Moral Calculus in a World of Evil: Containment and Engagement vs. Invasion and Occupation

Recently, I got into a back and forth with someone by the name of Tibby, who fancies himself an expert on foreign policy. It all started when he proclaimed we should be thankful to G.W. Bush, because after 7 long years, we've finally "fixed" Iraq. Although he could never cite any evidence, other than the fact that Saddam and his clique was gone, he proclaimed Iraq fixed, despite the fact that:

1/ over one million Iraqis have been killed.
2/ millions more have been maimed and wounded.
3/ the invasion unleashed a sectarian war between Sunni and Shiite Muslism, killing tens of thousands more. This civil war is only on hold because of America has bribed them to stop fighting, and we have 140,000 troops to keep the opposing sides separated. As soon as American forces leave Iraq, the war could very well continue and ignite a regional war.
4/ the removal of Saddam has strengthened Iran's power and influence throughout the region.
5/ Muslims around the world have been inflamed with anti-American passions because a Muslim country was invaded on false pretenses.
6/ thousands of Muslim terrorists have been CREATED in Iraq and elsewhere as a result. Al Qaeda in Iraq never existed before the invasion.
7/ America has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the Iraq invasion and 7-year occupation. This occupation will continue for years, if not decades. All of the money for this fiasco is borrowed, and it has taken our eyes off the ball in defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
8/ Meanwhile, real domestic needs in America, like health care reform, go neglected because of concerns over the continued budget shortfalls.
9/ despite the fact that Iraqis now enjoy the vote, their current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is consolidating power around a clique of Shiite death squads, trampling on Sunni democratic and rights, and replicating the same thuggish and corrupt practices of Saddam Hussein. In fact, the current Iraq, which was created by the British on purpose to be ungovernable, may very well only be governable by another strongman.

Tibby's reply was:

1/ you are wrong. Saddam is gone. Iraq is fixed.
2/ death and suffering is not relevant, as people die of all kinds of causes all the time.
3/ costs are not relevant, as we spend lots more money on things like entitlement programs and the recent bank TARP.
4/ just as I'm always harking about China and the KMT threatening freedoms in Taiwan, the people of Iraq and everyone around the world deserve to enjoy the same freedoms, which should be guaranteed by force, if necessary.
5/ your pacifist attitude towards evil just encourages the bad guys to be more aggressive.
6/ the ends justify the means, because "liberating Iraq" was all for "the Greater Good."

So, here was my response, because I know everyone is so interested in what I think:

You amaze me. You can rationalize everything the neocons have done in Iraq and pull more red herrings than a Norwegian fishing boat. I don't even know how to begin arguing with someone whose moral universe contains such gems as 1/ the ends justify the means 2/ human suffering and death, no matter how it's caused, is irrelevant because everybody has to die of something, and 3/ the only thing that counts is “The Greater Good”. And who gets to determine that in Tibby World? Why, Tibby I suppose. Wow, it's so strikingly similar to the moral universe of Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin. But I'm not gonna stoop and try to compare you to those guys. That would be silly.

So where to start...

Everyone does have a right to live in freedom, that we agree. But what can America or the Western World afford to do to expand freedom to all of those oppressed people around the world, other than to contain expansionism and foreign aggression (so that those that presently enjoying freedom can continue to enjoy it) and put economic and political pressures on the bad guys to reform. Violence and death is only morally acceptable as a last resort, and then to stop an invasion of a sovereign country, to stop genocide, or to stop a very real eminent attack. Decades of international law is based on this assumption. Without it, any war could be justified "for the greater good," whatever that means. And without the rule of law, then we are no better than Saddam or the Commies.

The Taiwanese managed to find a way to transform their country (with the help of lots of political pressure from the US and abroad) when the conditions were right and without the need for the Americans to kill a million Taiwanese or occupy their country. Since the Taiwanese are now proving that short-term profits and greed are more important than democracy or freedom, and since almost no one (including many Taiwanese) will stand up for Taiwan's flailing democracy, it's only a matter time before they get swept BACK into the miasma of Chinese despotism. Too bad for them. But the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Perhaps they are only the canary in the coal mine for what's in store for the West.

Unfortunately, the conditions for democracy are not right in most of the rotting dictatorships around the world. Replacing one dictator by force there is just going to produce another dictator, as Iraq is proving already. The only moral solution is to make life tough for the dictators while engaging the middle class in those countries to grow and learn and start thinking for themselves. Local adoption of Aristotelian thinking and the desire to question authority is a must, which is one reason why the dictators fell so quickly in Eastern Europe and why democracy is never going to thrive in China. It totally sucks, because that means leaving millions to rot in sticking dictatorships for the indefinite future. But freedom will have to come from the grass roots and be locally home grown. It's the only way freedom is going to stick. It's not exportable by force. We don't live in a perfect world or one that's perfectible by violence. Only American neocons, Al Qaeda, and Marxist revolutionaries think otherwise.

Unfortunately in Iraq, as we've seen in the resulting violence, the institutions required to sustain a democracy were utterly lacking. In this situation, democracy was just an excuse to settle ancient sectarian scores. Result: tens of thousands more are dead. Iraq has now, more or less, been ethnically cleansed, but it remains as divided and unstable as ever.

I guess in the Tibby World of foreign policy, the only people whose freedom are really worth fighting for are the ones who live in countries we can easily invade and occupy. We have to constantly prove that we are tougher and meaner and deadlier than they are, but in reality this only holds for the little countries that we KNOW we can push around. I mean, when do we know to stop with our desire to rid the world of evil? Would we be perfectly justified in declaring war and indefinitely occupying, say, North Korea, because surely there are plenty of people there who would love to be rid of the current regime and who yearn for freedom. So, one World War later, 1/2 of the human race might get wiped out. But hey, that's ok. At least we killed a few cockroaches along the way. Because in the Tibby Moral World of "shit happens", there's no difference between being killed in an unnecessary and unprovoked war and say, dying of poverty or disease or even smoke-related cancer or old age. Dying is dying, right? Who cares what caused it. At least the Kim and his Chicom allies would know (before we perhaps nuked them and most of their fellow inhabitants) that we weren't impotent or weak. After all, we've always felt we had bigger cocks than they had. This would definitely prove it. Yes. it's very very painful, and hey, millions and milliions of people might be dead or maimed as a result. But it's all for the principle of "The Greater Good."

But of course we would never start WW3 in our bid to rid the world of evil. We aren't that stupid. We'll only invade and occupy countries when we can be sure that it's mostly THEY that have to die. After all, their lives are irrelevant in Tibby world. But you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. I'm sure that must be the moral calculus at work in Tibby World.

There are alternatives to the Tibby "Kill 'em all now and smugly sort it out later" school of foreign policy. But unfortunately, that requires a willingness to handle complexity and ambiguous results. The world is a complex place that requires complex and differing solutions. Containing a fascist, expansionist empire like China (and protecting democratic allies like Taiwan) is gonna require a massive, coordinated effort by democracies on a Cold War level that will last generations. And I have no illusions that this is ever gonna happen. We'll have to wait till the Chinese pull a Pearl Harbor before we finally wake up from our Chinese "peaceful riser" dream. Containing tinpot, non-threatening dictators like Saddam or growing thuggish, nuclear powers like Iran will require a totally different approach, combining lots of sticks and carrots. Iran does contain the seeds for democratic evolution, which we should carefully cultivate. But one size does definitely not fit all.

Also, I should remind you that despite the fact that some entitlement programs like farm subsidies are completely nonsensical and the recent TARP bailout was a crime beyond measure, NO ONE was killed as a result of any of these programs. If anything, at least Americans (and others) get to enjoy cheap farm produce, farmers stay in business, and the banks survived, and the economy didn't implode. To compare money wasted on these programs to money wasted on a war that resulted in a million deaths and bogging down American forces in an intractable sectarian mess is a logical and moral fallacy, and you know it.

But your insinuation that I'm always against killing or war is a total red herring. There are times when it's necessary and morally compelling to fight. But the idea that a WW2-style invasion and occupation is a solution-of-choice to whatever evil is in the world is morally reprehensible, fiscally reckless, and utterly discredited after Iraq. And I'm still waiting for you to show me how Iraq is fixed in any way. Saddam is gone, and in his place are sectarian death squads. Great. Sign me up. At best, Iraq's warring factions are in a holding pattern, as they wait for the occupiers to leave. If you want to hold on to your neocon fantasies and discount all the human suffering and tragedy that has resulted from our imperial endeavors, as you say, that's your choice. I'm just really glad there are some realistic, moral alternatives to living in Tibby World.

To which his only response was:

You are wrong.

Ha ha ha. What an arrogant ass. I guess having a PhD from Berkeley makes everything you say intrinsically true, all your arguments logically coherent, and all contradictory evidence just magically disappear.