This interesting recent Wall Street Journal interview with Milton Friedman and his wife Rose (also a prominent libertarian economist) reveals a rare disagreement between them - over the Iraq War:
Mr. Friedman here shifted focus. "What's really killed the Republican Party isn't spending, it's Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression." Mrs. Friedman--listening to her husband with an ear cocked--was now muttering darkly.Milton: "Huh? What?" Rose: "This was not aggression!" Milton (exasperatedly): "It was aggression. Of course it was!" Rose: "You count it as aggression if it's against the people, not against the monster who's ruling them. We don't agree. This is the first thing to come along in our lives, of the deep things, that we don't agree on. We have disagreed on little things, obviously--such as, I don't want to go out to dinner, he wants to go out--but big issues, this is the first one!" Milton: "But, having said that, once we went in to Iraq, it seems to me very important that we make a success of it." Rose: "And we will!"
The dissension in the Friedman family would be unimportant if not for the fact that it mirrors a broader split within the libertarian community over the war. Just looking at the major libertarian websites and blogs for example, Instapundit and Techcentralstation have strongly supported the war (as have most of us here at VC), whereas Liberty and Power and others have opposed it. So too has the most prominent libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. The commentators at Reason, probably the leading libertarian magazine, are internally divided among themselves.
Obviously, the war has also produced internal rifts among conservatives and liberals, but in each of these groups one side (pro-war among conservatives; anti-war among liberals) is clearly in the ascendancy and the other a small minority (though I wonder if more conservatives would oppose the war and more liberals support if it had been initiated by a Democratic administration instead of a Republican one). Libertarians, by contrast, seem much more evenly split, at least judging by the positions taken by prominent libertarian academics, pundits, and intellectuals.
I do not as yet have a definitive explanation for the intra-libertarian split. One possibly theory is that this disagreement tracks the longstanding division between those who endorse an absolutist interpretation of libertarian principle versus those who take a maximizing approach. Wars clearly lead to violations of rights to life, liberty, and property. If you are a deontological absolutist who believes it is always (or almost always) wrong to violate such rights regardless of consequences, then that gives you a logical reason to oppose virtually any war, possibly excepting a strictly defensive one, with "defense" defined very narrowly. By contrast, if you take a maximizing approach, you will be more willing to accept some rights violations now in order to reduce the total incidence of violations in the long run. For example, it could be argued that the War in Iraq, despite the carnage it has caused, saves a much greater number of innocent lives in the long run, as well as expanding personal and economic liberties for most Iraqis. However, it is not clear to me that the longstanding absolutist vs. maximizing division among libertarians fully accounts for the split or even that being absolutist or a maximizer is a good predictor of individual libertarians' positions on the war.
A second possible explanation is more autobiographical than ideological. It is possible that those libertarians who embraced the ideology primarily out of hostility to the various works of the US government are more likely to be antiwar than those who came to it primarily because of personal or familial experience with statist and socialistic governments elsewhere. Certainly, anecdotal evidence suggests that immigrant libertarians are more likely to be pro-Iraq War than native-born ones. So too with Jewish libertarians (who, even if native-born, may have a strong consciousness of their people's oppression by governments outside the US) as opposed to gentile ones, though Milton Friedman is one of many exceptions to the pattern. If you are highly focused on the evils of oppressive regimes and political movements outside the US, you might be more willing to countenance the use of American military power to destroy or contain them than if you have regarded the US government itself as the main threat to your freedom.
Obviously, most native-born libertarians are well aware that many other governments, including Saddam Hussein's. are much worse, in libertarian terms, than that of the US. Similarly, foreign-born and Jewish ones are still deeply hostile to the many nonlibertarian policies of the US government (I know I am!). However, there may be a visceral difference between the two groups as to which of these dangers to liberty seems more vivid and threatening and which engages our emotions more strongly at a subrational level.
I'm still not sure that this theory is the main factor behind the intralibertarian division over Iraq, and I can certainly think of many individual libertarians who are exceptions to it. But it does seem to have greater explanatory power than others I have heard. At the same time, it is certainly far from being the whole story.
To give credit where credit is due, I should note that the theory of a Jewish/immigrant vs. gentile/native-born intra-libertarian split was first proposed to me by co-blogger David Bernstein (though he bears no responsiblity for the content of this post).
NOTE: I'm not going to try to censor comments, but I suggest that it would be more productive if people focus on the narrower issue of the disagreement among libertarians instead of the broader issue of the justice of the war (which has already been debated ad nauseum both at VC and elsewhere).
Related Posts (on one page):
- THe Libertarian Split over the War II - Historical Roots:
- Libertarianism, the Iraq War, and the Division in the Friedman Household:
I don't actually understand how someone can call themselves libertarian and be pro-war. The definition of libertarianism has always been tied up with the principle of non-aggression. Some libertarians do seem to define this differently, as "no first use" versus strictly defensive force only, or even pacifism. But by no conceivable definition of the principle does the invasion and occupation of Iraq seem to qualify as acceptable.
It strikes me that there are a good number of "libertarian-leaning" conservatives, who are not actually subscribers to the non-aggression principle at all, but who favor social issues like medical marijuana (or even outright drug legalization) domestically. This seemed to me the perspective of Eugene Volokh and many of the bloggers here at the VC. I certainly don't understand how they can be called libertarians in a genuine sense of the word. This isn't intended as a disparagement but as an attempt to classify accurately an ideological camp.
Also, there are many libertarians of the left who do not tend to associate with the right-leaning Cato and LP and certainly not the VC. Interestingly when I have tried to discuss this in some forums, it seems that many of the right-leaning libertarians are incredulous that such a thing could exist as a left libertarian. I suppose it is the same incredulity that I have with the idea of a pro-war libertarian, based on a different set of presumptive premises. But if the non-aggression principle is held as definitional, there is certainly room for many different possible voluntary economic and social arrangements that people may prefer which would situate them relatively left or right on the spectrum.
I hope to see some more thoughtful commentary on this.
This was a great article - not that it had many answers - but it did raise worthwhile important questions. In the future, when freedom has prevailed, how do we wean civilization off of the State? I suppose it is when we no longer need the protections it currently offers. We aren't there yet - and we are still battling states who sponsor the destruction of modern civilization. Until we can protect ourselves individually from such monsters, ought we remain open to destroying people who seek to kill us before they actually succeed?
And there are people in this country who are willing to accept the role of obedient servant to a state that is out of control and dangerously corrupt. During the week of February 12, a former employee of the Justice Department told attendees at the annual meetings of the Conservative Political Action Conference that the rule of law must be abandoned in order for George Bush to protect us from al Qaeda. The response was not boos and cries of “For shame, for shame;” it was a standing ovation! The boos were reserved for former congressman Bob Barr when he responded that the first loyalty of all Americans is to our Constitution. In reporting on the CPAC goings on, Paul Craig Roberts aptly labeled this audience response as a signal that American Conservatism is transforming into “brownshirtism.” We agree.
It's not that I don't appreciate their idealogical position of non-intervention and avoiding entangling alliances. In fact, 100 years ago I would have been in their camp. But this isn't 100 years ago. Technology has changed and I believe libertarians need to recognize this and adapt. A country is no longer safe merely be defending it's borders. The nuclear bomb has changed the equation.
In the world of nukes, it's no longer adequate just to have a strong defense against ambitious tyrants. Rather, the only defense it to prevent those who would use nukes from ever obtaining them. It's certainly debatable how to best go about that task, but as far as I can tell, the anti-war liberatarians aren't even particularly interested in the discussion. And that is dangerously naive.
It may be undesirable from a libertarian point of view for the state to restrict the free speech of its citizens, for example, but it doesn't automatically follow that it's equally undesirable for the state to interfere with the freedom of speech of people in other countries, under appropriate circumstances. The purpose of a state is to serve its own citizens, not citizens of other countries.
I think it's perfectly consistent with libertarian principles to be pro-war (or anti-war) although I think the terms "pro-war" and "anti-war" so oversimplify the issue as to be virtually meaningless.
Small differences of opinion can lead to extremely different descriptions of what is going on. I find a "split" in my own opinion for example. I thought, and still think, that we were right to attack Saddam given his history and his possessing (or nearly having) nuclear weapons. The war was originally justified on the slightly broader grounds of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. I assumed that we had "smoking gun" ( or radioactive pile ) evidence and in fact kept expecting the stash of WMD to be revealed in the days just before or after the invasion. Well, our very serious mistake in my mind was relying on intelligence estimates rather than hard evidence. Should I describe myself as originally favoring or opposing our aggression in Iraq?
This also reminds of the "Objectivist" versus "objectivist" thing - where the strict big-O dogmatic objectivists have certainly set back objectivist ideals simply by way of their dogmatism/cultism; losing sight of the bigger picture and becoming a closed system unable to cope with a present reality they should be most well equiped to comprehend and control.
I think any rational libertarian needs to be able to accept a dichotomy between the theory and ideology of complete non-aggression, and the reality of present circumstances.
To me there is no conflict between being an non-aggressive anarcho-capitalist in belief, but looking at the present situation, in which we live in a very unlibertarian world, and saying that the best thing to do at this moment is a state war.
Ideological absolutism at the expense of rationality seems to plague libertarian thought as much as any other group, which surprises me.
Is your argument that libertarianism is great, but you can't expect a libertarian to be consistent?
That might not be so bad. I think there are many men in the country who would love to take orders from a cheerleader. You'd be amazed how compliant tough guys get when faced with a short skirt and a pair of pom-poms.
On the flip side, the valley-girl diction would, like, make the State of the Union a total bummer.
Remember, this is a president who campaigned on a foreign policy based in humility (and for a reason -- that's what conservatives wanted to hear!), before converting to the polar opposite position after 9/11. It raises the question: in what way is the Iraq war actually a "conservative" idea? It's a radical idea, based in the idea that we can use military power to transform the Middle East into western-style democracies. If anything else, it's based in a long-standing Bush clan fixation on Iraq. I'm not sure how either of these ideas really fit a conservative viewpoint more than a liberal one, though, other than to the extent liberals just saw them as irrational and belligerent. Really, I think many liberals are somewhat revisionist in claiming that they always opposed the Iraq war, while a lot of conservatives hold their criticism for the same kinds of reasons.
Not that I think Al Gore would have invaded Iraq (I'm not sure anyone would have other than Bush). If he had, though, I think the Republican opposition would have been tremendous. But also, I doubt Gore (or others) really realized the scope of the mistake from the very beginning.
In the end, thus, I'd bet that liberals and conservatives are as conflicted and split as libertarians; they're simply less willing to admit it (though maybe at this point they've also brain-washed themselves into their parties' positions).
I suspect Larrylibertarian has a point, in that many people do do compromise their beliefs for the sake of some shorter-term objective, but that seems to me more or less to give up libertarianism for a soft libertarian-leaning Republicanism than to say that someone who does this is still a libertarian in outlook or practice.
Of course, since I've been fairly accused of being religious about it, I'll admit I also don't understand pro-war Christians and it seems to me that if you start practicing war you have given up something of what it means to be following in the steps of Jesus. I know he was angry about the money changers in the temple and all, but it seems that the Pat Robertsons and such are really more Leviticans than anything, with all the smiting.
But I'm a weird conundrum myself, a peaceful hippie anarchist Christian Jewish left libertarian. In Berkeley, no less. So take my perspective for what it's worth.
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So, rather than delving into such matters as Hobbes' State of Nature, and the differences between the relationship between sovereign states, and states and their citizens, I think something more appropriate would be this guest post I did at Samizdata, back in February of 2003 - during the run-up to the invasion:
I left the party and have never looked back.
For all their reasoning the Libs leave out one important factor - the alpha male.
Just as the Socialists are looking for the New Socialist Man so are the libs looking for the the New Libertarian Man. The New Socialist Man was to be without greed and the New Libertarian Man was going to be without agression.
The problem is that these New Men don't exist in enough numbers to make the system work. The numbers required of course aproach or equal 100%.
The fantasy often starts out "Now if everybody....."
What I find interesting is that the Libs know what to do about the thugs down the block. They like personal weapons. But create a "fiction" called a border and they become powerless. Interseting for folks who border on anarchist philosophy.
The Libertarian religion is: borders are sacred.
Well any way. I quit the party (as did about 1/3 of the members) a few months after 9/11. My philosophy is way more muddled these days and I lean Republican. Although I did vote for Obama over Keyes. I can't abide theocons.
To analogize his fairytale to the actual invasion and occupation of Iraq, his position is that one should go and kill or capture the neighbor for beating his wife, then take the neighbor's wife prisoner and chain her in his own basement where he would proceed to beat and rape her himself.
M. Simon too, is not a libertarian, by his own admission. That there are few people who practice non-aggression (or non-greed, for that matter) does not make them invalid choices. He can choose to be a non-libertarian who practices theft and conquest, and defend his choice on the grounds that others are doing the same and he might as well get what he can for himself, but this too is not an internal debate.
Of course, everyone whose opinion on Iraq I respect thinks we should stay the course now that we're in (just to give a sense of whose opinions I respect).
She is uncomfortable with the situation, and grouses frequently - but has yet to demand that your son leave.
Truly I think Al Qaeda loves having the US tied down in Iraq, as long as possible. We are watching the destruction of the US military before our own eyes and if the Shi'ites turn on the supply lines it's all over but the shouting.
I understand that some consider this a World War and a necessary adventure, but the American people aren't behind it and a draft is practically inconceivable without there being massive civil unrest at home. We cannot live in the world we'd like to imagine, we have to live in the world as it exists.
How would you proceed and what do you expect to happen?
My basic argument in favor of a generally noninterventionist foreign policy, sketched later in the same book, is that a badly done interventionist policy is usually worse than no interventionist policy. Instead of getting other people to fight your wars with their blood and treasure you fight theirs with yours. Our foreign policy is being run by the U.S. government, so I expect it to be run badly. The Bush administration has given me no reason to change that opinion.
A second and related point is that war tends to increase government power. That pattern too is confirmed by recent events. Some of the increase would have come as a response to 9/11 even if we hadn't invaded Iraq--but less.
The standard counterargument is "the lesson of Munich." People who make that argument forget that, at the time of Munich, England and France had an interventionist foreign policy--that was why Hitler had to get their permission to annex Czechoslovakia. Munich was an example, not of a non-interventionist policy, but of an incompetently run interventionist policy.
I've recently been rereading the first volume of Churchill's history of WWII. One of the things I found was evidence that Britain's interventionist policy resulted in strengthening, not weakening, Hitler--by converting Mussolini from an ally into an enemy. I hadn't realized that Hitler's first attempt to annex Austria was blocked, not by France or England but by Mussolini, who put divisions into the Brenner pass and made it clear what they were there for. By the time of the second attempt, the clumsy intervention into Italy's invasion of Abyssinia--enough to annoy the Italians but not to stop them--had convinced Mussolini to change sides.
In an alternate history where Italy was still hostile to Germany and Austria independent, I'm not at all sure that Hitler could have conquered Czechoslovakia.
I don't know if you respect my opinion or not. I am also unsure on what you mean by "proto-Western democracy." But it is certainly not what I expected, which is pretty much what we have: a fucked-up mess. None the less, this fucked-up mess is less a threat to the US' vital national interests, and it's own people than the regime it supplanted.
Democracy does not naturally evolve from the top down, but from the bottom up, and preceded by economic liberty. Well, economic liberty seems to be alive and well in Iraq (unlike under the previous regime). All we can hope to do now is provide security, and let what evolves evolve.
We should meddle in this process as little as possible: providing advice and counsel, as it is required, and interjecting ourselves only when we see our own vital national interests threatened, or when the curtailment of human rights by the prospective new regime is absolutely unconscionable.
ROTFL
You are a "libertarian" about like Bill Mahr is a "libertarian". You also know nothing about the military, US or in general.
Wars oare won and lost on logistics. That is why al Qaeda is tied down in Iraq, not us. And also why we needn't worry about the Shi'ites "turning on our supply lines," We have a logistics apperatus geared to withstand the Soviets; "the Shi'ites" (whoever they are) would be nothing more than a nusance.
Nor is the Iraq campaign causing the "destruction of the US military." Check your facts: morale is up - reenlistments (particularly among those stationed in Iraq) are up. Nor is the Iraq campaign (or even the overall deficit - check it, relative to GDP, verses history) "bankrupting us."
You call yourself a "left libertarian" (whatever that is). I would suspect, like Bill Mahr, your are nothing more than a libertine socialist.
Tell me, have you taken "the world's smallest political quiz?"
Again, check your facts. In general, capacity of Iraq's infrastructure is WAY up over pre-invasion levels. Shortfalls (say, for instance, the time the average household is without lights), however, are comparable or greater. But that is only because demand is so much greater, as a result of increased economic activity.
Onto your interesting standard
[quote]Although the U.S. effort helped boost Iraq’s potential generating capacity to more than 7,000 megawatts, available capacity has never topped 5,400, held down by plant breakdowns and shutdowns for maintenance, fuel shortages and transmission disruptions caused by insurgent attacks, inefficient production, sabotage by extortionists, and other factors.
In the first week of February, a busy maintenance period, output fell to 3,750 megawatts, reports the joint U.S. agency, the Gulf Region Division-Proje[/quote] and if things are broken, and Iraq isn't getting anymore reconstruction dough do you think that [b]capacity[/b] will ever be reached?
For example [quote]Now the U.S. reconstruction money is running out, the last generating project is undergoing startup testing in southern Iraq, and the Americans view 2006 as a year of transition to full Iraqi responsibility, aided by a U.S. budget for "sustainability," including training and advisory services.
Even that long-term support might fall short, however. The reconstruction agency allotted $460 million for this purpose, but in a report to Congress on Jan. 30 the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction estimated $720 million would be needed.[/quote]
Second and more importantly infrastructure is more than powerlines, do you think Iraq's overall infrastructure is in working condition? Remember our funding spicket is shut off, projects being built now are being scaled back or left unfinished. Is this a plan to win? Do you think winning is still an option? Is this your idea of success?
This is at the core of the evolution of international banking, and in stark contrast to the mindset of many modern Islamist emigrants. But could you imagine an 18th century Jew voicing a similar opinion?
Do you really want to take me on here? I live and breathe this shit.
While it may be persuasively argued that American-enforced sanctions had choked Iraq to death, and strongly refuted that the real cause was abuse of the "Oil for Food" program, there can be no doubt that liberation has caused the desert to bloom. Further, one only has to look at the decrepit state of the infrastructure of Iran or Syria to get a model of what the "best case" conditions might have been in Iraq under Saddam.
The best way to compare pre/post Iraq would be to goto the numbers, wouldn't you agree?
Well pre/post war electricty is the topic, now Iraq postwar (or intra-civil war *chuckle*)'s electrical output has at times topped prewar levels, but usually it hovers around the same level as prewar. As it goes both above and below. According to the Wash Post (as well as numerous other sources) the prewar level was 4,400 megawatts and as mentioned in the previously cited article power output for Feb 2006(!) was 3,750 megawatts. Now this was a low but it clearly shows you are wrong about the problem being new demand, as the supply isn't even up to the prewar output level. And of course this is a trillion dollars(?)later, but as I said that's a sunk cost.
how much value do you place on human life?
ALL human life, them and us.
The price has spiralled out of control; for what??
Milton is right. The VC boys are wrong.
The price keeps going up...
(I suggest the same analysis for the current Israeli offensive. Count all the dead -- even if they are not Jews or Israelis. Worth it? Similarly, to how slavery used to be justified -- you just don't count all as "humans".)
And still the children die.
Put a little LOVE in your heart
(before it's much,much too late...)
I suspect the world won't weep too hard
at burned Jewish babies anymore,
when we are turning our heads so easily
at this MAN MADE disaster...
He always struck me as the most sensible of the lot, like he cared what happened to non-Jews and children, and wasn't so nationalistic. If push came to shove, I suspected he'd choose the American way, not Israel's policies which very often conflict.
if it's ok for the US to arm Israel -- make her a superpower who has not "earned" that role, either morally or experience-wise, can someone explain to me again the problem with Iran or Syria supplying Hezzbollah?
Is it just the idea that we can't support a fair fight and Israel will lose without the technological advantage?
Is it just support for the home team? Because it seems inconsistent to me...
Of course I do feel a sense of , well, almost family conneciton with Jews of other countries. Because of history, they are my distant relatives in all probability. .
but how much bigger is the US over Iran?
If Israel gets the Bomb without signing treaties,
who not others?
If the US supplies Israel, why not Iran supplying Hamas/Hezzbollah?
Are we supposed to believe that the Israeli's are more moral or capable in killing accuracy? What if this notion is lost?
That is a utilitarian argument, not a libertarian one.
Land Area 3.7 mill square miles .6 mill square miles
Population 299 million 68 million
Nuclear weapons 5886 0
(strategic)
Nuclear weapons 1120 0
(tactical)
Thats not counting several hundred spare nuclear warheads allowed by treaty. Irans population is misleading as women,homosexuals, and foreingers are barred from service in the elite Revolutionary Guard unlike in the Evil US.
Some libertarian opposition to the war is surely tied with the disgust and sense of betrayal many economic conservatives feel towards Bush. The two most appealing aspects of his candidacy going into the 2000 election were his constant praise of small government as domestic policy and no nation building as foreign policy. He has rejected those policies in practice as dramatically as one could possible imagine. What's left to like? Why should we continue to trust this administration to do what they say they will?
(1) We have an organized enemy, who attacked us 9/11 and before. The Afghan war, as well as the Iraq war, are part of our response. (Note, the hardcore anti-war libertarians such as Harry Browne were against the Afghan war as well.) Even the most principled purist should justify response when we are attacked.
(2) The government's efforts, while very far from perfect, have been vastly more successful than this libertarian, or I venture to say most libertarians, would ever have predicted. For example, our enemies have not yet managed a single attack in our homeland since 9/11. Also, there have been definite signs of spreading democracy around the world, and even rifts within the arab world in the latest action.
(3) The key question for a theoretical purist such as David Friedman has always been, in my view anyway, the interaction of anarcho-capitalistic principles with real-world human behavior. After all, very few anarcho-capitalist societies have arisen, and they seem to be unstable. Interaction with external organized enemies seems to be a standard problem. How organizations such as mafias would be dealt with has also been a recurring question.
Recent events have not been kind to the purist anarcho-capitalist viewpoint. Terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda have arisen. We have states such as Iran fomenting organizations such as Hizbollah in other states. Malevolent organizations are arising around religious feelings and hatred, and are in large measure immune to reason, or even to substantial force such as assassination of numerous leaders. David Friedman's answer on Mafias used to be (if I understood it in usenet correspondance years ago) that within an anarcho-capitalist paradise the godfather would be assassinated. That kind of approach doesn't seem likely to stop Al Qaeda. The recent fall of the anarchy in Somalia is another example. It seems to me recent data, and current circumstances, strongly favor a tempered view with a role for enlightened government in battling external organized enemies and (unfortunately) pretty much render obsolete the strong anarcho-capitalist purism. Rationality requires subjecting one's theories to data and responding to real world circumstances.
Did it?
Like most of my libertarian friends, my philosophy is too complex to fit onto a bumper sticker like so many of my Republican and Democratic friends are comfortable with. So when we say that war is bad, we overlook and simplify the real effect of war.
Wars are catalytic in nature. They are neither good nor bad, but provide the opportunity for change. Sometimes, the change is good: Germany and Japan after WWII. Sometimes it is inefficient or even counterproductive, (Think post Versailles Germany). The problem with war, as in all human endeavors, is that it is opposed by thinking human beings. Therefore, the idea that all of the permutations of choices can be defined, much less decided is an impossibility.
As to the current adventure in Iraq, I don't know why Libertarians don't support it more. We know that the Middle East was muddled in a variety of petty tyrants who, for the most part used their governmental apparatus to maintain their power over their subjugated peoples. The people seeking their own self determination would most likely have been executed, imprisoned, or chased out of the country in order to prevent their infectious thoughts from spreading.
So, if by invading Iraq, and toppling the infrastructure of domestic terror, are we not giving the people of Iraq a chance to decide their own future? Now they may not choose a path that we are thrilled with, but that will be their choice, not ours. But at least now they have the opportunity to make that choice.
This is not to say that we haven't had some small measure of success in this try. Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia are all flirting with democracy. Would they have even attempted this if we had not intervened? I find no reason to believe that it would have been possible.
Again, thanks for the interesting comments.
We (in America) will only have freedom if Americans feel secure. Look at what we submit to when boarding a plane.
And see the opinion polls that show broad support for the NSA wiretapping. It's a basic human nature; most people will trade their freedom for security. Therefore, if we wish to be free, we must feel secure.
That there exists an enemy who wishes the death of America seems beyond argument (see: 9/11), so if my premise that we must have security to have freedom is correct, that enemy must be neutralized.
Now what's the best way to defeat the enemy is a legitimate argument. But since anti-war types have been notably unwilling to address it and present a serious alternative plan, I feel stuck with the current course of action. Lacking an alternative, I feel compelled to support the current course.
In the early days of talk about going into Iraq, I was opposed, though not strongly. On the assumption, fairly widely held, that Iraq had WMDs and was connected with Al Queda (the first of which appears to have been false, though the second true), I could see the case for war. However, as the talk turned to "nation-building," my skepticism rose quickly.
The case against the war for me is Hayekian: how in god's name does anyone think we can intervene in to a complex nation/state/society and not face tremendous unintended and undesirable consequences? To believe that one can "build" a democracy there (and note "democracy," not "liberalism") is to have the worst sort of Hayekian pretence of knowledge. Institutions like democracy and liberalism cannot be imposed, they must grown from within.
Add to the likelihood of failure, the point raised by others that war is always the health of the state, and not just by expanding the military budget. War lowers resistance to other expansions of state power, and in many ways appears to necessitate it. Robert Higgs, as mentioned earlier, has been excellent on this point. And, of course, there is no way to avoid civilian casualities. Any realist perspective must recognize that *some* are inevitable when war is legitimate, but I do think the US has gone beyond that "some."
So although I don't dismiss completely the notion that one state might have a legitimate rationale for a pre-emptive move against a real threat from another, I don't think this was such a case. And because the case was so weak, the usual effects of war on the size of the state were bound to overwhelm any possible good. Finally, the whole idea of "nation-building" runs up against the strongest consequentialist arguments for libertarianism.
Jacob Bronowski reminds us our world is different. Science now puts incredible power in the hands of any who care to learn to use it such that strong boxes no longer protect our wealth or bolted doors our families. How should one respond to those with the means and inclination to destroy you for their own selfish purposes?
This requires a change of mind. The diversity of civil society is like the pile of a carpet. The many-colored, multi-textured fibers are held together underneath by a minimal structure that must exist if civil society is to exist. Those who do not believe -- and adhere to -- the underlying warp and weft that holds the carpet together prefer the law of the jungle over civil society and must be defended against by those who, by their actions, choose to live under the umbrella of civil society's protections.
The warp and weft of society are simple: a process of peaceful problem resolution and respect for others who support it.
Libertarians believe in civil society and, accordingly, support a process of peaceful problem resolution. Libertarians also respect individuals. It follows that attempts to tear the underlying fabric of society challenge libertarians to respond.
We are in a race, where there is no guarantee civilization will win. The race isn't to subjugate and disarm, but to defend ourselves while we try to change minds.
Rose is the libertarian. Milton will be, when Rose makes it clear to him what is at stake.
It's just pathetic how some use this single conflict as the means to define people. If you don't support this war in Iraq you are not really American, Christian, Republican, libertarian, etc. Come on. As stated above, I feel confident in opposing this was on libertarian grounds. But I also think it's absurd to say that no one who does support the war can be called a libertarian. When Milton Friedman is declared to be no libertarian because of his opposition to the war in Iraq it's clear that the definitions people are using have become meaningless. Maybe Christ wasn't a Christian with all that turn the other cheek crap.
Shangui, perhaps you'll read my comment and think about it. It is more substantive than your flip misreading of it would indicate.
Somin's point about maximization vs. deontology can only be half the answer. A maximization philosophy won't lead you to support the war unless you think the war will in fact maximize liberty. This is far from obvious. When you consider typical libertarian assumptions about government action, there seems to be a case that wars in general, or the Iraq war in particular, will not do so.
To believe, ex ante, that the war would be liberty-maximizing, you'd have to believe that a massive government program based on reworking a society via central planning from Washington would (a) be competently adminstered by good people (b) not be hijacked by special interest groups such as oil companies to promote their own interests and (c) not produce significant, unanticipated bad consequences. Whatever the merits of (a), (b), and (c), they run flatly counter to standard libertarian assumptions about how government almost always works.
I think the real explanation is that the alliance betwen conservative libertarians and the Republican party caused some libertarians to have an unwarranted degree of trust in the competence and good faith of George W. Bush.
We libertarians, unfortunately, are forced to live within the constructs of our two party system. Bush's failure to reign-in a profligate Congress of his own party - a party in total breach of its 1994 Contract with America. The "no nation building" pledge, on the other hand, did not survive contact with reality.
I doubt there are many who frequent this site who are very enthusiastic about the performance of Mr. Bush, or his compatriots in Congress. However, when juxtaposed against the alternatives presented by the Jackass Party in 2000, 2004, and likely 2008, one is forced to choke down hard, and accept the lesser of two evils.
The LP leadership seems to accept the premise that 9/11 was a response to US aggression in the middle east. I do not subscribe to the theory that Political Islam is a response to western aggression. The propaganda they use to divide The West certainly makes that case, but the talk amongst militant Muslims that leaks its way out to the press is that Global Caliphate is the true and singular purpose of antagonizing the west and driving the entire world into chaos.
If you accept the second theory, you realise the first is irrelevant. Whether we entangle or disengage, we will eventually have to face the goals of Political Islam. I no longer support any party that denies the goals of this movement and seems to feed on self-loathing statements of principle.
Whether the war would be liberty-maximizing depends on two things:
1) how good we are in creating liberty
2) how bad the situation was before we got there
If the society is very bad, it's more likely that reworking it will improve things--even a result of mere mediocrity would be much better than was there before. I'm sure that if the US were to invade Sweden, we'd have a hard time improving things. But even typical US incompetence can improve Iraq.
You're right that I shouldn't have been so nasty. Your post does indeed say more than I addressed in my brief comment. At the same time, that's partly why the "agree with me or you're no libertarian" closing is so disappointing. Do you really think MF is not a libertarian because of his opposition to the war? The way you smuggly assume he just needs to see the light sounds far too much like saying he's suffering from false class-consciousness for my tastes.
You also write, "Libertarians believe in civil society and, accordingly, support a process of peaceful problem resolution. Libertarians also respect individuals. It follows that attempts to tear the underlying fabric of society challenge libertarians to respond."
Do you really consider what has happened in Iraq "a process of peaceful problem resolution"? I'd hate to see what your definition of "violent problem resolution" is. Please don't bother with the "Saddam was evil" response. I agree. But let's not be so blind as to say that the way we've removed him or what we've allowed to spring up in the wake of that action is "peaceful problem resolution." That's just absurd. The larger war against Islamic (and Christian) fundamentalism is a real very important one. I just don't think it will be won by these sorts of massive and expensive pre-emptive military intervensions. You clearly disagree. I don't think this makes you un-libertarian. But I do think it makes you wrong.
This is something that I think needs to be expanded upon. No native born American, no matter how learned and empathetic, can truly understand what it means to be born into (and grow up in) a slave society, a terror society. Being born into and growing up in the Soviet Union under Stalin, or Mao's China, or Saddam's Iraq (especially if a kurd or shi'ite or liberal sunni intellectual) tends to make for two kinds of people: the vast majority, quiet, desperate, terrified, and a very thin sliver of utterly amoral butchers. Some of the discussion here, although thoughtful and interesting as always, leaves out this human (and, as Ilya said, 'autobiographical') element.
People who grew up in slave societies and now live in freedom in America are acutely aware that the people's of newly freed nations remain very slavish in their minds for long periods of time. Habits of mind linger. People who have seen relatives disappear in the night, who know first hand of unspeakable torture, tend to lay low and calculate. It's only normal. Not everybody can be a hero. Most folks are just folks.
I don't want to go too far off on a tangent, but I think one of the factors that can explain this split in the libertarians is that one side knows that the destruction of Saddam's regime was a massive net increase in liberty in that region; they 'feel' the event as a liberation. The other side just sees bombers and fundamentalists and hysterics and figures there wasn't really any liberation at all.
Anti-statist ideological libertarians, on the other hand, start with a reflexive aversion to state institutions and go from there.
There are some problems with this meme. One is that it creates an unstated (or seldom-stated) desire among libertarians for our country to lose any war it is engaged in, since a victory would undercut the theory that government is incompetent. It’s not enough for many libertarians to hope for success but fear the worst, and then reluctantly say “I told you so.” Instead many libertarians fear success and refuse to believe any good news because they don’t want others to say to them “I told you so.”
Another problem is that the United States’ military forces are in fact very good at waging war (“breaking things and killing people”), and are vastly more competent in that endeavor than most other countries’ military forces. Our weaknesses show up after the main fighting, when we engage in “nation-building”. Then the bureaucratic regulation and control problems which afflict the federal government in its “nation-building” here at home also afflict similar efforts abroad. But many libertarians insist on conflating military operations with post-military occupations.
The division among libertarians reflects back into the “anarchism” versus “minarchism” debate. Anarchist libertarians are especially going to question the ability of a government to be successful in any war, or to ever act in a moral and principled manner. Whereas minimal-state (“night watchman”) libertarians will want to defend the proposition that a government which is limited to its proper functions (providing collective self-defense and a justice system and legal framework for citizens to interact) can indeed perform those functions in a reasonably competent manner.
The 9/11 attack hammered a wedge into this inherent division among libertarians. The overwhelming majority of libertarians believe in self-defense and strongly support the individual right to keep and bear arms. Our country was clearly the victim of a horrendous attack on 9/11 which required some kind of response. So what were the libertarian options?
One option was to deny that we were the victim of an attack. A tiny percentage of libertarians have bought into the conspiracy theories which say this was all a plot by the U.S. government, and that the towers were toppled by explosive charges, and that no plane actually hit the Pentagon, and that this was Bush’s Reichstag fire to give the fascist Republicans dictatorial control of the country. This neatly obviates the need for a response, since there was no external attack in the first place.
Another option was to blame everything on prior foreign interventionism by the United States. We’ve unquestionably propped up foreign dictators in the past, supplied them with weapons, established foreign bases, etc. If you go back far enough (and often very recently) you can almost always find one or more grievances which foreigners can site as justification for striking back against our country. If the U.S. was the orginal aggressor, then 9/11 could be painted as an act of retaliation and self-defense, and we would have no moral justification for responding further. At the very least there would be a moral equivalence between the acts of “terrorists” and the acts of the U.S. government.
Another option was to concede that the U.S. government had made many mistakes by its past foreign interventionism but to deny moral equivalence between that and terrorist attacks which were directed at innocent civilians and which killed three thousand people. Recognizing that we had an active enemy which would continue to try to attack us, many libertarians agreed that it was morally proper to act in self-defense to try to defeat the terrorist organizations. But how? There was a lot of libertarian support for a limited strike against Al Queda in Afghanistan and the Taliban government which was shielding the terrorists. There was also a lot of support for the Ron Paul approach of issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, offering huge rewards (billions, not millions) for the Al Queda leadership, and encouraging private military operations to target the terrorists.
Another option was to view this as a major war with many fronts, and to hold every government which sponsored or sheltered terrorists as being co-conspirators (either before or after the fact) in terrorist attacks and therefore culpable. This would classify military actions against nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps even North Korea (which is a potential supplier of nuclear weapons to terrorists) as retaliatory self-defense. The order of military operations would become a strategic decision rather than a moral question. Under this scenario the war would end when the terrorist leaders were captured or dead and their organizations dismantled and no nation-state was willing to shelter or support future terrorist operations which could again threaten our country.
The Libertarian Party and the libertarian movement in general has splintered among these options, with each camp accusing the others of violating libertarian principles. The picture is further muddied by the many instances of incompetence evidenced by U.S. military occupations, and the inconsistent realpolitick foreign policy with respect to countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The picture is also muddied by the biased reporting of much of the media which prevents us from getting an accurate picture of the real successes and failures of this war. Each libertarian faction is therefore able to point to and emphasize different sets of facts which it can claim supports its interpretation of events. The 9/11 wedge has created giant fissures in the libertarian movement which I don’t see closing anytime soon.
My libertarian reason for opposing the war is that I believe that nation building is a fool's errand. In this case, it's social engineering of the most crude sort (at the point of a gun). I simply don't see how anyone who believes in the ideas of Hayek and Burke could think that the nation building stage of this war would go well. Unfortunately, Bush's original "humble" foreign policy ideas were probably based more on a general religious sentiment than a reasoned opposition to government action.
I'm guessing that the libertarians who oppose all war as an "initiation of force" are the same libertarians who believe that all taxation is an "initiation of force" - they're anarchists.
No, no you can't. In theory, you could have argued this in the past, but the actual results of the war (which, in the eyes of many, were completely predictable) along with the knowledge of Iraq's lack of WMDs (perhaps less predictable) shows that the utilitarian pro-war argument was absurd - even more so from a liberterian point of view, which does not take a dreamy-eyed view of government intervention. If utilitarianism cannot justify welfare spending, universal health care, and worker health protections, how can it justify a war with such an unlikely chance of success?
"NOTE: I'm not going to try to censor comments, but I suggest that it would be more productive if people focus on the narrower issue of the disagreement among libertarians instead of the broader issue of the justice of the war (which has already been debated ad nauseum both at VC and elsewhere)."
The problem here is that the justice of the war, or at least in terms of utilitarianism, is a prerequisite to the question you want. You have to assume the first to get to the latter. But the question wasn't whether the government can interfere at the cost of death and destruction to innocents when the result was going to be, for sure, a total of less death and less destrucion. It was at its first instance whether it was rational for people naturally distrustful of government efficiency arguments to swallow the bait on that question.
And ultimately, it was about what was more important to liberterians - their beliefs or their allegiences. Those who supported the war chose their allegiences over their beliefs, and some have (in various degrees) nobly come to (in various degrees) admit and apologize for their error.
And for those who still support the war, such as Glenn Reynolds, not much needs to be said, other than you are framing the question in a way that, if true, could only lead to the conclusion that this tenured law professor is actually incapable of comprehending basic facts, a conclusion that seems untenable in my own view.
your arguments are deceptive, setting up and beating up a straw man. The real straw man was in option three. The assumption made throughout, but penetrating in option three, are these simple false presumptions
Saddam Hussein = Osama Bin Ladin
Secular Baathism = Wahaabism
Regional = Global
Israel = United States
Terrorism = goal (as opposed to method)
The option you ignore, or at least dress up as absurd, was that a response to the Twin Towers attack which would be focused solely on Al Queda, or more broadly on anti-American Wahabbist paramilitary organizations, would have been sufficient.
Karen
"(the first of which appears to have been false, though the second true)"
Presuming that connection has a real meaning - some sort of actual or real potential conspiracy, not in the sense that the United States and North Korea are connected - do you care to explain this statement?
I would agree that, prior to 9/11, US foreign policy had no clear purpose. Now it appears to have a purpose of gradually eliminating dictators and the like. I think that's a plus for mankind. You can take the position of "yes, but it's not our job", but who else is realistically capable of doing it?
I guess that Mark Steyn is closest to my philosophy. He views the war in Iraq in practical terms...getting rid of Saddam is good but don't expect Shangri-La. I think Bush is slowly coming to his senses. He trapped himself by his own rhetoric...after all he offered safe passage to Saddam out of Iraq and to forego the invasion so presumably in that case the new Iraqi government would have been a hopefully somewhat chastened Baathist thugocracy. But Bush set the bar way too high and as a result Iraq is likely years or decades from any kind of stability.
What I was doing was describing the fault lines (as I saw them) among libertarians which were caused by the 9/11 attack. From your response I would guess that you fall into Option 3, but that you thought my description of that option was unfair and intended to make it seem absurd. Since that was not my intention (nor my belief), I have to wonder whether you found yourself accidently looking into a mirror and not being comfortable with the face staring back at you.
The following link is a very good response to both the reasoning behind pro-war libertarian thought as well as an answer to Justin's post above (warning: it's long, but worth it):
Who Is Our Enemy?
I also find it ironic when people invoke the straw-man argument as a straw-man argument itself.
in the pro- vs con- war position being
a direct function of experience with totalitarianism
is spot on and has been my own explanation.
Being born in freedom (or from rich parents) has its own
drawbacks: witness the persistent infantilism
of so many libertarians in the face of the threat
to their countrymen's existance from a mad enemy.
Liberation of Iraq is in no way fifferent from the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. (The Bush administration's usual incompetence _afterwards_ doesn't change the fact, it just provides another irrelevant anti-war argument for those so inclined; it's a valid argument against the hands-on nation buildin, though.)
Another point worth remarkimg: libertarianism is a proper philosophy of _peaceful_ people. It's completely bankrupt
in dealing with existential outside threats to a society's existence -- witness the LP national nitwits after 9/11.
The fact is that the world and our thoughts about the world are two different things; one is the actual world itself, while the other is merely a collection of thoughts bouncing around inside of our skulls.
This being the case, it is completely possible for any of us to be absolutely 180° wrong about literally anything at any given time. When the world or something withing the world changes, no invisible hand reaches into our minds to redirect our thoughts to be consistent with the new reality. Likewise when we change our minds about something, the world doesn't spontaneously re-order itself to our thoughts. Instead, when our thoughts don't coincide with reality, we're simply wrong is all, which may or may not have undesirable implications depending on the subject and scope of our misapprehension.
I've always found that the more congnizant a person is of this separateness, the less likely they are to "eat the menu" here in the real world. They are more likely to identify and analyze their observations of the world based on other observations of the world, as opposed to simply abstract principles.
And fortunately for my theory, the opposite generally also appears to hold true: the more philosophical one's attitude toward the world, the less cognizant one is of the separateness of the world and one's beliefs about it.
It's also my experience that anti-war folks tend toward this latter type. They also tend to be more anarchist than minarchist, and more principled than consequentialist.
yours/
peter.
Doves see nothing particularly _personally_ threatening about the state of the MidEast 1991->2001/2003.
Hawks see various combinations of factors adding up to a medium/long-term personal/familial threat.
Then there's this perspective ...
1: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya etc are/were working on WMDs
1a: Chem-weapons are annoying but not a critical danger.
1b: Nukes are locally more dangerous, but hard-to-make
1c: Bio-weapons are the threat to extinguish Homo Sapiens.
2: Iraq, Iran, and Syria are clearly known to have worked on weaponizing various *-pox germs ... this was broadly reported on in the late-1990s, specifically mentioning manipulating camel-pox's human transmissibility or practicing on camel-pox before working on smallpox.
Links+References:
* The Iraqi government did admit to U.N. inspectors back in 1995 that they were working on camelpox as a weapon against foreign troops.
Source:
islamonline.net
* They claimed they wanted to use it as a weapon to which Iraqis, who are used to camels, would be immune, while foreign troops would not.
The inspectors were dubious, as camelpox does not cause human disease. They feared that instead, Iraq might be using it as a safe substitute while testing a smallpox weapon.
source:
worldhealth.net
Iraq acknowledges a certain level and that is that they were conducting research on three viruses - chemopox which is loosely related to cowpox, smallpox presumably, but is principally a disease of camels; human rotavirus which is a notorious cause of infant diarrhoea; and hemmolergic conjunctivitis which produces a hemorrhaging in the eye and blurred vision which will last 24 to 48 hours. The eyes bleed. -----
Presumably if you're working on camelpox you are working on smallpox. -----
Well camelpox is a very strange one. We were told at the time that the reason they were working on camelpox is that they believed that the local population, the indigenous population would be immune and outsiders coming in would be susceptible to it. ----- They have openly acknowledged three agents. The anthrax, botulinum toxin as well as clostridium perfringens spores. The latter one produces - it's a notorious cause of gangrene, particularly in penetrating wounds during war time. It's a rather horrible death and presumably that was what Iraq - that's what Iraq claim was their interest in it. source:
PBS
* Another mystery is Iraqi statements about work on camelpox virus at the Daura ... Even the small chance that Iraq is running an Ebola lab is a chilling prospect. ...
google blurb of a for-pay Science article on Iraq, Camelpox and Ebola
From the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, the Iranian opposition group that revealed Iran "peaceful" nuclear program:
Iran has begun production of weaponized anthrax and is actively working with at least five other pathogens, including smallpox, in a drive to build an arsenal of biological weapons.
Source: smallpoxbiosecurity.org
* Iran has started production of weaponised anthrax spores, and is investigating efforts in other pathogens, including smallpox for its bioweapons arsenal. It is of interest, that Kenneth Alibek supervised the development of weapons grade smallpox during his tenure as scientific chief at Biopreparat (The USSR's Biopreparat was what has been dubbed a “toxic archipelago.” Scientists toiled on 52 different agents that could be used as weapons, among them the organisms causing smallpox, anthrax, plague, Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers, yellow fever, tularemia, brucellosis, Q fever, botulinum toxin, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis. Genetic hybrids were whipped up from the most deadly ingredients.)
Sources:
Defense Update News Commentary
National Academies Press
3: These bio-WMD efforts pre-dated serious genetic manipulation or understanding of the outputs of the recominint genetics projects that have now published the genetic structure of humans, mice, and many minor animals plus _MANY_ deadly virii like the 1918 flu, smallpox, etc.
4: Western morality does not allow us to withhold medical machinery from Iran, et al.
5: Medical knowledge has raced ahead of most people's understanding of it due to the inherent exponential growth of biochem/genetic knowledge multiplied by the Moore's law exponential growth curve of computational proteinology (The computational power applied to biomed-research and genetic or protein structure doubles about every 12 months (computer power doubles every 18 months ... but these are added to (not replacing) the existing su