Useful Fools

NOTE: This is a response to an article in an ongoing discussion at slashdot.org. The previous article is here. I have chosen to move it to the blog because Slashdot is a technical forum, while the topic is perfect for this blog.

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But if you can’t at least question the justifications you are given by your administration, which keep changing as the evidence changes and legal arguments falter, then really, don’t waste my time.

This would appear to say that if I don’t find fault with the administrations reasoning, then I am wasting your time. Well, I do question the Bush administration. I wonder why whether we have been strong enough in dealing with North Korea. I wonder if we have a large enough army to deal with possible contingencies such as an Al Qaueda friendly takeover of nuclear armed Pakistan. I dislike the administrations refusal to use adequate profiling to detect terrorists.

We had multiple justifications which were given before the war. But the ones which were most critical were the WMD’s and the association with terrorists. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t have others, and if you go back you will find that we cited all of them well before the war.

You glibly say that this wasn’t a war of self defense. If not, why the heck do you think we did it? We expended lives and vast amounts of money to overthrow Saddam. Do you think we did it just for the fun of it? We certainly didn’t do it for the oil, as Iraq’s oil production capability is pathetic, and we could just as easily had the oil by buying it from Saddam at the Saudi stabilized market prices. So what, pray tell, is your fantasy about why we went to war?

I also listen to the arguments of the proponents of “international law.” I find them sorely lacking. You seem to be upset about our claimed (disputably for sure) violation of international law in our occupation of Iraq. Americans do not worship the UN and international law as much as Europeans. We see flawed and corrupt organizations, often giving honors to some of the most evil people on earth, and failing to achieve much good. We see an organization (UN) which is always to ready to condemn us, but not the many truly evil leaders in the world. We see a nation with a Security Council veto, France, which has adopted a stated policy of reducing our power, even after we have been subjected to the horrible attack of 9-11 and are threatened with many more. That same nation was the second greatest weapons supplier to Iraq, and itself has a recent history of non-UN sanctioned interventions.

So why the hell should we pay attention to the UN? It is corrupt. It is biased. It gives equal votes to dictators like Saddam and democracies like the US or Switzerland. The Security Council is a relic of the cold war, and when France and Russia announced that they would not vote for our attack on Iraq, we recognized that this was because of their desire to continue profiting from Saddam (they were the two largest suppliers of weapons to Iraq, by far) and because they wanted the US to lose power. So we have contempt for that organization. We have contempt for those who would talk legal niceties while our citizens die. We have contempt for those who do not have the vision to recognize that whether we like it or not, the world has many very dangerous people in it, and they will not pay any attention to “international law” or a bunch of peace loving folks demonstrating in the streets.

We KNOW that we are living in a jungle. You don’t want to face that fact, so you accuse us of creating that jungle by shattering your finely crafted but utterly ineffective institutions such as the ICC and the UN and other various instruments of “international law”.

But Europe, and the transnational supporters envision a world in which sovereignity is golden (regardless of the type of government, unless it is Jewish) and war is fought by armies out in the open. In this world, the wise European intellectuals would solve all of our disputes of tea and wine. Evil people would somehow magically go away.

Instead, we are in a war fought by shadowy groups who have every intent of using weapons of mass destruction to destroy our society. And of that there can be no doubt, as they have demonstrated their willingness for mass murder (attempting TWICE to kill about 100,000 people in the world trade center). And that war is not complete. We observe that many of the same people who criticise us for our defensive actions were apologists for the USSR, until the evidence of its depravity became too much to deny. We have no reason to hand our security over to such people, and we sure as hell are not going to hand over our sovereign right to defend ourselves.

So lets go down the line, point by point. Afghanistan. That was very clearly justified. We had hard evidence (which has been confirmed) that the Taliban regime was deeply in league with an organization which made the worst attack on us in our history, and which previously had made other attacks, and which is still threatening us. To doubt that we had justification to destroy the Taliban regime is beyond silly. But when we destroyed it, we did so with a minimum of force and a minimum of civilian casualties, because unlike our enemies, we are a civilized and moral people. An important side effect is giving the people of Afghanistan the possibility of a civilized government. Of course, we do not do this simply out of the goodness of our hearts (although you will find that the US does indeed have many good intentions), but because such governments are the best way to prevent the growth of terrorism.

Major, incredibly important change as of Iraq (the second time): while the security council system has been a broken machine for a long, long time, and has only recently re-emerged as a working apparatus since the end of the Cold War, what occurred with Iraq has never happened before, and may herald the end of international law as we’ve known it under the U.N. system, and herald the beginning of simple brute force, whether it be the U.S., China, or any other power that comes along and decides that it has sufficient reason to act against another state (because they have weapons they might use, resources they want; whatever). I’m not talking about extending/stretching the use of resolutions. Comparatively, that is a technical point. I am talking about fully turning your back on the security council. Never happened before.

This is an amazing paragraph. You seem to have ignored the many wars which have taken place before and during the Iraq regime change which were not sanctioned by the UN security council, to focus all of your outrage against one which was instigated by the US and Britain. I mentioned Kosovo once before and you ignored it. Why the selectivity? Where is your outrage for Russian attacks on Chechnya? Does you precious international law help either side there? How about the two French interventions in Africa in the last year, without Security Council pre-approval? How about Russian interference in Geogia’s internal affairs? How about Chinas anexation of Tibet and its brutal oppression of its people? How about the Chinese supported rebellion in Nepal? Why do I only hear a huge outcry against the United States’ destruction of one of the most evil regimes around, while I hear nothing from the international law crowd about China and Russia’s violations, not to mention those of France? And you also forget that the Security Council resolution that did pass was so worded that we had technically every right to attack Iraq.

If this becomes the end of the Security Council, I will cheer. The UN is simply not a useful organization, not even during the post-cold war period where you imagine otherwise. It was only suitable for dictataors who want cover for their actions, and little insignificant nations who want to feel as powerful as the US or China. The UN needs to be replaced, as it has lost all relevance. There need to be forums for treaty making, for helping refugees, and for global medical aid (such as WHO). But for those who believe in freedom, the UN is a worthless organization. For those who want security from attack by evildoers, the UN is counterproductive.

It would seem to me that your main objection is that the world’s most powerful nation, which is also the worlds most damaged nation by terrorism (except for Israel), is taking actions it views as being in its self defense, without asking your permission. To which I say…. grow up.

Your fantasies about international law are just that: fantasies. Europe, which has chosen to disarm itself to the point where it asked the US to help it in Kosovo (you forgot to mention that one, btw, where we also ignored the Security Council, at the request of Europeans!), wishes against all evidence that some sort of international power can arise that will magically solve international problems and bring peace. But this is a fantasy because you have not provided adequate mechanisms for dealing with the sociopaths who too often rise to power; with the regimes which choose to oppress their people and use force and terrorism against others. Your goals may be noble, but your results are counterproductive. Even today, Serbia may elect a Milosovic regime while your ICC tries to deal with him.

Fortunately, European security agencies are not nearly as naive as European ideologists. The security agencies know that it is only a matter of time until radical Islam becomes a terrible threat to the survival of Europe. Thus they cooperate with us on international terrorism, even as their ideologues vilify us.

You say that Iraq was not about self defense. That is because you are stuck in the pre-9-11 thinking, last century logic, where enemies are formal and nicely situated in single countries. Most Americans recognize that we live in a new century, where threats are so grave that we cannot allow them to fester. We also recognize that Iraq was one of the more dangerous places, and also a very useful one to occupy. It stops whatever WMD programs were or were planned there; it ends Saddam’s subsidies to terrorists who attack Israel, a democratic ally of ours; it interdicts the flow of people and material between Iran and Syria, and threatens both outlaw countries. It gives us a base to attack anyone who attacks us from close range and quickly, and to make further preemptive strikes if needed. And, of course, hopefully it allows us to help a people set up a free society in the cess-pool of the middle east, something which might very well improve the governance situation in the area.

But your vision is too narrow. The combination of Islamic fundamentalism and pan-Arab nationalism, tied with weapons of mass destruction, is extremely dangerous. I have seen no way in which international law has reduced that threat. Rather, it props up the dictatorial regimes which create the hatred, in the name of stability.

And yes, our attack on Iraq was like shooting someone who is walking down the street armed. But only a someone who has a record of murder and brutality and who is providing assistance to those who have already killed some of our children.

From our point of view, we are at war, right now. We are constantly being threatened, and at some point those threats will succeed. An outlaw nation (maybe North Korea) will sell an Al Qaueda group a nuclear weapon or weaponized smallpox or some other horror, and it will kill huge numbers of people in the US or England. If that happend, you will then discover how restrained the US has been in this war. You will see, as the Japanese saw after Pearl Harbor, that we are capable of fighting total war if needed. And your international law will be used as toilet paper by our soldiers.

Your approach requires waiting for the bad guy to shoot your wife and kids, and then have a committee meeting to figure out what to do about it. That was the Clinton approach. It is not the Bush approach, thank goodness.

I believe that we are in a major clash of cultures. The Islamists are spreading a virulent brand of Islam in many parts of the world. If you look at a map of current fighting in the world today, almost every bit of it is on the edges of Islam. There is a ring of fire, as Islamic terrorists attack those of other faiths in their countries or neighboring ones. For example, please advise how international law has prevented the slaughter and slavery of Sudanese Christians - just one of dozens of similar cases. Islam, as preached by the Ayatollahs of Iran or the Wahhabis (and these are too very different sects) is a violent force which will use any means necessary to achieve an Islamic world. We do not plan to let this happen, UN or not, international law or not.

We didn’t ask for this war. We didn’t harm those who attacked us - rather we enriched and educated many of them. We are the victims in this situation, the aggrieved party. Those we have fought were evil and I would hope that you can recognize that. Those we freed are better off than if we had followed some international law process.

Who would have liberated Iraq? Who would have kept Saddam or his sons from building or buying nuclear weapons? Do you really think the sanctions would last forever, or that he would break under them? He had payed for missiles which could target Europe. Do you think he planned to put only high expxlosives on them (oh, btw, those are categorized as WMD’s in the UN protocols, and we have solid evidence that he had ordered them).

You say we are the worst imperialist nation. Please explain which part of our empire gives us profit, and how much tribute is paid to our imperium? Please explain which people we are oppressing. Perhaps it is because of Europe’s collective guilt in imperialism that you feel a need to call us imperialist, but it is mere rhetoric.

We have no colonies. We seek no colonies. We fight wars of self defense (although I agree that the Noriega situation was stretching self defense into the drug war, which I think is inappropriate). You claim that we use to follow international law but now we don’t. Have you been through a time warp????

The US once was an imperialist nation (”manifest destiny”) and we conquered many indigenous tribes in order to acquire our territory. We did this before and after the founding of our country. We also intervened in Latin America for commercial reasons during the ’30s.

But more recently, lets look at our wars and battles…

Korea - repelling an invasion instituted by the USSR’s agent (Kim Il Sung) with UN Security Council approval - which was only given because the USSR made a tactical blunder and walked out when they otherwise would have made a veto. We lost over 40,000 of our people in that war, but South Korea has had 50 years of freedom as a result.

Vietnam - we took that mess over from the French, who had tried to re-institute their brutal colonial rule. Since the North was a communist state supported by the USSR, and we were concerned about the spread of hostile regimes into SE Asia (and especially the Phillipines), we fought there and held back the communists long enough that only two other countries fell to them (Cambodia and Laos).

Panama - That was a strange situation. Noriega was out of control and had killed an American, but was not about to attack us, although he was playing patsy with the Chinese, a geostrategic enemy. At the time, I did not feel we had the justification for the attack. However, the results were very positive - Panama is a much better place today (and yes, I have been there and checked it out).

Gulf War (1991) - We repulsed a brutal invader. However, because the UN did not give us authorization for regime change, we stopped after driving his forces from Kuwait. The result of that was the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq.

The more recent ones have been mentioned.

Oh, and to answer your comments on stability… It is Europe that craves stability, because it doesn’t have the means to deal with anything else. We supported stability in the cold war as a means of containing communism. But Reagan recognized that we could defeat the true imperial power, the USSR, by destabilizing communist regimes (Nicaragua, Angola, etc).

Now the USSR is gone (although I fear it will be back, and it is still building new generations of ICBMs). But a new enemy has arisen, one which represents a very different danger than the USSR. And that enemy requires a different kind of fight, which is what we are doing.

I don’t know if the Iraq invasion was the best choice. Perhaps we should have attacked North Korea instead, or joined with India to capture Pakistan. But one thing I do know, and that is that George Bush has ONE primary international agenda, and that is to defend civilization and especially to defend the United States. That isn’t just some pap fed to willing idiots. It is clearly his motivation.

I will also say this: I don’t know if there is a solution to the current crisis. I don’t know if the war can be won. I am not certain that our approach is the corect one.

History may have genetically engineered biological weapons destroying most of humanity, resutling in a global totalitarian state as the only way of preventing a repeat. That is, unfortunately, a likely prospect, and that is the kind of stakes I think we are fighting for! Not some little war like colonialists were so fond of, but an asymmetric World War IV, with WMDs likely employed by the Islamic fanatics. In the cold war, attacks on superpowers were prevented by the bizarre philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (and not by any international law, btw). But today’s fanatics cannot be deterred, so we are attempting to deter the governments which allow those fanatics to operate, and will ultimately destroy those governments should they not change. And THAT is self defense, not imperialism, because we have nothing to gain out of such a mess other than our security!

Now, since you have made the very common, but utterly unsupported charge that we are the worst imperialist power since Rome, I think you owe me a defense of that charge, because it is hurtful and, in my opinion, utterly idiotic and ahistorical. I cannot imagine how someone who can otherwise argue so logically can make such an absurd charge.

I will offer up just two counterexamples (although 2000 years of history provides many):

The Soviet Empire. That regime conquered and oppressed eastern Europe and a number of countries adjoining Russia. It practiced ethnic cleansing and mass murder (ask the former Kulaks of the Ukraine). It stole from its subject nations, keeping the wealth for itself. It developed the largest arsenal of biological weapons in history, in direct violation of international law, after the US had destroyed its stocks. The USSR maintained a regime of terror for its citizens, putting many in the gulags where they suffered horribly and usually died. It sent its agents throughout the world, destabilizing governments and teaching terrorism and respressive techniques to potential allies. It was so brutal that its own returning POWs, after WW-II, were sent to the prison camps where almost all died. It killed an estimated 50,000,000 of its subjects, especially Jews and intellectuals.

The French Colonial Empire. That empire controlled many countries, and unlike the British empire, left them with no decent infrastructure or traditions when it pulled out. The French looted countries to their hearts content, and use brutal techniques to maintain control (ask the Vietnamese). To this day, France feels free to meddle in the internal affairs of former colonies in Africa, as I mentioned above.

I can’t resist adding the Nazi Reich. No need to go into its depravities.

And you call US the worst imperium since Rome? How can you be serious?