As the war in Iraq enters year five, Americans and Iraqis in overwhelming numbers oppose it. Roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the war. About 80 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of American soldiers in their country. Less than half of Iraqi respondants believe life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein and a majority believe violence against U.S. forces is justified.

The war has been a disaster--for Iraqis, for Americans, and for Republicans, who are as delusional about weapons of mass destruction, an Iraqi "connection" to 9/11, and the forged Niger yellowcake documents as Democrats are about global warming. Republicans rightly ridiculed the New York Times when it issued its "fake, but accurate" headline about the discredited Bush/Texas National Guard documents. But Bush camp followers practice the same "fake, but accurate" mental gymnastics when it comes to the Niger hoax. So invested in the pre-war WMD claims are they that neither the lack of WMDs nor the president's admission that coalition forces didn't find any WMDs shakes their faith. The connect-the-dots logic that fools on the Left have employed for so long has now found a home on the Right in the idiotic claims of a "connection"--whatever that amorphous term means--between Saddam and the 9/11 terrorists. Worst of all, the human tragedy in Iraq, the truest of true believers contend, is a media creation. This last delusion, in its regurgitation of conservative complaints about coverage of the Vietnam war, makes one wonder if Vietnam syndrome is an equal-opportunity affliction.

Four years after the vast majority of Americans supported the invasion of Iraq, the vast majority of Americans--but only a minority of Republicans--oppose the war. My position has never shifted: the Iraq war is not in American interests. A half-trillion dollars, 3223 American lives, and tens of thousands of dead Iraqis sadly demonstrates the wisdom of staying out of Iraq. Vindication has never felt so terrible.

Since Dan feels bad about being right let me try to cheer him up. While we have not yet met some of our stated goals in this engagement (and may never do so), we have acheived some important things. (Sometimes you can't tell the enemy, or even friends in places like Iraq, what some of your goals are.)

We needed to engage Al-Queda and other terrorists groups on other ground than ours. Captured internal Al-Queda documents show that they have focused on Iraq (and not on America) because they see a threat to their existence if we accomplish all our goals there. The bureaucracy in America is so bad and our political system so encrusted with interest groups that we need all the time we can get to prepare for self-defense. The initiative in Iraq has bought us four years, so far. We have also shown tinpot dictators everywhere that there is a price for breaking their promises to us. (An extremly important benefit in an anarchic world.)

The cost of this to Americans, so far, has been less than the cost of the ill-considered decision to secure all of Iwo Jima during World War Two.

As for the point that Iraqis and Americans don't support our presence in Iraq, making military deployment decisions on the basis of polls is the kind of thing the French would do.

(And I still have not seen any evidence or credible assertions that the British report about Niger was based on any fakes. The British claim their report was based on human intelligence and electronic listening devices uncorrupted by any forgeries.)

Doc, I find it hard to believe that you are still mouthing this worn out party line. Would a trillian dollars, an Iraqi civil war, an Iraqi government leaning toward Islamism, 5000 dead Americans, and 100000 dead Iraqis be enough to convince you that this was a mistake? Unfortunately I think we are heading that way.

If we had to chose between risking another 9-11 or causing that list of soon-to-be realities, does it make sense to chose that list?

It seems the Iraq war may have led to tunnel vision. Some policy makers seem so focused on Iraq that they may have lost sight of far greater threats to American national security. For example Russia, China, Venezuela, and illegal immigration from Mexico and other countries pose far greater threats to American national security than Iraq ever did or ever could have.

When deciding whether to continue military operations in Iraq or not policy makers should ask themselves if it helps or hinders the abiltiy to deal with the more serious national security threats mentioned above.

Skeptic,

If we were medical doctors and a patient presented with early symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of a fatal disease, one of our colleagues might recommend invasive surgery. Information on the physical damage such surgery entails is relevant, but, by itself, not determinative. It would have to be combined with 1) an argument that the diagnosis was faulty and/or 2) an argument for an alternative, less damaging, course of action.

I am sorry that my remarks on this issue have become a “worn out party line.” I guess I have, too often, tried to use others’ comments about the damage occurring in Iraq as an opportunity to promote a conversation about 1) whether the administration’s diagnosis of the nature and danger of Islamic fanaticism is faulty or 2) what alternative courses of action might work and might result in less damage.

I have come to expect the Left, and its toadies in the media, to act like hysterical patients who can’t focus on anything but the damage related to the surgery. I expect more of conservatives. I will refrain from further comments on Iraq until someone else engages the issues that would make a conversation productive.

Doc, I guess my point is that the damage done by Iraq has already far exceeded the damage of 9-11, or several 9-11's. So it seems that it was definitely the wrong course of action.

Instead of focusing on hysterical leftists, why don't you ask yourself: what price is too much for success in Iraq? It seems to me that from the beginning, the supporters of the war have assumed that the price would be minimal, since then they have assumed that no price is too much, whether that price involves our boys' lives, or Iraqis' lives, or our money, or regional stability.

At what point to you say: removing an ingrown hair is not worth amputating a leg.

Skeptic,

My opinion of Islamic fanatics, for reasons I have pointed out on this site before, is that they are quite dangerous to Western values and to our survival as a free people. They are a cancer, not an ingrown hair.

Our wealth, and the complex webs of trust that sustain our wealth, make us more vulnerable, not less. Their decentralized organization and death wish makes them relatively impervious to retaliation and thus negates much of our military power. New, relatively accessible, technologies give them the capability of killing more people, more quickly, than any of our past enemies except the Soviet Union.

These and other factors make your calculation that Iraq has been more costly than 9-11 as irrelevant to my ana-lysis as the fact that Iwo Jima was more costly than Pearl Harbor would be to my ana-lysis of the necessity of fighting the Japanese in WW II. (Besides which, it probably isn’t true. The uncalculated physical and economic damage of 9-11 was immense. For example, I have seen estimates that a thousand extra Americans died in auto accidents because they were afraid of flying after 9-11)

I don’t know about other “supporters of the war.” Like all big groups, I assume that group includes many who made silly assumptions. I, and many others, never made such assumptions.

One answer to when I would get out of Iraq is implicit in my first post: When it stops being an area where we can successfully engage Islamic fanatics with our trained military forces and when it stops being a way we can distract them from terrorizing our mothers and our children.

But I might stay even longer than that. The longer we hold this ground the more we undermine the (perhaps valid) perception of the fanatics that we have little will to fight. Undermining this perception is also a critical objective in what will be a long, difficult struggle against Islamic fanatics.

I have ceased to have an opinion on this issue, not because I think it unimportant, but because I lack the resources to make a sound judgment.

That said, I wonder whether Skeptic would answer a hypothetical question: If it were true that our presence in Iraq has prevented at least one attack on U.S. soil comparable to 9/11, would our presence in Iraq be justified.

Impossible to say. Mises' economic calculation problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

Because there is no price mechanism for defense protection services, there is no way to say whether the war in Iraq is "worth it".

Maybe we should call Captain Planet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFu__Q9ASU

That we should fight if it is worth it in economic terms doesn't imply that we shouldn't fight if it isn't worth it in economic terms. The cost of the War of Independence was much greater than the taxes that triggered it.

Gaining and keeping freedom means standing up for "the principle of the thing." Otherwise, the rich and powerful or the thuggish bullies can buy up your freedom a little every day. And it makes sense, that day, to give in.

One other clarification: I didn't mean to imply that we should always fight when it is worth it in economic terms. There are other conditions that have to be met. But I believe they were all met in our engagement in Iraq.

"That we should fight if it is worth it in economic terms doesn't imply that we shouldn't fight if it isn't worth it in economic terms. The cost of the War of Independence was much greater than the taxes that triggered it.

Gaining and keeping freedom means standing up for "the principle of the thing." Otherwise, the rich and powerful or the thuggish bullies can buy up your freedom a little every day. And it makes sense, that day, to give in." -DocMcG

Thats not the point. The economic calculation problem points out that there is no way to determine whether the costs of a project outweigh the benefits. Thus, all public works, the military included, are irrational uses of resources.

The war may be "worth" it to you. How can you possibly say with any confidence that it is worth it to all the taxpayers who are forced to pay for it, or for all the soldiers who are forced to fight and die for it? Value is a subjective notion, as such, the state cannot engage in rational action.

"Thus, all public works, the military included, are irrational uses of resources."

Well, since that conclusion is absurd, it must be the case that Mises's argument is also absurd.

"Well, since that conclusion is absurd, it must be the case that Mises's argument is also absurd." -Ralph

Begging the question is a logical fallacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Ralph: Not necessarily. Perhaps the people who live accross the street from you brake into your house. In response, you invade the house next to yours, and govern it with your personal body guards. Would this be justified ex post facto by the fact that, in some very odd unverifiable chain of events, it had prevented the thugs across the way from robbing your house again? No. Not even if they were of the same religion. Not even if, in the house you took over, the dad had been beating his kids. No.

DocMcG: Saddam and Iraq did not cause 9-11. At most he was to us an ingrown hair. Your argument only works if you play loose with the object of our just retribution for 9-11 and the prevention of terrorism.

Besides, you tellingly refused to answer my earlier question: What price would be too much? Would this be too much: 5000 dead Americans, 100000 dead Iraqis, 1000000000 US taxpayer dollars, an Iraqi civil war and an Iraqi government leaning towards Islamic fanatics?

I just want you to name some type of price by which you will say, "In hindsight, this was an awful disaster." And you you can't then we can all assume that you are quite unreasonable, that you would pay infinitely for a finite good.

And stop the BS about fighting for freedom and the American revolution. Our boys over there might be fighting for freedom, but it's not ours.

Even after spending many years in formal studies related to the assertions that Ben-T makes, I can not add anything substantial to the eloquent rebuttal Ralph presents.

I will elaborate his point a bit, though. All practical uses of "rationality" (at least as the term is used by economists) assumes prior value judgments. Any assumption that communal value judgments provided by the market about "private goods" are valid and the ones provided about "public goods" by other aggregation mechanisms, like representative government, are invalid is an unproven value judgment, too.

And I add a slightly different point. The way we tentatively show some communal action is “worth it” is by successfully appealing to the value judgments of others in our community. Ideally, we would have joined that community because we feel it was one that could best serve us in pointing out flaws in our moral reasoning. We must also join communities for more practical reasons. For these purposes we should have clear written goals and procedures. Part of how we show some action is “worth it” in these communities is to show that it furthers the written goals and it meets the procedural requirements.

DocMcG: Let me point out also that your comparisons of Iraq with Iwo Jima are quite unfair. Japan had started a war with us. Iraq had not. It seems to me that you prefer thinking in these melodramatic images rather than looking at the truth of things. The truth is that the Iraq war was a misdirection of our anger from 9-11, that the whole premise of the war (WMD) was false, that it is a money-pit, and that we can't make it into a decent, stable democracy. We will, in the end, have gained NOTHING tangible from this incredibly embarrassing fiasco in benevolent world domination.

There is no shame in admissions of error. See, look, I'll admit I was wrong about Iraq, too: I had thought there were serious stockpiles of WMD there. I was wrong.

Ben T., perhaps look at Blaise Pascal, Pensees #234. Is it rational to act only on a certainty?

Also, Ralph isn't begging the question. He is disagreeing with you.

He begged the question, because he assumed the premise (the conclusion is wrong) before addressing the argument.

It can be rational to act on an uncertainty. However, the subjective nature of utility and the economic calculation problem mean that only individuals can act in a rational way. The government is always bound to screw up, because it cannot calculate whether any perceived benefit is worth more than the costs that go with it.

Because its impossible to calculate whether something is a benefit without addressing the costs, this is the same as saying the government has no idea whether a given course of action yields a benefit.

What this boils down to is perhaps something more palatable: The government can't spend your money better than you can. Its impossible.

Ben T: I don't like defending Ralph, and he is certainly being flip, but that isn't begging the question. He is making a modes tolens where you made a modes ponens. You are assuming the truth of your premises just as much as he is, but he is not assuming the truth of his conclusion in his premises. How come everyone overdiagnoses question-begging?

Also, it seems to me that Pascal gets to your problem perfectly. Whether it is the individual or the community doing the "calculating" and seeking a "benefit" from a given "cost." there will not be certainty about whether a given course of action is prudent. Why do you want to apply your point to communities and not also individuals?

Because the government has a burden of proof. It has to justify the fact that it wants to take my money. It doesn't just have to prove that I will not always use the money rationally, it has to prove that it will use the money better than I will.

As I often do, I accidentally hit the "post" button.

Once can know, a priori, that the system which will lead to the maximum possible happiness is capitalism. It can do so from the following deduction.

Human Act. This starting point is impossible to disprove, because, in attempting to do so, you engage in an action, thus proving it to be true.

Humans always act towards their greatest possible perceived happiness. We know this is the case, because in any given action, the human in question chose it over any other possible course of action that was open to him.

As such, we know that trade always increases the happiness of both parties (except in the case of the shuckster, who creates the impression he is trading something other than what he actually is). If each party did not have their happiness increased by the trade, they would not have consented to engage in it.

Government however, has no such logical guarantee. Because it is engaging not in a trade, but in a coercive, exchange, it in no way can promise that it will use your money (that is to say, the fruits of your labor) towards your greatest personal happiness. Only you have the ability to calculate what your greatest perceived happiness.

Indeed, we know from the logical deduction above, that the bureaucrats will in fact use the fruits of your labor towards THEIR greatest perceived happiness.

Let me stress that there is no such thing as "the community". The community is only a collection of individuals. As such, "the community" does not take your taxes. Certain individuals do. Specifically, bureaucrats.

So, in order to defend any given program, you must defend firstly, that these bureaucrats know what action will lead to your greatest possible happiness better than you do. Secondly, you must defend the idea that they are inherently benevolent, and as such their greatest possible happiness with correspond with yours.

AND if humans are inherently benevolent, why do we need a government in the first place?

A much simpler system of ensuring happiness is trade, whereby the happiness of both parties is ALWAYS increased, excepting in the case of the shuckster.

Al Queada is A CIA database. Hey Flynn, let your readers know about the truth behind 911

There is something I will never forget...never. That is the massive celebrations that took place as the towers burned and people leapt to their deaths. The celebrations took place in Bagdad, Damascus, the gaza Strip, and even Cairo. They were celebrating the deaths of 3000 Americans. To say we can never retaliate is to say we must forever play defense. Terrorists train in all muslim countries.

Nobody is arguing we ought not retaliate. However, if we retaliate stupidly and aimlessly, we will only further dig our own grave.

I have had a paradigm shift in thinking that has caused me to no longer support the "realist" school of foreign policy and as such no longer support the war. However, if I did still subscribe to that thought, I would see the war as a major success. What is the stated objective of Osama bin Laden? To create a United Islamic Ummah to confront the west. What has the Iraq war done? Turned Islamic civilization inside out against itself, and ensured that they will be far too busy fighting one another for some time to worry about uniting against us.

Ben T: your proof is fallacious. Your premise holds that humans always act for their greatest possible PERCEIVED happiness (note that this is only true on a very open reading of "their own happiness": happiness must be more than pleasure, it must be the practically accomplishable good, and it must include others' goods and not merely "mine" in a narrow sense, otherwise your premise is just not true empirically). Then you conclude that individuals when acting freely always maximize their happiness. In order for this to follow, you must presume that seeming is being or that everything that seems to be conducive to a human's happiness actually is. And this is false.

Happiness, like everything else, exists within time. That people can later regret an action, such as a trade, has no bearing on the fact that the trade increased their happiness at the time they engaged in it. That is simply the nature of time.

However, it is an irrelevant splitting of hairs, because your argument still must consent that the system which will maximize happiness will be one in which restrictions on human action are minimized. Because of the subjective nature of value, any other system would succeed at generating happiness, in the extremely rare occasion when it did, only through sheer dumb luck.

Ben T: But what it means for value to be "subjective" is very vague, and from the mere idea of the subjectivity of value (whatever it is that we decide this means) it does not follow that alone individuals can rationally base decisions on values but for several individuals to do so together is irrational.

Besides, you have now screwed up your earlier argument. Earlier you assume that humans always aim to maximize their total happiness. Now in order for this to be true you need to mean by "happiness" more than pleasure, and more than right now (lots of people put up with bad things now for the sake of better things later, and lots of people are willing to suffer loss of pleasure for higher goods). Now, in order to maintain that the trade increases their happiness you say that EVERY free trade increases the persons' happiness at the time, or else they wouldn't have done it. In other words, you are no longer appealing to toal happiness in a broad sense, but a _current_ _feeling_. If this is what "happiness" means to you then your earlier premise becomes, in an empirically verifiable way, false. But in fact the problem runs deeper than this...

Earlier you said that "Humans always act towards their greatest possible perceived happiness." Then you deleted the "perceived", implicitly, in the following sentence: "If each party did not have their happiness increased by the trade, they would not have consented to engage in it." You have not yet addressed this problem. Is this what you mean by "value is subjective": that there is no difference between something that makes me happy and something that I perceive ahead of time will make me happy? That seems absurd, but your argument needs it.

I don't think your argument works. (But we could of course see this from the false conclusion, as Ralph pointed out.)

Ben-T,

The problem in your logic is shown by the "local maximum" problem. Assume that individuals "always go toward the most happiness" is like saying they always will move uphill. This strategy works in getting an individual "higher" or happier as long as the terrain is simple. But climbing the small hill in front of you might mean getting further away from the mountain across the next valley.

When our happiness is dependent on the actions of others (as it usually is) the terrain is always complex. When others change their actions, what makes me happpy changes, so we have a coordination problem in maximizing happiness. Coordination sometines requires collective action.

Skeptic,

Your assertions about the beginnings of the struggle in Iraq are not only incomplete they are irrelevant to the current problem (unless, like most Democrats, you think the current problem is one of assigning blame). Whether on purpose or by accident, once we had toppled Saddam and achieved our short-term goals in Iraq, we were faced with an opportunity to threaten the plans of the Islamic fanatics who have declared war on us. The possibility of having a pro-Western government established in Baghdad, the medieval seat of the caliphate, seems to drive them crazy. Perhaps they perceive such a change would doom their movement. So now the battle is about fighting the cancer. This war against Islamic fanatics is not, as you seem to think, a war of retribution, it is a war of self-defense.

Let me add some more of what you call BS. This is about our freedom just as much as the fight against the Japanese in 1944 or the fight against the British in 1781 was about our freedom. Now, as then, we face a formidable enemy who would bend us to its will through violence and intimidation.

By asking for a price that we would have to pay before I said the military engagement in Iraq was not worth it, you assume the point I dispute: that this engagement is a war unrelated to struggle against Islamic fanaticism. Like all battles, the price one is willing to pay to stay engaged depends on the strategic impact on the overall struggle.

"The problem in your logic is shown by the "local maximum" problem. Assume that individuals "always go toward the most happiness" is like saying they always will move uphill. This strategy works in getting an individual "higher" or happier as long as the terrain is simple. But climbing the small hill in front of you might mean getting further away from the mountain across the next valley." -DocMcG

Humans assign their goals ordinally. If a human being knows that to achieve one goal he must move farther apart from another, he will take that into his calculations.

"When our happiness is dependent on the actions of others (as it usually is) the terrain is always complex. When others change their actions, what makes me happpy changes, so we have a coordination problem in maximizing happiness. Coordination sometines requires collective action." -DocMcG

Agreed.

Collective action refers to a vast scope of human activities. Government action refers to a much smaller scope of activities.

Doc: on the one hand you insist that we not discuss the conditions at the start of the war because this would be an unproductive assignment of blame. (But why would you fear this? According to your own beliefs about the war this should be a fight to take credit! But I diagress...) But then you make statements that require a certain false view of the beginning of the war -- that the Iraq War is one of self-defense, and that it is comparable to our wars again the Japs in WWII or the English Crown in 1776. Both of those claims are absurd, overblown, irresponsible, and beg the question about whether Iraq started the war or threatened freedom on North America at all.

Even if we are not going to argue about praise/blame about the start of the war, I think we should just cut our losses and end the war. The idea that we will have a stable proWestern and democratic/liberal government in Iraq is a pipedream. Have you, too, now advocated this utopian mission-creep?

may the war continue, kill more rags! put some nukes right next to iran and when theres another 911 , lightem up. democracy in irag a pipe dream? yep, let them kill each other. it took millions of germans to die before the nazis were done. and so its going to take millions maybe a 100 million muslims to die before they understand. you seem to think the war in afganistans ok but not iraq. hmm did afgan attack us? no, ragheaded retards did so whats wrong with killing those same retards in iraq? right next to iran, and by the way iran is the big one. seems like no one wants to face it. trillion dollars , all that matters is 3223 of americas best have fallen. and sadly many more will fall.

Skeptic,

You are right, I would be assigning praise, not blame, to anyone with the foresight to have seen that, after deposing Saddam, we would be able to so threaten the Islamic fanatics that they would throw their forces against our military instead of against our homes and offices. But such an argument is not productive and the media have made it almost impossible to get alternative perspectives on these issues anyway.

However a war starts, it can become one of self-defense. So no "false view of the beginning of the war" is necessary to support my assertions.

We cannot " just cut our losses and end the war." The Islamic fanatics declared war on us, and our breaking off a military attack against them will not end that war.

I think it may be possible to have a stable pro-Western government in Iraq (we had one in Iran until Jimmy Carter undermined it.) But more importantly, it appears the Islamic fanatics think it is possible, fear it, and will fight there to stop it. That is, it doesn't matter whether we can do it, what matters is that we can credibly threaten to do it.

Ben-T,

You are right that collective action is a broader concept than government action. But a large and important segment of collective action, including the actions of markets, requires a background threat of coercive power. For example, the market depends on trust that people will pay their debts instead of killing their creditors, and experience shows that such trust is promoted by the possibility of government coercion.

If people always knew what was good for them, and always took the long view, we might avoid most, if not all, of the need for such coercion. You seem to assume such a long, informed view in your response to the local maximization problem. Market economists may assume perfect information. Political thinkers who so assume will be dead wrong. Idealistic dreamers can assume people will always act in their long term good. Others know that it is hard even to quit smoking,

Doc: "However a war starts, it can become one of self-defense. So no "false view of the beginning of the war" is necessary to support my assertions."

Ha he ho.

"We cannot 'just cut our losses and end the war.' The Islamic fanatics declared war on us, and our breaking off a military attack against them will not end that war."

Notice the equivocal use of the "war" here. Your entire support for the Iraq invasion and occupation trades on this equivocity.

Now, if we remember that Iraq was not involved in any way in the attack on us on September 11, 2001, we will stop using the phrase "the war" to refer both to the unprevoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and the more diffuse but just fight against those people, with the sponsorship of the state of Afghanistan, who did attack us.

only half of afghanistan was taliban, so you say we should fight for half of afgahanistan? and if we occupy iraq why isnt gas 1.00 a gal. hell we occupy it lets use it right. and if we should fight just the people who sponsored the 911 attack hell we will have to wipe out 3/4 of pakistan!

Skeptic,

I have not been equivocal with the notion of "the war." I have consistently reserved the term "war" to refer to the wider conflict with Islamic fanatics and used the terms "battle" or "engagement" to describe the particular situation in Iraq for the last three years. I have, in recent posts and posts of long ago, often argued that others adopt this perspective. It is your arguments that appear to fail when we make the relevant distinctions and conceptualize the present engagement as a battle in a larger war.

While there are others, the main reason why such a conceptualization will be more useful is that our Islamic fanatic enemies see it tht way.

Doc: In other words, you agree: your argument only works if we use "the war" not to refer (as I was) to the war in Iraq, but to something else which includes the war in a Iraq as a part. Your argument only works, as I said earlier, by using "the phrase 'the war' to refer both to the unprevoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and the more diffuse but just fight against those people, with the sponsorship of the state of Afghanistan, who did attack us."

Now Iraq did not attack us, and was not a threat to us, and is not a object of our just retribution or response to the 9-11 terrorism. As I said from the beginning, and I'm quoting myself here: "Your argument only works if you play loose with the object of our just retribution for 9-11 and the prevention of terrorism."

The only way you can use the word "war" in this more inclusive sense to include the "war on terrorism" and the invasion and occupation in Iraq is to suggest that a country that had nothing to do with the 9-11-01 attack on us had something to do with the 9-11-01 attack on us.

One more time: no matter how we got to the position of being able to threaten our enemies' strategic interests, we found ourselves there. There was no suggestion by me or by the administration of a direct connection of Saddam to 9-11. I don’t have to suggest that because it would be irrelevant to my reasoning. Our reasons for going into Iraq stand on their own. Once we were there we found ourselves in a situation where we could better prosecute the war on terror.

If you insist on rehashing the reasons for getting into Iraq, here is what Bush rightly said of the connection to 9-11 in his 2003 state of the Union address, “Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.”

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.”

And he was exactly right; 9-11 changed the situation because it changed our calculations of the danger of putting up with Saddam’s defiance of his obligations.

Note there is nothing about “just retribution” in either Bush’s or my account of the engagement in Iraq or of the larger war with Islamic fanatics. The arguments are about self-defense.

There, you have drawn me into the fruitless discussion about the origins of the Iraqi engagement. Now, in return, can you tell me what possible difference those reasons, or lack of them, could make in evaluating present options?

Doc: my argument is that the war in Iraq was not at first, and still is not, a legitimate part of the military response to 9-11 (which is called "the war on terrorism" by people who think that all government programs need to be wars on vague concepts). Now, you say that the reasons for entering the war stand on their own: in point of fact they don't. They have crumbled on their own. Then you say that, however it started, we are now able to threaten our enemy's strategic interests, so it is ok to be there now. This is a wishful justification ex post facto (ie., it is mission creep, which I had thought you disowned before), but even if we ignore the attempt to justify a mistake after the fact, I don't think we are being either just or smart NOW. We cannot justly occupy a foreign country when we didn't justly invade and conquer it. And it isn't even smart. The number of people who have died and continue to die in Iraq, and the amount of money spent, and the extra enemies we are making in young ME men in and outside of Iraq make this more threatening to our "strategic interests" than to the terrorists' "strategic interests".

Also, remember that America can't occupy Iraq for the 20+ years, and still be America. Yet your mission creep seems willing to pay any price -- including the identity of America -- for very questionable and unverifiable benefits.

We could a lot more good by spending a fraction of this money and manpower on our immigration control and on Afghanistan. Iraq is a gigantic and costly distraction.

Skeptic,

You must have some unspoken assumption that I cannot see. You argue "We cannot justly occupy a foreign country when we didn't justly invade and conquer it." Yet, we have had troops stationed in South Korea (thereby occupying it in the sense we occupy Iraq, that is being there at the request of the legitimate government) for 60 years. Has America become unrecognizable by being there 60 years?

If our presence in Iraq had been unjustly begun (something that I vehemently deny) wouldn’t that increase, not decrease, our responsibility to the people in Iraq? Wouldn’t increased responsibility especially include trying to provide security for those exposed to violence? Would they be more or less secure without us? Most who know the situation say “less.” Shouldn’t we let them make the decision? Their government says it wants us to stay.

But aside from these issues, you do outline a potential alternate strategy: controlling our borders and focusing on Afghanistan. I think such a strategy has little chance of significantly handicapping or distracting the fanatics. And you do mention potentially valid criticisms of the current strategy: that it is too costly in men and money and that it might be making more enemies than it is deterring.

Perhaps it is here we have reached the true core of our disagreements. The cost we have paid is much less than the cost we have paid in other battles in other wars. Whether the cost is “worth it” depends on one’s assessment of the danger. I have given my assessment and I haven’t seen any critics make an argument that would make me rethink that dire assessment. I would appreciate having my fears allayed.

On whether we have made more enemies than we have deterred: my reading of most men, most of the time is that they are likely to join the side they think is winning, especially if it is cost free and if that side can say it is “like them.” We cannot credibly say we are “like them” but we can make their joining the opposition costly and we can show that the fanatics are killers who do not hesitate to murder people “like them.” And we can at least delay the perception that the fanatics are “winning.” I think the official assessments have concluded that it is our pulling out that would provide a great recruitment boost for the fanatics. I have no reason to doubt them.

We might never agree on the resolution of these issues: the efficacy of alternative strategies like focusing on Afghanistan, the assessment of the danger, and the making of more enemies. But, perhaps, we can agree that these should be important aspects of our decision making.

It is absurd to claim that we are occupying South Korea. Also, we didn't invade and conquer South Korea. We did invade and conquer Iraq, and we are there with massive amount of troops who are the target of home-grown oppositon forces. It is not absurd to say that we are occupying Iraq.

It is also absurd for you to say that investments in our own borders and Afghanistan are less likely to pay off in increased national security than this unwinnable "war" in Iraq. No one could possibly say the things you do unless they were caught up in the desire to defend a position. The bottom line is that this effort in Iraq is utopian, and there is no imaginable point at which people like you will say, "Enough. We have done our job." The job will never be done. Sooner or later we will simply cut our losses. Why not sooner?

Hello

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Skeptic,

One consistent argument for the War in Iraq that I haven't seen is the policy of democratizing the Middle East. That policy is that if we can establish a constitutional democratic republic in some modern state in the Middle East, we can perhaps bring democracy to all the states. Bringing democracy will empower the people to squash the radicals when they turn violent. In a society ruled by law, the radical moslems would have a disincentive to turn violent, and would be left expressing their views with free speech. They would be marginalized like the modern Nazis in Idaho. That was and is the primary reason we are in Iraq. President Bush has been extremely clear about this on every occasion, and it is only his opponents who don't remember this.

As far as the costs associated with the war, you must realize that we are paying these costs now with the idea that if we wait (a) we will suffer far worse damage than 9/11, and (b) we will have to pay for more to "conquer" an even more belligerent radical islamic movement.

This war is not about revenge, it is a forward-looking war. It is comparable to an invasion of Germany in the 1930's. We wouldn't be fighting Hitler in the 1930's because he threatened us directly, but because if left unchallenged, he would threaten us. That's an important distinction. We fight in Iraq not because it threatens us today, but because if we didn't, it would threaten us.

If we retreat from Iraq, by far the greatest cost will be the humiliation we suffer from the radical moslems. They will have their belief of us being a paper tiger reinforced. It will take even greater military force for an even greater length of time to convince the radical moslems that they can never defeat us in a million years. And that's ultimately what we have to convince them of--that Allah will not help them defeat us, not now, not ever.

I think the biggest problem you are having understanding this point of view is that you are looking backwards in time, expecting that war is only fought out of revenge. The Bush administration and war supporters are looking to the future, and fight wars not for revenge but as a way to secure future peace.

jonathan you hit the ball out of the park.