I think what many readers were responding to (I know I was) in criticizing your remarks was the implicit idea that human loss of life can be quantified and compared to similarly quantified factors, like money and property destruction -- the idea that there is some "common denominator" between those values.

As you now state it, less abstractly, a war that kills ten thousand people to save ten million people would of course be justified.

The uncertainty issue, however, goes not only to the risk of an attack but its consequences. It is impossible to know that your hypothetical preemptive war will only kill ten thousand. The current war in Iraq, like Vietnam, like many other wars, amply demonstrates that.

While it is true that "[i]t would be paralyzing to suggest that we should never act unless we can quantify the expected benefits and costs of our acts," don't you agree that we should endeavor to undertake those acts which lead to the most predictable consequences?

I respectfully submit that war is the least predictable of human endeavors. If there are multiple methods to try and achieve a goal, and the expected harm of each is the same, war should be the last chosen simply because war is naturally uncertain, both in its immediate and long-term effects.

The practical application of this comes when considering preemptive war in the terrorist situation as an alternative to sanctions, funding of police, creation of a humane foreign policy that does not provoke terrorism, etc. etc. etc. Because each are more predictable than war, they should be considered first.

Probably worth mentioning, though this is obviously implicit in everything else that Posner and Becker said, that invasion of Iraq combined with Bush's large margin of victory in the re-election makes the US a credible threat to other nation-states. It most likely is pushing various nation-states who silently sponsor terrorism second-thoughts, which itself is key to disrupting supply. But in those situations, subsequent preventive wars are unnecessary to induce compliance among nation-states.

The cost-benefit analysis or any other attempt at simplifying the decision to go to war still seems like nothing more than post-war rationalization. But perhaps the cost-benefit analysis is useful as one tool in deciding whether a nation SHOULD go to war, assuming that circumstances are such that the war would not be one of aggression.

The threshhold decision is then whether the war would be a war of aggression. I would submit that any war in which the objective of the attacker is to remove an illegitimate government(i.e., one not chosen by the people it governs) and give the people of the nation it attacks the opportunity to exercise their sovereign rights is not a war of aggression, but is a war of liberation (provided, of course, that the attacker actually carries out its promise of enabling self-government by the liberated people). This position may seem extreme upon first examination, but it's actually a more conservative approach than analysis which only considers the existence of a threat and the cost of preventing it by force of arms. I submit that no modern democracies threaten their democratic neighbors in any way that would raise the question of whether "preventive war" is justified, and therefore, the only beneficiaries of a restrictive approach to preventive war are despots. The handwringing over whether a precedent is established by embarking on a preventive war, or whether some nation is being unjustly punished, are purely academic exercises, with no modern examples which would give any legitimate government cause for concern.

The only question left is whether the cost of such a liberation is too much to pay for the benefit. Of course, this question must be considered from the viewpoint of the nation to be liberated as well as from the liberator's viewpoint. By this standard, actions in the Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq are all easily justified, and action in the Sudan almost certainly would be justified, whereas liberating mainland China from its communist government, although a worthy objective, would not be worth the high cost in lives. Removing the North Korean dictatorship or the Iranian one would also probably be too costly, although particularly in the case of Iran, the cost of inaction or deferring action must be carefully considered in light of Iran's efforts to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.

I probably misremember the war in Kosovo, but I do not recall the kind of muddy rationale that we have seen in the push to war in Iraq. Perhaps the question is not whether the war is defensive or offensive or whichever, but rather an issue of clarity.

The rationale behind a defensive war is usually perfectly clear. In Kosovo, the rationale was fairly well-established (if simplistically so) in terms of Mr. Milosevic's behavior -- "The Serbs are exterminating the Kosovars, so we will pound the Serbs until they stop." The stated rationale for war in Iraq, however, was a rhetorical swamp that mutated in a thrashing, spontaneous manner as events unfolded.

In some statements, the war was sold as a preventive war -- "Mr. Hussein was a madman who had the means and intent to strike the US." In other statements, it was sold as a punitive war -- "Mr. Hussein had consistently flouted the authority of the United Nations and its inspectors, and thus had to be removed." And in still other statements, it was sold as a war of liberation -- "Mr. Hussein was exterminating a once-vibrant culture in his brutal efforts to retain power."

In some cases, having so many different arguments might be a strength. Here, it is a considerable weakness. Each argument has its own weaknesses (Did Mr. Hussein actually have WMDs? Does the United Nations have the authority to mandate the overthrow of the government of one of its member states? Did the people of Iraq wish to be liberated in such a manner?) and because the arguments were given haphazardly and never really woven into a single, simple justification for war, there was no real way to judge the weaknesses in each argument against the importance of the overall rationale for war.

Similarly, this mishmash of reasons gives no foothold for argument. If I am favorably disposed to wars of liberation but do not trust the United Nations, do I support the war based on the good it is likely to do, or do I oppose the war in that its stated justifications seem to imply that the UN has powers which I believe it should not? Nowhere is there any indication what type of war this is at its core, and how the various arguments compare with each other in terms of priority and value.

This core rationale is important, because it will determine how the war is fought. A war that is fought purely in the frame of mind of liberation is fought and planned very differently than a punitive war. Wars that are fought for competing or fuzzy reasons become messy, and it becomes unclear how to measure victory.

I realize that I've gotten very wordy and quite far off-topic, so I'll stop here and reiterate that I believe the difference in criticism you are looking for is at least partly grounded in this difference in rhetorical clarity.

[Gentlemen, congratulations on your blog venture and thank you for the interesting discussion.]

War in its most narrow definition is probably possible to assess by cost/benefit analyses, but it is a only tool applied to an environment of infinite complexity. Considering the volatile nature of this environment, the destructive nature of the tool, and the state of technology, its potential maximum costs are to be considered beyond *reasonable* estimate.

I believe this is the primary reason why we do not as easily commit to preemptive or preventative wars as we commit to marriage. Society can live with the projected maximum costs of a failed marriage, but global cold or hot war may be assessed differently by those involved and third parties.

Certainly the potential for destruction inherent in modern technology justifies a rethinking of preventative war. But, as other commenters have pointed out, the calculus (in any "economic" sense) is so far reaching, complicated and subject to the law of unintended consequences that any application of it will necessarily lack even the semblance of rigor. It needs must be based on specific and verifiable factors, the most important of which must be actual possession of WMDs, the will/ability to deploy them against the United States, and connections to terrorist organizations.

Of course, before the invasion of Iraq, arguably these factors were present. We now know the administration exaggerated their evidence with regard to this, but the reasoning is still sound. It is a pity that rational discourse on the nature of preventative war will, for the forseeable future, be viewed (in a practical sense) through the lens of our experience in Iraq.

A broader issue though is uniformity of application of these principles. It need hardly be said that if having WMDs, the ability/will to use them, and terrorist connections is the primary calculus for waging a preventative war, there are easily a dozen other regimes which are even bigger threats than Iraq was. Is one not using a preventative calculus as an excuse for doing what one really wants to do when not equally applied to all candidates? (Call it an international "equal protection" violation.)

Your part about Kosovo is exactly the same topic I mention when arguing with my friends about the whole idea of a preemptive strike!

I think Posner has argued very well in the last post. There certainly are circumstances in which a preventative war is viable.

However, I would argue that part of the determination of this viability, ought to happen in an internationally recognized context - the UN (hopefully revised in the future to be more viable as a peace and security keeping institution).

The illegitimacy of the iraq conflict has been attributed to the un-representativeness (globally) of the 'coalition of the willing' - especially in view of the ratio of nations to troops on the ground (the US/UK comprise the vast majority of the troops on the ground, making the term coalition on behalf of almost 50 nations a dubious proposition).

What is to stop any aggrandizing country to assemble its own coalitions and wage pre-emptive war against dictators who just happen to have enormous oil riches? There are many despots on the globe, few of them are invaded or less, given any attention by the West.

While, I hope, nobody disagrees with Posner in terms of the hypothetical value of preventative war - there is a legitimacy in the right, international contexts, I also hope we agree that strongly unilaterally-skewed 'coalition' invasions are a very worrying proposition for the future of war and international invasions.

The Bush Administrations' unwillingness to apolagize thus far, on the failure to find WMDs, is criminal. Their belated justification that there were 'a few Al Qaeda' training camps in Norther Iraq' is similarly unfortunate - along with being most likely untrue (and if true, a contingent and unjustifiable reason for attack).

I think the rest of the world and the better security of Americans deserve better than this misguided foreign policy.

Saddam and other despots deserve to be overthrown, but not outside of the contexts of international law. Yes, the UN needs to be reformed, but I would take a crippled UN over a unilateralist superpower any day.

The big question is how to deal with the inevitable proliferation of WMD to rogue states and terror groups. Sophisticated geo-strategists point out that preemption, if adopted, will serve as a higher form of deterrence - a kind of pre-deterrence that stops the threat at an earlier, safer stage.

Those against preventive war respond that the problem with preemptive war is that it is easy for any country to use as a fraudulent pretext for aggressive action. Of course there is always some massacre somewhere or some hostage in vile captivity with which to arouse public opinion for preemptive war. Yet we have a system of international law and doctrine where every member nation of the United Nations is obliged to subscribe to the UN Charter that purportedly makes preemptive war illegal unless the U.N. legitimizes the use of preemptive action. Many argue the US doctrine of preemption is unilateralism or really imperialism, signifying a hyper-power that wants to be exempted from Charter rules. Then all nations will desire to be exempted from the UN Charter rules and this could lead to destabilization of the world order and cause more war and loss of life.

On the other hand, those in favor of preventive war argue that a strategic preemption option would create greater stabilization of the world considering the new reality: proliferation of WMD will certainly include increasingly unstable and unbalanced characters. Reliance on strategic deterrence will not work given the reality that such inherently undeterrable terror groups as al Qaeda will in time get these weapons. The result will inevitably be a deeply unstable international structure that promises to break down at myriad points in the future, even the near future.

The better approach is to deny WMD, forcibly if necessary, to very bad actors. The idea of preemption is to deter states not from using WMD but from acquiring them in the first place. If you are merely deterring WMD use in war, it is already too late. You become open to precisely the kind of nuclear blackmail to which North Korea is today subjecting the United States (and Japan and South Korea). Preemption is a kind of pre-deterrence that stops the threat at an earlier, safer stage. Taken together with other nonproliferation measures, such as export controls, preemption can be the most potent deterrent to proliferation.

Michael - Good (and well written) analysis of the situation.

The kind of pre-emption that involves denying WMDs is indeed preferable.

But there is also a catch-22 here. The US, by demonstratings its ability to invade Iraq outside of the UN convention, is a rather terrifying spectre to any nation that currently is deemed 'evil' by the always-eloquent Mr. Bush. Nuclear weapons are in this sense a paradox. Each nation that secures nuclear weapons is invulnerable from further attack. Period. However, as Michael so rightly pointed out, each nation that gets WMDs, is potentially unstable and thus increases the threat of catastrophic releases (how this justifies pre-emption I have no idea, since an attack on a nation with suspected WMDs is a prelude to armaggedon).

As Michael argued, and Oppenheimer before him argued, our only hope is to ensure non-proliferation. Pre-emption is a useless doctrine when the object of attack is suspected to have these weapons. What's to stop them from using them, or threatening to, to deter you from attacking them?

The US may well increase the likelyhood of rogue states (besides the US) acquiring more weapons by posturing about the world in such an aggressive and threatening manner.

It also wouldn't hurt, if the US led by example and started to de-commission its thousands of warheads still located around Russia and elsewhere in the world.

I am but a lowly 1L. But I could have sworn that most jurisdictions that allow self-defense bar it if there was a reasonable avenue of retreat...

Peter: You make a good argument exposing a potential weakness in preemptive strategic theory. "The US may well increase the likelihood of rogue states (besides the US) acquiring more weapons by posturing about the world in such an aggressive and threatening manner."

What is the alternative? Bad actors will attempt to acquire WMD regardless of U.S. policy. We need to create incentives for most nation-states to abstain from WMD. I do not agree the answer is unilateral disarmament as you suggest.

"[It] is obviously implicit in everything else that Posner and Becker said, that invasion of Iraq combined with Bush's large margin of victory in the re-election makes the US a credible threat to other nation-states."

I will pass on the "large margin of victory." But do you think that it is still "obviously implicit" that the United States currently serves as a military threat to other countries, seeing as its entire military force will be bogged down for quite some time in Iraq? Do you think your conclusion is "obviously implicit" to, say, Iran?

Michael:

No, you're right, unilateral disarmament is not the answer - in fact, if anything, it just invites an attack. Obviously multilateral disarmament is best, but obviously it has to start somewhere. The US as far as I know has more nuclear weapons than any other nation, and is in a good position from that point of view to lead the disarmament.

My suggestion is that by leading disarmament (not disarming fully) the US can call on Israel, Russia and others, who all have varying degrees of control over their nuclear stockpiles, to do the same.

To some extent, having 10,000 nuclear warheads or 1 is irrelevant. Armaggedon simply requires 1 warhead (provided the amount of fissionable fuel is sufficient, 1 warhead or 'super H bomb' can eliminate half the earth, and nuclear-winterize the rest). Nuclear war and deterrance is a very dangerous kind of stability - but it is a stability. A much more safe stability is to reduce the availability of nuclear weapons, and the incidence of uranium enrichment.

Peter: What is “multilateral disarmament” and how will that increase stability? If bad actors will attempt to acquire WMD, perhaps “multilateral disarmament” will remove deterrence and make world more vulnerable to WMD attack by terror group or rogue state.

What is the goal?

Dear Lowly 1L:

You'll go far. Please continue talking sense.

Michael: Good point. Multilateral disarmament, is sort of a term I coined myself; referring more to states than bad actors. Basically, multilateral disarmament is analogous to non-proliferation; i.e. agreements signed by nuclear powers indicating each nations desire to mutually 'disarm'.

But you're right to point out that hypothetically, if nuclear states collectively disarm, then a single rogue actor with a WMD could hold the world hostage since the threat of MAD would ostensibly not exist. This is an unlikely hypothetical, but it illustrates a potentiality which warns against non-proliferation.

It really comes down to game theory; which was developed during the cold war to explain how nuclear powers should act given certain conditions and hypotheticals.

Basically here is what it comes down to. Each power that achieves nuclear weapons is safe. Nobody will attack it for fear of retribution. Each nation that is under threat by the US acts in its best security interests by developing nuclear weapons. If it does so, it is 'safe'. Paradoxically, every nation that does this increases the likelyhood of human error and nuclear conflagration. So the safer a nation is locally, the more unsafe the world is globally.

The logic of the cold war arms race is to maintain this unstable balance. If Russia develops a new bomb, the US follows suit. If the US develops ballistic missile defence, then the balance is broken and there is the risk that the US can bomb Moscow without reprisal. Thus, to keep the balance, Moscow must develop a weapon which is capable of evading ballistic missile defence. And on and on it goes. Incidentally, this is why the US developing ballistic missile defence is a bad idea (it upsets the balance of mutually assured reprisals: keeping the US safe at the expense of global security). And because we all live on the same globe, nuclear instability on any localized area of the world, is global nuclear instability.

Our only way out of this disaster; of having 10,000 super-prepped nuclear warheads pointing at everyone else's capital, is to disarm.

That is the only choice. Once disarmament occurs, the risks of a crazy terrorist finding a weapon is unlikely.

If there are little to no warheads in the world, the only way to make one is to enrich uranium, which is an expensive, costly process and unlikely to occur without the supervision of an international body.

The long and short of it, is, that we won't be safe until we stop pursuing solutions for individual nations. Global security depends on each nation looking beyond its own narrow self interest and realizing that what is safe locally is not safe globally.

Re: Bin Ladin:

Although we like to regard Bin Ladin as the arch-evil of our century, we risk thinking of him in an innacurate way. We think of terrorists as scruffy, dodgy-eyed lunatics running around with AK-47s shooting people and planting bombs at random. Imagine that Bill Gates had a son, who was bequeathed billions of dollars in wealth, and this son ran off and joined a militant arm of the anti-globalization movement. Imagine the loyalty he would conjure just from being someone of such imaginably high status, who stooped to the level of the common person and identified with their cause. This is analogously, who Bin Ladin is. Someone who cannot possibly be accused of acting in their own selfish best interest (unlike say anyone in Washington). Bin Ladin is an extremely intelligent person, has post-graduate degrees from elite Western universities (like most of the 9/11 hijackers) and was motivated to terrorism not out of hatred for 'America's freedom,' but because of perceived violations by the US of the territorial claims of wahhabist islam (i.e. US presence in Saudi arabia, israel/palestine etc). He is ruthlessly violent, but he sees himself as a defender of holy muslims.

Regarding the possibility of how he would act given a nuclear weapon, its entirely possible that he wouldn't use them - given the possibility of retribution against Mecca and other holy cities and sites in the middle east.

Peter --

I find your reasoning curious. We seem to agree with Michael that unilateral disarmament is unwise because to be unarmed invites violence from sociopaths. Yet the idea that the United State disarm any given quantity of nuclear weapons as a first step to encourage others to abandon their weapons entirely flies directly in the fact of the preceding logic. If unilateral disarmament makes no sense for America, why would asymmetrical disarmament ("we'll get rid of some of ours and then you get rid of yours") make sense to Israel, Russia, et. al.? Perhaps I misunderstand -- or think too plainly -- but that would only work in a panglossian world.

But what I find more interesting in this discussion is the legitimacy/reciprocity question. It is vital to differentiate between the two. If I read Posner correctly, reciprocity is the basis of international relations and legitimacy the basis/rationale for domestic governance. When a state agrees to a bi-lateral or multilateral treaty, then it's entering into a contractual reciprocal relationship; on the other hand, a legitimate government rules by mandate or by consent of the governed.

This confusion leads precisely to ideas such as "illegitimacy" and "unrepresentativeness". How on earth could a state act illegitimately? And, what exactly would a state represent, other than itself? A government can be illegitimate, and it can be representative -- but let's not confuse state with government.

All of which makes the desire to be granted legitimacy, well, silly. Even if we said that to be bestowed legitimacy by one's peers -- not subjects -- is desirable, we must acknowledge that one's peers bestow that blessing by virtue of the same status that they derive theirs: by the reciprocal recognition that comes from being your peer. Which is to say, they can't condemn you without calling into question the right by which they condemn you in the first place. Only subjects or constituents judge legitimacy. To say that the US needs to gain legitimacy from other nations is to say that those other nations are subjects -- not peers -- of the US. Curious, isn't it?

Setting that aside, let us examine the UN. Because it is dedicated to collective peace and security, the conditions exist wherein the combined weight of the UN could be used to leave a nation wide-open to attacks by neighbor states, precisely by denying states pre-emptive option, technology transfers, even economic relations. Not many people stop to consider that the reason why Iraq was vulnerable to pre-emptive attack in the first place was precisely because the UN made it weak following the Gulf War. It is ludicrous to argue that states' security situations should be determined by a rogue's gallery of rivals, sociopaths, ne'er-do-well bureaucrats, and Scandinavian Socialists. Self-interested parties can (and will) work to erode one's ability to defend one's self within "the right, international contexts" -- the herd instinct writ large.

Indeed, one could argue that the current appeal of terrorism comes out of a UN shaped world. Non-intervention and the denial of pre-emption sets up the conditions wherein state-sponsored terrorism thrives. A classic example is the Israeli incursion into Lebanon. Even though the Israelis were defending civlians from PLO terrorists by invading, the world rejected the validity of their actions. "Legitimacy" is great -- but if it comes at the cost of dead citizens, the price of international approval is too high.

It's good to know that other people approve of your behavior, but it's not more important than finding the best solution to any given problem that you are faced with. After all, they don't share your problems. Transposing this insight into international relations, a few things become clear. The idea that pre-emptive war must be legitimate grows out of confusion into incoherence and then into full-blown absurdity. That the UN is based on such self-contradictory principles is laughable. It is also why the UN is condemned to a lifetime of dys-functionality.

Peter: The goal is to substantially reduce the risk of WMD acquisition and attack by bad actors. Although difficult to prevent WMD acquisition by bad actors, preemptive strategies should reduce risk. Measures include preemptive and multilateral non-proliferation strategies. Preemptive military strikes are an imperfect solution but an option.

You take the model of the bipolar late 20th century - two superpowers deterring each other and keeping the peace and apply it to the 21st century. But the 21st century is not bipolar. WMD technology is spreading and coming within the reach of dozens of countries and terror groups. Doesn’t the absence of a bipolar world and convergence of WMD technology and rogue states and terrorist proxies change the basic analysis of the
logic of deterrence?

I fail to see how multilateral disarmament reduces risk of WMD attack and acquisition by bad actors. The motive to acquire and use WMD by bad actors is not self-defense or based on traditional mutually assured destruction theory. The motive is first-use offensive capability. Potentially via terror group subcontractor tactic.

Substantial evidence suggests relationships between certain states and terror groups. See Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, N. Korea et al. A preemptive strategy to disrupt and deter such relationships is prudent. Without state support, it is unlikely terror groups will acquire WMD. The Iraq war created deterrence. Iraq sent a powerful message to the lunocracies of the Middle East: join the world of democracy, freedom, law, and
prosperity or perish trying to destroy it.

Libya’s decision to disable WMD program is evidence that preemptive strategies work. Risk-benefit analysis suggests that preemptive and multilateral non-proliferation strategies reduce risk. On balance, the risk of doing nothing is greater than preemptive and non-proliferation strategic alternatives.

On the other hand, it has not worked with Iran and N. Korea. The counter-argument is that preemptive strategies increase the passion and urgency to acquire WMD. Now Iran presents a problem: what policy reduces the risk of WMD acquisition and attack by Iran? Considering Iran’s extensive relationships with terror groups and increased risk that Iran will provide WMD to terror groups, what is the risk-benefit analysis of a preemptive military strike on Iran’s WMD capabilities? Alternatively, what is the risk-benefit analysis of doing nothing about Iran?

...the 50 million killed and the untold destruction and immiseration caused might be dwarfed by what a small nation or even a terrorist gang--perhaps even a biological Unabomber--could do, if not today, then in the near future.

A tenth of a million killed might be in the reach of a terrorist gang (gassing a large stadium, for example) and a million or two killed might be in reach of a small nation (nuking Manhattan, for example) but a number killed that dwarfs 50 million killed would have to be like 500 million killed (almost twice the population of the United States) and even a back of the envelope calculation of the amount of poison gas (or biological agent) that would be required to fill an area almost twice the size of the United States reveals that this assertion is totally ridiculous. And don't even get me started on the resources the would be required to build enough nuclear bombs to kill everyone in an area twice the size of the United States.

Of course, if it was known for certain that Bin Laden had the ability to kill 50 million Americans then his demands that the U.S.A. stop messing around in the Middle East might be taken a bit more seriously. Then again, part of what makes Bin Laden so successful that he doesn't link specific acts to specific demands. On September 11th, for example, he wasn't like "OK, people of the United States, I've got a couple passenger airplanes hijacked and circling the World Trade Center and I'm going to crash them into it unless you dismantle your military bases in Saudi Arabia".

Michael:

I meant to describe cold war nuclear relations, not necessarily 'apply' it in the 21st century. Despite the lack of two opposing superpowers in the present context, the relative safety achieved by local powers getting the bomb still applies. There is no way the US can pursue any aggressive policy towards Iran, Syria or any other country if that country succesfully tests an atomic bomb. Its game over for offensive operations against that country.

Also, you downplay the real and existent reality of bipolar (US/Russia or US/China) and multi-polar military tensions between the US and nations such as China and Russia, which have an ambivalent stance towards the US. To the extent that these nations would take action to resurrect mutually-assured-destruction in the event that the US developed ballistic missile defence, the cold war lives; whether between China or Russia is irrelevant.

As far as your strategy for avoiding nuclear war by keeping WMDs out of terrorist hands, then I agree with you completely. That's the best strategy.

In answer to the following:

"I fail to see how multilateral disarmament reduces risk of WMD attack and acquisition by bad actors."

I mean, especially that Russia has thousands of warheads many of which are unaccounted for. If the US decommissions most of its warheads, in exchange for assurances that Russia does the same - then the Russian black market for nuclear warheads is dramatically reduced. I suspect controls on nuclear weapons under Putin has been very much tightened, but that was where my reasoning came from on that.

With the following:

"Substantial evidence suggests relationships between certain states and terror groups. See Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, N. Korea et al. A preemptive strategy to disrupt and deter such relationships is prudent. Without state support, it is unlikely terror groups will acquire WMD. The Iraq war created deterrence. Iraq sent a powerful message to the lunocracies of the Middle East: join the world of democracy, freedom, law, and prosperity or perish trying to destroy it"

Its difficult to know where to begin. I hope you're not implying that by certain relationships between states and terror groups that Iraq funded Al Qaeda; because that's just patently not true.

As for other state-terror sponsorship, I am not qualified to venture a guess, and we enter here into definitions of what 'terror' is, and what constitutes state sponsorship of terror, and whether this list of terror-sponsoring nations can include Western nations.

Some argue that the US has supported state terror. They argue for example that the US and Europe funded and provided chemical and biological weapons and infrastructure for WMDs for Saddam in his fight against the Ayatollah Khomeini from 1980-88 in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was no less a violent, ambitious tyrant then.

Some also argue, that according to the UN charter, the invasion of Iraq was illegal, so that brings into serious question the following comment you made:

"Iraq sent a powerful message to the lunocracies of the Middle East: join the world of democracy, freedom, law, and prosperity or perish trying to destroy it"

A rational decision to go to war should be based on a comparison of the costs and benefits (in the largest sense of these terms) to the nation.

Despite all the "logic" and "rationality" associated with this approach, it won't contribute much in the way of justification.

If this condition were to provide justification,
then anyone could say their war was justified.
From Osama, to the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbour.

But since the consensus is that those weren't in any way morally justified, it cannot be that a cost/benefit analysis would provide justification.

A second point is that this analysis cannot be objective. People judge uncertainties in different ways. Thus decisions are made using democrating means. Politics, elections etc.
Then a nation could compromise on a singular outcome of the analysis.

But how do people come to judge those uncertainties? The most likely way to choose between the different values would be to use moral objectives.
But then this situations becomes indistinguishable from the common way of reaching a conclusion based on moral imperatives.

A decision to go to war should be supported by a cost/benefit analysis. But for justification, any actor, including a nation, will use, and be judged by, morality.

And morality is generally captured in rules and laws, not in economic theories.

Very interesting discussion. As an alum of U of C and the 7th Cir., I am happy to see this blog. I will look forward to reading more.

I have not read the full dialog, so I do not feel qualified to add much. My one thought is that the debate about preemptive war is really one of "when" and not "whether." Only the most ardent pacifist believes that a nation may never defend itself by preemptively attacking another. Certainly the allies would have been justified in attacking Hitler at some point before he invaded France, but when exactly? Would it have been justified to execute Hitler as a young child, based on a psychological analysis that he would become a megalomaniac? I doubt many people would say yes, though it would have spared the lives of millions.

That, I think, is where the notion of imminence enters, at least in American criminal law. We can all agree that unjustified killing (whether in war or otherwise) has a negative social utility, because it makes the world less safe for all of us. So if we err on the side of too much killing, we risk creating a violent and chaotic world. On the other hand, if we limit killing to instances where it is absolutely necessary - where a grave wrong will occur without prompt action - the world is less violent as a whole and more pleasant to live in. Thus, war (like killing in self-defense) should be a last option, when no other reasonable choice remains. The question of how that applies to Iraq, of course, can be a matter of much debate.

I define preventive war and preemptive strategies broadly, not just preemptive military strikes. I define the war in broad terms: to reduce risk of WMD attack and acquisition. Some folks define preventive war narrowly as preemptive military strikes or in overly narrow military and legalistic terms. Thus, broadly defined anticipatory measures include military and non-military preventive strategies.

Those against preventive war, narrowly defined, argue the Bush administration exaggerates the threat of terrorism and WMD and exploiting our fears markets preemptive war solutions that cause killing, violence, death and imperialist aggression.

Those in favor of preventive war, broadly defined, assert the single greatest threat to peace and freedom in our time comes from terrorism and WMD in the hands of terror groups or rogue states. The goal at this time is to prevent WMD acquisition and attack.

The other premise of the new American foreign policy is the larger war we face is a war of ideas - a struggle over modernity and secularism, pluralism and democracy and real economic development. Thus, U.S. policy should promote democracy, freedom, free markets, rule of law, and open society, especially in Arabdom. The U.S. has a responsibility to promote democracy and open society in the Muslim world.

Democracy remains a focal point of American policy today. The National Security Strategy of the U.S. affirms: "America must stand firm for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for private property."

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html

Quoting Michael Walker: "The U.S. has a responsibility to promote democracy and open society in the Muslim world. Democracy remains a focal point of American policy today. The National Security Strategy of the U.S. affirms: "America must stand firm for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for private property.""

First of all, why do Americans feel that "exporting" democracy is in the best interest of people in other nations? The only thing that is clear to me is that the U.S. follows a foreign policy only aimed at its own interest. You don’t have the “responsibility to promote democracy”, you simply want to (sometimes). If you are familiar with the School of the Americas (check out: http://www.soaw.org), you know that there was a time when the U.S. felt the responsibility to promote dictatorship, only because it didn’t like the outcome of the democratic process.

Secondly, talking about equal justice: That is certainly something the U.S. seems far away from. I just say gay rights. The same with religious freedom and tolerance. I am being forced to read and hear references to God every day here in the U.S., but I don’t believe in any God. Yet, religion dictates in this country what marriage should be like, being intolerant to people of different “faiths”.

I think before the U.S. tries to export any of its values (that many people abroad are afraid of getting…), people here should try to fix their own country and its own problems.

Judge Posner, how about EXTERNALITIES?

With your penchant for economic analysis, I am surprised you haven't discussed externalities in preventive war (both positive and negative).

While I certainly concur that "legitimacy" is per se of little persuasive force to nation states, and that states usually follow their interests rather narrowly, isn't the criticism of a slippery slope at least valid when viewed through the prism of externalities ( though it is perhaps an impercise analogy because of the lack of mutual decision making among principal actors)?

Though a nation state may refuse to engage in a preventive war because the probablity that other nations will attack it also rises (a shaky, though at least plausible, scenario), it does not bear the full costs of that decision, and will engage in preventive wars which otherwise neutral or allied states oppose.

Let us say that for every preventive war the probablity of being attacked in the same manner rises .05. Let us also assume that the nation state which decides to engage in preventive war garners most of the benefit. In the case of Saddam, let us say, for the sake of argument, that it lowered the chance of WMD attack on the USA by .15. The USA may decide that for its purposes the action is cost justified, but the rest of the world is stuck with the externality of increased probability of preventive war.

It is also possible that the world reaps benefits, or positive externalities, from preventive war. Israel, Kuwait, perhaps even Iran, are some of the primary secondary beneficiaries of the removal of Saddam.

Therefore, whether there is too much or too little preventive war is determined by the amount and distribution of the costs and benefits.

If one is serious about promoting global stability and fostering global security, then one has to consider the possibility that a nation, though acting in its own interests and though justified by its own costs benefit analysis, is acting in contravention to the interests of the world as a whole.

Peter:

I’ve read Dr. Becker’s post, and the resulting comments, and I really do not have a new analysis to present on this topic – I believe my views are close to Dr. Becker’s as they relate to a nation’s right of self-defense (although I would go a step further and say that I believe the U.S. was justified in its war on Iraq). However, after reading your most recent post, I could not resist fisking some of the comments you made in response to Michael’s post (or, should I say, fisking your fisking).

First:

“…Russia has thousands of warheads many of which are unaccounted for. If the US decommissions most of its warheads, in exchange for assurances that Russia does the same - then the Russian black market for nuclear warheads is dramatically reduced. I suspect controls on nuclear weapons under Putin has been very much tightened, but that was where my reasoning came from on that.”

I don’t think you meant to say that the “black market for nuclear warheads is dramatically reduced” by decommissioning weapons – I suppose you meant that the supply of nuclear warheads may be reduced. Anyway, I don’t agree that the US decommissioning its warheads would somehow lead to safeguarding of Russian “loose nukes,” or a reduction in the supply or availability of such weapons. In fact, one of the reasons for the fear of a Russian black market in nuclear weapons is the trade in decommissioned nuclear weapons that have not been properly disposed.

As you note, I would suspect the Russian government has a tight handle on those nuclear weapons that have a role in Russian strategic defense. The problem the world faces from terrorists is really the threat from decommissioned weapons, such as tactical nuclear “suitcase” weapons. The number of loose nukes, if not properly safeguarded and disassembled, would likely increase under your disarmament scenario.

Second:

“I hope you're not implying that by certain relationships between states and terror groups that Iraq funded Al Qaeda; because that's just patently not true.”

To start with, I believe Michael spoke of state support of terrorism, not necessarily or specifically state funding of terrorism. Just because there is no evidence that Saddam wrote a draft from his Credit Suisse checking account “Pay to the Order of Osama Bin Laden dba Al Qaeda” does not mean that he did not otherwise support Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

Take a look at the 9/11 Commission Report and other sources; at the least, there were contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. At one point in 1998, Iraqi intelligence agents encouraged Bin Laden to relocate his organization to Iraq. He decided to not do so, mainly because he enjoyed greater freedom in Afghanistan. With his Afghan sanctuary no longer available post-9/11, Iraq may have seemed an attractive new base. You should also look into the situation of Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist who fled Afghanistan post-9/11 and found sanctuary and medical care in Iraq.

Anyway, the absence of evidence of direct funding by Iraq of Al Qaeda, or any other terrorist group, is not evidence of absence. So, I think you overstep a bit in your statement that it is “patently not true” to say that Iraq funded Al Qaeda.

Third:

“Some argue that the US has supported state terror. They argue for example that the US and Europe funded and provided chemical and biological weapons and infrastructure for WMDs for Saddam in his fight against the Ayatollah Khomeini from 1980-88 in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was no less a violent, ambitious tyrant then.”

Are you part of the “some” who argue this? If so, why not just come out and say it? But still, I don’t understand this argument, which has become a standard of the anti-war crowd. It seems like you’re trying to make some moral equivalence between the US providing support for Iraq in developing WMDs and the possibility of another state providing the same technology to terrorists. That’s just plain silly.

Really, it seems that even if you accept your premise – that the US and Europe supported WMD production in Iraq in the 1980s –how should this alleged fact (which I would say is patently not true) make the US less free to reduce the modern-day threat of possible Iraqi WMDs? If true, as you allege, doesn’t it in fact make the US and Europe even more responsible for solving this problem, as it is in essence a monster created by the US?

Finally:

“Some also argue, that according to the UN charter, the invasion of Iraq was illegal, so that brings into serious question the following comment you made:

‘Iraq sent a powerful message to the lunocracies of the Middle East: join the world of democracy, freedom, law, and prosperity or perish trying to destroy it’"

Again, do you count yourself among the “some?” And, if so, why not just come out and say so? And, your argument is flawed – just because “some also argue” the US violated the UN charter by invading Iraq, how would this make the signal to the “lunocracies of the Middle East” less powerful? Assuming arguendo your premise that the Iraq invasion violated the UN charter, I would say the invasion made the message even more powerful by also saying that nations developing these weapons cannot hide behind the creaking bureaucracy of the UN.

Just my thoughts.

"The case for preventive war must be debated on its merits rather than rejected outright on the ground that any war that is not defensive is aggressive and therefore 'illegitimate.'"

Unbelievable - you still don't understand that from a decision science/rational choice perspective, the question of whether a particular preventive war is justified depends on the particular preventive war. You are still suffering from the delusion that there is some general principle about whether preventive war is good.

Preventive war, like chemotherapy, amputation, tax cuts, etc. can be a good idea under certain conditions.

There is no value in trying to deduce general principles about the utility of "preventive war" or "amputation."

It was mind-boggling that you didn't understand this the first time around and almost unbelievable that you still don't get it.

Tim! (laughs) you made a lot of good points. Very well argued actually.

And yes, the "some" I spoke of, does include me, but often when I make these kind of arguments, the argumentation can become personal, and not focussed on the evidence.

To respond to a few of your points:

"Anyway, I don’t agree that the US decommissioning its warheads would somehow lead to safeguarding of Russian “loose nukes,” or a reduction in the supply or availability of such weapons. In fact, one of the reasons for the fear of a Russian black market in nuclear weapons is the trade in decommissioned nuclear weapons that have not been properly disposed."

I couldn't agree more. My proposal certainly would not overlook the possibility that decommissioned nukes would end up in the hands of rogue actors. Good point.

"Take a look at the 9/11 Commission Report and other sources; at the least, there were contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. At one point in 1998, Iraqi intelligence agents encouraged Bin Laden to relocate his organization to Iraq. He decided to not do so, mainly because he enjoyed greater freedom in Afghanistan"

My question is, does this justify an attack in lieu of the retroactively disproven WMD claim? He had contacts with 'Al Qaeda'? I personally don't believe it, because the only evidence I've seen is that Saddam despised Al Qaeda, and wanted nothing to do with the organization. But admittedly, I am not omniscient and can't ascertain this for sure, so I'll leave it at that.

(quoted from previously) “Some argue that the US has supported state terror. They argue for example that the US and Europe funded and provided chemical and biological weapons and infrastructure for WMDs for Saddam in his fight against the Ayatollah Khomeini from 1980-88 in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was no less a violent, ambitious tyrant then.”

Are you part of the “some” who argue this? If so, why not just come out and say it? But still, I don’t understand this argument, which has become a standard of the anti-war crowd. It seems like you’re trying to make some moral equivalence between the US providing support for Iraq in developing WMDs and the possibility of another state providing the same technology to terrorists. That’s just plain silly."

Lets imagine a scenario. State x funds terrorism that ends up killing lots of people. State y funds terrorism that ends up killing lots of people. State x is the US of A. State y is Iraq. I seriously cannot comprehend why moral equivalency would not exist in this hypothetical (and applicable) case. What is it inherently about the United States of America that renders all actions it pursues in the world divinely 'good'?

I also want to qualify my membership in the 'anti-war' crowd. I am not anti-war in principle. In fact, I supported the original gulf war, not only because it was in response to real aggression, but because Saddam (by my sources) was close to developing nuclear capacity (regardless of whether the West supplied that technology).

I am not 'for' the UN either. I recognize its failings in Sudan and Rwanda. But I also believe, that the UN has its most consequential policy largely decided by the security council. This is the UN's downfall. If any nation in the security council opposes UN action, the UN is powerless. Thus it is a bit shortsighted to blame the 'UN' for paralysis, when that paralysis is in direct relation to the policies of five nations.

I might point out that the vast majority of UN paralysis is due to US vetoes. The US, followed by the UK has vetoed most UN motions in the past 30 years. Go to the UN, and check out what motions were vetoed, it might surprise you.

But what puzzles me the most, is how UNACCEPTABLE dissent has become. I am an American/Canadian and I am really blown away by it all. We really haven't become all that different from some of the most indoctrinated populations in history. An affront to say, I know, given the mythological American resistance to authority. But bear with me, I have an interesting passage to relate on why this might be so:

"...the United States is among the leat regulated and most commercialized press systems in the world. The irony is that despite the highly competitive appearance of this free market of ideas, the content is relatively limited and the consumers express extreme dissatisfaction with it. How can this free marketplace of ideas produce such restricted choice of content and such low consumer ratings?

The answer to this important question requiers a somewhat deeper understanding of the organization of the media in the United States. At least two features distinguish American media in general and the press in particular, from almost any other nation on the planet. First, the US does not just display a tendency toward private ownership of media and unregulated political content; it is likely the most extreme case in these regards among the industrial democracies. Most other media systems have large sectors devoted to public or state-funded broadcasting, with various regulatory solutions that provide broad social and political representation in the programming and editorial policies. Second, the overwhelming professional norm guiding political journalism in the US is somewhere between "objectivity" and "fairness." Most media systems are mixed not just in ownership, but in the political and professional biases of different media organizations.

Wherereas party-affiliated, ideologically diverse papers and even broadcasting outlets are common in other societies, most US news organizations attempt to create a similar political "balance" in their reporting. There is no felt obligation to educate citizens, to introduce useful organizing schemes for political information, or to worry much about whether neglected issues or social viewpoints are being represented. In other words, fairness and balance in the American media system do not mean assessing all views and preferences on a given issue, but publicizing the dominant views that are most readily available to the press. This means that the most prominent politicians, the best-organized interests, and, above all, those players with good publicity and strategic communication operations shape the flow of information in society.

As noted earlier, the irony of this system is that even though it is arguably freer of government regulation and political constraints than any in the world, the result is greater conformity and uniformity of program content than in many systems that are more highly regulated. For example, a study of the press in five democracies (US, Britain, Italy, Sweden, and Germany) conducted by Patterson and Donsbach found that American journalists reported fewer pressures and limits on their professional judgements and reporting choices than their colleagues in other societies. Yet American journalists displayed by far the smallest differences in their decisions about how to report various hypothetical news events and political issues (Patterson 1992). The irony of the free press in America is that the convergence of private ownership and the historical evolution of norms of nonpartisanship and political neutrality generally restrict the range of ideas circulating among the mainstream audience"

This connects, I believe, to why there is a massive disconnect in American thinking and the rest of the world. It has NOTHING to do inherently with Americans, but rather with the media environment that we are exposed to.

As Huxley wrote in Brave New World, we only know 'difference' based on the range of ideas we are exposed to. If this range of ideas is limited (comparitively), ideas outside of this range appear silly and outlandish.

Just my 2c....

My source for the above quote is:

W. Lance Bennet (2000) "Media Power in the United States" in 'De Westernizing Media Studies' Ed. James Curran and Myung Jin Park., p. 213

BTW: my last post is not meant to be 'the verdict' on the issue, rather I hope it is a provocative, thought provoking excerpt which gets you all thinking... :)

If I perceive my neighbor to be a threat, and he is a gun collector, am I justified in entering his house and killing him?

Kosovo was a defensive war. If the law allows A to defend against B who is attempting to stab A, then surely it allows C to defend on behalf of A if A is unable to help himself. I think that was the rational for war in Kosovo.

Peter Konefal: Your piece should be required reading for all US citizens!

Thanks Ben!

Ben: It depends. If your neighbor has a history of violence and making threats about hurting or killing you and your family, you have a legal complaint and should take self-defensive measures.

Applied to Iraq, Saddam offered shelter to al Qaeda, funded suicide bombers, sponsored terrorism against the U.S. and deceived U.N. weapons inspectors. Iraq had a long historical record of genocide and aggressive military action against neighbors. Saddam had a political ideology and dream of reconstituting an ancient empire and bringing the entire Middle East under his boot. Saddam openly talked about annihilating Israel and vowed revenge against the U.S. Saddam openly tortured and killed his own people. And as we witnessed throughout his reign of terror, he viewed weapons of mass destruction not as weapons of last resort, but as weapons of choice.

Saddam used weapons of mass destruction. In the early 1980s, he deployed chemical weapons to kill and maim thousands of Iranian troops. In 1988, he used chemical weapons against his own people, killing thousands of Kurds and causing birth defects that haunt and scar the Kurdish people to this day.

Saddam was persistent threat to his region. In the span of just two decades, Saddam attacked no less than four of his neighbors: Iran, Kuwait, Israel and Saudi Arabia. He used ballistic missiles against civilian populations in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. He set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields, pumped raw petroleum into the ocean, and scorched vast stretches of desert, triggering long-term health problems throughout the region and crippling the Gulf's fragile ecosystem.

And Saddam cynically turned U.N. sanctions against his own people: Rather than using oil revenue to feed his subjects, he diverted it to new palaces, yachts and personal wealth as he corrupted the U.N. Oil for Food Program.

We need external verification of this claim... That said, I am happy to believe its true as long as there is sufficient evidence.

"Applied to Iraq, Saddam offered shelter to al Qaeda, funded suicide bombers, sponsored terrorism against the U.S."

I recall statistics indicating that about 40% of Americans still think that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, or was involved in any way. The percentage of the rest of the world that believes the same? Very, very small.

However, like I say, out with the facts! Where is there any evidence of this!

Ben, let me give you a slightly different scenario. You live in a frontier area, with no real law enforcement around. Your neighbor has been hostile to you and others around him for over a decade, and in fact has taken the occasional potshot at you in your field.

You know it must be miserable on his farm -- his wife and kids cower in fear of him, and there are even rumors that he shot a few relatives who tried to challenge the way he ran his farm.

Now, you and several of your neighbors have information that this bad neighbor is preparing to poison the local water supply with cholera.

Are you now justified in entering his property and searching his house to make sure he is not able to do that? Better still, if you choose to invade for the greater good, do you have the right to defend yourself as you do so?

I've got a two part preventative strategy
for stopping crazy foreign governments or fundamentalist groups from wanting to use WMDs against us.

1) Stop researching new WMDs and selling them
to crazy foreign governments or fundamentalists
groups.

2) Figure out why these people are mad at us and
STOP DOING IT. (And no, it isn't "because of our
freedoms". You get an F Bush)

Can I have a nobel prize?

Corey:

I would give you the nobel prize if it was mine to give. By even aknowledging that there just maybe, might be a 2) you are already way ahead of the game.

As far as 'why these people are mad at us' I can only offer the meek comment that perhaps it has something to do with Western occupation of the three most holy sites in Islam....maybe....

But the bottom line is: YOU DESERVE A NOBEL PRIZE. END OF STORY.

Lowly 1L: In castle doctrine jurisdictions you are not required to retreat from your own home- would argue that 9/11 is such an attack.

Question then is: Is the war in Iraq self-defense in under that paradigm...?

All the reasons just given for the Irai invasion, are after the fact excuses. They were NOT the initial reasons given.

Mr. Spike: Nice scenario, N/A. Saddam was a beast, with our assistance for many years. But given the circumstances at the time of the invasion, was no threat to the US. All available FACTS, bear that out.

Ben, Corey,

both of you are rare individuals in this online world. There seems to be a cultural amnesia, groupthink (pseudo-indoctrination if you will) going on in the US today, which obstructs our memory of obvious facts...and inconvenient hypocrisies.

All this talk of assigning numbers and probabilities to different scenarios and possibilities is fun, but it lets us abstract from the gruesome reality of this war, which has, like most wars, disproportionately resulted in far more thousands of women, children and families killed than it has "terrorists".

Its almost disrespectful to sit here and assign silly numbers and ratios to nonsensical formulas while this goes on.

Peter:

Thank you for the response to my response. But, regarding your criticism of American media, I'm not sure of your point. Does this have relevance to what has been discussed previously, or are you just looking to start a new discussion on a new point?

A few responses to some things you post:

"But what puzzles me the most, is how UNACCEPTABLE dissent has become. I am an American/Canadian and I am really blown away by it all."

Really? Are jackbooted thugs kicking in your door as you post on this blog? Has the government shut down your computer? In what way has dissent become "UNACCEPTABLE?" I have plenty of friends and relatives who do not agree with me on current events, yet we do not find each other "UNACCEPTABLE."

And what does it mean to be "American/Canadian?" Are you still trying to decide? Do you mean American-Canadian, or Canadian-American, or North American/Canadian?

And then this:

"We really haven't become all that different from some of the most indoctrinated populations in history. An affront to say, I know, given the mythological American resistance to authority."

Really? We're just like the Japanese or German people during World War II? Or Stalinist Russia? Or Maoist China? Or Khmer Rouge Cambodia? Modern-day North Korea? Iran? Saddam's Iraq? Your writing would be much more persuasive if it didn't degenerate into overblown hyperbole.

If our population is so "indoctrinated," how did Bush only get 51% of the vote? Or was that part of his diabolical plan, to lull us into thinking that there actually is dissent in this country?

I really don't get your point that our media system is flawed because it strives to be fair and strives to balance viewpoints. I also don't understand how our media would be better if it were more partisan - so, the American people would be better off if the daily newspaper they read on the way to work had only one point of view, and did not consider alternate viewpoints? But isn't that exactly what you claim is the problem with Americans - they're so "indoctrinated," and fail to consider alternate points of view?

I have a lot of problems with the American main stream media, but being fair and considering all points of view is not one of them. I think the media spends too much time on sensational, easy-to-digest stories (Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, Gary Condit, OJ Simpson, etc). But you're wrong if you think that the media needs to spend more time advocating and less time reporting. That's why newspapers have Op-Ed sections.

You also ignore something staring you right in the face (literally): The internet (or "internets," as George Bush might say). Fewer and fewer Americans are getting their news from the networks and newspapers, and more and more are getting their news from blogs like this.

I enjoy responding to your posts because, unlike many folks on here, you rarely resort to Michael Mooresque simplistic attacks. But, that does not mean I agree with you!

Hey Tim; Great writing! But I fear you're a bit naive. We live in an age of paradox. At a time when information is more available than ever, more and more people are less informed. We use the net, most people don't. The great unwashed masses(were I live and work) get most of their information in one minute pieces from the mainstream media. I think you're smart enough to know the quality of that information. They don't read either. Grab a clue Tim, get out more.

Truly uninformed people don't matter, their votes will tend to cancel each other out. They are like monkeys. The problem then becomes ideology, you only have to zap a monkey with electricity a few times when he picks blue and he will go red every time. Similarily, you only have to say 9/11! 9/11! Terrorist! Terrorist! to an uninformed voter a few times to scare him into looking for the biggest gun. If this blog is any indication, this methodology even works on Nobel Prize winners.

We shouldn't think this is a recent phenomena though, witness the propaganda campaigns leading up to WWII. This country interned its own Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps during the war and the population was cool with that. Up until 10 years ago, we have been teaching all our schoolchildren that Columbus was a cool guy. (not the genocidal greedy rapist that he actually was) Look at the way a reluctant population was cowed into going along with WWI or the Spanish-American War. "Remember the Maine!"

Its a never-ending battle against ignorance, and it looks bad right now because we have had twenty five years of rollback under republican and pseudo-republican administrations. I still have hope though, because the "unwashed masses" can be influenced either way, and the worse things get the more likely revolution is coming.

Positive change (relative to the little guy) happens in American History when large groups of otherwise ignorant peasants realize their role and start shaking their pitchforks at the rich. (1890s, 1930s, 1960s...) So don't be down on the people, they want to know the truth, and they are less likely than you think to trust the government. You just have to present it to them, in a non-elitist fashion. The left has a horrible time with this.

Does anyone want to address the risk-benefit analysis of a preemptive military strike on Iran’s WMD capabilities?

I don't think modern technology and the risk of nuclear destruction ups the ante for avoiding or opposing a "preventive" war on practical, let alone ideological grounds. Earlier societies faced similar risks. Consider the Gallo-Romans in 3rd and 4th century Gaul. They well knew that every punitive foray they launched across the frontier caused a gathering and uniting of the Germanic tribes, leading to greater instablility and risk of homeland invasion. So they eventually elected a purely defensive and absorbtive strategy, which actually lasted quite a long time until forces beyond their control (mass population migrations) ultimately forced a breach. In the same way, our foraying into a war today to "prevent" a potential nuclear holocaust may, and I think probably would, hasten and increase the risk that it would actually happen. This is particularly true given the nature of the modern enemy we would likely fight in such a war: a decentralized, highly mobile and elastic foe, with multiple sources and means of obtaining the needed weaponry. The solution here is not a military one, something which the Gallo-Romans would have told us, as they sipped on the wonderful Chardonnay they had ample time to discover and perfect.

Lowly 2L:

But Iraq did not attack us on 9/11. Saudi Arabia did...

If we applied your logic to a case of self-defense, that would be like saying if Person A attacked me in my home, I have the right to go out and kill Person B, in self-defense, because I suspected at some point in the future Person B might help out others who want to invade my home.

Even in a jurisdiction that allows deadly-force to proctect a dwelling, I wouldn't want to face the jury on that one...

Tim:

my first thought is - you're obviously an intelligent person, so I enjoy receiving criticism from you. And as to my citizenship, I'm a dualie (dual Canadian and American citizenship).

And no I don't subscribe to bush masterminding and indoctrinating America conspiracies. Its just to simplistic. In fact I wasn't referring to political parties and elections specifically. What I was referring to, was how there are mainstream understandings of the US and its role in the world, and how the rest of the world fits into things.

Generally speaking, when the rest of the world disagrees with the US, we in the US ask, what's wrong with the world? We rarely question whether our two party system in fact represents similar interests and do similar things (Clinton attacked Iraq, initiated a variety of pro-business policies etc). A criticism along the lines I just made is extremely rare in American politics which buys into this unsupported idea that the Democrat party is about as liberal as Zapatista marxists, which is JUST NOT TRUE. In Canada, the Democrat party would possibly be to the right of the Canadian conservative party (just to give you an example).

But my criticism is moreover, about how terms like terrorism and US power have come to be understood in the US. We in the US consistently hold ourselves as being a benevolent superpower, and in fact, compared to the Nazi's or Stalinist russia, there is no doubt that's true. In fact, there's no comparison, as you rightly point out, tim.

But I still believe, if you re-read over the quotation I made, that the mainstream media propogates and relies upon a fairly narrowly defined way of representing society and its issues. In my view, the US media and most US citizens, whether democrat or republican, subscribe to a mythological understanding of what US as standing for, i.e. supporting freedom and democracy, when, according to the evidence and arguments I've been exposed to (McChesney, Chomsky, Chalmers, etc) things are not so simple.

The US has and continues to be schizophrenic in its foreign policy, upholding democracy and helping end illegitimate governments in some cases (milosevic in 1990s, saddam 1990s), while at the same time supporting many regimes that are anti-democratic and authoritarian (pinochet 1970s, Saddam 1980s) when it suits US economic self interest.

If one pays attention to these peices of evidence, then it becomes more difficult to look upon "Saddam" as a projection of all that is evil in the world. It requires us as citizens to be pragmatic and say, well, we funded him when he was doing Washington's bidding, and now that he isn't he's our enemy. Its fine for America to stand for peace and freedom, and in fact, I love it when it does. But we need to hold the government accountable for these schizophrenic policies, and always look deeper than the official explanations for why the US is doing things.

On the one hand, you could argue that Iraq is about bringing democracy to the middle east. On another, you could say, its all about oil. Probably its a mixture of both, but to say oil is not involved requires a leap of faith, and a buying into what I call mainstream-American-mythology.

These are just some ideas that I thought of as a response to your comments Tim. Like all good criticisms though, I am careful to seperate 'what I feel the US is doing wrong' from the US itself. Its not necessarily that the US and its citizens are evil or bad, but that specific policies and interventions are bad.

If I disagree with you Tim, I'm (hopefully) never going to call you names and demean you, I'll pay you respect by giving what you say consideration and responding to it in kind.

I think the mainstream media doesn't do this to opinions and critiques which are outside the range of 'acceptable criticism'. As CIA chief (or official) Mike Schuer said, America needs to enter into debate about the middle-eastern policies its pursued for the last three decades as a way of understanding Al Qaeda and the larger context of the so-called "war on terror," instead of reducing it to a simplistic "if we kill all the terrorists, then that's the end of that problem" kind of thinking.

If you have a blog tim, I'd be happy to check it out, and I invite you to check out my blog, it has a few topics on things related to this.

Corey,

I think the line of reasoning you pursue in your last comment is very valuable. I think we should all read it, its quite instructive.

I think it comes down to the term 'war on terror' and the fact that the US and the West is engaged in a war on not another state, but a series of resistance-based social groups.

I really recommend reading Manuel Castells "The Power of Identity".

he goes over a bunch of resistance groups:

Aum Shurikya (Japan subway bombing cult- with widespread appeal among spiritually empty young university grads in Japane)

The Patriots (a wide range of paramilitary groups in the US, related to conservative suspicion of the legitimacy of the federal government; views the US army as 'servants of the UN'. In some cases, they print their own currency; affiliated with both racist and tolerant streams - one strand bombed the Oklahoma FBI building -a symbol of supposedly illegitimate state power)

The Zapatistas (mexican based resistance group based on collective resistance to corporate globalization and illegitimate land encroachment policies)

The Anti Globalization movement (not against globalization in general, but corporate controlled globalization)

Al Qaeda (very interesting chapter on this group. Al qaeda is based on Wahhabism, a territorialist interpretation of Islam; sees Western occupation of holy sites in Islam as an attack on islam, sees Israel as a client-state of the US (which it is)).

Sorry, I mean to say 'Cosimo' instead of Corey.

Peter -- what on earth do those groups have in common?

The anti-globalization movement is a bunch of extremely nice and passionate activists, almost uniformly nonviolent.

The zapatistas are a bit violent for taste, but not very violent, and at least fighting for a good cause.

The patriots are a bunch of insane paranoids, but with no serious record of violence.

aum shurikya and al qaeda were and are violent and murderous religious and political terrorist groups.

What possible comparison is to be drawn between them?

Its a very interesting subject, and there are all sorts of relations between them: i.e. who these groups regard as the enemy, what kinds of motivating forces are behind these groups, how they use computer networks and the media to gain power, etc. I mentioned these groups, because they relate to Cosine's point about how terrorism is a difficult to define and difficult to 'fight' problem.

The fundamental orientation of state armies is to fight other state armies. Conventional military strategies are not designed to fight global networks of dissidents and rebels.

Castells develops the idea of asymmetrical resistance, and the power of networking as a way to go about understanding these groups.

But, I didn't imply that these groups were explicitly related, and neithe does Castells. They may be related indirectly, but they all are oriented towards different purposes and enemies. I brought this up because it has to do with Cosimo's last post, and it has to do with the broader question of terrorism.

Also, the patriots are not necessarily harmless, Timothy Mcveigh was loosely associated with these groups.

Peter, your discussion of proliferation of nuclear weapons sounds like a cold war discussion. The fact that Isreal has the bomb doesn't deter the PLO and their allies from launching attacks as often as they can. The Palistinians understand that the Jewish tradition and mores require balance in retaliation. The Arabs have no such strictures, as far as I've seen. Since terrorism is used indiscriminately to kill non-combatants including other Muslims, children and women, can we believe, indeed trust, that they will not resort to a greater attack if they have the weapons?
I think you've ignored the principle of limited warfare. We've (the U.S.) always claimed that we won't rule out nuclear weapons as a means of retaliation to chemical, biological or nuclear attacks. But, would we really be prepared to take out Iran with nuclear strikes, if they killed only 10,000 Americans with a biological attack? I think not. Therefore, nuclear deterence can only be useful against superpowers who have the threat to wipe out the entire U.S. population... that is, we will kill all of them also... including the leaders of the country who would attack us.
I see no parallel between fighting a terrorism threat and detering the USSR or China from a first attack. The terrorists have carefully chosen to fight wars of attrition, planning on wearing down democratic countries who have great strictures on retaliation in kind, i.e., purposfully killing civilians indiscriminately by the most ugly means possible. Saddem, you will remember, had no problem with killing Kurds or Iranians enmass with mustard gas or any other means at hand.

I also don't seem to note the difference between bombing civlians in Bosnia to cause a certain effect, i.e., removal of a tyranical threat to a people, and removal of Saddem by invasion. Weren't we trying to accomplish the same effect?
Didn't the U.S., under a different Administration conclude that 1) regime change in Iraq was official U.S. policy; 2) that Saddem had WMD in 1998? This was after he threw out the UN inspectors... who he considered to be spies for the U.S.? The whole world of intelligence concluded that Saddem was a grave threat to peace. What would we have learned different, had we waited another year, or five, given that the intelligence community in the free world had no reliable sources of intelligence within Iraq? Would we have come to a different solution two years later? I seriously doubt it.
It's difficult not to project the knowledge of the current facts, into our judgements, when we look back at decisions made before the knowledge (or facts) came to light.

Good points Bob!

Firstly, my discussion about deterrance and the cold war does not imply that I mean to "apply" that frame of mind to all contemporary contexts. One can discuss the politics and strategies of the cold war outside of current applications. I fully recognize that the cold-war dynamic has changed.

However, I take issue with this idea that the cold war is completely over. We need to qualify our understanding of how the cold war ended, and what the contexts were that sustained the definition of the cold war. The central prop for the cold war were two superpowers, one capitalist and psuedo-democratic (those two ideas are antithetical), and the other totalitarian and communist. Regardless of the internal makeup of these two states, the central feature was that there were two of them. The cold war then, has come to refer atleast partly to a world that is too small for two superpowers, thus leading to an oppositional relation.

If you take a quick glance at contemporary geopolitics, although the US remains the only superpower, it has many rivals to its authority - if not militarily, then economically.

The sheer size of Russia makes it a power to be reckoned with.

Similarly, China and India have massive populations, are nuclear armed (atleast India is) and together amass militaries in excess of 10,000,000 soldiers.

This isn't to say that these countries aren't 'against' the US as was the case in the cold war, but economically, they fight very vigorously.

These three nations carry with them the potential for future 'cold-war-state' style relations. Just because these nations have adopted some form of market economy, does not mean that state-competition and tensions between rival powers is off the map, or not an issue.

Part of the reason why the US pursues client-state relations with Pakistan and ensures that it has nuclear weapons, is to act as a check on Indian (and to a lesser degree) Chinese power (just as the Israel is a US-supported check on Arab power).

While I agree that the cold war in the traditional sense of that term is over, a new power relation has emerged with some cold-war like characteristics.

Secondly, you assume as earlier that terrorists do not have any fear of nuclear retribution. I think there is atleast a possibility that some terrorist organizations would not use nuclear devices even if they had the capability, because a) it wouldn't arouse any sympathy for their cause and b) it lacks specificity - i.e. attacking the Pentagon and WTO; I would be hard pressed to think of two symbols that better symbolized US military power and capitalism respectively.

That said, I agree with you that the risk of WMDs is probably greater from terrorist organizations than it is from states.

You said that you don't see any difference between US interventions in Bosnia and US interventions in Iraq. This is quite a telling remark.

Let me propose a few for you:

1. The Balkans have been a source of ethnic conflict intermittently for over a century.

This is not the case with Iraq. Saddam's attack on Iran is the exception rather than the rule for Mideast state relations (with the exception of Israel).

2. The Serbians initiated the attack on the Ethnic Albanians. At the time of the 2nd Gulf war, Saddam initiated no attacks, nor was he capable of initiating any attacks on anyone.

3. The attack on Serbia was conducted under NATO and was approved by the UN.

The Iraq conflict was not approved by the UN, and moreover, was not approved for the reasons sought - alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Similarities include:

1. Both Saddam and Milosevic are bastards. Nobody is denying this, and certainly not me.

By invading Iraq under unproven allegations of WMD, the US took a big gamble. The US failed in the eyes of the world, and in my eyes. Taking out Saddam was a plus, I certainly agree, but this conflict has sent the message that we can invade countries that we suspect of WMDs whether they actually have them or not. If this precendent is set, what possible reason do Iran, North Korea or any other country the US decides not to like, have as an option to prevent air strikes or invasions, except to develop nuclear weapons to prevent such an attack. If being honest is no longer enough to prevent an attack (i.e. letting in inspectors, with Saddam did do, although to varying degrees), then why bother? It doesn't matter if a country is responsible essentially, it can risk being invaded simply by disagreeing with the US.

The criteria for disagreeing with the US also, having nothing to do with maintaining a democratic or authoritarian regime, or any other flimsy defense. General Swarzkopf was more than happy to watch the Kurds get massacred after the US told them to rise up against Saddam during the first gulf war. It only became embarrasing when Bush senior was off golfing and vacationing while blond, blue eyed Kurds were being murdered. Please.

A more likely context to get a nation on Washington's bad books, is to fail to do Washington's bidding, to respond to threatening US moves by building up defense mechanisms (nuclear weapons have for most of the 20th century served as a defensive mechanism, i.e. retaliation threat), or to fail to allow US multinational corporations to do business in one's oil patch.

Saddam DID NOT have weapons of mass destruction in 1998; the country was as destitute and hollowed out then as it was in 2003. The only time Saddam was close to having nuclear weapons from my understading was in the early 1990s, when the US invaded for the first time.

Aside from the terrible precendent of invading a country under false pretexts, there is the precedent of 'pre-emptive' war against dictators we don't like. If the real excuse for invading Iraq was dictators, why does the US support Saudi Arabia, which is run by a dictator-like elite called the House of Saud. Why why why?

If dictators and human rights were really an honest pretext for invading a country, why does the US not invade Saudi Arabia, or any other autocracy that happens to conforms to its interests?

You may note that terrorism was never a context for washington's invading Iraq in the first place. WMDs were the only possible excuse that could get the world onside.

Terrorism as a context for the War on Iraq is the Bush Administrations propagada, I say propaganda, because propaganda can generally be understood to be deliberate deceit; and that is exactly what the administration has been doing with regard to its confused labelling of the iraq conflict as somehow part of the broader 'war on terror'. They are two seperate conflicts, with little relationship together.

A sickening percentage of Americans STILL believe that Iraq was about the much maligned 'war on terror'.

Peter:

No, I do not have a blog. At this point, I don't have the time or inclination to do so, although I have thought about it.

Re: some of the points you make above, I'm not sure where to start. You seem to bounce from topic to topic, without really making a point (or, as a writing professor might say, without a "theme"), other than making of list of things with which you do not agree.

But, a few thoughts:

Your discussion of the Balkans/Serbia/Bosnia as not being an accurate analogy for Iraq leaves out one (perhaps inconvenient)point: The U.S. action in Kosovo was not approved by the U.N. because of the threat of a Russian veto of such an incursion into its traditional sphere of influence. As I recall, there was also some French "reluctance" to go along with the Kosovo intervention. An intentional oversight?

My point in saying this is that a lack of U.N. approval does not render an action illegitimate, or even just plain wrong from a moral or cost/benefits standpoint. Unfortunately, the U.N., more often than not, acts as an impediment to preventing injustice, rather than a means of ending it. Does Rwanda ring a bell?

Which leads to your comments about U.S. action in Iraq. You describe 2003 Iraq as "destitute and hollowed out." True, with the exception of Saddam and his fellow mafiosos, who were living the high life from kick backs from the oil for food program.

Do you think this was a good thing? If so, how long do you reasonably think it could have been sustained? An Iraq with Saddam Hussein, someone you agree is an evil tyrant, in charge, and its people being slowly starved to death - your idea of an ideal situation? And, as bad as things in Iraq are, the former situation was an effective recruiting tool for Al Qaeda: U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the holiest of holy lands to Muslims, whose permanent presence was required for enforcement of the "No-Fly Zone" and U.N. sanctions. Film on Al-Jazeera of Iraq women and children dying because of a lack of food and medicine, caused by the U.S. (really, not U.N.) imposed sanctions.

Oh, by the way, the U.S. military's presence in Saudia Arabia is nearly zero today, compared to the 20,000 troops permanently stationed there pre-Iraq war. But, this is not the type of thing you would hear much about in the U.S. media (or the CBC, BBC, etc).

Certainly, the Iraq war has had serious problems on any number of levels: it has damaged diplomatic relations with other countries, etc, etc. I'm sure you could lay out a lot more of the negative consequences than I could.

But, I have never heard anyone who is against the war persuasively argue what the alternative course should have been. What do you think the U.S. should have done, other than keeping the sanctions in place (which was not really an option, for the reasons I describe above)? It's easy to armchair/Monday morning quarterback what the U.S. did, but it's a lot more difficult to come up with a compelling argument for an alternative course (Unfortunately, I think the "confronted with deadly force/self defense" analogy that prompted this discussion board is way too much of an oversimplification for this situation).

It's also a bit hypocritical (and revealing) that those who repeatedly criticize the U.S. for its alleged failure to comply with the U.N. have little apparent concern for Saddam's failure to comply with a "laundry list" of U.N. resolutions. Why did Saddam deserve the benefit of the doubt, after he spent 12 years defying U.N. resolutions, and after he had invaded two of his neighbors in incredibly brutal wars? Why did the U.S. have the burden of proving that Saddam did not comply with the resolutions, rather than Saddam proving he did? Wasn't Saddam in the better position to affirmatively show compliance? What should Bush have done instead of what he did, especially when the U.S., as the leader of the free world (and not France, Russia, et al), is uniquely threatened? Moved for another U.N. resolution telling Saddam he was a bad, bad boy, and requesting that he please act better in the future?

It's a bit naive to think that a continuation of the U.N. sanctions, with no chance of compliance by Saddam, and with a decade-long push by Russia, Germany, France, and China to lift the sanctions to further their commercial interests, would "contain" the threat from Saddam's Iraq (assuming that, at least on some level, you would view Saddam's Iraq as a threat).

Take care,

Tim

---What is it inherently about the United States of America that renders all actions it pursues in the world divinely 'good'? ---

American nationalism is a civic nationalism based on abstract principles like “freedom” and “democracy”. Unlike almost every other country on Earth, one is not necessarily born an “American” as one is born “French”, “German”, or “Chinese”. One can become American simply by adopting and adhering to the principles of US liberal democracy. – Which is, by the way, why Sam Huntington’s new rants on immigration are so completely overblown.

Because US nationalism is so closely identified with “freedom” and other abstract, high-minded-sounding words, anything the United States does in terms of its foreign policy “must” be supportive of those principles. Questioning that become unpatriotic. The US never acts out of crass self-interest, but out of “higher” ideals. Thus, we overthrow Mossedeq not because he was going to nationalize the oil industry and hurt certain business interests in the UK ad the US, but because he was a “threat” to democracy and a supporter of communism. Dictators the communists propped up were rotten scoundrels, our dictators were brave anti-communists and stalwart defenders of “stability”. That peasants and political opponents were “disappeared” in both types of regimes was conveniently forgotten.

As for the argument that the US invasion of Iraq strengthens the effort to deter states from obtaining nuclear weapons this is, frankly, ridiculous. North Korea has nuclear weapons and wasn’t attacked, Iraq didn’t have weapons and was attacked. It’s no coincidence that the last remaining member of the “Axis of Evil” is now trying to pump out nuclear weapons as fast as possible. Furthermore, the deterrent threat is only useful if it is credible. I fail to see how having the vast majority of our Marine Corps and Army combat brigades bogged down in Iraq conveys a credible threat to overthrow the governments of rogue states.

But, hey, we got Saddam.

Tim,

again, you make a number of excellent points.

I hope I didn't imply that Saddam was somehow a good person, or that I think he should have been left alone.

And, I confess to being more unaware about the duplicity of France, Germany and Russia in terms of the oil-for-food program. There have so many widespread accusations and conflicts of interest over the program, its difficult for me to seperate fact from fiction.

However, as I pointed out earlier, its not as though the US was alone in supplying arms to dictators throughout the world. France and Russia have participated and profited from the supply of small arms that make massacres like Rwanda more feasible. So, point taken. I don't mean to excuse nations outside the US from their culpability (Even Canada benefitted from many conflicts which it criticized the US for - supplying arms components and so forth at the same time).

Criticism aside, what would I have done with Saddam hussein? Well, I certainly wouldn't have funded him against the Iranians in the 1980s as US, France and other nations did. That would have helped a lot. But, as you point out, the West in general is highly suspect as a champion of freedom and democracy. If US and France didn't supply Saddam with weapons, Russia would. And in fact, Saddams invasion forces (1980-88) were with mostly russian tanks. The global arms trade is a subtext in our discussion here for sure, and it doesn't incriminate the US alone; although the US as in a lot of things, is the world's largest supplier (not a big surprise).

I wasn't aware that the UN didn't approve the Kosovo campaign. But this isn't a surprise, and again I bring it back to the security council, not the UN as a whole. The UN is full of contradictions, I don't deny that, and its mandate of providing global peace and security while hamstrung by the self-interested policies of France, Russia, US, China, UK hopefully makes this clear. If one examines the failures of the UN and its predecessor, the League of Nations, many of the same conflicts and controversies surfaced then. How to overcome the sovereignty of individual nations (especially powerful ones) on behalf of multilateral, global goals?

My point in bringing all this up, is to ask critics of the UN to look beyond the term 'the UN', examine its structure, look at what conflicts of interest exist, and then marvel at how the organization does anything in the world at all. Any policy which benefits the third world (the general assembly) at the expense of the developed world (the 5 nation security council) is frequently vetoed. The history of the UNESCO organization and the NWICO debates in the 1980s are especially illustrative. Is it the UN as an ambitious, well-meaning organization trying to grapple somewhat intractable questions that is at fault? I aknowledge the UN's bureaucratic inertia in Rwanda/Sudan (I don't want to be the UN's apolagist there), but I also aknowledge the difficulty the UN has in acting on these problems given the systemic conflicts of interest among the security council members.

To address your comment:

"But, I have never heard anyone who is against the war persuasively argue what the alternative course should have been. "

First of all, you are right. Many critics and academics work is done once they point out a normative failure, and then leave the job of practical decision making up to the politicians and governments that usually end of responsible.

That said, there are a number of thoughts.

1) Do nothing. I hate the idea of not doing anything about Saddam. I personally feel he and all despots should be forcibly removed wherever possible. However, on a strictly utilitarian basis, its difficult to argue the Iraqi people have been better off since the US invasion. With rarely discussed Iraqi civilian casualties ranging from 14,000 (iraqibodycount.com) to 100,000+ (lancet medical journal) its unlikely Saddam would have had the same toll on his own population over the same time period.

As far as the oil-for-food program, like I said, I am not well-versed on the particulars.

I am more aware and critical of the UN sanctions program, on behalf of its (direct, or indirect) consequences for the Iraqi people. I object to the massive incidence of civilian starvation in Iraq during the time this program was in operation. Obviously Saddam figures heavily in the responsibility here, but I wonder what alternatives to this program were available that didn't involve such costs for the Iraqi people.

I am not against Invading Iraq, but I am loathe to the see the US take on this role almost exclusively (since I don't buy into the freedom and democracy bit, I see economic motives as being an unnacceptable benefit and rationale for this war). My hope would be for a better structured, and more empowered UN to really be able to step into this aggressive role when it needs to, without leaving it to the US and or coalitions to usurp its moral high ground.

Those are just a few of my responses to your question. I feel necessary to point out that although I am against all wars in principle, I also realize they are necessary and in fact justified under the correct circumstances.

At the time of the US invasion, my feeling was 60% against and 40% for it. When I saw the statue of Saddam Hussein fall, I, like many people around the world was overjoyed.

If the UN was the US, I wouldn't have a problem with this war (maybe the way its being fought, but that's another issue); but the US is not the UN, nor should it be put in the situation of needing to act like the UN (because it does so very poorly in my view, i.e. mostly going after dictators for strategic reasons).

I thoroughly enjoyed your comments tim, and I found myself agreeing a lot with what you wrote.

Kind Regards,

Peter

Lowly Grad Student:

I think the following argument you made:

"Because US nationalism is so closely identified with “freedom” and other abstract, high-minded-sounding words, anything the United States does in terms of its foreign policy “must” be supportive of those principles. Questioning that become unpatriotic. The US never acts out of crass self-interest, but out of “higher” ideals. Thus, we overthrow Mossedeq not because he was going to nationalize the oil industry and hurt certain business interests in the UK ad the US, but because he was a “threat” to democracy and a supporter of communism. Dictators the communists propped up were rotten scoundrels, our dictators were brave anti-communists and stalwart defenders of “stability”. That peasants and political opponents were “disappeared” in both types of regimes was conveniently forgotten."

Was quite accurate, and critiques a variety of assumptions that have surfaced in this debate. Well done.

Cheers,

-Peter

"I do not recall a single criticism of the war in Kosovo."

This is more a reflection of how total the control of media-disseminated information was during the 90's. Now that more people use the internet for information, there are many more hindsight condemnations of what that a**wipe Clinton did in the Balkans.

In any case, failure to see through the media veil of one murderous scam has never and will never justify subsequent murderous scams. Please grow up.

Peter, thanks for your response. BUt I would rather you address the points I made in my notes.

I don't understand your comments about democracy and capitalism being opposites... but I really don't care to debate that with you, as it's not definable except to say that the US was founded as a Republic... not as a democracy.

Your list of differences between the Balkans and Iraq have been taken care of, very elegantly by Tim. There are none... except one was initiated under a liberal regime and one by a conservative.

We allowed the mass murder of the Kurds through error in the first Bush Administration. It was a deadly error and one the Iraqi's have never forgotten. GW has begun rectifing that over time. (You see, conservatives can be critical of other conservatives).

It's nice that you 'knew' that Saddam had no WMD in '98. You should have told the Clinton Administration. They would have been very relieved... or embarassed. Even Madeline Albright claimed that Saddam had 'em.

As to Saddam not having the resources, the generally accepted figure for Oil for Food imbezzlement is $27Billion. Much of this went back to Saddam, after appropriate bribes to officials in France, Germany, Russia, the UN staff. What was left over should be enough to make a few thousand litres of Sarin, anthrax and other nice biological soups.

You probably don't understand that the Bush doctrine calls for attacking state sponsors of terrorists. That hits Saddam right in the ole breadbasket. He was up to his eyeballs in supporting terror organizations. See Bill Gertz' book, 'Treachery' for details, along with who was REALLY providing the tools to Saddam for WMD/nuclear production. Hint... it wasn't the US

Imagine what mischief Pakistan, Syria or Lybia could have done without the Bush Doctrine. We don't have to look to theory to see the results