Return to Misguided Libertarian Support for the Afghan War
To reply to Chris Sciabarra, despite all of the official sanitized claims, U.S. actions in Afghanistan have hardly been "targeted strikes." Otherwise, there would not have been well over 3,000 innocent people killed even as early as the beginning of this year. Why would we expect otherwise? The use of bombers, gunships, and mortars are not exactly designed to be discriminating projections of firepower. Indeed, we would be outraged if the government used such firepower in any city in the U.S. So, why would we expect such means to be "targeted" in a city in Afghanistan? Are we to believe that everyone in such a locale is an "enemy" so that resulting random deaths are acceptable? (See http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030426Higgs.html, http://www.independent.org/tii/news/020415Higgs.html, http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030323Higgs.html, and http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030502Higgs.html.)
Self-defense is indeed a legitimate use of force, but U.S. military campaigns are by their very nature not police actions or self-defense. They are military offensives by design and brutally so. Moreover, they are wielded by collectivist organizations also designed to be unaccountable and indiscriminate. Furthermore, such preemptive war is nothing short of the abolition of the rule of law itself (http://www.independent.org/tii/content/pubs/review/tir43_calhoun.html), while self-defense is the protection of the rule of law. This fact is manifested in the insistence by the Bush Administration that U.S. military personnel should not be subject to civil or criminal prosecution anywhere in the world for their actions and the claim that the U.S. can secretly round up and indefinitely incarcerate people without charge, legal counsel, or trial.
The Constitution’s provision for self-funded bounties through Letters of Marque are clearly preferable to war socialism/corporatism in the name of defense, and despite the official chill from the Iron Triangle in Washington for such an approach, when push came to shove, the only real successes the U.S. has had in capturing key Al Qaeda leaders have been through the use of paid bounties. In other words, I submit that Al Qaeda could have been very effectively pursued, without killing innocents and using scorched-Earth policies, for a tiny fraction of the funds expended by the U.S. national security Leviathan.
As for Pat Lynch's question, it is a mistake to equate a nation or community with a state that claims sovereignty by conquest over a certain territory. Moreover, we must look to why the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 (http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040727Eland.html) or at Pearl Harbor (http://www.independent.org/archive/pearlharbor.html). The fact remains that in both instances, the U.S. government had been systematically intervening in other lands and the result was to provoke the rise of belligerent and intolerant groups who believed that only through retaliation could they end such intervention. Such “blowback” (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96may/blowback.htm#Weaver) is not new, yet most Americans remain utterly shocked when it occurs over and over again.
David J. Theroux
Self-defense is indeed a legitimate use of force, but U.S. military campaigns are by their very nature not police actions or self-defense. They are military offensives by design and brutally so. Moreover, they are wielded by collectivist organizations also designed to be unaccountable and indiscriminate. Furthermore, such preemptive war is nothing short of the abolition of the rule of law itself (http://www.independent.org/tii/content/pubs/review/tir43_calhoun.html), while self-defense is the protection of the rule of law. This fact is manifested in the insistence by the Bush Administration that U.S. military personnel should not be subject to civil or criminal prosecution anywhere in the world for their actions and the claim that the U.S. can secretly round up and indefinitely incarcerate people without charge, legal counsel, or trial.
The Constitution’s provision for self-funded bounties through Letters of Marque are clearly preferable to war socialism/corporatism in the name of defense, and despite the official chill from the Iron Triangle in Washington for such an approach, when push came to shove, the only real successes the U.S. has had in capturing key Al Qaeda leaders have been through the use of paid bounties. In other words, I submit that Al Qaeda could have been very effectively pursued, without killing innocents and using scorched-Earth policies, for a tiny fraction of the funds expended by the U.S. national security Leviathan.
As for Pat Lynch's question, it is a mistake to equate a nation or community with a state that claims sovereignty by conquest over a certain territory. Moreover, we must look to why the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 (http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040727Eland.html) or at Pearl Harbor (http://www.independent.org/archive/pearlharbor.html). The fact remains that in both instances, the U.S. government had been systematically intervening in other lands and the result was to provoke the rise of belligerent and intolerant groups who believed that only through retaliation could they end such intervention. Such “blowback” (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96may/blowback.htm#Weaver) is not new, yet most Americans remain utterly shocked when it occurs over and over again.
David J. Theroux
Re: Afghan and Iraq Wars and U.S. Interventionism
(#39155)
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on July 30, 2004 at 7:01 AM
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on July 30, 2004 at 7:01 AM
David, thanks for your response. I do not disagree with you about the ways in which the US has fought in the Middle East post-9/11; I do not disagree that the consequences of these strategies have been awful, or that US foreign policy has, to a significant extent, laid the basis for the conflicts in which the US is currently involved. Nor do I disagree with you about the constitutional or moral legitimacy of bounties in capturing key Al Qaeda operatives. Nor do I disagree with you about the need for civil or criminal accountability for ~all~ individuals involved in military actions.
The issue, for me, is one of ~system~. Given that neo-corporatism is at the very heart of US political economy, and that 3000 American civilians were murdered on 9/11, and that the ~wholesale~ adoption of privateering as a substitute military strategy was/is virtually off the table, my question remains: What was to be done ~in that context~ on September 12, 2001, when such a horrific act had taken place on American soil?
Let me provide an analogy that was passed on to me by my mentor: When you go into a Chinese restaurant, you don't order pizza. You have to order what's on the menu, or simply go to another restaurant (unless, of course, the Chinese restaurant is the only restaurant in town). In other words, while privateering may have been a moral, constitutional option as a response to the 9/11 attack, it wasn't on the ~institutional~ menu. And ~at this time~, neo-corporatism is the only "restaurant" in town. Privateering may have been on the menu back in the 19th century---but not today (at least not as a wholesale strategy). And since some kind of military response was forthcoming, given the political and cultural realities post-9/11, it brings me back to the central question: What is to be done?
Please note that my own advocacy of a military response against Al Qaeda and their Taliban enablers is not a wholesale approval of ~how~ the US responded or, least of all, what the US has left behind. See here, for example: http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/5634.html .
In any event, thanks very much for the discussion and for raising important questions and issues.
The issue, for me, is one of ~system~. Given that neo-corporatism is at the very heart of US political economy, and that 3000 American civilians were murdered on 9/11, and that the ~wholesale~ adoption of privateering as a substitute military strategy was/is virtually off the table, my question remains: What was to be done ~in that context~ on September 12, 2001, when such a horrific act had taken place on American soil?
Let me provide an analogy that was passed on to me by my mentor: When you go into a Chinese restaurant, you don't order pizza. You have to order what's on the menu, or simply go to another restaurant (unless, of course, the Chinese restaurant is the only restaurant in town). In other words, while privateering may have been a moral, constitutional option as a response to the 9/11 attack, it wasn't on the ~institutional~ menu. And ~at this time~, neo-corporatism is the only "restaurant" in town. Privateering may have been on the menu back in the 19th century---but not today (at least not as a wholesale strategy). And since some kind of military response was forthcoming, given the political and cultural realities post-9/11, it brings me back to the central question: What is to be done?
Please note that my own advocacy of a military response against Al Qaeda and their Taliban enablers is not a wholesale approval of ~how~ the US responded or, least of all, what the US has left behind. See here, for example: http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/5634.html .
In any event, thanks very much for the discussion and for raising important questions and issues.
Re: Afghan and Iraq Wars and U.S. Interventionism
(#39414)
by Arnold Shcherban on August 3, 2004 at 10:32 PM
by Arnold Shcherban on August 3, 2004 at 10:32 PM
I'm sorry to intervene,
But let me briefly answer the dillema raised by you.
What the US should have done as a democratic and
internationally engaged sovereign country, is to launch immediate missile and bombing attacks targeting Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, as soon as it obtained sufficient information on the responsible for the 9/11 terrorist acts on US soil. The preparation for the attacks should have been very secretive, without divulging the developments of investigation of 9/11 events and the conclusion about who was found to be responsible, and
whom the attacks were planned against, specific and short. Provided Bin Laden and its top leutenants would not have been killed during the attacks, the hunt for them should have been initiated, as it was done, anyway.
No invasion, and no occupation of Afhganistan.
But let me briefly answer the dillema raised by you.
What the US should have done as a democratic and
internationally engaged sovereign country, is to launch immediate missile and bombing attacks targeting Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, as soon as it obtained sufficient information on the responsible for the 9/11 terrorist acts on US soil. The preparation for the attacks should have been very secretive, without divulging the developments of investigation of 9/11 events and the conclusion about who was found to be responsible, and
whom the attacks were planned against, specific and short. Provided Bin Laden and its top leutenants would not have been killed during the attacks, the hunt for them should have been initiated, as it was done, anyway.
No invasion, and no occupation of Afhganistan.
by David J. Theroux on July 29, 2004 at 6:07 PM