you read the posts above? In those, and on other blogs, anarchists claim that all taxation is theft, all government is illegit, and all of the wars that the US has fought constitute murder. They're calling President Bush and our troops in Iraq murderers. They're not as innocent as you're making them out to be. So how do the get from your syllogisms to their positions?
Published: June 26, 2006 3:43 PM
Roger,
What they are doing is engaging in a bit of rhetorical work to show the profound immorality of the Iraq War, and how many people who consider themselves to be decent, moral, law-abiding people have supported it.
If you strip all of the legal and other "justifications" for the war, it's pretty obvious that they were all bogus, based upon a pretense that Hussein represented enough of an imminent threat to take him out preemptively. Subsequently, every action taken is technically illegal and immoral, even though no authority dare pursue it.
The bottom line from the anarchist's perspective (mine) is that these actions, if engaged in by private individuals or groups would be rightly seen as invasion and murder, and not 'defense'. As it turns out, this illustrates the truth of the matter - that military killing enjoys no special protection, it is technically as wrong as murder. What Lew and the others above are doing is simply connecting the dots.
Our "defense" department is doing no defending of any sort - it is simply invading and plundering. It is invalidating the two axioms above - the US military disregards the lives and property of these people as being of no consequence. These people are being killed and their property destroyed. Most of them did nothing to harm the property or lives of others, including the soldiers who kill them.
Published: June 26, 2006 3:58 PM
We're waiting, Vince. LOL!
Published: June 26, 2006 3:58 PM
Hmmm.... Not bad. :)
Published: June 26, 2006 4:00 PM
Thanks, Paul.
Like I said, my purpose in replying is to take some of the rhetorical heat off here, so we don't lose sight of the fundamental point - that many, many otherwise normal, moral people (including me, sad to say) thought the Bush Admin arguments seemed rational, reasonable, and plausible. Somewhat fewer remained on board after the "Mission Accomplished" photo-op. And now, more and more people are realizing that much of the justification for Afghanistan was bogus as well.
None of this makes it any easier to accept. As Chris Floyd wrote on LRC a while back;
"...no genuine dissident is happy about dissenting. You dissent because you see injustice, crime, corruption and needless death being wrought by the power structures of your own society. You dissent because so many lies have been forced down your throat, and you just want to know the truth, as far as it can be known, you just want to speak the truth, whatever it may be. You dissent because of the reality that you see. And this is a painful thing; it's like watching a family member go bad, like learning your own father is a killer, that your mother is thief. No one wants to believe evil of their own country, their own society; but sometimes the very ideals that you were given by your society – a commitment to justice, to truth, the belief in the inherent worth and moral agency of every individual human being – compels you to confront the reality of the crimes and corruption of the leaders and institutions of that same society."
Published: June 26, 2006 4:12 PM
Vince:"Our "defense" department is doing no defending of any sort - it is simply invading and plundering."
I thought you intended to "tone down the rhetoric?" So it OK to call people murderers and plunderers, but awful to suggest that anarchists are dishonest?
I'm not trying to convince anarchists that they're wrong. I'm worried about young people coming to this site to learn real economics. I'm afraid they'll think anarchism is necessary to Austrian economics when it's not. I think Rothbard, Hoppe and Rockwell have done serious harm to Mises's legacy, and Austrian economics, by introducing anarchism and suggesting it is an integral part of Mises's philosophy.
While I like much that anarchism proposes and would like to see the US move much more in that direction, that's a far cry from denouncing all government as evil, taxation as theft and the war in Iraq as murder. I respect those who disagree with the war. I think many have legitimate arguments. But that's not even close to calling those in the government and military murders, which is a lie.
I stand by my claim that anarchism is dishonest in even using the term morality. You have changed the meaning of it and of the words "theft" and "murder," definitions that have stood for over a millenium. You have no right to change those definitions and claim to be honest.
Published: June 26, 2006 4:56 PM
Vince,
Would it have mattered to you if Bush had been right, that Hussein did have WMD's and was a threat to the US? If I understand anarchism correctly, it shouldn't matter to you because the state is illegitimate so everything it does is evil. Beside, Hussein hadn't actually attacked the continental US. Am I wrong in thinking that you would still considere the invasion murder even if Bush had been correct?
Published: June 26, 2006 5:03 PM
RogerM
Your "arguments have as many holes as Dick Cheney's hunting partner." -Radio ABC, 24/6/2006
An apt summation of your position.
You previously claimed that people willingly pay tax. I rebutted that by asking what would happen were they given a choice. The result of that choice was not your point at all, but it does rather negate your statement.
From there you have no recourse other than to rely on your previously asserted "right" to force people to pay, in other words your "right" to steal. Now since it is you who have asserted the positive, it is you who must provide the proof.
You asserted:- "the natural right to survival gives us the right to force the unwilling to pay those taxes".
Provide your proof please. I'm betting you can't.
Sione
PS Whatever could be more arrogant than claiming a "right" to invade an innocent man's home to at minimum steal from him or at worse, to torture, pillage, steal, kill...?
Published: June 26, 2006 5:51 PM
Sorry Roger - I didn't mean to imply that the soldiers were muderers. Indeed, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and Fallujah aside, most of them are no doubt fine people. But they are in the service of corrupt institutions.
Mises had this to say about war;
"Interventionism begets economic nationalism. It thus kindles the antagonism resulting in war. An abandonment of economic nationalism is not feasible if nations cling to interference with business. Free trade in international relations requires domestic free trade."
Published: June 26, 2006 8:28 PM
Vince, I agree with these:
"If you strip all of the legal and other "justifications" for the war, it's pretty obvious that they were all bogus, based upon a pretense that Hussein represented enough of an imminent threat to take him out preemptively. Subsequently, every action taken is technically illegal and immoral, even though no authority dare pursue it.
The bottom line from the anarchist's perspective (mine) is that these actions, if engaged in by private individuals or groups would be rightly seen as invasion and murder, and not 'defense'. ...
Our "defense" department is doing no defending of any sort - it is simply invading and plundering. It is invalidating the two axioms above - the US military disregards the lives and property of these people as being of no consequence. These people are being killed and their property destroyed. Most of them did nothing to harm the property or lives of others, including the soldiers who kill them."
But I part ways with you with this, on which I think Roger is correct:
"As it turns out, this illustrates the truth of the matter - that military killing enjoys no special protection, it is technically as wrong as murder. What Lew and the others above are doing is simply connecting the dots."
Simply, agreement with you about the rather transparent illegitimacy of the Iraq invasion does not establish or demonstrate that a military is by its very nature illegitimate. You need other steps to get there - steps which I'm sure you can make a great attempt to provide. But the facts of the matter are that (i) the state is not going away, (ii) the vast majority of citizens in Western countries accept the state as legitimate and the principal organizing organ of the nation(although degree of acceptance may erode due to abuse of the instruments of state by indivuduals or groups that from time to time may have the power to wield them) and (iii) history shows that self-defense through a state military is essential.
Your examples in the last regard (Somalia and Lebanon) show both that non-state self-defense may be very effective against a country that has some sensitivity to the misuse of military power and that the US could probably do quite well with a much smaller military, but in the larger picture history is littered with the carcasses of nations that failed to maintain a sufficient military to defend themeselves.
Does any disagreement on these points not still leave plenty of room for a shared goal of slimming down the state and the military?
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 26, 2006 8:52 PM
TokyoTom
I have two of the books you cited & although I don't agree with everything their authors conclude they were interesting; worth the time spent.
Re military killing and state sanctioned warfare etc.:
If military killing (OK, military murder then) enjoys special priviledge and protection, then why is it that certain Serbian officers are put on trial for military killing activities etc.? Similarly why is it that certain German officers were similarly put on trial and then put to death for.....military killings?
I recall several famous US military men stating that, were they to lose their war, their actions would indeed be considered crimes and they could expect to pay dearly for them. Examples include:
Gen. Chuck Yeager (referring to his straffing of civilians and refugees in the weeks prior to the ending of WW2- see his autobiography).
Gen. Curtis Le May (referring to the fire bombing of Japanese civilians).
Was it Gen. Grant or Sherman who raised the subject (waging war against civilians as a crime) in a letter to Sheridan? I forget which of them it was. One of the two.
There are plenty of others. The most interesting ones were from the documentary where personnel active in Vietnam and South America were interviewed about torture, but the Generals mentioned above are way more famous.
It would appear that war winners are grinners because THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT. The legitimacy of military killing of innocents, non-combatants, civilians and so on, extends about as far as that. In the end it's about, "can I get away with it?" or "did I get away with it?"
Note: Surely whether an organisation is legitimate or not comes down to judging the actions of its members.
And to answer your last question; yes, lots of room for a crash diet with lots of slimming. My original contention would achieve exactly that.
Sione
BTW had an interesting conversation closely related to this topic on the train today. Will write it up later.
Published: June 27, 2006 12:44 AM
Sione, thanks for your note. As a technical matter, there are certain rules of warfare to which most countries have agreed, in which case violations (targetting civilians, abuse of prisoners etc.) may be prosecuted as war crimes. These rules provided the basis for the trials you mentioned, but have been further expanded by new treaties prohibiting broader crimes against humanity.
I share your cynical understanding that the victors frequently get away with war crimes, as the losers are usually not in a position to prosecute. Although the rules have been getting increasingly burdensome and a new tribunal has been established for the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity, it is no surprise that the Bush administration "unsigned" the treaty and has been requiring allies to promise that it will not be applied to the US. It seems that the US has the most to fear from following rules about warfare, since we are the country now acting as self-appointed global policeman, prosecutor and judge.
Another aspect of warfare that has deep psychological roots and should not be forgotten is how typical it is for each side to a conflict - civilian and military, to discount the value of the lives of enemies. To be honest, there is very little interest in the US on the costs our military actions impose on others - in terms of lost lives, disrupted livelihoods or suffering. We just don't care, and can't be bothered to count. In fact, the instinct is to subconsciously ignore, and to intentionally cover up, information as to such costs. Those who try to keep track of these things in the US are viewed as traitors by the Administration and its supporters.
I will be interested in hearing your further comments.
Regards,
Tom
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