Asymmetrical Information

I pointed out to an anti-war fellow that current oil prices are sky high and that the US is actually subsidizing the importation of gasoline into Iraq were it is sold at artificially low prices (Iraq does not at present have much refinining capacity). He thought this might indicate the administration was astoundingly insane. As it doesn't make much sense, in that world view, for the US to do that. Except, of course, for the tiny little fact that it's not about oil. But it has to be for them, or it has to be about some other unsavory motive, because the key is the "no war" part. No matter how the facts line up there can be no configuration where the war is reasonable or justified.

Another way to put it would be "peace in our time".

Or, perhaps "peace at any cost."

And, sure, peace is nice, but it comes at a price, and that price is defending it. It seems odd and paradoxical, as does much of the Universe, and that's because it is paradoxical, as is much of the Universe, but no less true for being so.

We recently hosted a Spanish exchange student for a month, who was absolutely mad to get to New York City. She wanted to visit Ground Zero, and my wife and I were glad to accomodate, even though neither of us had visited the city in 20 years.

When we arrived, we went to the site, and were quietly reading the informational signs, when some woman who looked deranged started walking up and down the sidewalk screaming out her conspiracy theories involving Bush and Giuliani. Somehow, a knighthood for Giuliani figured into the story -- it wasn't clear how, and I didn't want to ask.

After we moved along, I turned to my wife, who is decidedly left-wing and a strong advocate of peaceful solutions to most of the problems in the world. I said, "Would you think less of me if I confessed that I wanted to throw that crazy bitch over the fence after punching her lights out?"

My wife shrugged and said, "You'd need my help to get her over the fence so you didn't strain your back."

There are some whacked-out individuals who will desecrate just about anything... but they're not as thick on the ground as you might fear.

Michael, I'd fly out just to help. And I live in LA.

My wife was out of town on business over the past weekend, and my stepson was at a friend's house, so I curled up with some good movies I own but hadn't watched in a while. One of them was "The Usual Suspects." Of course, the first half of the film is set in New York. Sure enough, there's the skyline shot with the WTC towers.

And I'll be damned if my stomach didn't tie itself up in a knot and the tears didn't come, in a fashion that didn't actually happen for me on 9/11. Maybe it was just too shocking at the time. Maybe it's taken almost three years to overcome that shock. Maybe I've just heard too much from our Michael Moores, Al Frankens, Janeane Garafolos, MoveOns, Common Dreams, and Democratic Undergrounds. Whatever the reason, I finally had a visceral reaction to parallel all of the thinking and questioning and reading of the last three years, something to tie all of the studying of the doctrine of preemption and asymmetrical warfare and the politics of terrorism in.

Yes, I know the hijackers were mostly Saudi; yes, I know the WMD intelligence was flawed. I also know that Iraq was in violation of 17 UN Security Council resolutions, had invaded Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, lobbed missles at Israel, was busily filling mass graves, attempted to assassinate a US President, was planning further attacks on the US (thanks for that info, Mr. Putin), was seeking uranium in Africa (thanks for that info, British intelligence and Nigeria, despite Joe Wilson's lies) and was skimming billions of dollars from the oil-for-food program (no thanks for that, Mr. Annan). I know we've found Sarin, Mustard gas, and missles whose range was in violation of the terms of UN Security Council resolutions (again).

I know our intelligence process needs an overhaul, and if Abu Ghraib was SOP rather than a handful of folks succumbing to the horrors of war, then we need to ensure that the court martials go up as far as is warranted. Neither of those observations invalidates the war on terror nor specifically the war in Iraq.

It's not fun living in a Tom Clancy novel. But I have to honestly say that it's preferable to living in the go-go dot-com bubble "budget surplus" 90s, with WTC bombings and USS Cole attacks either ignored or, at best, treated as police matters, as if we were dealing with a handful of willful teenagers who just need better curfew enforcement. It beats living as if the United States were just a huge block party, and why are the neighbors throwing things at us?

It beats acting as if all of our geopolitical and military problems were solved in 1991. Wouldn't you agree?

Here here Paul! I cannot imagine what it must be like for kids today. I know when I was growing up in the 80s, we always had this weird background fear of just being annihilated. I used to talk with friends about whether strange aircraft noises at night freaked them out a little. We all had that going on and the terror was left to our imaginations. The worst thing we ever saw on TV was the Challenger blowing up.

Now imagine you're 15 or 16 today. 3 years ago, you watched 2 planes go into the WTC. Maybe your Mom or Dad flies occasionally for business. Because you're not an adult quite yet, every time they get on a plane scares you to death because you connect the idea of them getting on a plane, and them being the parent that calls on a cell phone minutes before the plane smacks into a building. And your parent's life could end on TV for the world to replay on their TiVos.

We owe our young people a world that is safer for them to grow up in with less of these kinds of fears. We don't get that by accepting that we are now on the receiving end for our past perceived wrongdoings.

I believe that that building (though I may be thinking of the one next to it) was the home of Russell Simmons, head of Def Jam records, who occupied the top floor until 9/11 destroyed his apartment. I know this because a friend of mine resided in one of the lower floors until 9/11 when it was completely trashed. The collapse of the WTC sent a wall of debris through the windows and completely covered/destroyed everything - all the way to and through the back of the apartment. Thankfully he, his wife, and their kids were in Brooklyn that morning. Otherwise they would have been home - and possibly killed, given the damage....

An angering note: they were not allowed to re-enter their apartment for quite some time after 9-11 due to concerns over structural damage. Police guarded the building and only officials (fire, police, city govt) were allowed to enter. When they finally were allowed back in, they discovered that many of their valuables (jewelry, money, art, electronics) were stolen.

I do not know the status of that building now. My friend took the insurance and moved.

"We owe our young people a world that is safer for them to grow up in with less of these kinds of fears. We don't get that by accepting that we are now on the receiving end for our past perceived wrongdoings."

Just to provide a bit of counterbalance, note that: 1) the word "perceived" above is opinion, not fact, and in any case perceptions matter if they, for example, cause people to decide to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, and 2) the Iraq invasion might also fall under this category of "perceived-or-real wrongdoings" in the minds of some who now or in the future teeter on the brink of extremism. If it has angered so many of our own people, what effect might it have on the mind of a young Saudi, Iranian, or Iraqi already predisposed to take a dim view of the U.S.?

While it may be true that waging war makes us feel like we are "doing something", we need to understand that this type of bludgeoning around might not actually be accomplishing the objectives we hope for, and there may be other ways we could "do something" that might not be as spectacular but be more effective in actually ensuring the safety of our homeland. With the way Iraq has sapped our resources, it is not realistic to assume we can keep doing this frequently enough to keep all possible terrorist-harboring nations in check (Iraq isn't enough, since Iran and Pakistan, for example, don't seem particularly cowed right now), particularly since each stroke of this kind raises the general level of anti-U.S. sentiment and potentially multiplies our enemies. Nor has the rest of the world seemed to increase in their support of the Bush preemptive strategy, so that we probably won't be able to rely on other nations shouldering some of the burden, and even if we did, that would at most double our strength (given the ratios of defense expenditures involved).

I do not at all feel safer as the result of our actions in Iraq, in fact quite the opposite, and I am saddened that we have caused more harm and suffering to innocent Iraqi civilians than 9/11 caused us. I also wish we hadn't let Bin Laden slip away into the Pakistani mountains, and wish that we would focus more efforts on Al Qaeda and stablizing that region now.

ABR: Unlike 9/11, however, invading Iraq did not cause only ill. You seem to forget that there was this "Hussein" guy running the place. A smaller-scale Stalin, more or less literally.

The invasion did, indeed, hurt and kill some nubmer of Iraqi innocents (how many is unsure, especially as the Usual Suspects are known for inflating their figures). On the other hand, every year Hussein is gone, that many fewer Iraqis are dead, mutilated, tortured, raped, or "disappeared". (Not to mention the non-tangible benefits of being free rather than in a police state run by people of dubious sanity.)

To mention the former and utterly ignore the latter is neither a wise moral (or practical) calculus nor strictly honest.

To ABR:

I just like to note that

"we have caused more harm and suffering to innocent Iraqi civilians than 9/11 caused us"

is your PERCEPTION and that many rational people disagree heartily with it.

Yes some unlucky innocent Iraqis are dying. Subtract from that number the thousands annually tortured and/or executed by Saddam, please.

It's never going to be perfect. the question is, are we making things better? I think the answer is yes.

So, non-residents of New York who think that an admirable response to 9/11 is to fantasise about seriously assaulting mentally ill people? Nice bunch a commenters you've got here, Mindles.

ABR -- I feel safer as a result of our actions in Iraq because Iraq made Qaddafi fold his hand. It made the Saudis at least begin to crack down on terrorists as opposed to funding them.

Perhaps it made millions of people in the Middle East hate us (more than they did already, that is). But who cares? So long as they don't have the money, resources, blind eyes and safe havens provided by a government, their hatred is relatively harmless.

dsquared, maybe you should just be grateful that no one is making jokes about nuking Berkeley.

Yep. Those signs convinced me to abandon the criminal folly of my warmongering past.

As if. Thanks for reminding me. Fight, convert, or die.

From the estimates here, the 2003 invasion directly caused at least double the number of civilian deaths in Iraq as 9/11. This does not count Iraqi-caused Iraqi deaths, which have also been numerous, and must be partially attributed to after-effects of the invasion. It is true that Saddam Hussein's administration did far, far worse, however this was in the 1980s. If you rest upon a "help Iraqis against Baath" justification for the 2003 invasion, you must also explain how you support the decision to leave them in power in 1991. And you should also defend our choosing not to intervene in the various African genocides of the present and recent past.

In both the African and the Iraqi cases, it is more difficult to compare quantities that cannot be counted, such as how "well off" citizens are after regime change by the sword than before. However they are accounted, given the evident difficulties of achieving stabilization (awareness of which I suspect is one of the reasons for non-intervention in Africa), it is not at all obvious that the Iraq invasion was morally justified.

But the main point of my post was just to say that condemning our preemptive war does not mean being willing to submit to terrorist actions, or denying that the danger exists. It can actually just mean a belief that other strategies than war would be more effective in reducing the net fear, misery, and loss of life to be faced by the world's people in the near-term future. I think most who are against the war are against it for some variant of this, not some head-in-the-sand notion that the problem will go away by itself.

ABR -- Your comments are thoughtful and appreciated. Two points:

1. I do not support our decision to leave the Baathists in power in 1991. I think it was a great error by the US, motivated in part by a desire to keep our coalition partners happy (esp. the Arab states), and in part by the lingering scars of Vietnam. Intervention in African genocides must be taken on a case-by-case basis, as all events should be. However, in those cases where we did intervene (e.g. Somalia), I believe once we're in we should stay until the job is done.

2. I believe we should try to reduce the net fear, misery, and loss of life of the world's people, but I do not believe we should do so at the cost of reducing the net fear, misery, and loss of life of Americans. If those two goals conflict, the second one IMO must take priority. I am not necessarily suggesting those two goals do or will conflict in the pursuit of the War on Terror.

ABR, are you drawing a moral equivalence between an Iraqi casualty and an American one?

ABR and DRB:

In part I think the decision not to pursue the war with Saddam in 1991 was tactical. We had assembled a coalition most of whom had no interest in removing Saddam from power. Having the troops from these various countries sitting on our supply lines it was not wise to antagonize them. It's hard to believe that the majority of our allies would have turned against us that quickly, but even if support had eroded slowly our position could have benn unteneble.

If you rest upon a "help Iraqis against Baath" justification for the 2003 invasion, you must also explain how you support the decision to leave them in power in 1991.

Evidence of why it is preferable to use 'preview' before posting; the review process often helps a person weed the false assumptions out of his/her argument(s). In this case, someone who believes that removing the Ba'athist regime in 2003 was a good idea, did not necessarily support leaving said regime in power in 1991.

Although as others have now pointed out, it would have been awkward (to the point of strategically dangerous) to deal with it in 1991, since potentially inflammable allies were sitting on the supply lines, not to mention that some US operations were coming from a Saudi airbase.

And you should also defend our choosing not to intervene in the various African genocides of the present and recent past.

Again, another false assumption. It is entirely possible for a subject of your criticism to believe that the US should do so, in spite of the fact that it generally has not. At the same time it is quite possible to construct a reasonable argument for improving Iraq that coincides with securing longer-term economic/security issues in the Middle Eastern region. Ever heard the expression that democracies have rarely ever targeted each other in war?

Sadly, what goes on in Africa rarely impinges on long-term economic/security issues, so less attention is paid to the atrocities there, and what attention HAS been paid is frequently bungled by the same United Nations that [w/c]ouldn't enforce its resolutions against Iraq.

80,000 plus children a year were starving to death under Saddam, that has now stopped. That alone makes the Iraqi casualties worth it, and there is a whale of a difference between people dying to be liberated from a dictator and people dying senselessly *because* of a dictator, and it always shocks me when I see liberals fail to note that distinction--they seem to have lost their moral compass to me.

If there were another way to end this mess in Iraq and the Middle East, I agree that would be better, but no one has come forward with any ideas, even now Kerry has no plan different than Bush to handle things there. Please tell us how to solve these problems, if it sounds reasonably good I am sure you will have massive bipartisan support. Just don't tell us more UN resolutions and debates are the answer, that is a proven loser.

My view is that this venture into Iraq is about a lot more than Iraq, it is about the entire Arab world and it's violent fundamentalist terrorists, it is about the Arab world's refusal to accept any peace with Israel, it is about the fact that for years and years despite all the peaceful efforts to bring peace there the Arabs have gotten more and more violent and more and more insane. More love bombing from Europe is not going to solve the problem because they, the growing group of Arabs that advocate terror and violence for no apparent reason other than jealousy and anti-semitism, and some Islamic leaders who are nuts to boot that are leading a lot of others around with violent demagoguery.

I was reminded the other day by reading about Sadat's murder in public by terrorists trained by Arafat in 1972!, who licked his blood off the sidewalk in front of everyone, how long this has really been going on.

Bush is finally starting to really stand up to this sickness, which is pissing a lot of people off, but this is getting worse and worse and won't stop til somebody stops it. The terrorist energy is not going to stop itself, and Iraq is a good foothold into the region to start to really turn it around. Nothing is going to change there except for the worst until they get the message that they won't be able to get away with it anymore. Bush is delivering that message and hopefully enough people who understand the stakes here will support him through this, although it will take longer than just the next four years.

Excellent commentary thread, btw. This is the second good one I have read here in a week, the last one was on alternative energy. Even the liberals are nice in here. :)

ABR replied:

...note that: 1) the word "perceived" above is opinion, not fact, and in any case perceptions matter if they, for example, cause people to decide to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, and 2) the Iraq invasion might also fall under this category of "perceived-or-real wrongdoings" in the minds of some who now or in the future teeter on the brink of extremism...

These are entirely opposite the point I was making. I do not care whether some thug in power or in the streets in the Middle East thinks we are the Great Satan. There are enough thugs in both places with those thoughts that we have to deal with it. One angle of dealing with it is occasionally demonstrating that "the Great Satan" will make the thugs' lives terrible. Perceived good or evil -- don't care -- perceived terrible -- that is the point. We had done absolutely nothing to instill fear in the region in its entire history prior to 2002. This was an entirely different calculus than, for example, The Cold War.

People at home are going to disagree, no question about it. Perhaps Bush could have tuned his message a little more to Democrats' liking in both content and tone... "First we're going to Afghanistan, then we're going to Iraq, then Syria, and Iran, and North Korea, yeaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!" But I digress.

I believe that that building (though I may be thinking of the one next to it) was the home of Russell Simmons, head of Def Jam records, who occupied the top floor until 9/11 destroyed his apartment.

Indeed it is, and Simmons himself is partly responsible for the display: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040820/205263_1.html

Artist/activist Glen E. Friedman today unveiled "Liberty Street Protest" a visual art installation protesting all violent war being fought around the world. A collaboration with entrepreneur and music mogul Russell Simmons, other residents of the Liberty Street building in which Simmons had resided prior to September 11, 2001 and graphic artists Chris Habib and Shepard Fairey, Liberty Street Protest is a series of large scale graphics displayed in the massive windows of a building on the south side of the Ground Zero/World Trade Center reconstruction site.   "We feel it is our civic duty to let everyone who visits the 9/11 memorial and reconstruction site know that we, as New Yorkers and Americans most affected by the devastation of the 9/11 attacks, are completely against the war in Iraq and all wars fought in our name," said photographer Glen E. Friedman, the main instigator and creator of the project.

"All wars fought in our name." Woo.

I do wonder if these same people who put up those anti-war sign would tolerate the placing of large scale pro-Bush signs in nearby windows. After all, many of the people who lived near the towers actually support the war.
After all, it is their civic duty to let everyone who visits the 9/11 memorial and reconstruction site know that they, as New Yorkers and Americans most affected by the devastation of the 9/11 attacks, are in support of the war in Iraq.

Right?

So, in other words, they are saying that Bush is bad for falsely claiming to speak for all the victims of 9/11.... while falsely claiming to speak for all the victims of 9/11?

DRB: Thank you.

> I do wonder if these same people who put
> up those anti-war sign would tolerate the
> placing of large scale pro-Bush signs in
> nearby windows.

No, because that would be "using the tragedy for partisan gain". Which apparently is only acceptable to do if you're against the war.

Oh yeah, nothing strange about locating your convention in a city that HATES you (the 'Pubs wanted part of the convention to be off-shore, for Ke-rist's sake). No clutching the bloody 9/11 bodies close to their chests for this Administration.

Now, why would they have chosen NYC? Hmmmmm. A real puzzler. Why would they have pushed it so late, into September? Who could imagine? (I guess one more week would have been a little too on the nose).

Tim: NYC was chosen for the convention in 2002, if you will recall, because people in NYC used to be grateful that the administration and Congress provided funding to reconstruct the devastated parts of town, were embarked upon a path of justice for the dead, and channeled the sympathy, rage and energy of the country into support for NYC. Imagine expecting a little respect and decency from a city that received over 20 billion dollars, while folks in the Pentagon received nothing. If you don't want it now, send it back. I'm sure Washington, DC could use it somewhere. Maybe in Iraq where it would actually engender some good feeling towards Americans --- nahhh!?!?! They are too much like radical GOP-hating NYers.

I fail to see what is wrong with highlighting the 9/11 attack, it is still the most serious issue in the Presidential campaign and Bush's response to 9/11 is his biggest asset. It's an election contest. Kerry is highlighting his Vietnam war experience, trying to anyway. Is that using the deaths of 56,000 soldiers to play politics? Should both of the parties have or have had their conventions in Iowa or something? I don't get the objection.

DRB writes,

"I believe we should try to reduce the net fear, misery, and loss of life of the world's people, but I do not believe we should do so at the cost of reducing the net fear, misery, and loss of life of Americans. If those two goals conflict, the second one IMO must take priority."

While I appreciate the points you make including this one, this position sits on the edge of a dangerous moral slope, precariously overlooking an abyss in which some human lives are inherently worth more than others, and Might makes Right. You are saying that only if there is a conflict will you make the choice, but the difficulty is in judging how to weigh things relatively when there are losses on multiple sides. I just worry because the attitude that seems to be implicitly reflected in a lot of our media-driven public discourse is that an American life IS somehow of greater consequence.

anony-mouse,

"someone who believes that removing the Ba'athist regime in 2003 was a good idea, did not necessarily support leaving said regime in power in 1991."

One wishes these folks had spoken up even half as loudly in 1991 as those who oppose the 2003 invasion did before and afterwards.

Others have made the point about the tactical situation; it seems like the logic has changed -- before we wanted to have a large coalition, so we settled for this containment policy, but in 2003 containment is too dangerous no matter who small a coalition can be gathered against it. Yet the basis for the containment being dangerous, WMD and terrorist-harboring, was a mirage, as known to all now and believed by most before. Moreover, Iraq is now far more fertile territory for supporting terrorist groups than it ever was under Hussein, and will be for the forseeable future.

"Ever heard the expression that democracies have rarely ever targeted each other in war?"

But, assuming this is true (I don't have a full catalog of conflicts of the 20th century before me but am sure examples could be found, the significance of which would then have to be debated), this isn't necessarily because they are democracies, but could be because the democracies all happen to share common cultural backgrounds and interests. And when Britain and Spain's leaders go to war against the majority will of their populations, and the U.S. against the will of about half its own, where is the effect of being a "deomcracy"?

napablogger, can you post any support of your claim about "80,000 plus children a year"?

Steven,

You're welcome. Enjoy your blog retirement, you'll be missed.

One wishes these folks had spoken up even half as loudly in 1991 as those who oppose the 2003 invasion did before and afterwards.

I was in something like the sixth grade at the time. I didn't have many thoughts AT ALL apart from trying to process the idea of what a modern war was, and thinking that those cruise missile nose cameras were kinda cool. As for where other people were, it's hard to say, but that's still a cannard. Why not ask them what they thought (and whether they changed their minds since then, and if so, why) instead of arbitrarily telling them which side they support and what parts of it they have to defend?

Others have made the point about the tactical situation; it seems like the logic has changed -- before we wanted to have a large coalition, so we settled for this containment policy, but in 2003 containment is too dangerous no matter who small a coalition can be gathered against it.

Conveniently ignoring all of the context and subtlities surrouding the two scenarios -- yes, you could say that some made those arguments.

Yet the basis for the containment being dangerous, WMD and terrorist-harboring, was a mirage, as known to all now and believed by most before.

I think you meant so say "believed by some and known with certainty by few, if any." Stop and actually question your prejudices as you write this stuff, please.

Moreover, Iraq is now far more fertile territory for supporting terrorist groups than it ever was under Hussein, and will be for the forseeable future.

Well, that's an opinion, informed by a mixture of current-events knowledge and personal bias; and others looking at different aspects of those current events and from different personal biases, might disagree. And either position -- pro or con -- is still based on incomplete information.

anony-mouse, I discussed the tactical situation aspect of 1991 vs. 2003 at the level that other posters including you raised it. You can't drill every discussion down to the umpteenth level of detail if you want to get anywhere. If you think that some of the left out "context and subtleties" are relevant to my point, then bring up specifics and we can talk about them. Regarding my comment about "believed by most", I was referring to the population of the western powers; I'm sorry if this wasn't clear. What population are you referring to when you say "believed by some" (by context implying "not most")? Finally, the idea of Iraq being more fertile ground for terrorists is not something that can be proved, lacking objective standards for such things, but the various news of al-Zarqawi-and-others related kidnappings, killings, etc. over the last few months, as well as the numerous car bombings, for example, provide evidence of more terrorist activity in Iraq than in an equivalent recent period before the invasion. If you want to debate the facts further here we can. If you want to just throw up your hands and say that "either position ... is based on incomplete information", then I guess that's that, though if "incomplete information" is enough to go to war on then it would seem sufficient to support discussion as well.. ;-)

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