The Iraqi War -- Four Years Later

There is a central point that defenders of foreign military adventuring seem unwilling to consider. This is the idea that individual natural rights are objectively real, that they derive from man's nature. I don't have time to sketch in the source and nature of individual rights, which has, of course, been successfully accomplished by well-known Randian thinkers elsewhere. However, it isn't difficult to demonstrate that military adventurers don't take individual rights seriously.

Individual rights must distinguish between aggressive and defensive force, because the right to individual freedom is violated when aggressive physical force is initiated. Authoritarians of every ideological stripe either contemptuously disregard or blurr this distinction, because the state can't do what they fervently want it to do if individual rights are acknowleged and respected.

Conservative nationalists, such as Kurt, Andre, and Ted, believe that it is important and desireable for the state to enforce their version of cosmic justice, an approach that is remarkably similar to the policies favored by the left. For the collectivist crusades of both outlooks treat individuals, not as moral agents with rights, but as obstacles to be steamrolled along the pathway to some utopian--often blood-drenched--scheme.

For conservative nationalists, the utopian scheme is nation-and-culture-building, all financed through the extortion of taxation and government debt, and imposed at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives.

The militarist nationalists attempt to justify this blood-drenched crusade by reference to concepts that presuppose the ethics of individual rights, even as their favored policies do violence to those same ideas. They violate those ideas when they advocate taxation for the purpose of exporting "freedom" and democracy; or when they argue that virtually any foreign dictator is a legitimate target for US military violence, because "defense" is whatever they define it as. They violate the ethos of individual rights when they propose killing even larger numbers of helpless foreign people, obstacles who refuse to cooperate with their "liberation" and so "deserve" to be steamrolled. They violate this ethos when they pretend that their crusade upholds and defends "self-interest", as though this were a moral value that applied to a collective--a nation-state; as though this were a moral value that could be achieved through initiating physical force.

Actually, on the level of politics, none of this is that complex or challenging. In answer to Kurt, A defensive military engagement occurs after Nation A invades the defender, Nation B. Andre believes that World War II was a Great and Noble American Crusade, as do neo-conservatives, leftists, and in fact nearly all Americans of today. But World War II was another coercive-utopian crusade engineered by Britain, France, and the United States for the purpose of international social reconstruction. The politically correct, gauzy history that features Americans and Brits bravely desperately struggling to defend their freedom against the "threat" of Nazi (but not Soviet) totalitarianism was written by FDR and the left. (I know about the invasion of France and Western Europe by Nazi storm troopers, and the Battle of Britain. But to understand the truth of my contention about all of this, one must pay close attention to the events that lead up to the hostilities, which I tried to emphasize in previous posts in years past.) Thus, US engagement in WWII is emphatically not an ethical/political prescription for the conduct of proper foreign policy.

Post 21

Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 9:55pm

Was the US the aggressor in the Iraqi war?

Mark (post #20) makes the issue very clear when he says

,"Individual rights must distinguish between aggressive and defensive force, because the right to individual freedom is violated when aggressive physical force is initiated."

There is nothing confusing about this principle where the local law enforcement is concerned. The police need probable cause to act. And punishment requires a conviction. All of this mechanism is to insure that the government isn't being an aggressor. And, no matter how awful the crime and even if the perpetrator is convicted, the police are not permitted to take out a neighbor or two as collateral damage.

Every single person on planet earth begins with a full set of individual rights. I have them, my neighor has them, an Iraqi taxi driver has them, a petty thief used to have a full set till he started stealing (now he has fewer), a terrorist gave up all of his, and dictators give up theirs. To be Objectivists we can't support any government action that violates anyone's rights...unless we are attacked - and then only under certain conditions.

With the military, we should have a declaration of war. That is like the probable cause and trial - all rolled into one. It should only come after the attack by another nation. Because when the war starts, innocent men, women and children in that attacking nation will be killed by our government. We accept that as an unavoidable cost of self-defense. We can't completely justify it and we are stuck with the lessor of evils. But the moral burden rests upon the attacking nation that puts us in this position and leaves no acceptable alternative.

With totalitarian countries with an oppressed population it is a problem because the dictator and his henchmen have no rights, but the other people do. That is why it is only after an attack on our country that we can morally turn the military loose.

With terrorists. the same principle is at work - because it is the ONLY principle we can use. But it becomes a little more complex because, even though we can target the terrorists no matter where they are, we can only take out the terrorist and not any innocent people around them. An exception to this is when a nation is providing support for the terrorist, knowingly, as a nation, then the terrorist attacks us, it is like an attack of the nation.

Iraq did not attack us. Talk of WMDs would not be enough. Saddam's vicious behaviors against others (not us) isn't enough. Saddam's connection to terrorists isn't enough since they weren't the terrorists that attacked us on Iraq's behalf or with their support. Violations of UN Sanctions aren't enough. Saddam's death was just - he had no rights. The terrorists that are being killed have no rights. But there were lots of people killed who had individual rights that we had no right to kill. We are the aggressor.

The point to keep in mind is that we will kill innocent people when we go to war - that's war. It will happen even if we are attacked. And that is why we must never be the aggressor and why we should only go to war when we are attacked.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 3/25, 9:58pm)

Post 22

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 7:02am

This statement is simply a lie: But World War II was another coercive-utopian crusade engineered by Britain, France, and the United States for the purpose of international social reconstruction.

France had no interest in fighting a war, nor did Britain, that is why they appeased Hitler for so long. The USA was not interested either until Japan and Germany declared war on us. Despite your wish to re-write history from an absurd Libertarian nutcase viewpoint, your own viewpoint says that trade is perfectly Ok and that only an invasion justifies war. In that case, we had every right to withhold trade or provide trade and aid - such as not selling Oil to Japan to let it continue taking over Asia, or providing arms to Britain - without being attacked. In fact, in hindsight, the Axis would have been wise not to!

So, it was in fact a defensive war by your very definition. Or is a declaration of war and attack not enough? Do we have to wait until the men are on our soil? What about attacking our shipping or air or citizens abroad? Is that Ok ad infinitum and we have no recourse to self-defense, according to your theory? Who is really the utopian here?

(Edited by Kurt Eichert on 3/26, 7:03am)

Post 23

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 9:07am

Kurt: sanction!

I smell an intrinsicist conception of "natural rights" here...

Post 24

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 9:34am

According to Mark Humphrey, I'm a "foreign military adventurer," "conservative nationalist," and "militarist nationalist" who favors "collectivist crusading," "coercive utopian crusading," and "blood-drenched crusading" in search of "cosmic justice" and "nation-and-culture building." And this is on my good days! ;-)

I would simply restate that based upon my understanding of ethical self-interest and political individual rights, I favor the rescue and liberation of slave states by free states when it's relatively fast, easy, and low-cost to both parties. I favor this human solidarity and brotherhood of man stance for two separate related reasons, each of which alone suffices for legitimate, virtuous "attacks" and "unprovoked" invasions.  First, to save hideously suffering innocents, which is social morality. Second, to defeat potential future enemies by converting them into friends and allies, which is personal morality.

Thus, altho' it may outrage libertarians, I would have favored an aggressive, pre-emptive, "non-defensive" assault on the Soviet Union from 1945 to mid-1949, as well as one on China before 1964. Good for us, good for them. Only the local tyrants lose.

This would have resulted in an increase in the level of world individual rights and world freedom if only a relatively small number of morally-grey citizens are killed (as they themselves would invariably agree after the fact.) Thus a Rescue and Liberation foreign policy isn't "utopian" or "crusading." Or else utopianism and crusading are good. Nor is this "altruistic" if -- after careful strategic calculation -- only a relatively small price is paid by the liberators in money and men.

Assuming they aren't tired of this discussion yet -- since I seem to understand their basic positions -- my questions to Mark H' and Steve W' are fairly simple: What did Ayn Rand mean by saying free states had "the right, but not the duty" to free slave states? Was she wrong about this? Would it be evil for the US to liberate Cuba, if it only cost us a few hundred men, and them a few thousand morally-grey civilians, as seems likely, based on Gulf War I and II? What if the Cuban government were 100 times crueler but 100 times weaker militarily? Can a free state ever properly rescue and liberate another by your thinking?

Post 25

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 10:59am

Robert, could you say more about the intrinsicist conception of natural rights?

Post 26

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 11:41am

Andre,

My heart is with you in the idea of freeing slave states. And I agree that there would be real practical advantages. But I still think that there are good reasons to never, ever go that direction.

In my travels I have met people living, by no choice of theirs, in a dictatorship. You call them "morally-grey civilians" and you are comfortable with killing thousands of them. I can't understand how anyone can be so contemptuous of their right to live.

Even if one could do some kind of predictive math and say, "Yes, we will kill a few thousand innocents now, but when you add up all the future lives saved and the other benefits and the gratitude of those who were freed, then you can see that we were right to invade and liberate". That, is not a valid moral argument for taking a life. Either one has the right to take another's life or they don't.

When Ayn Rand talked about "the right, but not the duty" to free slave states - she was saying that dictators have forfeit their rights by their actions (and the same for their henchmen) so that killing them would not be immoral. But she is not addressing the innocent lives lost and I would want to see the context of her statement to say much more. When she says we don't have the duty she is clearly counseling against a liberation. She was opposed to the war in Vietnam even though she saw the North as aggressors. I'm quite sure you will find no quotes of hers, in proper context, that advocate what you are suggesting. (And, to answer your question, if you did I would disagree with her.)

You said,

"Would it be evil for the US to liberate Cuba, if it only cost us a few hundred men, and them a few thousand morally-grey civilians, as seems likely, based on Gulf War I and II?"

First, let me say that your label of "morally-grey" makes no sense. Many of the people killed in bombing are completely innocent. And you say, "only a few thousand." Even though your numbers should be tens of thousands, the real chilling realization is your use of the word "only". You need to own up to what you are proposing - killing thousands of innocent people.

You asked,

"Can a free state ever properly rescue and liberate another by your thinking?"

No. That is not a proper purpose of government. It would only be proper to free another if it is the result of having been attacked by that other.

There are people who want something so bad, or who like an idea so much, they engage in rationalization to support it. The left has their pet things that they morally "feel" must be done by government, the right has their things that government "must" do, and what you are proposing is also a "good" work that government "should" do. But there is no way to get around the simple fact that killing thousands of innocent lives can't be morally justified with anything less than national self-defense.

Post 27

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 12:49pm

Given that Steve has withdrawn from answering my direct questions, after having declared them irrelevant, I will have to assume that he is implicitly granting their validity. As for the assertion that Iraq did not attack us, and the we are the aggressor, I am not sure who the "we" and "us" are here, but since "we" (The U.S.A.) are a party to the UN, and since the UN authorizes member states to defend the sovereignty of other states, and since The 1991 action was sanctioned by the UN, I find Steve's assertion that we are the aggressor absurd. While any analogy to a police action (where the standards are more strict) is technically invalid as an analogy to war, even in that case, the action of a policeman in using force to arrest or stop a criminal is categorically not aggression by the police officer, it is the result of the aggression of the criminal. Rand was quite explicit that all the blame for any harm done either directly by a criminal or in response to the criminal lies at the feet of the criminal. To speak of self defense as aggression is to fail to make an essential distinction, it puts people in the position of being victims of moral blackmail and it is not Objectivism. According to this illogic, Meryl Streep's character in Sophies' Choice was an aggressor when she was forced by the Nazis to chose which of her children would live and which be murdered, because in choosing to save one rather than let both be killed she was engaging in "aggressive defense."

Because the term aggressive has different meanings, let me be clear that by aggression I mean the initiation of criminal force, and not just action from strength or the responce to initiated force by justifiable force.

To make the absurd claim that Saddam never attacked us, although he aided and comforted our enemies for years, (Abu Nidal, $25,000 a head to suicide bombers...) is simply to advocate pacifism without coming out and saying it. My questions were, to begin with, whether GWB was or was not responding to Saddam's acts of war. I didn't even bring up the fact that Saddam had attempted to assassinate a former U.S. president after the Gulf War. But now we are asked to change the topic once again to the legitimacy of the Gulf War? Perhaps to claim that that war was botched (since Saddam was left in place) is arguable. To revert to the back-up position that that war was unjustified is unworthy of response.

As for my being a conservative nationalist? Well, define your terms. I call myself a minarchist hawk in my profile. I think that is clear enough.

Ted Keer

Below is U.S. "Aggression" against Hiroshima

Post 28

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 2:34pm

Ted, I'm sick of your claims that I don't answer your questions. That's complete crap! I did answer them, again and again and you didn't like the answers. For you to go on and say,

"I will have to assume that he is implicity granting their validity"

is an absurd abandonment of logic. There is no honesty in that kind of argument.

In your last post to me (post #18), after admitting that you might be wrong about armistice and treaties and senate ratification, you said,

"Shall we agree on this: I will take the burden of demonstrating that Bush was obliged by some treaty or law (by his constitutional oath and the clauses of the Constitution I cited) to remove Saddam if you will simply answer this - was GWB responding to, or was he initiating aggression when he removed Saddam?"

Again, as I have every single time, I answered your question - in bold on post #21. You just don't like my answers.
-----------------
I talked about the legal mechanisms we use guide the police in the use of force. It was clearly for the purpose of illustrating the difference between government actions violating rights versus not violating rights. I said we use things like probable cause and courts to ensure that the government was dealing with someone who really is a criminal and that prevents the government from being the aggressor.

Ted, in case you haven't noticed it, criminals don't come with "I'm a Criminal" label on their foreheads and for that reason your statement is totally off track. You can't just call someone a criminal and put the blame on them. You have to begin an objective process to establish they are a criminal (i.e., probable cause, courts). That was the whole point and you apparently missed it, because you said,

"To speak of self defense as aggression is to fail to make an essential distinction, it puts people in the position of being victims of moral blackmail and it is not Objectivism."

I have never spoken of self defense as aggression and it a slimy kind of rhetoric to claim otherwise! There is no honesty in that kind of argument.
-------------------

Perhaps Ted believes that the UN authorization is a moral sanction in and of itself. I don't see that organization as being so morally trustworthy. And, as an Objectivist, I see the defense of individual rights as the source of moral conduct not UN declarations. And even if they were some moral bastion, it would violate our sovereignty to let them determine our actions. To say that we are compelled to launch a military action against another nation because the United Nations Security council has passed a resolution that states that it would be okay is... to stupid for words.
-------------------

Ted says,

"To make the absurd claim that Saddam never attacked us, although he aided and comforted our enemies for years, (Abu Nidal, $25,000 a head to suicide bombers...) is simply to advocate pacifism without coming out and saying it."

Look carefully at the slippery wording in that statement. Abu Nidal was not on the Iraqi payroll or under Iraqi command or even alive in the year the US launched its invasion. He had been living in Bagdad (till Saddam killed him). That is not the same as "Iraq attacked us." Saying that Saddam aided and comforted our enemies for years cannot be a justification for war. If it were, we would have to launch offensives in Russia, China, France, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Cuba, etc. If we add up the UN resolutions and the fact that Abu Nidal lived in Iraq for a period of years, it is NOT the justifcation for launching a major war killing thousands and thousands of innocent people and spending untold billions of dollars. And anyone that opposes it is a pacifict? I'll let the other readers decide who is absurd in their claims.
--------------------

I didn't call you a conservative nationalist - take that up with Mark.
-------------------

As for your picture of Hirosima; that war was declared by Congress following an attack upon our country. Pay attention here: it was a real attack - not just a case of a really bad person living in that country.
------------------

So, to sum thing up. We didn't have a treaty obligation, the senate didn't have diddly-squat to ratify, Congress has never declared a war, WMD were never found, Abu Nidal lived in Iraq (till Saddam killed him) but he wasn't on the Iraqi payroll or taking Iraqi orders, the UN passed some resolutions that authorized (but did not require) force, Iraq has never attacked our country, and now we are rebuilding a nation years after the capture of Saddam, involved in a war that has lasted longer than WWII, killed thousands that were innocent, argued in favor of torture, abolished habeous corpus, probable cause and privacy, erected secret prisons and I'm accused of being a pacificst because I think this war is unconstitutional, immoral, stupid, destructive of American ideals and not in our national interest.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 3/26, 2:44pm)

Post 29

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 4:43pm

Steve,

For purposes of this post, I'm going to take your question in post #25 literally, and not as being merely rhetorical. Let me explain my own conception of "rights," why it clashes with the traditional conception, and why I therefore believe that a foreign policy of "noninterventionism" is immoral. (Yes -- immoral.)

The traditional conception of "natural rights" is that they are some kind of metaphysical essence, either bestowed upon man by a creator, or somehow arising from or wired into his nature. In any case, these "rights" are things that literally exist in nature.

If rights are indeed innate, inherent, or intrinsic parts of human nature, then they are metaphysically "absolute," and thus they can never be revoked under any circumstances. And if that is the case, then, in logic, it would never be morally proper to utilize force -- not even in self-defense against an aggressor -- for to do so would be to violate his "absolute," "inalienable," innate/inherent/intrinsic rights.

At the very least, by this conception of rights, it would be wrong to employ force or coercion in any way which harmed or threatened innocents -- even if unintentionally or collaterally to one's own self-defense. Since war unavoidably harms innocents, war would be inherently immoral. Following this interpretation of "rights," then, would lead logically to anarchism, to radical "noninterventionism" in foreign policy, and (if you follow the logic consistently) to pacifism.

But there is a very different conception of rights. By this conception, "rights" are not some kind of metaphysical stuff or essence within human nature. Rights are not a thing or substance or quality that actually exists out there in the world. Rather, rights are principles of social morality; they are principles that are established by men; they are principles that men derive from more basic principles of personal morality (self-interest); they are principles that must be applied by men to certain relevant contexts; and they are principles that only apply in certain contexts and not in others.

Within the appropriate context, rights should be applied consistently; in that sense, they are "absolute." But they are not "absolute" metaphysically.

The first, traditional view of "natural rights" is that they are intrinsic to human nature. Call them "intrinsic rights," because they exist independently, intrinsic to some aspect of nature.

The second, Objectivist view of rights is that they are applied principles of social morality, invented by men, whose purpose is to meet their objective needs for moral boundaries in social situations. Call these "objective rights," because they require rational, objective definition and application by conscious humans.

To understand this more clearly, let me make an analogy to the moral principle of "honesty." You wouldn't say that people "inherently have honesty." Honesty is not a quality or element of nature (or of human nature); "honesty" doesn't exist as some kind of stuff in a metaphysical void. No, honesty is a moral principle established by human beings for the sake of a certain end: to further individual life and well-being. As a moral principle, then, honesty isn't just "there"; the objective need for it must be established, defined, understood, and accepted, and then the principle must be applied contextually.

I say "contextually" because you wouldn't say that honesty is an "absolute" principle -- that there are never any occasions when it's wrong to lie. In the classic example, if the Nazis come to your door and say, "Where are your kids?" -- you don't owe them honesty. So honesty is not a metaphysical absolute. Rather, it is a contextual principle whose exercise demonstrably, objectively advances our rational self-interest. For that reason, you should never be dishonest in normal, peaceful contexts. But in circumstances where your life and well-being and values are under threat, your first loyalty is to the more fundamental moral principle upon which honesty and all other moral principles are based: self-interest.

In the same way, "rights" are contextual moral principles, too. Likewise, they are also derivations of the more basic principle of rational self-interest. Rights don't exist in a purposeless void; they were formulated by men to further human life. If self-interest is the end, then men need a moral principle of "rights" in order to permit the unimpeded pursuit of individual self-interest in social situations. Rights are a practical way to establish moral boundary lines in social contexts, thus allowing individuals to live free of interference by others.

As Will Thomas notes here, "people are not 'born with' these rights. In fact, that is absurd: rights are principles we discover and learn to apply. What people are born with is the natural capacities for reason and independent living, and the biological need for material goods, that are the essential bases for individual rights to life, liberty, and property."

He goes on to point out that "Ayn Rand encapsulized this point in Atlas Shrugged, where she wrote: "If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is is purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational."

Now, what is the relevance of this "objective" conception of rights to the issues at hand?

For one thing, since rational self-interest is the rationale for establishing a principle of rights, no interpretation of "rights" can be valid that clashes with rational self-interest.

This means that the basic moral principle underlying U.S. defense and foreign policy ought to be our rational self-interest: the protection of American lives, freedoms, and our ability to travel and trade freely with others. If so, then any interpretation of "rights" which inhibits or prevents us from using force to defend those values against those who threaten them cannot be legitimate.

This means that war is not "intrinsically immoral" because it violates the alleged "inherent rights" of innocents. When you are under attack -- or when you are clearly threatened by an aggressor nation -- you have the absolute moral right to retaliate to defend yourself...even if the aggressor is hiding behind hostages (or hostage populations).

In war, the principle of rights -- and the moral boundary lines that rights define -- have been deliberately obliterated by the aggressor. If "rights" are not metaphysical essences, but moral principles that must be recognized and applied, then in war rights no longer exist. In the absence of these moral principles, the only recourse is to base one's action on the more basic moral principle of self-interest, and to protect one's own life and values by all means necessary -- even if those measures jeopardize or harm the lives of people being used as innocent shields by the aggressor.

This also means that the moral principle of rational self-interest trumps any contextless, absolute, platonic notion of "non-interventionism." We do have the moral right to intervene against any aggressive, dictatorial regime that constitutes an objective threat to our lives, freedoms, and well-being. Regimes that do not recognize even the most basic rights of their own people have no "right" to exist with impunity; and those rightless regimes that also pose clear threats to American lives, property, trade, or international travel ought to be deposed, by force if necessary.

That applies specifically to menacing dictatorships like Syria, Iran, and North Korea, and -- if they were ever poised to cause us serious harm -- Cuba, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, or Pakistan (if that last continues to aid and abet al Qaeda and the Taliban).

It also applied to Iraq, in spades. The notion that Saddam Hussein -- a murdering thug who gassed and tortured his own people, launched a war of aggression against Kuwait and U.S. trade interests there, tried to assassinate a U.S. president, and then refused to account for his stockpiles of WMD -- somehow deserved immunity from U.S. military action because of the principle of "rights" or "sovereignty," is again laughable. Anyone at all, America included, had the right to knock him off or to attack and dislodge his rightless regime, whenever judged expedient to do so.

Let's take a few more examples. The notion that captured butchers of al Qaeda, who do not recognize the moral principle of rights, nonetheless deserve that principle's protection from aggressive military interrogation tactics (or even summary execution) is completely laughable. Likewise, the claim that the organized gangs of bloodthirsty thugs in the Middle East (Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.) -- who encourage and train their own kids to become suicide-bombing maniacs targeting innocent civilians -- still deserve respectful recognition and protection of their "rights," "sovereignty," "national self-determination," etc., is contemptible and ridiculous. The only thing they deserve is targeted annihilation.

I could go on about domestic implications of this view of rights, particularly for our criminal justice system, but enough for now. You get the idea, I hope.

Incidentally, I may break this post out as its own essay here, as soon as I finish some pending work.

Post 30

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 5:43pm

Robert,

You were correct in taking my question in post#25 literally - it was not rhetorical or sarcastic. I appreciate the time you have taken to explain your position as fully and clearly as you have.

I had the suspicion that is what you meant by "intrinsicist conception of natural rights." I remembered Ayn Rand using the word to describe Aristotle's position in Epistemology.

I have to run a few errands, get dinner, and read what you've written a second time. Then I'll give you full reply. On my first reading I see many areas where we agree but also some where we disagree and I may be able to narrow that down in a useful way.

Steve

Post 31

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 5:53pm

Steve-
Excellent posts concerning the UN, Iraq, etc. I disagree with you only on the concept that a declaration of war by a government could suddenly legitimize setting aside any concern for innocent individuals.

As Robert explained well, individual rights are contextual and this can even allow for circumstances where a hostage must be killed to hit his captor. However, don't slip into treating nations as primary entities and misapplying 'individual' rights to these collectives rather than to individuals. That error occurs commonly amongst Objectivist hawks, and while your posts here are great in general it appears you might also be considering that same approach - albeit if and only if a declaration of war exists.

Post 32

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 8:40pm

Aaron, thanks for the kind words.

I'm going to put together a reply to Robert's post in just a minute.

You and I agree that a declaration of war by congress doesn't confirm or create a moral situation out of what otherwise would be immoral. I see it as part of the mechanism to help protect against immoral government acts, but it is no guarantee. It is for the military a little bit like 'probable cause' is for the police. It is a checks-and-balances kind of thing - no more. An attempt to subjugate the use of force to the rule of just laws.

Keep an eye on my next post and see if I'm misapplying the concept of rights :-)

Steve

Post 33

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 9:11pm

Just Who Broke the Ceasefire?

Steve,

My last post was addressed to points by both you and Mark. I thought it would be obvious which were whose, and regret the confusion. But you did say, in bold, that we were the aggressors in Iraq, which I still find absurd. He fired at our fly-over patrols every day. You accuse me of being slippery, but yourself say: "Saying that Saddam aided and comforted our enemies for years cannot be a justification for war. If it were, we would have to launch offensives in Russia, China, France, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Cuba, etc." Well, show me the ceasefire agreements that we have with all those states that they are violating in the same way Saddam was violating his, and I will gladly grant your point.

You attack Bush's execution of the war, when all I want is a statement as to whether we were already at war or not. When I refuse to engage on the premise that Bush is immoral or incompetent or what have you, because I am not about to dicuss the defense of our coutry under such a rhetorical handicap, you say I am not paying attention. While I have granted you many points, you have neither granted me any nor answered the specific yes or no points I raised, as I raised them. Rather, you changed the subject, and in your second to last post changed the subject to whether the first actions in 1991 were valid. Since this thread was entitled "four years later," and not "16 years later," your retreat to arguing the legitimacy of the first actions against Saddam was simply that - retreat. And the fact that you said that my points were irrelevant, rather than saying that they were wrong does seem to imply that you grant that they were right. Else why say they don't matter. One doesn't, for example, say in court that a liar's lies are irrelevant. One calls them lies.

I have been making a very very narrow point here, that technically we were already at war with Saddam when GWB took office. You have ranged all over the place in what I see as your desire to paint Bush as a bad guy, whether as an aggressor or an altruist or a fool or something. (Am I wrong in thinking you are strongly upset with Bush? I am too. But I'll let you put your disappointment in your own words.)

I have no problem with you trying to make those points. Am I not allowed to make the points that I wish? Does my asking whether a treaty has meaning somehow offend you? I am no supporter of the UN. I would have us withdraw from it. But I don't therefore pretend that we are not a charter member of it - by Senate treaty. And whether or not I view the UN as a moral sanction in any case, I do believe that a country should either uphold its treaty obligations or should withdraw from the treaty.

Again, our actions in 1991 were governed by treaty and so was our resumption of hostilities to oust Saddam in 2003. Is just this one little point so difficult to concede? I am not asking you to concede that the UN is good, that Bush is a genius, that the way we have handled Iraq has been brilliant, that war on a certain day in March, as opposed to a certain day in October was graven in stone. I'm just trying to find out if those who seem to oppose GWB's actions are at least able to see that GWB was, however poorly he executed his actions, not acting outside his constitutional authority, and to see that all the moral culpability for Iraqi suffering lies upon the initiators of aggression, not those who however hamfistedly have responded to that aggression.

Tell me Steve, is there nothing I have said with which you can admit you agree? I don't suffer from some sort of deranged Bush fanaticism. I can admit your good points and my mistakes. Neither am I trying to squirm out of answering direct yes or no questions by pretending that responding with my own set of questions is a response.

And Steve, as to Mr. Humphrey, I haven't put you anywhere near him, since while I do see your answers as inadequate, I don't find you describing me as some sort of lunatic crusader. I am not quite sure with whom he has me confused. I'd rather be taken at my words here, and I am happy to take you at yours. If you will be content to address my words, explain whether treaties mean anything, whether responding to Saddam's agression is somehow morally equal to his aggression, to explain why my Sophie's Choice analogy is wrong, or to concede that it is right, but still to maintain your objections on some sort of practical rounds - then I will be content. Please answer my strong points as I am willing to do yours.

Ted Keer

Post 34

Monday, March 26, 2007 - 9:40pm

My thanks to Steve W' for the civility, thoughtfulness, and intelligence of his argumentation. And I think I agree with him a lot more than he realizes.

There's a very good -- but not great -- argument to be made for a foreign policy of strict isolationism. Had America -- say, since the Spanish-American war [1898] -- stated loudly and proudly to the world, in effect, "We don't give a damn" and "You're on your own" then none of those largely-unsuccessful interventions into America's "back yard" (the Americas) would have taken place, and all of those rebelling-against-tyranny countries like Hungary, Czechoslavaki, and Poland would have known to be much more self-reliant when it comes to gaining and maintaining their individual freedoms. The world might well have been a better and freer place without Big Daddy and "the world's policeman" looking over their shoulder and ineptly "helping" everyone. Maybe America should have focused all her talents on leading and influencing the world by her best technique -- teaching freedom by example -- and shunning direct liberation via military attack and invasion.

There is a lot to be said for this line of thinking. Still, I don't buy it.

Steve correctly paraphrases my argumentation by saying, "Yes, we will kill a few thousand innocents now, but when you add up all the future lives saved and the other benefits and the gratitude of those who were freed, then you can see that we were right to invade and liberate".

I do indeed think this. It strikes me as common sense and simple rationality. My argument is direct mathematics -- even if it does involve hard-to-quantify human life. Whatever is the net advantage to mankind -- the cold profit-and-loss calculation -- is what we should do. Death via invasion is sad and to be avoided, but so is a lifetime of slavery. Anyone who doesn't "do the math" here seems inhuman to me, and needs to explain himself. Abstract, loose, unconnected notions of "non-intervention" and "not killing innocent civilians" seem like very false values and ideals to me. I even adhere to that loose standard and goal of semi-collectivist, Utilitarian Jeremy Bentham: "the greatest good of the greatest number."

Steve points out that in Rand's famous, but painfully elliptical, statement [about "the right, but not the duty"] "she is not addressing the innocent lives lost and I would want to see the context of her statement to say much more," -- which is fair enough. This was a lamentably brief thought and I really do fault Rand for not explaining herself much more. I wish Barbara Branden or Nathaniel Branden would fill us in on what she meant here. They may well have good insights.

Steve also chastises me by writing "I can't understand how anyone can be so contemptuous of [semi-innocent, morally-grey civilian's] right to live." There are two answers to this. If these civilians constitute an objective threat to me -- such as the Chinese civilians -- then I am contemptuous of their rights, just as they are of mine, and they're the aggressors. Now, if the morally-ambiguous, semi-innocents of Cuba, Burma, Brunei, Libya, Iran, etc. can't be liberated without massive loss of life and property for them (and us) then I do indeed reject Rescue and Liberation as a proper foreign policy for a liberal state. I do the life math on this -- calculating and weighing as well and as objectively as I can -- and try to make the balanced and wise choice based on overall benefit to mankind. Their semi-innocent lives are precious to me, and are things to be valued and protected.

Steve also cautions me that I "need to own up to what [I'm] proposing - killing thousands of innocent people." But he also needs to own up. Steve's alternative, in the case of Cuba, is letting ten million "completely innocent" (I think he would say) civilians live severly truncated lives in which they only experience maybe 10% of the pleasures, grandeurs, and riches which is normal human life (under freedom), and which is their due and birthright. This, to me, is an unbearable human tragedy. And it's so easy to correct, given Objectivist (or even libertarian) political theory!

Ultimately, I think foreign policy isolationism as advocated by Rand, the Enlightenment thinkers, and the modern libertarians violates human solidarity and the brotherhood of man. Also, worldwide individual rights. This rather inhuman coldness violates the unwritten and implicit -- but universal and mandatory -- Social Compact. This quiet agreement states, in effect, all of us are required to have at least some human empathy and function in at least some kind of alliance with others, including complete strangers. All must "give a damn." I would even go so far as to (perhaps ominously) quote John Donne [1624] on this:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all...No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Post 35

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 1:31am

Individual Rights and the War in Iraq

Robert,

First I'll give you the summary. I am not an advocate of intrinsic rights. I certainly am not a pacifist. I agree with most of your description of Objective rights. We still disagree on the application of rights in determining if we should have gone to war with Iraq this last time.

I'll make some very minor points about your description of rights.
Then I'll point out what I see as a danger in your description.
Then I'll address the application of rights specifically to the war in Iraq.

---------- First the nit-picking on natural rights----------

We agree there is no "rightness" inherent in the structure of a person. No metaphysical essence, nothing wired into his being. A right is not something that will ever be found by a chemist or a physicist.

But it would have been good for you to use different language where you were talking about natural rights and said, "...somehow arising from ... his nature." While it is true that the rights don't 'live' there, they do arise conceptually from an understanding of his nature.

Then there is this paragraph:

If rights are indeed innate, inherent, or intrinsic parts of human nature, then they are metaphysically "absolute," and thus they can never be revoked under any circumstances. And if that is the case, then, in logic, it would never be morally proper to utilize force -- not even in self-defense against an aggressor -- for to do so would be to violate his "absolute," "inalienable," innate/inherent/intrinsic rights.

That might be true. It doesn't matter to me since I'm NOT advocating innate, inherent, or intrinsic rights. But I'm not sure your conclusion follows. It might be possible for someone else to argue for innate rights that were context sensitive. But that doesn't matter because it isn't what I'm arguing.

You state,

"Since war unavoidably harms innocents, war would be inherently immoral. Following this interpretation of "rights," then, would lead logically to anarchism, to radical "noninterventionism" in foreign policy, and (if you follow the logic consistently) to pacifism."

Again, I'm not arguing that interpretation of rights. But I will pop up and say that war is inherently immoral. By its nature there will be immoral actions or there would be no war. The immoral party is the aggressor - not the defender. And I don't believe that recognizing war to be immoral means you don't defend yourself. And it is possible for both parties to behave immorally in a war.

As to the issue of a defender having to kill innocent people yet not be immoral - I deal with that below.

Final nit-pick on natural rights: Will Thomas says "people are not born with these rights." Well, of course, in the sense that it isn't inside of the baby like their colon. But rights apply to them upon birth because the rights have been discovered. And the rightfulness of freedom for a human being is as much in existence - as a social principle - as is the appropriateness for us to be happy. It is objectively deducible. This is an important nit because Thomas is only a step away from saying that rights are arbitrary or subjective or culturally relative.

----------- Now some cautions on Objectivist rights -------------------

We agree on everything that you say in describing Objective rights except for two things that you don't say - or don't say clearly enough.

Yes, rights are principles invented by men for the purpose of defining the boundaries of actions in a social context. Yes they are called objective rights because they require objective definition.

What you haven't said, or at least at this point, what is making me feel nervous, is no explanation of human life as the conceptual fountain of all rights. That, if we have any rights, we must have the right to life. That form of expressing the base of rights is important because without it rights don't have an objective standard. There is nothing to anchor them. We adrift in a sea of moral relativism and subjectivism.

I know, you explicitly mentioned "rational self-interest" but that isn't a standard by itself - it too needs that tie to man's life. And no where is it needed more than in the case of rights. Man's life doesn't just lock it to the individual as opposed to a collective, but it also gives the standard for prioritizing. Then reason has something to work from and compare to.

Now a caution on "context". You described the context as boundary lines in social contexts. True. But there is a much more fundamental context for rights and that is force versus non-force. Rights can only be violated by force. In that sense, they only apply in issues where force (or a corollary) are an issue.

You gave the example of honesty where the Nazi comes to the door and asks the where the kids are. Everything you said is correct but what you didn't say is that it is the threat of force that makes it moral to lie. Not self-interest. This is a big difference because the underlying standard by which the person determines their self-interest might be such as to allow them to also lie when there is no force.

You can say that you assumed we are both in agreement on a standard of mans life but it isn't something to be left to assumptions. I think it is why we come to different conclusions on the war in Iraq.

----------- Finally, about War and the War in Iraq -----------------

You say, "...no interpretation of "rights" can be valid that clashes with rational self-interest." Yes, but this needs that context that Rand gave it. She was clear that their must be code of moral values based upon man's life before this was meaningful.

Without that anchor "rational self-interest" when applied on the national level is as dangerous as "National Security" as a guiding beacon.

You name these as examples of values that should be protected: "...American lives, freedoms, and our ability to travel and trade freely with others" and they are. But obviously we haven't unraveled all of the reasons for going to war or not going to war since if a merchant in Bolivia cheated an American out his right to use a piece of property and the Bolivian government wouldn't recognize the transgression we wouldn't nuke the country. So the story is still unfolding.

Here we come to the role of the innocents in a totalitarian regime.

You say, "When you are under attack -- or when you are clearly threatened by an aggressor nation -- you have the absolute moral right to retaliate to defend yourself...even if the aggressor is hiding behind hostages (or hostage populations)."

I agree completely (provided that if it is a threat, it must be a serious one - and I'll spell that out below).

So we need to recognize that there are innocent lives that can be lost. We need to recognize that there are some times where that is necessary and some times when it is not justified. (We aren't going to nuke Bolivia for example). So what is the principle involved in making this crucial decision.

Just saying "Rational Self-Interest" by itself is not getting the job done. Remember what is involved here. Only the individual American's have rights that are being violated or threatened such that a government is to act in their behalf. We don't talk about American self-interest except as a kind of short-hand (which can get us in trouble).

We institute governments for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights (and it's their sole justification). With the long history of governments as the worst abusers of rights, our corollary purpose is to institute the government in such a way as to subjugates and limit and control its use of force.

In criminal law when you are attacked you have an affirmative defense of self-defense should you harm or kill your attacker. And the courts have derived principles here to ensure a respect for individual rights in this context:

The threat must be real and imminent
The defensive force was necessary as no reasonable alternative existed
The degree of force was reasonable and proportionate.

These are the principles a rational and just nation uses before it launches actions that kill thousands of innocent individuals. It is acting as the delegate of the Americans whose rights have been violated or threatened. that is why the principles can be applied from criminal law to war with so many similarities.

If you apply them to Pearl Harbor you are able to see that Japan is an aggressor, not just a suspect, since the threat became an attack and threatened further attacks. They bombed and killed Americans on American soil and did so with the military arm of the nation itself. That justified a declaration of war by congress (which does nothing to make a war moral - it just exists as part of the machinery to reduce chances of immoral wars - attempts at checks and balances).

Now, lets look at Iraq.

Saddam was obviously an evil, murdering thug and had no right to live - True, but that isn't the justification for war that would kill innocents.
He gassed and tortured his own people - True, but those aren't American lives and wouldn't demand American declaration of war.
He launched an assault against Kuwait - True, but that isn't the war we are talking about. That is a separate issue.
He tried to assassinate a U.S. president - Maybe, maybe not. The story about the attempt on Bush elder by the whisky smugglers is full of holes and doesn't tie back to Saddam. It also wasn't seen as a reason to go after him by Bush senior, who let him alone, or by Clinton and it wasn't given publicly for GWB's invasion. Now if it were clear that any head of a state attempted an assassination I'd see it as a reason to declare war, unless he could be snatched like Noriega. But in any case, this doesn't apply to this war as imminent threat.
He refused to account for his WMD - Sort of true; he wouldn't allow a verification, but he did say he didn't have any and it turned out there weren't any. And we had no sense of an imminent threat to ourselves from this.
Robert says that Saddam had no rights and that anyone had the right to knock him off. I agree. But that isn't the same as saying I'm also going to knock off tens of thousands of innocent lives. If he were say, Iran, and had the bomb for sure and talked of using it. That's a different story. In that story, the threat is credible, imminent, and warrants the highest levels of defensive force. Iraq didn't meet that test.

We should not have invaded Iraq.

Now, carry it on further. Saddam is dead. The country is in ruin. Why are we staying there now with every week bringing more Americans home in body bags? Why do we spend our national treasure rebuilding this piss-hole of a country?

I hope that there are people reading this who understand now that when you running wild with "rational self-interest" divorced from the individual and no longer anchored by a code of values with a standard of man's life that you might as well just use the fuzzy concept of "national security" - because anything goes.

Now, as to the other examples:

We should all oppose torture and mindless humiliation - not because we give a damn about the sensibilities of barbaric al Qaeda butchers, but because we have too much respect for ourselves. We aren't barbarians. Efficient interrogation doesn't require torture or humiliation - that's been know for a long time.
As to summary execution, that depends. If we believe in individual rights we take the time to establish and use a mechanism that keeps us from executing the wrong people. I think a military tribunal can do a fine job and executing those found guilty is fine by me.
Robert was NOT referring to me when he said,
"the claim that the organized gangs of bloodthirsty thugs in the Middle East (Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.) -- who encourage and train their own kids to become suicide-bombing maniacs targeting innocent civilians -- still deserve respectful recognition and protection of their "rights," "sovereignty," "national self-determination," etc"
Because, I have never said anything like that. I too believe that they should be targeted to annihilation.

Man's life is the source of all value. A pacifist betrays that value by failing to defend it. Those who go to war before it is absolutely necessary betray that value at the other extreme. It isn't always the thug or the barbarian that endangers life. And even worse, is the intellectual clouding of the waters - here more than anywhere else, we must see clearly and apply principles that arise straight out of mans life as the source of value.

Post 36

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 2:11am

Ted,

I don't know how to communicate with you.

You insist on staying inside your "we were already at war" scenario as the answer. And I keep saying it isn't responsive to the question. But nothing I've don seems to work.

I'll try this. I'm not intending to put words in your mouth or be condescending - just correct me if I ask your questions badly.

You ask, "Didn't he violate the cease-fire?" Steve says, "Yes, many times."

You ask, "Weren't we at war before the cease-fire?" Steve says, "Yes."

You ask, "Then we continued at war because he violated the cease-fire, true?" Steve says, "No. We chose to go to war again - we didn't have to - we could have stayed at home. For better or worse, right or wrong, it was a choice. And we weren't at war till we made the decision. Saying that we were 'technically at war' is a fine distinction for diplomates but for a real understanding in these days when congress hasn't got the balls to declare wars you have to look at things like troop transport, body bags, TV news of fire-fights, stuff like that. If our troops are in places like Kansas and not Iraq, we aren't at war."

You ask, "But isn't it true that we were already at war when GWB took office?" Steve says, "No, we brought the troops home, we weren't shooting at anyone, we hadn't started the invasion, then we sent them back and did the invasion. There were many years and a couple of presidents that went by."

You ask, "Doesn't our treaty with the UN mean we need to enter Iraq?" Steve says, "No. That treaty doesn't compel us to invade Iraq and the resolutions about Iraq don't compel us to and we both agree we shouldn't even be in the UN."

You ask, "Doesn't it mean anything that he fired at our overflight planes every day." Steve says, "I wouldn't invade them for that."

You say, "Show me the cease fire agreements we have with all those other countries." Steve says, "Cease fire agreements are attempts to get a cease fire they may or may not be reasons to resume or start fresh wars. The UN isn't our boss. Cease fire agreements don't force us to invade a nation. Why would you think that?"

You ask, "Does my asking if a treaty has meaning offend you?" Steve says, "No, I'm not offended. I'm exasperated that you persist in saying that i don't answer your questions. You said there was a senate ratified treaty that drove us into Iraq this last time and I said no it wasn't - there were only resolutions that did not compel."

You ask, "whether responding to Saddam's agression is somehow morally equal to his aggression?" Steve says, "I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean with that one. But I'll refer you to the rely i made to Robert just above for an anwer."

You have accused me of ranging all over the place to paint Bush in a bad light. Ted, I don't have to do that. I do think he is an awful president and if I want to attack him for his piss poor job, I'll just do it directly. I don't need to range around. You'll find that I'm a simple person who says what he means. No hidden agendas here.

Post 37

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 2:32am

Andre,

I do hope you will give this some serious consideration. Usually when a good person argues from the wrong side of an intellectual debate it isn't a big thing. But here, if you are wrong, you are advocating killing thousands of people without any right to do so - a position that is no different from the worst of the collectivists.

I know your heart is in the right place so I'll aim for the head.

You said in post #34,

Steve correctly paraphrases my argumentation by saying, "Yes, we will kill a few thousand innocents now, but when you add up all the future lives saved and the other benefits and the gratitude of those who were freed, then you can see that we were right to invade and liberate".

I do indeed think this. It strikes me as common sense and simple rationality. My argument is direct mathematics -- even if it does involve hard-to-quantify human life. Whatever is the net advantage to mankind...

You are sacrificing the individual to the collective. The individuals are the living people you would willingly kill by the thousands and the collective is "mankind"

The same argument could be made by researchers that say they are justified to use force to experiment on human beings against their will because it will be to the net advantage of mankind.

Those lives aren't yours to take.

You say,

Steve's alternative, in the case of Cuba, is letting ten million "completely innocent" (I think he would say) civilians live severly truncated lives in which they only experience maybe 10% of the pleasures, grandeurs, and riches which is normal human life (under freedom), and which is their due and birthright.

No, I say, that we can not claim to live by a moral code that is based upon only using force in self-defense, and then kill people when we aren't under attack.

Post 38

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 10:38am

He fired at our fly-over patrols every day.
Rather, you changed the subject, and in your second to last post changed the subject to whether the first actions in 1991 were valid. Since this thread was entitled "four years later," and not "16 years later," your retreat to arguing the legitimacy of the first actions against Saddam was simply that - retreat.

Wouldn't the legitimacy of those fly-overs be directly tied to the legitmacy of the first gulf war? I'm just saying...

Post 39

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 11:26am