Left2Right

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Posted by: S. Weasel

Ummm...okay. I was in favor of war in Iraq, so I'll acknowledge that I am as responsible for the bad actors and bad outcomes as I am whatever benefits there may turn out to be.

There.

What did that accomplish?

Posted by: S. Weasel | Jan 13, 2005 12:30:29 PM

Posted by: Mark

I agree that, in assessing the moral justifiability of the war, reasonably predictable outcomes of the war must have been considered. Thus, if one can make the argument that, prior to the war, some amount of torture of Iraqis was reasonably foreseeable, then war proponents should be held accountable for it.

However, anti-war opponents should also be held to the same standard. Like war supporters, they should be held accountable for all reasonably foreseeable outcomes of their position. Most damningly, this includes the reasonable foreseeable condition of Iraqis under Saddam's fascist regime: continued genocide, enslavement and mass torture.

I have yet to see a single war opponent acknowledge their shame in condemning innocent Iraqis to their fate under Saddam & sons. If you hold up the mirror for others, at least have the courage to look in it yourself.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 12:36:49 PM

Posted by: Nonami

I say the following with as much humility as possible. If it sounds preposterous, it is still something I sincerely believe.

I believe History will look kindly upon the Iraq War, not because it was a good deed, but because it was the best possibility. I have not heard an anti-war opinion which addresses this moral equation to my satisfaction.

I believe war and torture will eventually be reduced, but not because "anti-war protestors" somehow implored the world through wise ideology and enlightened techings to lay down their arms, but because eventually humanity will run out of wars to fight.

In that sense, I think the Iraq War was a war that needed to be fought. It needed to be added to the to-do list, and one way or the other, struck off. Call it a necessary evil if you want a simpler term.

The world doesn't improve because humanity improves--humans are the same animals they've always been--but because with improving economy, technology, living conditions, and interpersonal understanding, our deficiencies eventually either become moot, or counterbalanced.

Again, Iraq was a disaster waiting to happen. It was either going to happen on schedule, or not. That was the only variable in this equation.

Posted by: Nonami | Jan 13, 2005 12:55:01 PM

Posted by: Terrier

"It's really wonderful to watch apologists for inaction now have to watch as action defeats evil. They will change the subject; they will attack those who got this entire story right while they got it entirely wrong. But they will never reconsider." - Andrew Sullivan 2003-03-22

"Should we have gone to war under the circumstances then prevailing? Probably not. Given the lack of urgency with regard to Saddam's WMDs (yes, this is hindsight, but so is all of this), we obviously should have waited." - Andrew Sullivan 2005-01-12

I am sick to death of this war and the summertime patriots it bred. Those with the capacity to feel are walking around now like Sullivan with hollow eyes wondering not just what went wrong but how they contributed to it. For the noble few that dutifully drank the kool-aid and are still marveling at the "march of democracy" even the admission that the search for WMD has ended fruitlessly will mean little. Snot-nosed trust-fund kids, overwrought soccer moms and tinhorn tough guys will not waver until the war touches them. They will spit defiance in your face and insist on unreported miracles and a liberal-bias clouding every story that chronicles actual events. I just don't have enough time left in my life to debate these delusions. I pray every day that the war will just stop.

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 12:59:01 PM

Posted by: frankly0

Mark,

To most people it's pretty obvious that, in most cases, one is not equally responsible for what happens if one does not interfere in a situation as one is for what happens if one chooses to interfere. In the latter case, one assumes full responsibility for one's acts, and that is one reason people and nations choose not to interfere unless the case is overwhelming.

Are we now fully "responsible" for the carnage in Darfur because we haven't chosen to interfere? I don't think so. The parties involved are the ones truly responsible, and ours is relatively small.

But if we inevitably get involved with widespread torture by starting a war against Iraq, then we ARE fully responsible for that; we must bear the consequences of our own actions.

Posted by: frankly0 | Jan 13, 2005 1:03:05 PM

Posted by: cirdan

re: mark's post above.
"However, anti-war opponents should also be held to the same standard. Like war supporters, they should be held accountable for all reasonably foreseeable outcomes of their position. Most damningly, this includes the reasonable foreseeable condition of Iraqis under Saddam's fascist regime: continued genocide, enslavement and mass torture."

Er, no. This might even be true if being anti-war entailed *not* doing anything at all. i.e. letting things in Iraq continue as they were doing. However, as I remember it at the time, there were at least some people who opposed the war on the grounds that it was an *ineffective* and *unjust* way to remove Saddam and accompanying disbenefits.

That is, one could agree that Saddam's removal was undesirable AND that the war was nevertheless unjust.

Posted by: cirdan | Jan 13, 2005 1:09:24 PM

Posted by: cirdan

Sorry, that should read, 'that Saddam's removal was desirable, and that the war was nevertheless unjust.'

Posted by: cirdan | Jan 13, 2005 1:12:14 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

I read Sullivan lengthy review last night after reading Mr. Cohen’s post. I don’t think accusing Hersh of using news of prisoner abuses to further his “agenda” is disgraceful, but perhaps that is a small point. It seems to me that what Sullivan was saying there was that because of the intense political polarization, people too frequently dismissed out of hand otherwise meritorious claims made by the opposition. That the opposition’s motives were not entirely pure is worth remembering in that context.

I also remain agnostic about how widespread the “disgrace” of such abuses has been. The disturbing investigations which are now coming to light are probative but hardly dispositive, especially insofar as they include many so far uncorroborated and thus possibly false prisoner reports. Moreover, both those reports and Sullivan’s review may be using very broad and inconsistent and questionable definitions of torture and abuse. (One example: it may be neither civilized nor humane to force a Muslim to eat pork. However, it hardly rises to torture and I’m not sure it even rises to abuse. If that were all it took to pry valuable information from an insurgent prisoner, I’d start frying up the bacon in a heartbeat.)

I don’t think there is anything particularly facile about recognizing that war is horrible and brutal, that it brings out the worst in some people and that some innocent people are killed or injured. Those of us who did not oppose the war are indeed responsible, as far as that goes, for accepting responsibility to minimize the horrors of war and to hold accountable those who violate our moral and legal standards in its commission. As Sullivan also points out, the latter is in the process of being done even now. As for the former, the U.S. military took extraordinary measures to avoid collateral damage (itself, an ugly euphemism) during combat operations. If the left has useful suggestions as to how to interrogate and otherwise deal effectively with this particular sort of enemy combatant in the present situation (as opposed to endless suggestions how not to do it), I’m sure many non-leftists would be glad to listen.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Jan 13, 2005 1:16:36 PM

Posted by: Terrier

Mark, are you making a case for welfare or warfare? Am I my brother's keeper only if he is an oppressed Iraqi? Or are you calling for state subsidized health care not just for Iraqis (they have this now under our occupation) or do you want to extend these benefits to citizens of your own country?

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 1:18:21 PM

Posted by: frankly0

As to the larger question, is (even) Iraq better off without Saddam, I can only say it's not obvious to me that that is true now, or will remain true. How many people really died under Saddam in the years immediately before the war? All the terrible numbers I've seen quoted go back to periods much earlier, when he appeared to be consolidating his hold on power. If 100,000 Iraqis really died in the war, how long would it have taken Saddam to kill an equal number at the rate he was proceeding in the years of relative stability directly before the war?

Of course, one has to factor in, somehow, the apples of freedom to counterbalance the oranges of brutal deaths and bodily harm. But even here, much depends on things we don't even know, namely, what kind of freedom will really obtain after we remove our own presence. Will most Iraqis see themselves on balance as being better off? It's not exactly obvious that they will.

Posted by: frankly0 | Jan 13, 2005 1:19:05 PM

Posted by: Chris

Mark writes, “I agree that, in assessing the moral justifiability of the war, reasonably predictable outcomes of the war must have been considered. Thus, if one can make the argument that, prior to the war, some amount of torture of Iraqis was reasonably foreseeable, then war proponents should be held accountable for it.” I will argue that torture was reasonably foreseeable in this war just as it was in all past wars and will be in all future wars. This is exactly the reason why “civilized” nations have tried to implement “rules” to wars. When you put normal people into abnormal situations some are going to do terrible things regardless of the rules.

Posted by: Chris | Jan 13, 2005 1:20:59 PM

Posted by: Mark

franklyO,

I agree that anti-war leftists would not have been as responsible for Saddam's continued atrocities as Saddam himself. However, that is not the issue. The principle of the argument, established by Mr. Cohen, is that both sides should be responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their positions.

Anti-war leftists were confronted with a situation where they could choose to support the rescue of innocent people from horrible injustice. Presumably they declined to support the rescue attempt after considering the foreseeable consequences of both support and opposition. The reasonably foreseeable consequences for opposition to the war were continued enslavement, mass torture and genocide. This situation was, or should reasonably have been, countenanced by anti-war leftists. They cannot now disclaim it. I am simply deploying Mr. Cohen's principle against his own anti-war position. He, of course, has anticipated this move and has an answer for it.

Your answer, however, is unresponsive.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 1:26:13 PM

Posted by: frankly0

Mark,

I think that all anti-war activists have to acknowledge is the very small responsibility they might have had for the continuation of atrocities under Saddam. This could only be as large as the responsibility that we all have now for not interfering in Darfur. Indeed, since Darfur is by any reckoning a situtation of far greater brutality than Iraq under Saddam, the responsibility anti-war activists would have for not interfering in Iraq is objectively far less.

You're doing everything you can to make the responsibilities incurred by not acting the same as those one must assume if one does act. But there's no way that will ever be made to work.

And in any case there are degrees of responsibility one has for the consequences of one's acts when one interferes. We are most responsible for those consequences which are most directly and obviously due to that interference. We are especially responsible for the things that we ourselves do in consequence, such as perpetrating torture.

Posted by: frankly0 | Jan 13, 2005 1:38:13 PM

Posted by: Chris

Cohen states, “I also think it is disgraceful for Sullivan to chide Danner and Hersh for their alleged eagerness to use this "scandal" for "their own agendas." What’s wrong with Hersh having an agenda and using information to support that agenda? I don’t necessarily agree with some of the positions that Hersh may take but so far he hasn’t been put on the rack for not doing his homework! It’s all how you present the facts. Towards the end of the book, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile, there is section describing the production of the 60 Minutes segment on Charlie Wilson and his part in the Russian/Afghanistan War when one of the producers asked the other how he was going to edit the program because he could make Wilson look like a hero or a clown. Same facts and same footage totally different results.

Posted by: Chris | Jan 13, 2005 1:51:30 PM

Posted by: Mark

Cirdan,

Any alternative to the war which sought the removal of Saddam's fascist regime with the implementation of democracy would be subject to evaluation as above: how reasonable was it to suppose that this would happen outside of a war? If you want to argue that anti-war leftists had a reasonable alternative here, then do so; please provide appropriately dated pre-war links.

franklyO,

You say anti-war leftists only have to acknowledge "the very small responsibility they might have had for the continuation of atrocities under Saddam".

I suppose you and I disagree on the degree of responsibility here. I am pleased that you have conceded that anti-war leftists have to acknowledge their failure to support the rescue of Iraqis from continued and unrelenting slavery, mass torture and genocide when there was an opportunity to end such suffering, and to take responsibility for it. (You are only the second anti-war lefist I have ever seen to make this concession, btw.)

To characterize this responsibility as "very small" is, I find, a strange and inconsistent position to take for leftists. I have thought for a long time that the left is a long way from its ethical roots in fraternity and equality. How differently would the world look if we characterized our responsibility to help others as "very small" in WW2, or the civil rights struggle?

Your post at 1:19, though, asks the right questions. Norm Geras estimated future deaths under Saddam using HRW figures of past deaths (230,000 conservatively, not including Iran/Iraq war), at 10,000 per year. (I don't think it's an answer to exclude early deaths either.) You can find his post at his blog I'm sure. I haven't seen his figures seriuosly challenged.

I agree that it is difficult to measure the long term benefits, but that just forces us to use concepts like "reasonable foreseeability" in assessing moral justification.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 1:54:25 PM

Posted by: oliver

'I also think it is disgraceful for Sullivan to chide Danner and Hersh for their alleged eagerness to use this "scandal" for "their own agendas."'

I don't share the judgment that Sullivan has been disgraceful here. At least in that brief excerpt I don't think he's saying the reporter's "agendas" distorted their reporting or explained why they reported the torture in the first place. If you're a member of a democracy and like me you see Bush and crew as dumb and dangerous, you're going to hope that others come to see them as dumb and dangerous too; and if your job is to report news to your fellow nationals, then you're going to be enjoying your job especially while reporting the news that suggests and is liable to persuade others that Bush and crew are dumb and dangerous. It only disparages the reporting to say that the enjoyment biased it, and Sullivan doesn't say that. Mildly tendentious maybe, but "disgraceful" no. So in the competition to appear to play nice while attempting to kill your opponent, I think Sullivan scores a point over Cohen. And I'll give myself a point here for nitpicking.

Posted by: oliver | Jan 13, 2005 2:04:24 PM

Posted by: Chris

For an opposing view to Hersh see How to Interrogate Terrorists by McDonald

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_terrorists.html

Posted by: Chris | Jan 13, 2005 2:04:52 PM

Posted by: Terrier

Mark, would you please apologize for not removing Saddam in 1991? How many died after the first war when conservatives could have prevented their deaths by pushing on the Baghdad then? Didn't conservative sit idly by while the gunships put down insurrections they encouraged? Why has their been no apology, no acknowledgement of this crime?

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 2:15:00 PM

Posted by: Mark

Terrier,

I'm not sure why you believe that referring to conflicts other than the recent Iraq war counters my position. You'll have to clarify how this is relevant.

Insofar as you do make reference to other conflicts, you seem to accept the proposition that one should be responsible for reasonably foreseeable moral outcomes that one endorses - so we're in agreement.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 2:24:09 PM

Posted by: Chris

Since the title of this post is Check in the Mirror I thought I would ask how many of those that are contributing are parents? How many of you who are parents have violated the Geneva Convention by torturing your children? Have you spanked them? Have you given them a time out? Have you made them stand in the corner? Have you threatened them with eternal damnation if they don’t tell the truth?

Posted by: Chris | Jan 13, 2005 2:24:45 PM

Posted by: JeffS

This Post, though very interesting, obscures a fundamental fact about torture today: torture depends on making exceptions, on saying “these” enemies, for whatever reason, are not entitled to the normal decency we extend even towards our dangerous attackers. To properly condemn the practice, one needs to condemn all such exceptionalism, to fight the idea that any enemy, no matter his crime, deserves such horrible treatment.

Instead, too many opponents of the Bush administration, as in this post, seek to blame torture precisely on the vilification of the particular enemy today, on the over-extension of the “war on terror” or of concepts like “evil.” Which, in effect, is to legitimate the practice of torture by implication – supposing, for example, all of the alleged connections between Iraq and 9/11 were established, or we found that the victims were truly evil. This is the wrong answer. Recall that anti-torture conventions, especially in Europe, were often formed precisely in response to wars against terrorists such as the IRA.

Political and ideological greed, the lustful urge to blame everything on one’s political opponents, can blind us to our own true culpability in the wake of Abu Ghraib, even when we look in the mirror. The hard fact is, 50 years after human rights conventions, as this post shows, we have not properly taught our soldiers – nor ourselves – that no exceptions, no evil, justifies the evil of torture.

Posted by: JeffS | Jan 13, 2005 2:25:52 PM

Posted by: farmgirl

D. A. Ridgely: "it may be neither civilized nor humane to force a Muslim to eat pork. However, it hardly rises to torture and I’m not sure it even rises to abuse."

If you were forced to eat human flesh while imprisoned, would that rise to the level of abuse or torture?

Mark -- Are we all now responsible for the genocide in North Korea, since the US is not taking direct steps to effect regime change? Would you advise a reactivation of the shooting war there to remove our collective culpability?

Posted by: farmgirl | Jan 13, 2005 2:41:43 PM

Posted by: Terrier

Mark, no actually, I don't think anti-war protestors are responsible for Saddam's atrocities, that's ridiculous, because after all Saddam was removed so how can someone be responsible for something that never happened? Kindly stay in the world of reality and inform us whether you support the war and the torture that resulted - that is what the issue of the post is here - actual dead bodies are not equivalent to hypothetical dead bodies.

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 2:48:53 PM

Posted by: Chris

Article 26

The basic daily food rations shall be sufficient in quantity, quality and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies. Account shall also be taken of the habitual diet of the prisoners.

The Detaining Power shall supply prisoners of war who work with such additional rations as are necessary for the labour on which they are employed.

Sufficient drinking water shall be supplied to prisoners of war. The use of tobacco shall be permitted.

Prisoners of war shall, as far as possible, be associated with the preparation of their meals; they may be employed for that purpose in the kitchens. Furthermore, they shall be given the means of preparing, themselves, the additional food in their possession.

Adequate premises shall be provided for messing.

Collective disciplinary measures affecting food are prohibited.

Posted by: Chris | Jan 13, 2005 2:49:41 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

Farmgirl:

(1) Surely you are not comparing Muslim human beings to pigs, are you? (2) Abuse, possibly, depending on what cut and how it was prepared. Not torture.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Jan 13, 2005 2:58:20 PM

Posted by: Mark

Terrier,

I think you've misinterpreted my arguments, but I won't repeat myself. Suffice to say that if we apply your principle to the other cases you've mentioned, your political opponents can use it against you to exculpate themselves. When you decide which syllogistic course you prefer, get back to me.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 3:02:35 PM

Posted by: Tom Perkins

I cannot think of a more cold blooded, evil thing any official in any American Administration, past or present, has said in my lifetime than Madeline Albright saying that if the sanctions were killing a quarter million Iraqis a year--while permitting Saddam to unambiguously continue torturing Iraqis and play peekaboo with UN inspectors--that the sanctions were worth it.

If opponents of the war will say they believe the sanctions could be justifiably continued and assume some appropriate share of culpability for the deaths caused by the failure to remove Saddam already, I will gladly assume my share of the culpability for supporting a politically feasible end to those sanctions.

Since I've only voted for GW, I'd say that's something like 1/55,000,000 X 100,000 deaths*. I presume that leaves me responsible for some Iraqi's hangnail?

In sum, the posters pretensions amuse me.

*If that figure is accurate, I think the British Red Cross report was quite inflated.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp

Posted by: Tom Perkins | Jan 13, 2005 3:20:47 PM

Posted by: farmgirl

D.A. Ridgely: "Surely you are not comparing Muslim human beings to pigs, are you?"

Facetious much? No, my point was only that pork is deeply taboo in the Muslim faith, and I wondered whether you were trivializing its forced consumption because you (possibly) did not share the same taboo. Cannibalism is a nearly universal taboo, so I wanted to compare your reaction to that idea. Thank you for the response.

Uncivilized, inhumane, abusive -- however one would categorize it -- forced breaking of cultural taboos can backfire (cf. Sepoy Mutiny of 1857).

Posted by: farmgirl | Jan 13, 2005 3:22:40 PM

Posted by: Terrier

Mark, "your political opponents can use it against you to exculpate themselves" on what basis? The hypothetical murder of millions? We're talking about things that happened here not some fantasies about evil empires creeping into your room while you sleep bearing scary weapons. Sullivan said it pure and simple. If you supported the war you have a greater obligation to get off your rump and speak out against the wrongs. Have you done so?

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 3:29:25 PM

Posted by: tom perkins

Terrier, the leftist puppet candidate so recently rejected by the American electorate was quite a fan of respecting that same international regard which led Bush I to not fracture the coalition by removing Saddam in 1991. Would you prefer conservatives who act in a way that would, if you have any consistency, horrified you then?

You really can't have things both ways.

And for the record, and with hindsight being 20/20, Bush I should have removed Saddam in 1991, even if Iraq dissolved.

As the magnitude of that error became clear over time, Clinton should have acted unilaterally to remove him, citing Saddam's numerous breaches of the armistice agreement and attempt to assasinate George HW Bush.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, pfpp

Posted by: tom perkins | Jan 13, 2005 3:30:43 PM

Posted by: Shag from Brookline

Accountability is what should be demanded by Americans from the government. Bush Jr.'s Administration avoids accountability but wants it from CBS and other critics. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the lame duck. At some point those who supported Bush Jr. will say, "If only I knew ...." But don't expect it; they will rationalize that it was worth it to get rid of Saddam, so long as they did not shed blood, lives or limbs, but got the benefit of tax cuts. There are not enough swords for these people to fall upon.

Posted by: Shag from Brookline | Jan 13, 2005 3:33:45 PM

Posted by: Joshua Cohen

1. I may have put the point too strong when I said Sullivan's remarks on Danner and Hersh are "disgraceful." The essential point is that Sullivan ought simply to have praised them for their large public service: the comment on their aims is at best irrelevant.

2. I don't think that Jeff's description of the position in the post is accurate, but never mind: I think Jeff's position on torture is correct, and nothing I said was meant to disagree.

3. As the NYT editorial on WMD today correctly obserrves: "What all our loss and pain and expense in the Iraqi invasion has actually proved is that the weapons inspections worked, that international sanctions - deeply, deeply messy as they turned out to be - worked, and that in the case of Saddam Hussein, the United Nations worked. Whatever the Hussein regime once had is gone because the international community insisted. It was all destroyed a decade ago, under world pressure."

4. As for acknowledging responsibility for Sadaam Hussein's atrocities: I regret not having raised my voice against US support for the regime when Hussein was gassing the Kurds, and the US could have done something about it. I confess that I was distracted throughout the period by American policy in Central America.

Posted by: Joshua Cohen | Jan 13, 2005 3:34:47 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

Farmgirl:

It was your analogy, not mine. And I answered you. I do consider eating human flesh a taboo and I wouldn’t consider it torture. But neither would I consider the taboo against cannibalism on a par with the taboo against eating pork in the first place. Moreover, my point was that if I found it a useful interrogation technique, I would not hesitate to use it. I would similarly feed pork to orthodox Jews, fish on Fridays to Roman Catholics, iceberg lettuce salads to New Yorkers and wine-in-a-box to the French. If I were a prisoner and was told I was eating human flesh, would I consider myself abused? Yes (Though not as badly as the main course had been.) Would I call it torture? No.

The reason we have all those words (inhumane, uncivilized, abusive, torture, etc.) is because they mean different things.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Jan 13, 2005 3:47:02 PM

Posted by: pedro

I am sure Mr. Ridgely--whom I have developed great respect for--wouldn't be so inclined to use euphemisms for torture, if he or his children had been forced to do the kind of things that have been deemed 'acceptable' forms of treatment by those who called the Geneva conventions quaint.

In Latin America we have some local knowledge of what torture is, and judging from family examples, I'm afraid many people underestimate the degree to which what they call "abuse, perhaps, surely not torture" can affect human beings. Abstractly, it may sound to you and me that it isn't the worst thing in the world to have to eat human flesh in dire circumstances. But it is quite a different thing to be *forced* to do something, than it is to do it. By way of example, it can be fun to have sex, but it is certainly no fun to be forced to have sex. The latter is called rape. In my book, being forced to do humiliating things with one's body is psychological torture. And psychological torture can be every bit as aggravating and damaging as physical torture. In fact, testimonies of hundreds of tortured people in Latin America attest to this.

Posted by: pedro | Jan 13, 2005 3:47:49 PM

Posted by: Terrier

tom perkins, I know it was Clinton's fault. The sky is blue. Do you have anything new to add to this debate? Would you like to personally condemn torture?

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 3:55:32 PM

Posted by: bobbywally

Wow. Number crunching [human lives] to stake out the moral high ground. It's a fascinating exercise, but I guess someone has to do it.

I apologize for being so touchy-feely lefty, but was there ever any doubt about the true gist of our patriotic, flag waving, "it's for the children," self-righteous war mongering? I didn't need to be told that there are bad people in this world who are doing bad things to other people. [I'll spare you the list of indignities that American arrogance has heaped upon the down trodden people of the world. You probably know it better than I].

What I did need to be told was the TRUTH. [Our economy runs on the free access to someone else's oil. We have to play ball with the Chinese, because, well, they own us]. Why do I have to be told lies and jingoistic platitudes? Who the fuck are we anyway? Do we have ideals, or just ideologues?

I am 100% for liberating all of the people in any world who are not free. Everyone. And I understand that the "evil doers" will fight back. I don't want to be a Neville Chamberlain. But I really hate to learn that some of the people who are shouting the loudest have the least to loose, and are also making money on the deal. True democracy scares the beejesus out of people in power.

So where so we start? We stood by when Mr. Hussein was making his mark. We continue to stand by while Equatorial Guinea goes tin horn dictator, not to mention the mess in Darfur. But perhaps we are a bit over extended? Never mind, have a tax break.

How can anyone be so glib about how history will treat the stupidity of an empire in decline?

By the way...have you noticed that the Moral High Ground Stakes are portable?

Posted by: bobbywally | Jan 13, 2005 4:06:31 PM

Posted by: chainlink

I've noticed the tendency elsewhere, and the conversation here provides a good example it: whereas the Left once claimed that the point was not to study the world but to change it, Leftist discourse seems often now not even to pretend to be about "changing the world." It drifts compulsively to the issue of how much responsibility can dance on the head of a pin. What is this "responsibility" that it likes so much to talk about? To whom, exactly, does it conceive itself as "responding?"

Frankly0 writes: "To most people it's pretty obvious that, in most cases, one is not equally responsible for what happens if one does not interfere in a situation as one is."

Where does this hygienic approach to world affairs come from? Why has this weirdly metaphysical conception of "responsibility" become so characteristic of the Left?

My guess is that it is spin invented to disguise the Left's powerlessness in the world: okay, it says, we don't affect anything--but that's only because we want to keep our hands clean.

Posted by: chainlink | Jan 13, 2005 4:14:25 PM

Posted by: Lancelot Finn

I oppose torture. That's why I support the war in Iraq. Saddam practiced torture, and murder, on a far larger and crueler scale than the US army did in the aftermath of the war.

That Saddam was worse is not a justification for what US soldiers did. And yet there's something deeply absurd and disturbing about anyone using the practice of torture by US forces as a justification, or even as part of a justification, for opposing the war. Such an argument is clearly not motivated by a desire that Iraqis are not victims of torture, since far worse atrocities were a constant feature of Saddam's regime throughout his 35-year rule. Instead, the argument is motivated by a desire that *we not be involved,* that at least *our hands are clean.* I call this the "Pontius Pilate solution." (see this article: http://www.lancelotfinn.com/kerry_nixon_partners_crime.htm )

My reaction to the Abu Ghraib scandal is on my website here: http://www.lancelotfinn.com/Bringing_Neoconservatism_Home.htm

Posted by: Lancelot Finn | Jan 13, 2005 4:14:56 PM

Posted by: Mark

Mr. Cohen says:

"As for acknowledging responsibility for Sadaam Hussein's atrocities: I regret not having raised my voice against US support for the regime when Hussein was gassing the Kurds, and the US could have done something about it."

This is an intersting admission. He seems to endorse the principle that one should be responsible for the reasonably foreseeable outcomes of one's position. But notice that simply a failure to raise one's voice is grounds for criticism. This seems like a fairly low standard; many anti-war leftists, including leftist academics, voiced opinions that Saddam's fascist regime be left in place, thereby endorsing a (reasonably foreseeable) situation of continued mass torture, genocide and enslavement of Iraqis.

So why does Mr. Cohen let himself off the hook in this situation? Or is his shame so great that he cannot bear a public exhibition of it?

He has, so far, avoided the main issue.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 4:16:50 PM

Posted by: cirdan

Mark, in response to:
"Any alternative to the war which sought the removal of Saddam's fascist regime with the implementation of democracy would be subject to evaluation as above: how reasonable was it to suppose that this would happen outside of a war? If you want to argue that anti-war leftists had a reasonable alternative here, then do so; please provide appropriately dated pre-war links"

I suggest that:
There were good reasons to suppose that war was not necessary to achieve legitimate US policy goals. But let’s be clear about the quality of moral responsibility here. There’s a difference in the moral quality of anti-war and pro-war acts, as franklyO has pointed out above.

In response to your challenge, here's a 28 page paper dating from 2002, courtesy of the Kroc Institute for peace studies.

The strategy advocated is ‘Containment Plus’ [their term]. It would have involved various sorts of boring, routine, bureaucratic multi-lateral stuff, but it just might have avoided a war.

Specific recommendations include:
-Improved border monitoring
-Establishing sanctions assistance missions.
‘the task of monitoring shipments into Iraq would be a substantial challenge, but it would be less difficult than inspecting the large volume of trade that crosses the U.S.-Mexico border ever day…’[p. 15]
-Engagement with Iraq’s trade partners to gain their support for the embargo.
-Exposure of Arms embargo violators
-Eradicate kickbacks through improved oil-pricing mechanisms.
-Require audited financial Reports from Oil purchasers
-Control or shut down the Syria pipeline
-Strengthening Deterrence.
‘While it is clear that nonstate actors such as al Qaeda cannot be deterred by conventional methods, nation states such as Iraq are a different matter. By their very nature, they seek to survive and to accumulate and preserve power.’ [p.20]

Finally, ‘if deterrence could succeed against a superpower like the Soviet Union, it can surely work against a weakened and impoverished country like Iraq.’ [p.21]

So, good eveidence that measures short of war could have achieved legitimate US policy goals. Alternatively, good evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no longer posed a threat to its neighbours, and was not actively supporting terrorist activity. The humanitarian crisis was grave but might have solved given political will.
What,then, say you?

Posted by: cirdan | Jan 13, 2005 4:18:28 PM

Posted by: CDC

Shag, "At some point those who supported Bush Jr. will say, "If only I knew ...." But don't expect it; they will rationalize that it was worth it to get rid of Saddam, so long as they did not shed blood, lives or limbs, but got the benefit of tax cuts. There are not enough swords for these people to fall upon."

That would be me. The best information we had is that we had a choice of two terrible options. We chose the one that we expected to be the least bad. I still expect it to be the least bad. We still have incomplete information so I'm not sure. Anyone who is should be congratulated on his omniscience.

Josua Cohen, "What all our loss and pain and expense in the Iraqi invasion has actually proved is that the weapons inspections worked,that international sanctions - deeply, deeply messy as they turned out to be - worked, and that in the case of Saddam Hussein, the United Nations worked. Whatever the Hussein regime once had is gone because the international community insisted. It was all destroyed a decade ago, under world pressure."

If anyone - including the NYT - had confirmation of that information at the time, I missed it.

While we are at it, let's refight Overlord. There was obviously no need to send the Rangers to die at Point du Loc. There were no 88s in place. And we lost a lot of good paratroopers because the prep bombing was much too deep.Ike and Bradley should have been stood against the for relying on their best judgement and faulty intel.

There is nothing easier than "woulda, shoulda, coulda".

Posted by: CDC | Jan 13, 2005 4:23:44 PM

Posted by: Terrier

Mark, still talking hypothetical torture? Would you care to condemn the real thing? Why do you let yourself off the hook in this situation? Is your shame so great that you cannot bear a public exhibition of it?

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 4:23:49 PM

Posted by: Mark

Cirdan,

I note that the report is directed to secure the interests of the US in assuring that Iraq divests itself of, or ceases pursuit of, WMDs. It does not seem to make the case for regime removal (see containment, etc). If you want to establish that the anti-war left put forward a reasonable alternative to war for the removal of Saddam's fascist regime, you will have to look elsewhere.

Terrier, at least make some attempt to engage with my arguments by making your own counter-arguments. It's a waste of time to do otherwise.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 4:42:03 PM

Posted by: tom perkins

Terrier, I'm glad you know that the far largest share of blame to any individual (other than Saddam) goes to Clinton. The current President squarely described Clinton's strategy, and I paraphrase, "as shooting a $5 million dollar missile at an empty $5 tent and hitting a camel in the butt."

The sky frequently is blue.

I did add something to this debate, the specific fact that the Clinton administration (and by extensions leftists) felt that 250,000 Iraqi lives per year was an acceptable price to pay for the status quo ante to continue.

Relative to that, I am quite comfortable with the equivalent share of blame that might be assigned to me against my supporting the conclusion of the Gulf War.

Compare and contrast the speculative 250,000 per year since 1991 with the speculative 100,000 for one year, maybe two. I contend it would be one or the other, so which is better?

No I would not like to personally condemn torture. Someday I may need to do it. Unlike such an unabashed leftist as, for example, Alan Dershowitz--who wanted to have the government endorse the "only following orders" defense by issuing torture warrants; I am comfortable saying those who torture should face a fully informed jury of their peers and be judged thereby. I do not believe it should be legalized. For example, the officer who "tortured" a just captured Iraqi fighter for information about an ambush the officer's men then avoided, I'd give that guy a thumbs up. The thumbs up that England was giving in the photo should have earned her and her officers long stints at Leavenworth--on top of which, many of the prisoner's she and colleagues were abusing were common street criminals--they had no information. Stupidity as well as depravity should have a higher price, and so should the command of such things.

I do believe that some of what has been done to Iraqi, Taliban, and alQaeda prisoners is torture. I believe much of it is not. D.A. Ridgely has a good point that inflating every uncomfortable thing done to our prisoners to the level of "torture" cheapens the word, misdescribes the behavior, and lessens the rhetorical effectiveness of the person using the word.

I do blame the Administration for failing to find hardly any officers or agents above the rank of Sgt. who knew or should have known about the abuse--but I don't really think there's much of any recourse to be had on that point--not for the effort of having it.

I also do not believe the alQaeda prisoners are POWs. The closest any international law comes to cover them, IFAIK, is that they should be treated as pirates and killed out of hand or tortured for information as seems useful. The only concern I have concerning alQaeda detainees being tortured is for the humanity of the torturers.

The Talban certainly are POW's, and if they are obeying the rules of war (but they're usually not) the Iraqi's are POWs. I am ashamed of the Adminstration for fudging these distinctions when they clearly, to me, are in fact clear.

I wonder if you have something to add to the debate besides short posts which are still long enough to be inherently self-contradictory?

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp

Posted by: tom perkins | Jan 13, 2005 4:54:50 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

I would respond to Pedro as follows: I don’t deny the existence of psychological torture, but neither do I consider humiliation, per se, or the mere breaking of some taboos to count as torture. I have never advocated the inhumane treatment of prisoners in general. My point was and remains what I personally would condone if it turned out to be an effective interrogation technique. I stand by that. Comparing taboo foods to rape is precisely the sort of “it’s all the same” mindset I wish to argue against. Reasonable people may think I’m wrong about this specific example, but it is unreasonable to call every tactic which might actually be useful precisely because the interrogatee wishes to avoid it to be torture.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Jan 13, 2005 5:09:45 PM

Posted by: Terrier

Thanks, tom perkins, sounded like a condemnation of (most) torture to me. As for Mark, I made an argument that you have never responded to, there is a big difference between hypothetical responsibility and real responsibility. You keep criticizing people for hypothetical responsibility and not responding about real responsibility. If you will not answer me at least quit harping about what did not happen.

Posted by: Terrier | Jan 13, 2005 5:11:10 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

Mr. Cohen writes: I confess that I was distracted throughout the period by American policy in Central America.

Gawd, that's good!

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Jan 13, 2005 5:11:12 PM

Posted by: BigMacAttack

'Participants in the exchange on "Kidnapping, Renditions, and Torture" who are "attempt[ing] to belittle what had gone on, or ma[king] facile arguments that such things always occur in wartime" ought to have the decency to follow Andrew Sullivan to the mirror.'

I couldn't find a single comment in the thread for Kidnapping, Renditions, and Torture that matched the above description.

Could someone point out such a comment? Multiple comments from different sources?

Posted by: BigMacAttack | Jan 13, 2005 5:24:56 PM

Posted by: CDC

D.A.Ridgely: When in doubt, blame Reagan.

Posted by: CDC | Jan 13, 2005 5:42:21 PM

Posted by: CDC

In an earlier post I intended to say, "Ike and Bradley should have been stood against the wall and shot for relying on their best judgement and faulty intel."

While I'm at it I'll add Marshall, Stimson and FDR. Why not? With our God-like powers of retrospection we condemn Myers, Rumsfeld and Bush for less.

Posted by: CDC | Jan 13, 2005 6:37:58 PM

Posted by: Mark

Terrier,

Mr. Cohen seeks to apportion blame for the consequences of the prison abuse and torture spawned by the Iraq war. He does so by alleging that these things were predictable. This engages the concept of reasonable foreseeability; war supporters (such as myself) should be responsible for things that they should reasonably have predicted. I agreed with the principle, and used it against him, arguing that his condemnation of Iraqis to continued enslavement, mass torture and genocide deserves equal, if not more, shame under his own principle. He tacitly conceded this, but has inexplicably avoided making a public declaration of his shame. Arguing that the regime ended and thus you needn't admit responsibility for attempting to succor it is no defence, because it ended despite your attempts to prevent such end, and contrary to your preferences.

As for my own responsibility, I have said before (on various WoC threads) that as a war supporter I must take responsibility for all reasonably foreseeable consequences of the liberation and occupation. I am willing to listen to arguments that some amount of abuse and unneccessary suffering of innocent Iraqis by Coalitoin troops was foreseeable prior to the war. War is ugly, messy, violent and terrible; it will invariably provoke the most savage responses in men; these things should be expected, if lamented.

However, I have yet to see a single anti-war leftist take equivalent responsibility for seeking to prolong the rule of Saddam's brutal fascist regime. No recitation from Iraqis, no unearthing of mass graves, no video of routine state torture, no account of terror-rape or routine execution, is enough to elicit acknowledgement from anti-war leftists that they would have condemned Iraqis to thier fate. Mr. Cohen is no exception, and neither are you.

Again, if you're going to hold up the mirror, have the courage to look in it yourself.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 6:42:00 PM

Posted by: Steve Burton

BigMacAttack: thank's for stealing my point. I can't find a single such comment either.

But perhaps I'm biased, since I participated in that thread - and might even be one of those whom Mr. Cohen had in mind.

It may be that when someone questions whether there is an obvious causal connection between the (very briefly) Rumsfeld-approved "24 methods" and the sort of stuff that went on at Abu Ghraib (among other places), Mr. Cohen sees/hears an attempt to "belittle" genuine torture.

I would hope that he's above such crude mistakes - but without much confidence, since there's a lot of that sort of thing about these days. More's the pity.

Posted by: Steve Burton | Jan 13, 2005 6:43:32 PM

Posted by: pedro

Actually, American policy in Central America was atrocious in the early 1980's. I do blame Reagan for quite a bit. I guess the battle over the 'hearts and minds' of Central Americans failed to impress me & many fellow Guatemalans in the least bit. Mr. Reagan's insensitive remarks in defence of tyrant Rios Montt, as well as his support of the genocidal Guatemalan army, never cease to amaze me, especially in the light of the kind of intelligence that declassified CIA documents have shown he had access to--including letters from his own ambassador to Guatemala.

D.A. Ridgely: you seem to derive, from my mention of rape in my comment, that I compare taboo foods to rape. I did not intend to imply that being forced to eat something is necessarily akin to rape (though I can think of some instances in which being forced to eat something might actually be comparable). I simply intended to remark that there's a difference between doing something and being forced to do something. Making a pyramid can be quite fun for cheerleaders, as some glorious conservative pundits have hammered on recently in the public airways, but that does not mean that it is great fun to be forced to be part of a pyramid of naked men. Performing fellatio may indeed be fun for many people, but certainly not being forced to do so. And so on.

Besides, even the most innocuous (in the abstract) of mistreatments (sleep deprivation) can be used quite effectively to torment people. You would be amazed to learn all the things that torturers (or abusers) have learned about the human condition in their sadistic experiments in Latin American cells (just to give an example). I wonder if it is perhaps the fact that I have seen the effects of torture on family members that makes me far less inclined to toy with the idea of legally admitting a slightly larger chunk of the continuum of degrees of humiliation, until getting reasonably close to torture, and labeling everything in between 'abuse'. It is rather remarkable how the wounds of physical torture are sometimes less grave than the wounds of psychological torture.

What I object to is the kind of a priori dismissal of claims that certain tactics can ever constitute torture. Something like "Ah! Dogs? Only sissies are scared of dogs! Come on!", "Pyramids? Cheerleaders have a lot of fun in America making pyramids", etc. Food? Never underestimate the ability of sadists to find ways of tormenting prisoners. Besides, never underestimate the weigh of religious beliefs on the conscience of people.

Alternatives? Be humane, and treat prisoners with dignity. It's not only a priori just as likely to give you good intelligence; it's also the right thing to do.

Disclaimer: I really don't mean to come across in any way as lambasting Mr. Ridgely, for whom, I insist, I have nothing but respect. I find you, Mr. Ridgely, a very fine human being, and quite the peace-maker on these threads. So please forgive me if my writing is much too passionate about these matters. I would never imply that you condone abuse. I simply advocate a policy of zero-tolerance for any sort of abuse, and I do not advocate loosening the definition of appropriate interrogation techniques.

Posted by: pedro | Jan 13, 2005 7:18:43 PM

Posted by: Josh Jasper

A shorter conservative response to the systematic use of induced pain, sexual humiliation of prisoners, and flat out torture:

"The ends justify the means."

I mean, really. That's what y'all belive in the when it comes down to it, right? "History will look kindly upon the Iraq War"? That's not a justification, it's a prediction. History has yet to look kindly on the Vietnam war either.

If history does look kindly on the Iraq war, it won't be written by current day Iraqis. The majority of them hate us now more than ever. And these people have long memories. They have memories longer than there has been an America.

Sure, our history may view it kindly, if Bush & company are the ones writing the history books. Which may well happen.

In Japan, the rape of Nanking is ignored by history books. In America, who knows what will be ignored in the future.

Posted by: Josh Jasper | Jan 13, 2005 7:27:32 PM

Posted by: Steve Burton

By the way...is it just me? Or has anyone else noticed Andrew Sullivan's utter, abject failure to substantiate his main point? - i.e., the alleged causal connection between (1) the actions of higher-ups in the Bush administration and (2) the reported cases of genuine abuse and/or torture out there in the field?

Reading and re-reading his NYT piece, I simply can't detect any serious argument to that effect.

His web-log...punts. It refers me to the supposedly brilliant insights of another blogger, who is pretty much demolished in his own comments section but who doesn't bother to respond.

If there is a serious case to be made here, I want to read it. But I'm just not getting it. Not from Mr. Cohen, not from Sully - not from anybody.

Oh, and by the way: Sullivan's characterization (on his website) of Heather MacDonald's City Journal piece as a "defense of torture" is truly low and contemptible. Shame on him.

Posted by: Steve Burton | Jan 13, 2005 7:31:34 PM

Posted by: Steve Burton

Josh Jasper: who here do you imagine that you are arguing with? What conservative contributing to this site has endorsed "systematic use of induced pain, sexual humiliation of prisoners, and flat out torture?"

Posted by: Steve Burton | Jan 13, 2005 7:56:24 PM

Posted by: David

Mark:

I think you (and some other posters) are perhaps to quick to conclude that the foreseeable consequences of no intervention should be morally equated with the foreseeable consequences of intervention. What is at issue is moral responsibility or blame. Moral responsibility is far more complicated than you make it. Simply because my action or inaction results in a certain foreseeable consequence does not mean that I can be morally blamed for those consequences--at least, it doesn't to a non-utilitarian like myself. There may be something qualitatively different about failure to intervene and intervention. Indeed, I think there is.

In rights-based moral theories, there is often talk of positive rights and negative rights. Negative rights are rights that prohibit certain action by others. Positive rights are rights that require affirmative action by others--that require another to act. Perhaps an illustration will make the distinction clear. Suppose a man is standing at the foot of a cliff. And imagine a person standing at the top of the cliff with a large boulder, as well as another person down below, somewhere near the man standing at the foot of the cliff. The man at the foot of the cliff (most would say) has a negative right that the person above not push the boulder off and cause it to land on the man. The man might also have a positive right that the nearby observer yell "Get out of the way!!!" as he saw the boulder being push off the cliff.

But, positive rights are very different (and more limited) than negative rights. For instance, I think it is morally correct to say that it is wrong to kill one innocent person to save other innocent person's life. Indeed, I would say it's wrong to kill five innocent people for this purpose. So, it's not simply a matter of adding up the foreseeable burdens and benefits of a certain action or inaction and comparing the two. Inaction, even when it allows the continuation of harm or evil, may be morally proper when the only way of mitigating the harm or evil is through the violation of innocent people's negative rights.

Of course, we need to agree on some matters in moral theory before we are expected to agree on our moral assessment of this war. We need to develop normative principles that inform how we should act or omit to act when both alternatives would lead to harm. As someone who subscribes to a contractualist moral theory, I do think that we have duties to help others (and thus something like positive rights), but I do not think that I am obliged to help others when this can only be done by seriously harming myself or other innocent people. (It would be silly to say that I have a duty to kill myself so that others may live.) Basically, if I imagine a hypothetical contract to which all rational persons would commit in order to establish a system of cooperation that works to their mutual advantage, I don't think any rational person would commit to a cooperative agreement that required that level of sacrifice. Negative rights (or something similar) would obviously be part of the agreement. But, if the purpose of the agreement is to improve my life, I would not commit to any agreement that required me to be worse off than I would be in the absence of any agreement. Okay, I'm starting to ramble now and should stop. But, I just wanted to raise that issue in defense of Prof. Cohen.

I assume you can see how this applies to the question we're considering, so I won't carry out the analysis (but will if requested). Of course, I realize that the pre-war situation in Iraq was cause for real moral concern. But, my failure to intervene (or support intervention politically) does not mean that I am morally responsible for all the atrocities that would have happened in the absence of intervention. If my only way of preventing the ongoing mistreatment would be killing innocent people, my inaction might be justified--in which case I am not morally to blame for the ongoing mistreatment by Saddam. But, it's not all that simple; there may have been ways of helping that did not involve killing innocent people or otherwise destroying their lives. Anyway, I may say more later, but I have to go now.

Posted by: David | Jan 13, 2005 8:51:37 PM

Posted by: Sam

War supporters have a real problem. Not only have the primary justifications for the war proven to be empirically false (no WMD, no operational contacts with bin Laden) but the secondary, fall-back justification that somehow our invasion was going to be better for Iraqis is also now coming a cropper. It is absurd to get into comparative body counts; and it is obvious that events of the past year and a half have been horrendous. I am one of those who strongly suspects that we are on a glide path to civil war and years and years of death and destruction in Iraq. Call me a pessimist - pessimism has surely been closer to the truth than the optimism in virtually all things about this war. And, then, to top it all off, we have also sullied ourselves with torture. Torture is morally abhorrent, perhaps on that we can all agree. But it also has virtually no practical effect. What have we gained from the torture we have inflicted? How much useful information have we extracted from innocent Iraqis? When you consider the political ramifications of our debased international standing (how can we credibly now turn to China and complain of its human rights record?), torture has surely hurt us more than it has helped us. And it gets worse. The defense department is floating the idea that our support of death squads in El Salvador (and I believe it was support on our part) was somehow "successful" and maybe applicable to our new quagmire in Iraq. So, get in line war supporters, the next argument to be made is not merely the defense of torture, but terroristic murder of innocents as well.

Posted by: Sam | Jan 13, 2005 8:52:14 PM

Posted by: Jay Cline

If you are going to hold up the mirror, you better explain what kind of mirror you are using. For Joshua Cohen to claim that the incidents of torture "were everywhere" and then imply that torture was ubiquitous and widespread is a bit like saying that since every day someone in every state is victimized by assault, rape or murder, then America must be a lawless society.

It has been my impression, admittedly gleaned strictly from the evening news, that the total number of American soldiers and civilians participating in these atrocities numbers in the dozens. Given that there are 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq, that translates into less than one tenth of one percent.

Should those who bear responsibility for these acts be prosecuted and be punished to the full extent of the law? Absolutely. But I see no reason to dilute this responsibility to the policy makers and the American public at large. I have never subscribed to the notion of guilt merely by association <*gads! I sound like a traditional left-wing liberal!*>

Regardless of what Sullivan, Cohen et al believe, when I read headlines of someone within my community being victimized, I don't feel guilt; I feel anger at those who committed the crimes. And I fully support the law enforcement and county court community as they do their jobs.

Posted by: Jay Cline | Jan 13, 2005 9:02:44 PM

Posted by: Mark

Sam, you say: "but the secondary, fall-back justification that somehow our invasion was going to be better for Iraqis is also now coming a cropper. It is absurd to get into comparative body counts."

First, the humanitarian and democratizing argument for intervention was made by the Administration prior to the war. Your mischaracterization of it as "secondary" is dismissive but revealing. Second, you provide no evidence that events overturn the original argument for liberation. Third, "comparative body counts" form a legitimate part of utilitarian justifications.

David,

Pointing out that there may be deontological arguments against the war is interesting, but not determinative of the issue. I can propose just as valid deontological arguments for the war. The difficulty for rights-based moral theories, as you no doubt are aware, is that there is no indisputable method to select between competing moral principles. If you believe there is a deontological argument against the war, I am quite willing to listen to it; I suspect I'd have counter-arguments to make. But I'm not sure any of this will assist Mr. Cohen in extricating himself from the problem in which he's enmeshed, given that he's deployed the reasonable foreseeability concept to condemn war supporters: he can either abandon the principle, or find himself condemned by it along with his opponents.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 9:18:04 PM

Posted by: Untenured Republican

I'm puzzled. What makes you all think that there were no conservative opponents to the war? I was one. There were several in the media also (Pat Buchanan, his magazine, presumably its subscribers). As for the summertime patriots, one family of them, three blocks from my house, lost their son. Their patriotism is still intact as far as I know. I suspect, also, that they desperately want to believe that he died for something worthy. Ending the war now does little for *them*.

Posted by: Untenured Republican | Jan 13, 2005 9:33:26 PM

Posted by: Jack Rack the young sailor man

"I did add something to this debate, the specific fact that the Clinton administration (and by extensions leftists) felt that 250,000 Iraqi lives per year was an acceptable price to pay for the status quo ante to continue"

Do you have a cite for that number? That's 684 people a day. I know they have found some mass graves, but nothing with 100's of thousands. My problem is that our WMD intelligence was all wrong. We know a lot of it came from ex-patriots that were manipulating us into this thing. So how hyped was all this talk of torture and genocide? We know there was some when Saddam was our ally and after, but I'm not trusting any of it anymore.Fool me once, don't get fooled again. I saw a female reporter on Charlie Rose a few years ago who was in the Kurdish regions and she was saying that it was the golden age for them being in the northern no fly zone. Saddam wasn't killing anyone up there.
Have you pro-war rightists thought this moral absolutism all the way through? Last year the UN estimated that 14 million people face starvation in Africa. Are we obligated to try and save all them? If we are, we really have to rescind those tax cuts. Personally I'ld rather feed people then fight them. It would probably make us safer with the effects of the good will.

Posted by: Jack Rack the young sailor man | Jan 13, 2005 9:38:22 PM

Posted by: Sam

Mark,

It strikes me as naive in the extreme to believe that the administration conceived of the invasion of Iraq as primarily an instance of humanitarian intervention before the fact. There are, of course, many places around the world where humanitarian intervention might be a good thing. Central Africa would appear to me to have had an even greater claim on the humanitarian concerns of the Bush administration, if, indeed, it was humanitarianism they were really concerned about. But it was not about humanitarianism. It was a matter of power (defending the "unipolar moment" - a favorite neocon trope - and US "primacy"). The WMD and terrorist connections were largely invented by Rumsfeld and Co. (who "stovepiped" the intelligence they wanted) or, at best, fundamentally misperceived by them: they saw what they wanted to see in order to use the force they wanted to use. In any event, these men - Rumsfled, Wolfowitz - did not, at other crucial moments in their long political careers, evince much worry about "humanitarian intervention" - that was a liberal concept, after all! Their late-in-life conversions are forced and unbelievable, at least to me.

As for events overturning liberation, the appauling daily death toll is evidence enough. Do you read Juan Cole? He gives us some of the story (please do not respond with ad hominem, that has been the right's only real response to him). I am not a consequentialist: the level of death and destruction is quite enough to convince me that we have created a bad situation. We have exchanged a bad for a bad, and it looks like things are only getting worse.

Posted by: Sam | Jan 13, 2005 9:41:46 PM

Posted by: Gamecock

How can so many people disregard individual responsibility when discussing the prison abuse scandal? Blaming people within the administration is utterly absurd. If you subscribe to this "blame game" type mentality, then every failure and achievement can ultimately be accredited to someone else. This abuse was a simple, and yes, isolated incident in which the culprits will be, and in some cases have been, punished. To delve any deeper into this old story is futile.

Posted by: Gamecock | Jan 13, 2005 9:46:10 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

Pedro: Your points are well taken and my original point, though I stick by its main thrust, was made in a glib and supercilious manner. To that extent, you had every right to call me to task.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Jan 13, 2005 9:46:36 PM

Posted by: Gamecock

Just a side note, but do you really want to use the ratherism "main thrust" anymore? Just thought it was funny.

Posted by: Gamecock | Jan 13, 2005 9:55:52 PM

Posted by: Mark

Sam,

Referring to other situations that require intervention on human rights principles does not defeat the argument for Iraq as a human rights case. HRW even conceded this point, but it should be obvious on consideration of some basic logic alone. And arguing that the administration didn't invade on human rights grounds is simply false. Negating the humanitarian and democratizing arguments is a transparent attempt to avoid their force.

"As for events overturning liberation, the appauling daily death toll is evidence enough. Do you read Juan Cole? He gives us some of the story (please do not respond with ad hominem, that has been the right's only real response to him). I am not a consequentialist: the level of death and destruction is quite enough to convince me that we have created a bad situation. We have exchanged a bad for a bad, and it looks like things are only getting worse."

I'm sure there's an argument in this jumble, but you'll have to be more explicit. I read Juan Cole frequently; if I didn't, would it strengthen or weaken your argument? Juan Cole is comfortable academic who consumes (biased) western and arabic media; he's hardly more informed than you or I. I suggest you read Iraqi weblogs for a better understanding of events on the ground; they tend to be less pessimistic than most non-Iraqi observers. I'm sure this has nothing to do with their experience of Saddam's regime up close.

Are you suggesting that things were better under Saddam? Where is your evidence for this? Please provide links. Death tolls aren't enough; comparative death tolls would help, but you haven't provided any. It would help if you didn't assume that your audience was telepathic.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 10:30:34 PM

Posted by: CDC

Sam: "War supporters have a real problem. Not only have the primary justifications for the war proven to be empirically false (no WMD,..."

All available intel told us that Sadaam had WMDs. He certainly behaved as if he had them. International terrorists operated openly out of Iraq. Sadaam supported terrorists and operated terrorist training camps. He flaunted the sanctions. Osama hinted that he had access to WMDs. After 911 the mass murder of Americans was no longer the stuff of Swarzenegger movies and Tom Clancey potboilers. We made a decision in an imperfect information environment.

A brief thought experiment concerning, say, ten large cities and anthrax illustrates the fact that the potential downside to leaving Sadaam in place was unacceptable. The probability of realizing that downside looked high. Given the information we had, I believe that toppling Sadaam was the thing to do.

"...no operational contacts with bin Laden).."

Did we know that at the time? Do we even know that now? He had many very bad people operating under his protection. There are reports of high level contacts with al Qaeda.

"...but the secondary, fall-back justification that somehow our invasion was going to be better for Iraqis is also now coming a cropper."

I doubt that. We will see.

Posted by: CDC | Jan 13, 2005 10:41:13 PM

Posted by: Sam

Mark,

OK, I'll play along on your terms for the fun of it. So, here's a question for you: why did Bush choose to invade when he did? Would he have invaded at all had 9/11 not happened? If you are going to argue that the answer the the latter question is "yes," then we should stop right there because your rationalizations will be taking you off the steepest of historical cliffs.

It was only after 9/11 that Iraq rose to the top of the foreign policy agenda. And why was that? Because Bush, et al. felt they had to "do something" more than just blow up the Taliban. Iraqi atrocities toward the Kurds were old, old news, ignored by "realist" conservatives for years - at least back in the days when conservatives were still realists. It was only the WMD link to bin Laden, ficticious as it turned out, that moved Bush. But, I can see, this is an article of faith for you, so I will not pursue it.

As for Juan Cole, you can only say he is "biased." I guess his problem is that he reads Arabic and actually knows what is being said by Iraqis. He is certainly more informed than you or I. And, yes, I do read English-language Iraqi blogs. "Optimistic" is not a word I would use to describe Riverbend. But, I guess she, as everyone who disagrees with you, is biased, too.

Finally, the final canard of trying to tie the "he believes things were better under Saddam" sign to my rear for all to kick is really rather sophomoric. The point is things are going badly in Iraq. Many innocent people have been killed by the war we started, and more are killed every day. And it's not just me and Juan Cole who are biased in this regard. The wild eyed radical Financial Times is quoting the blame-America-first Secretary of State, Colin Powell as saying "we're losing." http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ff15191c-6507-11d9-9f8b-00000e2511c8.html

Posted by: Sam | Jan 13, 2005 11:06:18 PM

Posted by: Tony

Responsibility?

Everyone is talking about responsibility. The left is responsible, the right is responsible, Andrew Sullivan is responsible, yadda yadda yadda.

What is responsibility? It is the assumption of consequences for your actions. If you hit a car and you are responsible for the accident, you pay for the damage. If you kill someone and are responsible, you go to jail.

What are any of the parties mentioned here actually responsible for? NOTHING WHATSOEVER. All their lives continue, more or less, as if nothing had happened. At most, they have to eat crow for being "wrong".

That's not responsibility. There is nothing anyone on US soil today is experiencing that comes even close to responsibility. Please, let's stop using this word in such a transparently glib and incorrect way.

Posted by: Tony | Jan 13, 2005 11:13:39 PM

Posted by: Sam

CDC,

All available intel suggested that we could not prove that they did not have WMDs. In this case, the double negative is not the same as a positive. We did not know, at a reasonable level of certainty, that they did have WMDs. It was insufficient to justify the war. Although war supporters do not want to accept it, UN inspectors were making progress before the war. The more coercive environment (which I will give Bush some credit for helping to create) was allowing Blix and co. to move about more widely and work through their lists. But Bush did not trust the UN. It had to be US war against Iraq. And so we got a war that has created a good deal of chaos. Objectively, there was little threat of those thought experiments being true. It is not the President's job to wage unnecessary war based on thought experiments and incomplete intelligence drawn from a narrow base of unreliable sources; it is his job to discen when a threat is real and when it is not, and Bush failed at that. And, to boot, the White House counsel wrote the memos that denigrated the "quaint" Geneva Conventions and authorized torture.

Posted by: Sam | Jan 13, 2005 11:19:00 PM

Posted by: Mark

Sam,

Juan Cole reads lots of stuff. We all do. He has his biases just like everyone else. I'm sure he's a smart fellow, but he sits in no more privileged position than do you or I. If you want to defer to his opinion, then do so, but don't expect that this qualifies him as an expert. For every Riverbend, there's an Iraqthemodel, or the Mesopotamian, or Roadofanation; I like to read as many as I can. They all have criticisms and biases, but to pretend Juan Cole has a better understanding of the situation in Iraq than actual Iraqis is laughable.

I'm not going to try to argue that things are going swimmingly in Iraq. If you are not trying to claim that things were better in Iraq under Saddam, then we are in agreement.

The remainder of your post seems to be speculation. I'll leave you to divine the "real motivations" for liberation. I will attend to actual arguments made at the time, the alternatives, such as they were, the information available prior to the war, the reasonably foreseeably consequences, and developments since.

Posted by: Mark | Jan 13, 2005 11:31:07 PM

Posted by: Mona

Sam, Juan Cole is less reliable than the more intelligent Iraqi bloggers. The fellows at Iraq the Model have had to set Dr