Return to Misguided Libertarian Support for the Afghan War
David, as you might suspect, I agree in principle with what you say, and, in principle, I like what Larry Sechrest ( http://www.independent.org/tii/news/010930Sechrest.html )
and others have said about "Letters of Marquee."
But as I say in my post today < http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/6545.html >, too much of this discussion among antiwar and pro-war libertarians seems bogged down in a kind of historical vacuum. Ross Perot may have used LOM to retrieve his employees in Iran, in 1979, as Larry explains, but most of these LOMs are a product of another age, the 19th century, long before the birth of the leviathan US state.
I opposed US intervention in Iraq, but given that LOMs were not used in Afghanistan (and probably were not even politically possible, given the political and systemic conditions, post-9/11), what should the US have done? Note: I'm not dismissing LOMs out-of-hand... I just believe that the political and ideological conditions of the time most likely made their use impossible. The ~system~ of interventionism that currently exists contextualizes everything; we may wish to "bring back the spirit of the privateers," as Larry argues, thus conjoining the pursuit of profit and the pursuit of justice... but this subsumes that we have a political, cultural, or intellectual context that would allow for such pursuit. The system we have won't allow it. It exists, and until or unless we change that system fundamentally, what is to be done? (a question not owned by Chernyshevsky and Lenin).
I think targeted strikes against terrorist camps, disruption of financial networks and such---rather than full-scale invasion and occupation---might have been an efficient alternative, but clearly something had to be done in response to the Al Qaeda attack.
and others have said about "Letters of Marquee."
But as I say in my post today < http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/6545.html >, too much of this discussion among antiwar and pro-war libertarians seems bogged down in a kind of historical vacuum. Ross Perot may have used LOM to retrieve his employees in Iran, in 1979, as Larry explains, but most of these LOMs are a product of another age, the 19th century, long before the birth of the leviathan US state.
I opposed US intervention in Iraq, but given that LOMs were not used in Afghanistan (and probably were not even politically possible, given the political and systemic conditions, post-9/11), what should the US have done? Note: I'm not dismissing LOMs out-of-hand... I just believe that the political and ideological conditions of the time most likely made their use impossible. The ~system~ of interventionism that currently exists contextualizes everything; we may wish to "bring back the spirit of the privateers," as Larry argues, thus conjoining the pursuit of profit and the pursuit of justice... but this subsumes that we have a political, cultural, or intellectual context that would allow for such pursuit. The system we have won't allow it. It exists, and until or unless we change that system fundamentally, what is to be done? (a question not owned by Chernyshevsky and Lenin).
I think targeted strikes against terrorist camps, disruption of financial networks and such---rather than full-scale invasion and occupation---might have been an efficient alternative, but clearly something had to be done in response to the Al Qaeda attack.
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on July 29, 2004 at 9:26 AM