A new set of mass graves has been found in Iraq, according to a report in the New York Times (requires simple registration). Many of the terrorists who are attacking Iraqis with car bombs and gun fire are the same people who carried out the killings that filled the mass graves. (They are supplemented by fanatics who are dedicated to killing infidels, most especially those Muslims who don’t share their preferred interpretation of the religion.)
The courage of the Iraqi people who are fighting against the terrorists was made abundantly clear when a group of Iraqi women, all in conservative dress, wanted their picture taken with me after I gave a talk. One of them said, “If the terrorists see that we meet with an American, they kill us. But we want these photos for ourselves.” The courage of such people is inspiring. (I am careful not to use the names of real people; one person I met with said he is careful not to carry any business cards, in case he were stopped by terrorists, who would then find that he was involved in a pro-democracy organization.)
P.S. How appropriate it is that the discovery of the graves coincides with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
I was going to be a smart-ass and post links to praise given to these monsters by so-called “libertarians” (aka Rothbardians)…but that might be beating a dead horse.
Good work over there.
I still have my misgivings about the Iraq war and still believe it was an agressive and unnecessary war for America pursue. I’m a realist.
However, with stories like yours and news of Iraqis trying to rebuild their country and begin a better, safer, and more liberal future, I sometimes wonder if Bush and the neocons may have been right.
Nevertheless, does the Iraq example encourage a more muscular foreign policy where we should directly change oppressive countries, spread liberty, and perhaps use force as the primary means of that change?
In other words, should we adopt a Wilsonian foreign policy or an Eisenhowerian (if that’s the proper suffix) foreign policy? (On a sidenote, it is interesting that a professor who never fought on a battlefield prefers an idealistic and muscular foreign policy, whereas a general prefers a realist approach.)
“However, with stories like yours and news of Iraqis trying to rebuild their country and begin a better, safer, and more liberal future, I sometimes wonder if Bush and the neocons may have been right.”
I don’t think one thing should lead to another. One can believe that the decision to go to war was wrong and still be happy that Iraqis may have an opportunity to enjoy greater freedom.
A valuable end doesn’t, by itself, justify the use of any possible means.
“Nevertheless, does the Iraq example encourage a more muscular foreign policy where we should directly change oppressive countries, spread liberty, and perhaps use force as the primary means of that change?”
I see at least two very serious problems with that position:
1- Can a nation with a “muscular foreign policy” that uses force as the primary means for spreading liberty, remain free?
2- Is regime change by military means the best way, in the long run, to ensure greater liberty all over the world?
My answer to both questions would be negative.
I like what Harry Browne had to say about the mass graves.
http://www.HarryBrowne.org/articles/FoolMeOnce.htm
I see that Tom G. Palmer has obtained a rare photo of Jeremy Sapienza burying his U.S. victims in Iraq. I wonder if Tom G. could post the name of the courageous photographer responsible?
It takes a man of remarkably low character to make a photo of the excavation of a mass execution site into the occasion for a joke.
I thought that’s what this entire website was — a joke.
The issue isn’t whether or not Mr. Hussein/Mugabe/Castro/Kim Jong Il are bad men — they are. Clearly they need to go. The question is one of means. Invasion by the US Armed Forces is a very, very messy and inefficient way of getting rid of these people.
Let’s take Saddam for example. Saddam probably needed killing, and his sons probably needed to go too. Maybe a dozen members of his inner circle could probably stand to be whacked as well before someone minimally decent would end up running the country. The invasion so far has killed at least 20K people, mostly civilians and conscripts (slave soldiers) at a cost of >100 billion dollars and widespread devastation.
Surely these kinds of problems can be solved cheaper. At the end of the day, these tyrants are just men, and as Michael Corleone once said, “If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone.” I would hope that it could be done at a cost less than $10 billion per sniper bullet and at an targeting efficiency greater than 0.1%.
Mr. Madison’s points are well taken. Plenty of people had tried to kill Saddam Hussein and failed (and lived — but only for a while — to regret it). The really serious psychopaths are hard to kill. But targeting them rather than the conscript soldiers they exploit is surely superior to traditional warfare.
T.J.: You say the “invasion” has killed these people. Wouldn’t the killings be the fault of the statist insurgents/Baathists who are willing to kill to maintain their slavery of the Iraqi people?
Why is the US always the “Bad Guy” in your world? Do you blame the cops or the madman when an insane shooter kills civilians during a stand off?
I must be an evil neocon, because whenever I hear “all these Iraqis are dead because the US invaded…” my response is “The Baathists shouldn’t have been there in the first place!”
Evil Neocon says: “I must be an evil neocon, because whenever I hear “all these Iraqis are dead because the US invaded…” my response is “The Baathists shouldn’t have been there in the first place!””
Similarly, the Soviets shouldn’t have been holding hundreds of millions of Russians hostage to communism. Do evil neocons believe therefore the U. S. would have borne NO responsibility for the hundreds of thousands to millions of civilian casualties that would surely have followed a U. S. invasion of the U. S. S. R.?
Do evil neocons believe that Saddam’s two to three decade threat in Iraq, a country bereft of weapons of mass destruction, was MORE dangerous to Americans than the threat posed by the seven plus decade Soviet empire, which I understand did have a nuclear weapon or two that could actually reach American territory?
If the answer to either of my questions is “Yes”, I recommend these neocons replace their pithy descriptive adjective with something more appropriate, like “stupid.”
RL
Ross –
I thought conservatives encouraged fighting Communism and liberals did not view Communism as a threat? Am I missing something? No right or wrong answer, I’m just asking.
>>T.J.: You say the “invasion” has killed these people. Wouldn’t the killings be the fault of the statist insurgents/Baathists who are willing to kill to maintain their slavery of the Iraqi people?
The goal isn’t to assign blame. The goal is to decrease the body count. Yes, the Baathists are assholes. This doesn’t make current attempts to neutralize the Baathists particularly intelligent. There are better means — we should use those instead.
>>Why is the US always the “Bad Guy” in your world? Do you blame the cops or the madman when an insane shooter kills civilians during a stand off?
The USG is the state I have the most control over. Therefore it makes sense for me to work on fixing it first. If I had more leverage over, say, the Iranian government I’d be focusing my efforts on it instead.
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