Bradley in DC
07-17-2007, 12:22 PM
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/40997.html
David T. Beito
A Response to Randy Barnett on the Iraq War.
My good friend Randy Barnett has a piece in the Wall Street Journal on libertarians and the Iraq War. He asks: “Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is 'no.'....all libertarians accept the principle of self-defense, and most accept the role of the U.S. government in defending U.S. territory, libertarian first principles of individual rights and the rule of law tell us little about what constitutes appropriate and effective self-defense after an attack. Devising a military defense strategy is a matter of judgment or prudence about which reasonable libertarians may differ greatly.”
I am leaving for a long delayed vacation so my initial response will have to be short. Here is one vital point. Not even the Bush administration has ever claimed that Iraq ever attacked us or had an plans to attack us. Saddam led a secular/socialist regime which was hostile to both the Shi'ite fundamentalists (now in power in Iraq courtesy of Bush) and Sunni fundamentalists, such as Al Qaeda. Thus by definition the Iraq War can not be considered one of self-defense even for the “mainstream libertarian.”
For the sake of argument, however, let’s concede that Randy is right. Let’s assume that libertarianism does not “commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq War.” If this is true, then libertarianism belongs in the trash can of history. If libertarianism can not answer such a vital question of the day, it is a dead philosophy that is more suited to parlor games than to discourse about problems in the real world.
David T. Beito
A Response to Randy Barnett on the Iraq War.
My good friend Randy Barnett has a piece in the Wall Street Journal on libertarians and the Iraq War. He asks: “Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is 'no.'....all libertarians accept the principle of self-defense, and most accept the role of the U.S. government in defending U.S. territory, libertarian first principles of individual rights and the rule of law tell us little about what constitutes appropriate and effective self-defense after an attack. Devising a military defense strategy is a matter of judgment or prudence about which reasonable libertarians may differ greatly.”
I am leaving for a long delayed vacation so my initial response will have to be short. Here is one vital point. Not even the Bush administration has ever claimed that Iraq ever attacked us or had an plans to attack us. Saddam led a secular/socialist regime which was hostile to both the Shi'ite fundamentalists (now in power in Iraq courtesy of Bush) and Sunni fundamentalists, such as Al Qaeda. Thus by definition the Iraq War can not be considered one of self-defense even for the “mainstream libertarian.”
For the sake of argument, however, let’s concede that Randy is right. Let’s assume that libertarianism does not “commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq War.” If this is true, then libertarianism belongs in the trash can of history. If libertarianism can not answer such a vital question of the day, it is a dead philosophy that is more suited to parlor games than to discourse about problems in the real world.