What’s Wrong with the World

This is, indeed, "unbelievable."

And I mean that quite literally: I can't believe it.

I bet it's a fraud.

I wonder what was in the ellipses.

Yes, I wonder about those ellipses myself. And if someone demonstrates that this is bogus, I'll be happy to report it. It should be easy to verify, if only one can access a copy of the cited textbook.

The same could be said and more of Europe and World War II.

A murderous, genocidal maker of war was unseated. The fear that he might make an A-bomb, supported by no less an authority than Einstein and countered by the most expensive public project in US history, proved untrue. (Although Saddam was much closer to one than Hitler ever was.) Tens of millions of refugees were created, including millions of Germans forcibly expelled from Eastern Europe. And of course since the war created the state of Israel, the "sectarian strife" between Jews and Palestinians is one bitter result, a strife that's already lasted far longer than strife between Iraqi sects is likely to last. And that's not even bringing up the war's most lasting legacy, the brutal, half-century long Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

All in all, I'd say the Iraqi war is at least as qualified to be a "Good War" as World War II.

Like Chesterton, I prefer war and revolution to murderous tyranny, even if the process is messy and requires a Napoleon of Notting Hill time of disorder. And somehow I can't imagine someone who blasted in fury the relatively benign British domination of Boer South Africa and Ireland as well as the mere cultural imperialism of German/Russian rule of Poland somehow "appreciating" the dubious "stability" brought by a dictator who initiated two major wars between 1980 and 1992 and a bounty of $25,000 for every suicide bomber killing Jews. And that's not even bringing up the 300,000 bodies of Iraqi men, women and children found in mass graves, graves no major news outlet in the US or Europe seems to want to show to us.

As Chesterton noted just after World War I, how quickly people forget when a danger is past and how quickly they are to "feel the pain" of a former foe, whether Prussian militarists or their Bathist equivalent. How little they care for a war's victims, whether they're French farmers or Iraqi's who lived under Saddam's terror. I leave it to you to read what he said about such people and how he warned that their attitudes would lead within thirty years to another war far worst than the first.

--Michael W. Perry, Seattle, Editor of Chesterton on War (out in January)

I know not how to quantify degrees of evil, so as to perform a calculus to determine whether one cluster of evils is more heinous than another, quite disparate, cluster. That is to say, I find the evils of Ba'athist Iraq and those of the aftermath of the invasion, and the subsequent U.S. occupation, to be incommmensurable - with the notable exception that American policy has been incontrovertibly worse for the Christians of the region. What I do know is that the war policy was not consonant with the just-war tradition of the Christian West; preemptive wars and wars undertaken on specious, inauthentic pretexts cannot be just.

I suppose that wars of liberation can be just under certain circumstances, when undertaken with licit intentions, but the liberation of the people of Iraq was never the animating rationale for the war; even had it been, again, wither the Christians?

"...wither the Christians?"

And, that question posed...wither, also, a couple million Muslim Iraqis who have found life to be anything from intolerable to impossible under the American occupation?
The answer to that, for many of them, is: Syria.
Can that be good?

I wonder what was in the ellipses.

Also, look at the last sentence: "The United States has protected innocent civilians or helped bring peace to a war-torn region."

That "or" seems a little awkward.

I don't know that the omitted portions would change things much. My ten-year-old was given a similar history lesson on the Iraq war making essentially the same points above. No mention of countering views or information.

The enormous Iraqi diaspora, some of which has begun to appear on our shores, raises unflattering questions concerning the justice of the war and the occupation; some analysts and commentators, left and right, anticipated both the probability of sectarian strife and the likely consequences of such strife, all of which should have been recognized as pertinent to any just-war considerations.

My reason for mentioning the plight of the Christians of Mesopotamia is simply that, even had the impossible world of a clean 'liberation' obtained, becoming the actual world, we have ample reason to believe that the liberation of the Muslims of Iraq would have issued in the same dire consequences for the Christians - and this is surely a consideration of fundamental justice and obligation.

"...and this is surely a consideration of fundamental justice and obligation."

I completely agree.

Sixth grade vocabulary exercise:

1) define "ostensibly"

2) use the word "ostensibly" in each of the following sentences:

A. They were sent to prevent Iraq from using chemical and biological weapons.

B. The United States has protected innocent civilians or helped bring peace to a war-torn region."

What I do know is that the war policy was not consonant with the just-war tradition of the Christian West; preemptive wars and wars undertaken on specious, inauthentic pretexts cannot be just.

I know a lot of the traditional Catholics are making this argument. It seems, however, to more of a product of our modern oversensitivity to war and killing than an objective application of traditional standards.

"our modern oversensitivity to war and killing"

You most definitely gotta nip a thing like that in the bud!

Presumably, the reference here is to the killing that takes place in the course of a war, namely, the jus in bello considerations. As far as I am aware, only a few Blackwater employees appear to have involved themselves in the deliberate killings of noncombatants. However, the argument was that the jus ad bellum considerations were never fulfilled, and that the war was, therefore, entered into unjustly.

As far as I am aware, only a few Blackwater employees appear to have involved themselves in the deliberate killings of noncombatants.

Oh, come on. You know very well that uniformed military personnel have been involved in killing civilians. Several have been busted for it. How about that group who raped and murdered the young girl, after killing her family, to name just one lovely incident?

I did qualify my statement with the words, "As far as I am aware...". I do not monitor the reporting from Iraq in exhaustive detail, as I simply do not have time. However, I'm happy to accept the correction in this case.

However, I'm happy to accept the correction in this case.

I wish I could say that I'm as happy to be correct in this case.

You most definitely gotta nip a thing like that in the bud!

Rodak,

I assume you are being sarcastic. But if this oversensitivity makes us soft and gun-shy, which I believe has already happened, it will only lead to more war and more killing.

As for the just-war principles, they appear to be applied by some to this war a little to rigidly -- and with little consideration of the fact that this war could be seen as merely the latest chapter in the 1400-year war between Islam and the West.

"...this war could be seen as merely the latest chapter in the 1400-year war between Islam and the West."

To go to war with Saddam was not to go to war with Islam. The Taliban, yes; but not Saddam.

I am more than a little unclear as to how one might adhere with excessive rigour to a categorical moral norm.

Would my rigour be excessive were I to decline a little bout of kissing with a flirtatious woman, viewing this as illicit? Does 'no' now mean 'yes', if only a little?

I am more than a little unclear as to how one might adhere with excessive rigour to a categorical moral norm.

As bespeaks the Prophet Clinton (PBUH), that great traditionalist Catholic exegete of the Just War tradition: it all depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

I am more than a little unclear as to how one might adhere with excessive rigour to a categorical moral norm.

There is no excessive rigour in adhering to moral norms. However, there is often excessive rigour in judging whether others have adhered to moral norms. In this case, the traditionalist opponents of the war have asserted their opinion that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that Bush lied to get us into the war, that Iraq had caused no real injury to us, etc., as if these were indisputable facts. They may true, but self-evident facts they are not.

The truth is that no one really knows what the president's intentions were except the president, and to impute to him the worst intentions is to be guilty of rash suspicion. Neither ought we presume to know that the president's decision to go to war was obviously unjust and imprudent at the time it was made. Remember, the leader of a nation sees the situation from a different perpective. One might believe that his actions may have been unjust, but public judgements should give him the benefit of the doubt.

One's intentions are what one actually undertakes, and what was undertaken was a preemptive war of aggression against a nation that did not threaten war against the United States - a profoundly wicked regime, to be certain, and one involved in numerous unsavoury activities, but not one that posed a lasting, grave, and certain threat to the security or existence of the United States.

what was undertaken was a preemptive war of aggression against a nation that did not threaten war against the United States

That's your opinion. Now if your opinion is correct, you have correctly judged this war to be unjust. If, however, your opinion is not correct, you have traduced your country. This is why not all opinions and private judgements should be publicly expressed.

Such a precept, consistently applied, would preclude most discourse that questions the legitimacy of government policy; and while I do not think managed democracy the second coming of the Soviet Union, this is surely a contradiction of our highest political traditions.

Somehow, it always reduces to this, that the solemn majesty of the government ought not be impugned by its subjects.

The truth is that no one really knows what the president's intentions were except the president, and to impute to him the worst intentions is to be guilty of rash suspicion.

Ah, but by now we have seen the fruits by which we know him.

The truth is that no one really knows what the president's intentions were except the president, and to impute to him the worst intentions is to be guilty of rash suspicion.

So what? He didn't go to war on his own. In order for a war to have just cause, the thing that causes us to go to war must be just, that is, must meet the requirements of jus ad bellum. What caused us to go to war was a mystical nexus between Saddam's imaginary WMD's and his imaginary alliance with Al Qaeda. As imaginary rather than real things, it turns out we weren't certain about their reality. That at best makes the Iraq war morally a mistake. And as some silly Pope once said, even when evil acts are not imputable to the agent because of ignorance it is still unacceptable to consider them other than evil.

There are all kinds of other rationalizations that people come up with. But unless we would actually have gone to war without the WMD/AQ nexus those other things remain rationalizations, not cause. If it didn't actually bring about the effect, it wasn't the actual cause.

Ah, but by now we have seen the fruits by which we know him.

And I have seen the fruits of those that oppose him, like Pete Stark. Lets also not forgot that Congress voted for the Iraq Resolution.

What caused us to go to war was a mystical nexus between Saddam's imaginary WMD's and his imaginary alliance with Al Qaeda.

Out of the numerous reasons given in the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, it only mentioned al Qaida once:

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Out of the numerous reasons given in the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, it only mentioned al Qaida once...

That only matters as a moral matter if it is someone's thesis that we would in fact have actually gone to war (as distinguished from whether someone in particular would have thought we should go to war) with Iraq when and how we did if 9-11 had never happened and the whole AQ/WMD thing had never come up. Quoting this or that document or whatever isn't at all relevant: that is, it is only relevant to the extent that it accurately represents the actual sufficient cause for the actual war.

Who thinks we would have actually mounted a full-scale invasion of Iraq in 2003 if 9-11 had not happened and the whole WMD issue had never been raised?

Who thinks we would have actually mounted a full-scale invasion of Iraq in 2003 if 9-11 had not happened and the whole WMD issue had never been raised?

I thought that we were collectively pretty much finished with these questions by now. I no longer have the names at my fingertips, but I believe that it has been said, by persons who might well have been in a position to know, that Bush-Cheney were intent on going to war with Iraq prior to 9/11. Obviously, 9/11 made their sales pitch infinitely more effective; but they might well have found a way without it.

it is only relevant to the extent that it accurately represents the actual sufficient cause for the actual war.

Former Iraqi General Georges Sada has claimed that Saddam did have WMD and that he had met with bin Laden in the past. Now maybe he is telling the truth or maybe he is trying to sell books.

Who thinks we would have actually mounted a full-scale invasion of Iraq in 2003 if 9-11 had not happened and the whole WMD issue had never been raised?

If anything the Iraq war was based on faulty evidence, which would have made the start of the war unjust, but the Presidents critics go far beyond this. They want to claim that he lied or that he is worse than Hitler because Hitler at least meant well or that soldiers getting their heads blown off amuse the President. I see no reason to believe that simply because the war was unjustly started that the only viable option is to pull out of Iraq immediately. We are seeing progress in Iraq and I think it is important that we continue to work in the interest of Iraq.

We are seeing progress in Iraq and I think it is important that we continue to work in the interest of Iraq.

Do you have any numbers on the percentage of Iraqis who agree with what you say? Or is that, in any case, irrelevant?

If anything the Iraq war was based on faulty evidence, which would have made the start of the war unjust, but the Presidents critics go far beyond this.

I agree that there are nutters on the Left, and probably even some on the paleo Right, who say those kinds of things. That doesn't interest me so much though. I am not them, and Maximos is not them, etc. If the justice of a war hinged only upon its most irrational critics being wrong then no war has ever been unjust.

I am not them, and Maximos is not them, etc. If the justice of a war hinged only upon its most irrational critics being wrong then no war has ever been unjust.

You have made a compelling argument as to why the war is unjust, but considering that Bush was unaware that Iraq did not have WMD, how is he morally culpable for something he did not intend? This does not mean the war is justified, but it does absolve Bush and the other war supporters from a grave sin.

Going back to the textbook, I am sure the textbook has more than three sentences on the Iraq war. From what was posted though, I think it is just the truth that “At the beginning of the twenty-first century, terrorism became a major threat to world peace.” It is also the case that “In 2003, U.S. military forces invaded Iraq. They were sent to prevent Iraq from using chemical and biological weapons.” Now maybe the text adds that no weapons were ever found, but the textbook is not wrong in the reasons soldiers were sent to Iraq. I think it is also true that “The United States has protected innocent civilians…” The United States is protecting innocent civilians from terrorist that continue to murder them with car bombs and beheadings. Simply because the war began unjustly it does not mean that soldiers are not protecting innocent civilians. It also does not mean that the United States has to immediately pull out of Iraq. I am simply unsure how these few sentences bring us to 1984.

And as some silly Pope once said, even when evil acts are not imputable to the agent because of ignorance it is still unacceptable to consider them other than evil.

Zippy,

I did not mention the President's intentions in order to justify the war. I mentioned them for two reasons:

1) To reproach those who assert the President intentionally deceived the country.

2) Because rightful intention is one of the requirements in the Just War Theory.

The war itself, however, is not justified because it met one requirement. It is justified because it met all of them.

George R.--
Why in the world should the president be above reproach when he is manifestly either a liar or an incompetent; i.e. an object of scorn, or an object of pity?

...how is he morally culpable for something he did not intend?

The president's personal moral culpability or lack thereof seems to interest a lot of people. It doesn't particularly interest me.

he is manifestly either a liar or an incompetent

He is neither. If anything the CIA is incompetent.

Kurt--
It is an utter incomptence to believe what the CIA tells you, without demanding to see proof that what you have been told is accurate. Bush could not have been shown proof that what he was being told was accurate, since such proof did not, in fact, exist. Bush either knew that there was no proof (the most likely scenario), and is therefore a liar; or he didn't ask for proof, but believed what he wanted to believe, based on hearsay, in which case he is an incompetent Commander-in-Chief. Take your pick.

If anything the CIA is incompetent.

I'm not sure that judgment is warranted. (Though I'm not sure it isn't, either). One of the narratives on this mess is that CIA and DOD intelligence both came up essentially empty handed and that the Administration played them off each other, letting each think that the damning evidence was being provided by the other, cherry-picking their way to a predetermined conclusion.

I frankly don't know which story or combination of stories is factually true. I think Rodak's rhetoric is over the top BDS (and he is far from alone), but by the same token I am in general very reluctant to excuse a leader on the basis that his subordinates screwed up. Maybe his subordinates screwed up, maybe he screwed them up, and maybe something else entirely; but whatever the case he owns it. If he worked for me, he would have been fired a long time ago. That comes with the territory of being a leader, and I am deeply unsympathetic to any "spin" which attempts to disconnect responsibility from leadership. I don't care if he lied, was snookered, or whatever. That is the stuff of deeply investigated criminal trials resting on objective evidence of detailed acts, not the stuff of leadership. From the standpoint that matters, a leadership standpoint, he's all done.

As to whether we should pull out of Iraq and when, etc, I haven't a clue. The messiness of the situation - on every level - is one of the consequences of having embarked on this unjust war.

It is an utter incomptence to believe what the CIA tells you, without demanding to see proof

How was that supposed to happen? Did we actually have to see the WMD in Iraq, as if Saddam was just going to show us? As far as who actually thought he did have WMD, that was just about everyone, both Democrat and Republican and both foreign and American. Did they all believe what they wanted to believe as well?

BDS, Zippy?--
Run that term past the families of the nearly 4,000 dead, and the--what is it?--12 or 13 thousand crippled for life as a result of Bush's dishonesty and/or incompetence. It's not like his failure to perform just cost his team the Big Game.
But, when you say that if he worked for you he would have been fired, you are pretty much saying that he should be impeached. With that, I agree; although I can't put a finger on the "high crimes and misdemeanors" with which to charge him, since he's never been investigated under subpoena.

Did they all believe what they wanted to believe as well?

I've witnessed epistemic "tribal effects" before, where a single (oftentimes faulty) source of information or rumor becomes the basis for something "everyone knows". All the right incentives were in place here: Democrats could not afford to be wrong if there really were WMDs and a developed AQ-Saddam connection; and they had to think that it would be just plain nuts for the President, Vice President, Colin Powell, et al to say the things they were saying without solid intel to back it up.

My own perspective leading up to the war was very much like that: that it would be patently insane to go ahead without solid concrete intel, that solid concrete intel probably couldn't be revealed in detail without compromising operations, and it would be criminally insane to proceed if that intel didn't exist. I probably would have been counted as someone who thought there were WMDs in Iraq if a pollster had asked me at the time; but that obviously wasn't direct assent to intel I had at first hand, because as it turns out nobody had that kind of intel at first hand.

The WMDs were found. You have to read to and listen to more than just MoveOne.Org and Fleet Street, as GKC would have told you.