Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Misguided Libertarian Support for the Afghan War
I did not and do not support the U.S. in Afghanistan (or Iraq), and I believe that those defending such actions for self-defense or otherwise are misguided. On 9/11, Al Qaeda was itself responding to U.S. interventions, which have only greatly intensified. Furthermore, Letters of Marque (LOM) would have been far more efficient and targeted (see here and here than launching an invasion and occupation on any country, killing thousands of innocent people in the process, and creating the
conditions for a massive recruitment program for Al Qaeda. LOM furthermore involves no tax funding nor "collateral damage" nor any of the inadequacies or unaccountability of central planning and
government bureaucracy.
Al Qaeda is both a criminal and a guerilla organization. It should be dealt with this in this way, and no amount of aircraft carriers, stealth bombers, nuclear missiles and surveillance satellites have anything to do with the matter. The huge expansion of defense spending is pure pork and corporate welfare. Indeed, such weapons
systems and defense spending are a big part of the problem, and we stated such on 9/14/01.
Moreover, the fact that various pro-market advocates and civil libertarians have supported the war, when this and all war "crises" are the major engine for statism, means that
such advocates have chosen to be on the side of Bigger and More Intrusive Government. To these people, the end justifies the means (somehow socialism/corporatism not only can be made to work for defense purposes, but it is "ideal"), even if the reality is that in
the end the U.S. produces both less security AND less freedom.
Hence, both natural rights and utilitarian libertarians who have supported the neoconservative/liberal interventionist war crusade
have shown themselves to be willing to abandon reason and ethical principles for the glory of the warfare state. The resulting explosion of federal power does not seem to bother them too much these days, or if it does, they wring their hands and wish it were
just not so. Bob Higgs's classic book,
Crisis and Leviathan and his new
book, Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society, shows otherwise.
It is time for libertarians to grow up and face the truth regarding the nature of government power. Is collectivism and warfare statism the route to liberty or not?
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