WoC discussion of the war in Iraq

There’s a fascinating discussion of the war in Iraq going on at Winds of Change here and here. Make sure to read the comments.

Winds of Change tends to be a pro-Iraq war site. It’s an incredibly valuable resource on the war, the greater War on Terror, and the state of the world, generally. Discussions there tend to be fairly civil.

The powers-that-be on Winds of Change gave a frequent anti-war in Iraq commenter, Andrew J. Lazarus, the opportunity to state his views. He did so in a generally articulate and intelligent way.

He asked me a question in response to comments I made and this (in slightly different form) is how I answered him:

Dear Andrew Lazarus:

Thank you once again for your posts on WoC. As I said before, I think you’re making a valuable contribution to the discussion.

In an attempt to answer your question

“Are there further arguments against the war you think I should incorporate?”

I find that I can give no short answer to that question. For you to make any sense whatsoever of my response, I need to explain some of my own assumptions and beliefs.

First, I don’t think we operate in a world of perfect moral decisions. We live in a world suspended between the realms of the Platonic ideal and the real, limited by our imperfect knowledge. Our inability to make perfect moral decisions doesn’t make us less culpable it makes us more tragic.

Nearly every belief system incorporates this idea in one way or another. Christianity calls it “original sin”. Scientology calls it “the reactive mind”. Other systems call it fate or the work of evil spirits or something else.

Second, I don’t think anyone anywhere does anything for simple motives. Everyone has multiple, complex motives, good and bad, selfish and selfless. Consequently, I’m not very concerned about people’s motives for doing things and I’m inclined to believe what they claim as motives–but take them with a grain of salt.

I’m a lot more concerned whether a decision was better or worse than available alternatives, than about whether it was good or bad.

Third, comparisons are odious. But they’re all we’ve got. Every decision we make or act we do is done on the basis of comparisons to past acts, past experiences, and past thoughts. Whether the actions are as prosaic as crossing the street or eating dinner, or as catastrophic as going to war, it’s based on comparisons to previous streets, previous meals, or previous wars. Imperfect, hell yes! Wrong, sometimes, sadly, yes. But that’s all we’ve got to go on.

Finally, as a rule I don’t ask rhetorical questions. I’m no archangel–sometimes I violate my own rules. But, generally, when I ask a question, it’s because I want to know the answer.

I also should mention that I don’t believe that al Qaeda is a static group of individuals but an ideology or mission statment i.e. it’s not “The James Gang”–round ’em up and you’re finished–but a volatile combination of money, Islamic fundamentalism, and other forces.

So, drawing a little closer to the topic at hand, I opposed Gulf War I for a number of reasons. First, we absolutely had no dog in that hunt. Neither the Iraqis nor the Kuwaitis were “Good Guys”. It would be like going to a movie about a war between the Mafia and vampires. Who do you root for?

At the time we were only about 10% dependent on Middle Eastern oil, so oil was not a compelling motivation. Not so for the Europeans. They were and still are very dependent on Middle Eastern oil. And that was my second reason. It was a problem Europeans needed to be significantly more committed to solving than they appeared to be. It would be much better for the U. S. and Europe if they dealt with the problem themselves. Or not deal with it and deal with the consequences of that decision. And I saw no reason for the U. S. to carry all of Europe’s water for it.

Third, I felt that once we had mounted the tiger of intervention in the absence of compelling national interest or mutual defense treaties, we could never dismount.

And that’s exactly what has happened. Either we’re intervening in the absence of compelling national interest or mutual defense treaties or we’re being faulted for not doing so. Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo.

Fourth, we had intervened before in Middle Eastern affairs. We were instrumental in overthrowing the Mossadegh government in Iran. I think it can be argued that that profoundly imperfect decision was the best of the available alternatives but it had left the U. S. in bad odor in the Middle East ever after. Certainly, our loyal assistance to Israel has been no help in that regard either.

Fifth, I did not believe that the American people had the stomach for the level of casualties on both sides that would have been incurred to remove Saddam Hussein and any level of activity that did not remove Saddam Hussein was not worth the cost. I had already lived through one war–Viet Nam–in which America had not been willing to pay the price required for victory and I didn’t much want to go through that experience again.

So, nearly everything I believed about Gulf War I actually happened. We were committed to an interventionist course, many people in the Middle East were even more suspicious about our motives, and Saddam Hussein was still in power. I was relieved that Saddam Hussein had been pushed back and that
the costs to America had been lower than I had feared but I still didn’t like the outcome much.

It could be argued that if the U. S. had followed my prescription a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein would now be in effective control of the Gulf. That may be true but it’s a discussion for another day.

Gulf War I ended in a cease-fire, with Saddam Hussein committing to eliminating his weapons of mass destruction and making a full accounting of them and accepting the no-fly zone in the north enforced by U. S. air power, and with sanctions put in place to putatively prevent him from re-building his military. The U. S. was containing Saddam Hussein with sanctions, air power in the north, and with the troops stationed in Saudi Arabia in the south.

The attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was a direct consequence of containing Saddam Hussein. That’s what Osama bin Laden said and I have no reason to doubt him in this matter.

It was pretty obvious that something would have to be done. What were the options?

• we could do nothing
  Since it would be reasonable inference that we would be subjected to an ever-escalating series of attacks this was unacceptable. It was also politically impossible for the Bush Administration.
• we could withdraw all of troops stationed overseas, use them for border control, and close our borders. Pretty obviously this would be disastrous economically, militarily, diplomatically, and spiritually. And, I believe it would
  have been ultimately ineffective.
• we could continue doing what we had been doing pre-9/11. This had, obviously, been demonstrated as ineffectual in protecting Americans. And it would have been politically impossible for Bush. By the way, I believe that this is what many Americans hear when they hear “terrorism is a law enforcement matter” whether that’s what it means or not.
• we could reduce the Middle East into a slag heap
  This would be morally reprehensible.
• we could eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan and remove the influence of al Qaeda there
  We have largely accomplished this with a combination of military force and the cooperation of the local warlords. A force with a relatively small “footprint” was a necessity for this both for logistical reasons and to secure local cooperation. This action was necessary but not sufficient. As I have pointed out
  before, unfortunately for the people of Afghanistan it’s a side-show–the main event is in the Middle East.
• we could use every means available including moral suasion,
  diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, bribery, covert ops,
  and military force to motivate every country in the world to
  use whatever means they found required either to root out or
  suppress the terrorists in their midst and generally discourage
  the adoption of terrorist methods
  This would mean, for example, that we would have to compel the Saudis to stop using the zakat to fund imams who preach hatredof the West and Israel or Syria from harboring terrorist organizations. This was my preferred method. There are many problems with this approach. The first is that we would have to deal with some extremely unsavory regimes in some extremely unappealing ways. The second is that we would very likely be encouraging already
  repressive regimes to be even more repressive–it’s morally questionable. And, finally, try as I might I was unable to figure out any way to compel the required results without the determination to threaten much of the Arab world with extinction and the credibility to be believed that we would do it. This
  credibility has been severely impaired by every American president since 1979: Carter’s failure to deal with the Iranian hostage situation, Reagan’s failure to respond to the deaths of the Marines in Lebanon, Bush I’s failure to remove Saddam Hussein and his subsequent failure to support either the
  Kurds or the Shia, the fiasco in Somalia, and Clinton’s failure to respond effectively to the first attack on the World Trade Center, Saddam’s non-compliance, the embassy attacks, and the attack on the Cole.
• the Neocon Plan
  As I’ve mentioned I’m extremely skeptical of the Neocon plan. Not because it can’t work. Given enough time and determination it might. I just don’t think we have either the time or the determination. Correspondence on the subject with Steven Den Beste on the subject convinced me that, since the workable alternatives appeared to be either the Neocon plan or Arab genocide,
  the Neocon Plan deserved a grudging chance. And that’s where I am right now.

What other credible alternatives to dealing with the problems we face are there?

Thank you once again for your posts on WoC. As I said before, I think you’re making a valuable contribution to the discussion.