TheAgitator.com
It’s a War on War
Monday, September 8th, 2003The libertarian meltdown over the continuing occupation of Iraq continues.
Randy Barnett responds to his critics here, here and here. And Tyler Cowen weighs in here. Keith Halderman responds to Barnett’s response here. David Beito responds here. And Gene Healy responds to Barnett and Cowen here and here, respectively.
If, after all of that, you’re still interested in my thoughts, I have just a few:
I think the best criticism of Barnett comes from Beito, who pointed out that it’s odd that such an eloquent critic of central planning such as Barnett would exempt the State Department and the Pentagon from his disdain for top-down government ordering.
Barnett’s response to this criticism sort of missed the point — he countered that simply because the State Department and Pentagon are coercive monopolies doesn’t mean that everything they do is bad. But that wasn’t Beito’s criticism. Beito’s crticism was that — as Gene Healy has also noted in the comments section of this site — it’s more than a little disengenuous to say that the federal government isn’t competent enough to, for example, manage AFDC or education or Social Security, but that it is capable of rebuilding from scratch an entire country — particularly one with no tradition of the necessary sustaining institutions to preserve a liberal democracy.
Worse, if you believe that neocons are dictating foreign policy, we’re not merely attempting to build an entire country, but the entire Middle East.
Libertarians rightly believe that on the domestic front, government meddling rarely acheives its stated ends, that it usually makes things worse, and that it inevitably effects all sorts of nasty and unintended consequences.
I can’t understand why some of us then jump ship when it comes to foreign policy, and believe that if we just spend enough money, send over enough guns, and hire enough smart people to do all the planning, we can create a functioning, liberal, civil democracy out of whole cloth, topple theocracies where there’s no desire for democracy, and generally change the hearts and minds of millions of people at the point of gun.
It’s just not going to happen, gang. And lots more people are going to die while we try.
Exactly right. Conservatives rightly decry social engineering in America as useless at best, then suddenly think that precisely the same social engineering will work 10,000 miles away in Iraq.
I’ve actually made up a list I call “the 10 stages of social engineering” I will post here this week (too exhausted right now). Right now in Iraq we’re between stage 4 (failure of denial despite all evidence to contrary) and stage 5 (pleas for patience and more resources — what I call the “it’s not working, let’s do more of it” stage.)
My favorite is stage 9, where the originators of the social engineering lose interest in their own idea. Andrew Sullivan is at that stage already.
Ok, once again, Radley, why do you think Bush took us to war? You obviously do not think it was the correct decision and will jump on any misfortune possible to prove your case from the mountain top, but then what do you think was his motivation?
I supported the war, with reservations.
The more time has passed since the “end of major combat” and the more I belatedly read the non-psycho antiwar folks, I find my support waning and eroding. Bush’s we will spend what is necessary line is the current shocker for me.
Radley,
I think some of us libertarians want the government to try to create a functioning, liberal, civil democracy in Iraq (and the Middle East) for the same reasons that we want it to create and enforce domestic laws: Because it’s necessary for the survival of liberty and there don’t seem to be any private institutions that can do it.
We think it’s possible because our view of human nature tells us that people everywhere are basically similar; they want to be free if given the chance and understanding of political liberty, and they can overcome cultural obstacles to achieve it.
Eastern European leaders seem to understand market economies better than Western European leaders do.
That didn’t take long.
Apparently you don’t think much of liberty Gil. It was up to us to overthrow Saddam (and entangle ourselves in a briar patch) for “the survival of liberty”? (I love the melodramatic lengths people will go to in order to make a point).
A comparison of eastern Europe to Iraq (or anyplace in the middle east ) is like comparing apples and…….. snowshoes. Is the difference too subtle for you to recognize or did you think that maybe, just maybe, you could slide that one past us? We’ve “liberated” Afghanistan Gil, perhaps you’d like to entertain us with examples of how they’ve overcome cultural obstacles to achieve liberty? You’re not going to see an unveiled woman outside of Kabul (and not many inside of it) and the most powerful military in the world is too prudent to venture (on the ground) more than 50 miles outside of the capital. Where do the warlords fit in your grandiose notions of liberation?
Considering the lives and gold these foreign adventures are costing us I can’t imagine what wing of the Libertarian Party you’re associated with. Do tell.
Gil,
You sure you’re a libertarian?
This is not meant to be rhetorical or defensive but rather devil’s advocate-ish, concerning your comment “where there’s no desire for democracy”, is it possible that the reason there is no desire for democracy is that they have not the idea or concept of democracy? Could it be that their sense of indiviualism has been quashed for so long by tyrants such as Saddam and the Taliban that they no longer know what it really means to be free or self ruling? If I’m not mistaken, they have never known.
I am not saying that this is the case, but I am asking, couldn’t it be possible and who are we to assume?
(I have become so idealistic that it’s disgusting.)
I am sooo sick and tired of all the “libertarian” views of the war. As if you believe differently about something then you can’t be a TRUE libertarian. Don’t pigeon hole so much. It is tiring.
Jason,
I wouldn’t like to see a rigid, toe-the-party-line-or-you’re-out attitude take hold among libertarians, either, but the views expressed by Gil above are pretty straightforwardly social engineering, which is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. If you want to argue for nation-building, then feel free, but doing it under the banner of libertarianism is going to raise some eyebrows from Milton Friedman fans like myself.
MattG
Jason,
I agree with you. Libertarians and libertarians have to realize that there are legitimate functions of government – in fact functions that only the government can assume (military intervention abroad for example).
We went to Iraq to open another front in the war on terror. Perhaps you disagree that Iraq was a good target or a justified target, etc. That is why we went. If Bush lied or made a mistake or whatever, there are mechanisms to deal with that (Nov 2004 is one).
The government can assume such functions as social engineering in a crisis. Iraq certainly qualifies as such. The reason why domestic social engineering schemes fail so badly here (and in Europe) is because we have the security and infrastructure to allow individuals to accomplish these things. Iraq does not have that, yet. Saying that you cannot foist freedom on a chronically oppressed people is like saying you cannot foist food on starving people. Freedom, individuality, etc. all the good things that libertarians believe in are objective human rights (and needs). You do not need an arbitrary world-view or geographic accident to achieve them.
Lastly, Ayn Rand has asserted that a free nation has a moral right to invade a nation ruled by tyrant. That is all the justification we needed to go into Iraq. I can expect the one-sided outrage from the left to blame America first, and never blame ANY dictator. I can also expect over-simplification from neocons. But I am disappointed that libertarians have not acknowledged this fact — even if libertarians diagree with the war in Iraq specifically.
MattG and Norbert,
Liberating Iraq, fighting terrorists there, helping Iraqis establish self-rule and liberal institutions might be a strategic mistake in the war we are in, but it is not anti-libertarian.
I don’t know what you think qualifies you as libertarian-purity czars, but you don’t seem qualified to me.
If you think people in the Middle East are incapable of embracing liberty, then our differences are about human nature, not libertarianism.
I don’t flock to any wing of the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party does not define the boundaries of libertarianism. I think for myself.
You should try it some time.
From what I read in Paul Bremer’s Washington Post op-ed this Sunday, the coalition in Iraq will keep the crazies from killing off the Iraqi constitution writers that are currently at work as well as the Iraqi ministries running the patchwork government in place now, will ensure a free plebescite to approve this new Iraqi written constitution (no matter how many rounds it takes to get a true consent of the governed), and when a constitution is approved will oversee the first free election of a new Iraqi government under that constitution and then dissolve itself.
Is there anything there that is not libertarian? I can’t see it. It’s all stopping coercion coming in from outside and coercive elements from inside from blowing up Iraq in an attempt to establish tyranny until the people themselves can make the government that they want and they can defend it successfully.
If there is anything anti-libertarian about our actions in Iraq, it’s in the past, not the present or the future. Can we agree on this and make it clear in future?
Heinz,
I disagree: you *cannot* foist freedom on a chronically oppressed people any more than you can foist food on a chronically starving people. Neither one works. Despite all efforts simply to feed the continent of Africa, starvation is still rampant there, and getting worse. Foodwise, the only real solution is for people to learn to feed themselves. Foreign aid, no matter how enormous and well-intentioned, simply can’t do it.
Indeed, it only makes the food problem worse by discouraging self-sufficiency and building dependence.
You write that “government can assume such functions as social engineering in a crisis. Iraq certainly qualifies as such.”
No it doesn’t. We’re starting to mix some issues here — I haven’t seen evidence that Iraq had any meaningful ties to Al-Qaeda or 9/11 — but generally, I’d say that libertarians set a high bar for government intervention into anything, be it invading foreign countries or throwing up housing projects in America’s cities. If you call pre-invasion/liberation Iraq a “crisis,” then I’d say your bar for government spending of taxpayer $$ is much lower than mine, and dips below the libertarian threshold. Anything could be labeled a crisis — America’s inner cities, health care, etc., and justify government intervention.
Pre-war Iraq wasn’t a crisis; it was a f***ed-up country in a world where the number of f***-ed up countries is shrinking rapidly, and we’ve got better ways of bringing lasting, meaningful change to them besides counterproductive, expensive, all-out invasions.
Gil,
I certainly don’t think that “people in the Middle East are incapable of embracing liberty”. I think, in fact they are headed inexorably towards it, with or without us. I also think they have to come to these realizations in their own time and of their own accord in order for the changes to be lasting.
According to Freedom House, there are now 122 “free” or “mostly-free” countries in the world out of 191. That number is rising, and I envision the world will be rid of all or almost all of its remaining monarchies, vestigial communist states, one-party states, and military dicatorships within my lifetime (I’m 30). We’ve reached the tipping point, and it’s getting harder and harder for a non-democratic country to exist on this planet.
My point is that invading Iraq is actually retarding the process of democratization that has already begun to take place in the Muslim world. Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Mali are already reasonably functioning Muslim democracies, and countries like Tunisia and Morocco and Jordan have leaders who realize that democratization is their future and are taking steps towards that. By thrusting the US military into Iraq, we merely provide a target for radical Islamicists to point at and blame, and Islamism starts looking pretty reasonable to the Iraqi people.
Like most social engineering, Operation Iraqi Freedom will only retard the process it hopes to accelerate.
The State (the US) build law and order in Iraq? NO FUCKING WAY. Impossible. Never happened in history. Better for Iraq and the US to be Solmalia, anarcho-libertarian utopia!
Heh heh. Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but,
David T. Bieto: Liberty and Power/Volokh Debate continues, 09-09-03
The debate between bloggers at Liberty and Power and at the Volokh Conspiracy keeps spilling over into other blogs.
Radley Balko at the Agitator comes down on our side while Randy Barnett offers a further defense for his position at National Reviewâ??s, The Corner.
http://hnn.us/articles/1621.html#09090301
MattG-
You can foist food on starving people. They need food. If you give them food outright, or give them the means to get their own, they will take that over a condition where food is being denied to them. The same is true for freedom. People will take that over tyranny any day.
And…Africa is a bad example. In the early 80s for instance, all the food aid to Ethiopia went to the Marxist dictatorship, who gave it to the military to fight their civil war. I don’t want to get into point-counter point here. What I am saying is that ALL people will choose freedom over tyranny. Upon liberation, there will be some time where a temporary centrally planned government intervention is needed. It worked in Germany and Japan. It is planned for Iraq. Despite the negative coverage there has been a lot of progress in Iraq, and that is on top of the fact that Iraq no longer has rape-rooms in operation.
Iraq was/is indeed a crisis. Read my post again. Saddam’s tyranny is the crisis, regardless of a link to Al Qaeda. His tyranny is the only justification we need morally (but maybe not practically).
“If you call pre-invasion/liberation Iraq a “crisis,” then I’d say your bar for government spending of taxpayer $$ is much lower than mine, and dips below the libertarian threshold. Anything could be labeled a crisis — America’s inner cities, health care, etc., and justify government intervention.”
Not so. Maintaining a military is a legitimate government function, one that is constitutionally mandated in fact. Providing health care is not. One can recognize legitimate government functions, and understand the need to spend money on them and still be a libertarian (lower case “l” as opposed to Libertarian). That is an objective standard, legitimate government functions are fair game for spending taxpayer money. That “sets the bar,” not your opinion of what the bar should be. If you think that Iraq -specifically – costs too much, or doesn’t make sense that is fine. But you cannot say that one is not a libertarian if they believe that the US government using the US military for what it (individuals in the govt) believes is the defense of its citizens.
I think other posts have expressed frustration with this purist notion that waging war is equivalent to funding medicare and anyone who doesn’t think so is not a libertarian. I share that frustration.
I agree that there are more productive ways of bringing lasting change to oppressed nations than war. Our support for the under-35 crowd in Iran is a perfect example. However I am open-minded and realistic enough to know that sometimes force is the most productive way. The “United” in USA is what enabled us to defeat Nazism and the Soviets. A lot of money was spent on both struggles, and I would think that libertarians would be happy with the results.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.
Heinz,
Maintaining a military is indeed constitutionally mandated; sending it halfway around the world and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to attack a country that did not physically threaten us is not. Naturally both you and I and anyone who’s not an anarchist agrees that there are legitimate government functions; we just don’t seem to agree on what those are, at least regarding Iraq.
The “we did it in Germany and Japan, we can do it in Iraq” argument is commonly heard these days, but easy to rebut. Both Germany and Japan would likely have become prosperous without U.S. postwar aid. Both were/are ethnically homogenous (unlike Iraq) and had/have extremely industrious, highly-educated workforces, unlike Iraq (I’m not saying Iraqis are lazy, but Germans and Japanese are fanatical about hard work). Besides, Germany had been a democracy previously (Weimar Republic) just a few years before the war.
Believe me — you won’t be driving an Iraqi-made car in 20 years.
Purism in anything can be annoying, true, so like I said, I wouldn’t want to become too rigid in defining libertarianism. But this Iraq thing has got “expensive social engineering failure” written all over it, and it seems directly antithetical to my personal strand of libertarianism. I guess only time will tell who’s right!
Thanks for the discussion,
MattG
You know, I’m actually a little stunned by the pro-war blather I’m reading here. ” Ayn Rand has asserted that a free nation has a moral right to invade a nation ruled by tyrant. That is all the justification we needed to go into Iraq” I can’t tell if you’re a comic genius or a fool. The planet is loaded with tyrants chum, how many of them are we going to excercise our “moral right” with? And why in the hell aren’t you out in the desert with an 85 pound pack on your back? Where do you get off defending the spending of *my* money on this self-destructive bullshit?
“If you think people in the Middle East are incapable of embracing liberty, then our differences are about human nature, not libertarianism”. Yeah, well when their embrace of liberty evolves into picking off American soldiers like sitting ducks because they’re viewed as opressive occupiers who slaughtered thousands of innocents, then what the hell have we bought for ourselves? I can’t imagine it but….maybe you’re as ignorant about the middle east as these Bush clowns are, and therefore you don’t understand that culture’s attitudes about avenging the deaths of relatives and clan members?
“The “United” in USA is what enabled us to defeat Nazism and the Soviets. A lot of money was spent on both struggles, and I would think that libertarians would be happy with the results”. (oh geez, another one that rode the “little bus” to school). The Nazis were actually a threat to us (unlike Iraq) and the Soviets fell due to the weight of their own corruption. What about Korea…..did we win that one? Viet Nam? No? A waste of treasure and treasured lives…….just like Iraq. If you do nothing more than look at its investment value anyone but an idiot could see that we’re throwing good money after bad. I’ll vote for the first person OF ANY PARTY that will pull our troops out and leave the Iraqis to their “liberation”.
MattG,
If you choose to think that there was no reason to depose Saddam, there’s probably nothing I can do to change your mind, but there are several reasons, from the starkly realistic to the ephemeral and intangible.
Personally, I’m a Pragmatist, more than a Neocon, or a libertarian, or any of the other pigeonholes I’ve been stuffed in. Including tree-hugger.
Saddam was a danger to his people. He lawfully killed thousands every year. I say lawfully because he was the law, but he wasn’t right. Let’s not lose track of that.
He was a danger to the region. The entire world relies on the oild that comes out of that region.
He is known to have paid suicide bombers, so he’s got (at the minimum) involvement with terrorism. He’s an enabler.
He was a weak point. Generally unpopular with both the secular and religious authorities, nobody was sorry to see him go except the people on his gravy train.
Iraq is in relatively good shape compared to some other Arab countries, even though it was better off 25 years ago. This makes it a good entry point for new ideas about how to run their lives.
There is no easy way to eliminate terrorism short of prosperity. See many native born British Citizens flying planes into skyscrapers? People will always grumble and be unhappy, but it’s easier to raise an army from people who are envious.
OK, don’t know if anyone’s still following this thread, but I wanted to post my 10 Stages of Social Engineering here. Will repost in response to a later relevant thread if it seems like nobody saw this.
THE TEN STAGES OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING
1) EXPENSIVE IDEA. Academia or think tank comes up with expensive solution to a social problem.
2) AGITATION/IMPLEMENTATION. After gaining enough supporters in academia, media, and government, idea is agitated for, usually by being framed as an ultimately cost-effective moral imperative. Eventually, idea is successfully implemented.
3) INITIAL SIGNS OF FAILURE.
Expensive idea doesn’t appear to be working immediately. Proponents blame critics of idea for undermining idea’s failure.
4) THE SECOND SOLUTION.
Pleas for patience from proponents and demands for increased spending on idea. The “it’s not working, let’s do more of it” approach.
5) DENIAL OF FAILURE.
Continued denial that idea is failing, despite indications. Refusal to state measurable benchmarks that will indicate in the future whether idea is failing or succeeding. Continued attacks on growing critics of idea.
6) PERMANENT SPENDING.
Locked-in, long-term spending on idea insures that idea will continue even if the public loses faith in it. Arguments made that “now that we’ve started, we can’t get out of it, so we have to go full-force”.
7) LOSS OF INTEREST.
Original proponents of idea, in face of boring day-to-day details, criticism, and setbacks, begin to lose interest in their idea.
8) SELF-CONGRATULATION/RATIONALIZATION.
Proponents of idea continue to believe they “did the right thing” or “fought the good fight” or at least they “tried to do something about it”.
9) EXPLANATION FOR FAILURE.
Failure, only partially and privately acknowledged, explained away not as caused by their faulty social engineering idea, but by some technical aspect of how the idea was implemented (“if we’d only done it this way instead of that, it’d have succeeded”), or on undermining critics.
10) FINAL RESULT.
Implementation of idea cost enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars, and either did nothing to alleviate or actually exacerbated original problem. Locked-in spending, in many forms never even envisioned by, continues long after idea abandoned by original proponents.
Then, it’s time to find a new problem to solve with social engineering…
Who say’s they are building an entire country? They are building the SYSTEMS of liberty for Iraq – law and order, stomping local tryants and bandits, etc.
The US government does a pretty good job maintaining these SYSTEMS in the United States (though I admit it could be better) and has in the past sucessfully built similar systems in Germany and Japan.
If it Keeps the Peace, the Iraqis will eventually prosper. Any centralized economic planning (which we no is not very effective) from the US will impede but not stop this progress, but liberalism will rise from a Limited but Powerful central authority (as described in the Federalist), the only sure way to Peace.
As usual, Balko is gone from principaled and realistic libertarianism to anarcho-leftist-madness. The only meltdown is of Rothbardian Dogma, which has apperntly infected many libertarians brains. A dose of Hobbes, Friedman, Hayek and Hamilton will cure it.
As for Balko can always move to the libertarian utopia of Somalia, where no such Law and Order exists. Quite libertarian there…if you count daily murder and theft as “life, liberty and property.”
Dear No-Name,
Of all of your sneering, sarcastic, and profane responses to Heinz, I must say this was your least successful: “I’ll vote for the first person OF ANY PARTY that will pull our troops out and leave the Iraqis to their ‘liberation’.”
If we follow that simple-minded and short-sighted advice, then a vicious and anti-American dictator will be ruling one of the most oil-rich nations on the planet in a matter of WEEKS.
I understand that you’re so concerned about your precious money, but it won’t be worth much you’re incinerated by terrorists who have been emboldened by (1) the US turning tail and running, and (2) their new, rich friend in charge of Iraq.
If that was the best argument I could muster, I’d be embarrassed to post my name, too!
Dear No-name.
I am not going to do the point-counterpoint thing with you on why the USSR fell or whether we won or lost Korea, or even debate cultural relativism with you.
Why?
You are sarcastic and a Nihilist. You do not make arguments, you make statements that reflect the sullen attitude of a ninth grader. You make flavor-of-the-month statements simply because you don’t like war. I don’t like war either, but a consistent and realistic world-view make me realize it is needed sometimes.
This is one stupid thing I cannot let go:
Why am I not carrying an 80 lb backpack somewhere? That’s great logic. How about the next time you get sick, I tell you “How come you’re not in medical school?” Or how about the next time your lights go out “How come you’re not studying to become an engineer?”
Here’s another stupid thing:
And read the post: I said we have a right to attack dictators. I did not say we should go after every single one of them.
And another:
I am not spending your money, the representitive government of the US is. So, if you do not like it, you have three options. (1) Bitch to a newspaper reporter, and anyone else who will listen, maybe you’ll have an impact (although the short-bus comments probably won’t work). (2) vote for Dennis J. Kucinich (3) if you’re still pissed off, vote with your feet and leave.
Thanks for the dialogue
The question really is whether Iraqis are willing to progressively take over the fighting and dying to create and maintain a free Iraq. From what I can tell, the problem is mostly that there aren’t enough training facilities, enough trainers, and enough time to handle all the Iraqis who want to do so.
That doesn’t sound like it’s a country that has a people addicted to slavery. It sounds like a people that have always yearned to be free are finally being given a chance to do so.
If there is any libertarian foreign policy beyond turtling and fighting tyrants as they try to invade us, giving the tools of liberty to those who want them would seem to be a core element.
Heinz,
You have raised an excellent point: “Ayn Rand has asserted that a free nation has a moral right to invade a nation ruled by tyrant. That is all the justification we needed to go into Iraq. …..even if libertarians disagree with the war in Iraq specifically.”
That should have been the starting point for this debate. Anyone claiming to represent the libertarian philosophy who disagrees with Rand’s position should first make certain that they fully understand her reasoning in reaching that conclusion, and then show where it that reasoning is faulty.
Unless they do that, their whining about the Iraq War can only be judged as arising from some other philosophical source….and they need to do some serious soul-searching.
YES
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