Belligerati

« Last night's speaker | Main | New York Restaurants at Night »

January 18, 2007

A friend asks

J Writes

I thought of you when I read this article on the cost of the Iraq war.

As a self-professed libertarian, can you support the decision to invade Iraq when you look at these cost numbers? I know that you supported it at the time, but do you still do so? Would you have supported it at the time if you knew how much it would cost?

My Response:
Much like dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, knowing the right facts with certainty before the fact in Iraq (that they did not have WMD) would have driven me to advocate alternative behavior. However, I still think that given the information at the time I think it was the correct decision.

Does that require explanation? As a libertarian, I actively decry the head-in-the-sand wing of the libertarian movement who pretends that if we dismantle our most of our military and close all our embassies that all our enemies will forget they hate us. That sort of unilateral disarmament makes no sense. The costs of doing nothing are not free, you just don't pay now.The NY times said the other day that the real estate alone in NYC was worth $802.4 billion. If Saddam could get a nuke and use it against us, $1.2 trillion could seem cheap. Every expenditure comes with a touch of sadness of the forgone alternatives, although my understanding is that these cost estimates are too high.

The tremendous waste that is the carnage in Iraq of great sadness to me. I feel we should hold a referendum post-haste (perhaps after a post-surge improvement in order) where we ask the Iraqis if they want us to stay.If not, I say we pack up and leave. If so, we owe them and ourselves a thorough attempt at establishing peace and order.

What do you think of that?

Posted by OneEyedMan at January 18, 2007 2:04 AM

Comments

Post a comment