Libertarians and the Iraq War

I’m not a libertarian but I really liked this post over at the Cato at Liberty blog.  Gene Healy raises an interesting question.

Is libertarianism really a political philosophy that tells you what to think about mandatory recycling and restrictions on the interstate shipment of wine, but has virtually nothing of interest to say about when it might be morally permissible to use daisy cutters and thermobaric bombs?

I’m not really sure what the answer is, to be honest.  I have a slightly more than passing familiarity with libertarianism and I sympathize with the notion that individuals should have as much autonomy as possible, but only if it is socially responsible. 

I don’t see government as an extension of our families and therefore I think it should stay out of family business. 

But I do think that the collective will of persons should be reflected to a large extent in their government, especially when it comes to protecting an individual’s autonomy. 

What does this have to do with Iraq?  I suppose that depends on what we’re doing there.  Is it to protect our people?  I think that claim hardly has any credibility anymore.  Is it to open markets for our corporate/oil interests?  I don’t consider corporations to be persons, legal fictions be damned, so it is inappropriate for our government to be serving those interests. 

I’ve thought a little bit about this and I really cannot come up with the libertarian rationale for the war. 

Anyway, check out the link.  Definitely good stuff there. 

Zap! Pow! Al Qaeda on the Run!

This is total crap. 

One of the new memes being pushed by the Bush Administration to bolster their shaky performance in Iraq is this idea that the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan is operating in Iraq. 

And wouldn’t you know it?  One day after releasing an unclassified version of the NIE, which despite intense efforts at sanitizing and spinning could not hide the fact that Al Qaeda is no worse for wear after six years of the Global War on Terror, the Bush Administration announces capturing the “leader” of the Iraqi version of Al Qaeda. 

Their official story is full of information which conveniently enough echoes the contention that the real Al Qaeda has been giving orders and controlling/influencing the Iraqi Al Qaeda.  So we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here or in Afghanistan/Pakistan.  So pulling resources out of Afghanistan/Pakistan and into Iraq wasn’t stupid.  It was far-sighted. 

Puh-leeze. 

Here’s what the Bush administration still doesn’t get about Al Qaeda.  It’s decentralized.  You can’t cut off the head and expect it to wither away. 

The Bush administration has been guilty since the day they took office of seeing terrorism as a state-sponsored threat.  It is exactly why they didn’t take the threat of Al Qaeda seriously in the first place.  And they are still applying the top-down state model to any analysis involving them. 

They replaced the government in Afghanistan and expected Al Qaeda to go away.  They pressure the government in Pakistan to “crack down” on Al Qaeda on the Western border, as if the Pakistani government could simply stop it if they wanted to.  They keep talking about capturing the “No. 2” or the “No. 3” guy in the organization. 

This is basically a reflection of the analysis we’d use to construct war plans against the Soviets.  Everyone knew that the Soviets ran their organizations from the top down, with little or no room for improvisation on the ground.  That is why we employed a “cut off the head” strategy against them in our war planning. 

We are used to constructing our foreign policy and war planning against centralized governments.  Well, Al Qaeda developed a management style that placed a premium on improvisation and adjustments on the ground.  It was an absolute necessity when fighting against vastly superior resources of the Soviets in the ’80s and everyone else in the ’90s.*  Less organizational control meant more operational security and a better chance to survive even the biggest setbacks. 

So take the recent news with a hefty grain of salt.  The fact that they are spinning the story in this way, in my opinion, belies a total lack of competence and progress on the ground. 

* For simplicity’s sake, I’m conflating the Afghan fighters from the ’80s with Al Qaeda, even though as a distinct entity Al Qaeda did not exist until the early to mid-’90s.  Al Qaeda was heavily influenced by the success of the mujahideen and so the point I am making is still relevant, even if technically anachronistic. 

Staffers are “Stunned” that Bush drops by meeting on Iraq

Am I the only one who finds it remotely humorous that staffers were “stunned” that Bush stopped by a meeting on Iraq in the White House? 

The Kool-Aid

Digby, as usual, puts her finger on something rather important.  The disgusting and overwhelming cost of this war is not only putting us in debt.  It’s affecting our spending priorities right now. 

Presumably, if this war was so damn important, then raising taxes wouldn’t seem so terrible.  The fact that the major supporters of this war are also, by and large, big opponents of any raise in taxes belies a serious mental issue, don’t you think?  If you think sustaining an extremely expensive war and keeping taxes low are compatible, what other crazy things make sense to you? 

A microcosm of what’s wrong in Iraq

McClatchy Newspapers (probably the most consistently high-quality paper media there is right now) has an excellent article about the four Blackwater contractors who were killed in Fallujah back in 2004.  Or rather, it’s about the four contractors who didn’t get killed and the F.U.B.A.R. way missions are drawn up by the cowboys who get paid by the Pentagon to operate outside oversight. 

One of the team members who survived complained about their supervisor, Tom Powell. 

“Why did we all want to kill him?” team member Daniel Browne wrote the following day. “He had sent us on this (expletive) mission and over our protest. We weren’t sighted in, we had no maps, we had not enough sleep, we was taking 2 of our guys cutting off (our) field of fire. As we went over these things we new the other team had the same complaints. They too had their people cut.”

Doesn’t that sum up the whole war?  No plan, improperly equipped, overworked, rushed into the mission, and lacking the requisite number of people to help minimize risk. 

And how about this quote?

Shupe and the other team members were concerned that a vehicle with a driver and one passenger could not protect themselves against an attack from the rear.

Powell said that he was keeping two men from the squad in Baghdad.

Shupe argued back, according to his memo: “I stated very sarcastically, `you are going to split my team so you can have an admin guy and a phone watch…..my guys were fighting jet lag, we have not sighted our weapons in, we have no maps of the route, and no one is familiar with the route.'”

Powell responded: “The route is easy you just drive to Falluja, then through Fallujah to Al Ramiadia then to the boarder.”

“The route is easy.”  Isn’t that the same sort of hubris that led the President to say, “Mission accomplished” and “Bring it on?” 

The whole point of military planning (and many of these guys in Blackwell were former military) is reducing the risk and maximizing the potential benefit of every action.  Every officer and non-commissioned officer gets trained in it.  They learn to ask questions, go over check-lists, and weigh costs against the mission objectives. 

At no point during this war has the military method of planning been applied to the big picture.  Partly because none of the main policy makers ever served in the military.  And partly because the costs of the war don’t seem very costly to them.