The Ethics of Iraq: Moral Strength vs. Material Strength

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Tue, 4 Oct 2005 10:54:50 UT

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The Ethics of Iraq: Moral Strength vs. Material Strength

 

 

 

 

" There is " Gandhi power " and there is " Tom DeLay power, " there is Rosa

Parks strength and there is Condi Rice strength. One derives its force

from immutable principles, the other from raw politics. 10/3 - Buzzflash

 

 

http://daoureport.salon.com/synopsis.aspx?synopsisId=8d187cda-6e7c-46bc-af30-fcb\

819c848a1

 

 

by Peter Daou

 

The Ethics of Iraq: Moral Strength vs. Material Strength

 

" For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and

lose his own soul? " - Matthew 16:26

 

The unbridgeable divide between the left and right's approach to Iraq

and the WoT is, among other things, a disagreement over the value of

moral and material strength, with the left placing a premium on the

former and the right on the latter. The right (broadly speaking) can't

fathom why the left is driven into fits of rage over every Abu Ghraib,

every Gitmo, every secret rendition, every breach of civil liberties,

every shifting rationale for war, every soldier and civilian killed in

that war, every Bush platitude in support of it, every attempt to

squelch dissent. They see the left's protestations as appeasement of a

ruthless enemy. For the left (broadly speaking), America's moral

strength is of paramount importance; without it, all the brute force

in the world won't keep us safe, defeat our enemies, and preserve our

role as the world's moral leader.

 

War hawks squeal about America-haters and traitors, heaping scorn on

the so-called " blame America first " crowd, but they fail to comprehend

that the left reserves the deepest disdain for those who squander our

moral authority. The scars of a terrorist attack heal and we are

sadder but stronger for having lived through it. When our moral

leadership is compromised by people draped in the American flag,

America is weakened. The loss of our moral compass leaves us

rudderless, open to attacks on our character and our basic decency.

And nothing makes our enemies prouder. They can't kill us all, but if

they permanently stain our dignity, they've done irreparable harm to

America.

 

The antiwar critique of Iraq is that it is an immoral war and every

resulting death is a wrongful one. Opponents of the war view the

invasion and occupation as a dangerous and shameful violation of

international law. Iraq saps our moral strength and the sooner we

leave the better. Opposing the invasion on the grounds that the

administration lied its way into it, they see every subsequent death,

American or foreign, as an ethical travesty and a stain on America's

good name.

 

They have held this view consistently since 2002. Millions marched

down the streets of our cities before the invasion, believing that the

administration's claim that Saddam Hussein constituted a dire and

imminent threat to the US was absurd on its face (whether or not the

exact word `imminent' was used is a semantic exercise, the implication

was clear). Where the hawks screamed that Saddam gassed his own

people, the war's opponents countered that there is no shortage of

murderous tyrants. Where the hawks said that Saddam wouldn't hesitate

to arm terrorists, the war's opponents argued that there's no lack of

regimes that will help terrorists obtain lethal weapons.

 

For the less gullible among us, the administration's alarmist rhetoric

in 2002 was a grim farce, and the unfolding of the nightmare we see

today was a foregone conclusion. Saddam was no greater or immediate a

threat – and arguably a lesser one – than North Korea, Iran, Pakistan,

or Saudi Arabia. Hindsight has proven these war critics correct. Few

dispute that the threat from Saddam was over-stated - to put it

mildly. And evidence continues to mount that the invasion was a fait

accompli by 2002 if not 2001. Calling for an immediate pullout from

Iraq has nothing to do with capitulation and everything to do with

righting a moral wrong and undoing the damage done to America's moral

standing.

 

Yet to many of Bush's supporters, anything short of `victory' is a

weakening of America in the eyes of its enemies. They believe we are

" taking the fight to the enemy, " with the word 'enemy' defined so

over-broadly as to conflate Iraq and the attacks of September 11th.

It's the " kicking ass and taking names " mentality, moral

justifications be damned. Revenge for being attacked is rationale

enough. Material strength trumps moral strength.

 

Bush plays to the basest instincts of this crowd, but he and his

handlers know it's not enough. If the left values moral strength over

material strength and the right values material strength over moral

strength, the common ground between the two, and the place where Bush

would find his widest base of support, is a case where material

strength is put to use for a moral cause. Bush et al want desperately

to prove that Iraq satisfies both conditions. That's why the

Sheehan-Bush battle revolves around the words " noble cause. "

 

Faced with the disintegration of the original rationale for war, Bush

and his supporters are scrambling to find the elusive moral ground to

undergird America's presence in Iraq. But when you're on the record

invading a country because it was a grave threat and the threat never

materializes, you're left with little but a means-ends argument to

justify it. In the eyes of the war's opponents, Bush and his

apologists are mired in an ethical swamp trying to justify the mess

they created. Judging from recent polls, what they've come up with so

far is inadequate:

 

MORAL JUSTIFICATION #1: Bush and his administration may have knowingly

exaggerated the threat but still had a hidden, righteous agenda: the

removal of a murderous dictator, liberating the oppressed, etc. They

simply used the most " marketable " story to gain the support of the

American public.

 

This borders on the absurd. I'm no fan of slippery slope arguments,

they're easy and ubiquitous, but this leads to the slipperiest of

slopes: if it's OK to fib the country into war as long as the fibber

has " good " intentions, then it's OK to lie about any policy so long as

the president believes he or she is aiming for some secret " good. "

 

MORAL JUSTIFICATION #2: Ends justify means. In other words, pick and

choose your preferred version of the following argument: " Despite the

shifting rationales and lack of WMD, removing Saddam ... free

elections ... an Iraqi constitution ... spreading freedom and

democracy justifies the death and destruction. "

 

This point is often made in the form of a challenge: " Would you rather

Saddam still be in power? " But rhetorical questions can go both ways.

Estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties range from the low tens of

thousands to the hundreds of thousands. Taking 50,000 as an arbitrary

number, who tells those 50,000 families that they have to suffer and

die to prevent 100,000 other families from suffering and dying under

Saddam? Are Iraqi lives fungible? Who plays God? Without an iron-clad

moral justification for war, aren't we callously and capriciously

toying with matters of life and death?

 

Again, why Iraq? If the hyped up threat was bogus - which we now know

it was - and it wasn't about self-defense, why are we there? What is

it about the Iraqi people that requires Cindy Sheehan to give her

child for their freedom? Why not liberate the people of Darfur or

North Korea? Who tells them that an Iraqi deserves liberation but not

them? Bush crows about " progress " in Iraq as though Americans had some

unique obligation to ensure progress in that particular country. But

if it's simply a matter of " doing good, " why not spend $200 billion on

cancer research or alleviating poverty or educating the uneducated or

boosting safety and security at home so young girls don't get raped

and buried alive?

 

Why spend precious lives and money in Iraq? If the answer is freedom

and democracy for the Middle East, one could easily argue that a cure

for cancer would be infinitely more beneficial to humanity. Spending

$200 billion to find a cure for cancer may be a long shot, but judging

from the news, there's a distinct possibility that our $200 billion

experiment in Iraq may leave it in a worse state than when we invaded.

Wouldn't it make more sense to apply those resources to research that

could potentially save tens of millions of lives? And we'd have

thousands less Americans killed and wounded, and tens of thousands

less Iraqis slaughtered.

 

The problem with the Bush apologists' reasoning is that using an

infinite time horizon - which they are so fond of - virtually any

action, no matter how egregious, can be shown to lead to some positive

results. It's the bastardization of utilitarianism; asserting a causal

relationship between a pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign nation and

all future good developments in Iraq and the Middle East may swell the

hawks' breasts with pride, but it's a dubious and dangerous way to

conduct foreign policy.

 

Which is precisely why we need to adhere so strictly to the rule of

law, to basic moral precepts, and to established principles of

international relations, something that this administration has failed

to do, and that the administration's supporters can dance around but

can't justify.

 

While bumper-sticker patriotism may have anodyne effects on Bush and

his followers, the retroactive ethical justifications for the invasion

and occupation of Iraq are flimsy at best. And for so many on the

left, the undermining of America's moral strength under this

administration is more of a " grave and gathering danger " to America

than Saddam Hussein ever was.