Wolfowitz today provided new justifications for the war in Iraq:
I think the lesson of 9/11 is that if you’re not prepared to act on the basis of murky intelligence, then you’re going to have to act after the fact, and after the fact now means after horrendous things have happened to this country.
It’s a statement worth pondering, for we finally have a senior US administration official openly proposing a new doctrine to replace the old criteria for what constitutes a just cause for war. Previously, a just cause involved a retaliation in case of attack, or — more controversially — when the evidence of an impending attack was overwhelming — say, Hitler massing his armies on your border and handing you an ultimatum. Wolfowitz has now widened the definition of self defense to include acting on reasonable expectations of an attack. In other words, a preemptive attack can be a legitimate defense even if you are just reasonably sure you are in danger of being attacked.
But what qualifies as “reasonably sure”? Who gets to decide? And what if the information proves false, after the fact? Tony Blair in his speech to Congress answered that last point: It seems that this doctrine would apply only to failed states, where being wrong still means you are doing good merely by alleviating the yoke of a brutal dictatorship. You should only act when it’s a win-win situation, in other words. (I would like to hear Wolfowitz echo that sentiment.)
All this is fair enough, and I might even sign up if a definition for “reasonably sure” was drafted and the UN Security Council got the final say. In fact, such a process was set in motion, with Powell acting as prosecutor, if you will, but the “jury” of 15 nations indicated it would veto war for the time being — and the jury would have been right, after the fact.
It turns out that the jury was not convinced by the quality of the circumstancial evidence presented by the prosecution. The rest of the world was not reasonably sure Iraq was a threat to its neighbors or the US. And it was right, after the fact. Wolfowitz’s redefinition of a just cause for war is sound, but he and his neocon pals did not themselves take it to heart when they decided to act as judge, jury and executioner.
But here ends my lenient interpretation of Wolfowitz’s words. Just some reminders: Six months ago there was no murky intelligence. There was incontrovertible proof, to be shared with us after the fact. Instead, we now know that six months ago, the administration on at least one occasion made the case for war citing intelligence that it knew wasn’t murky at all, but clearly false. Leaving such misinformation in the State of the Union simply because it was plausibly attributable to the UK is not the behavior of an administration carefully weighing evidence as it ponders war as a last resort.
On a side note, is the Bush administration vindicated if it made up WMD evidence, embellished such evidence or inadvertently used false intelligence to go to war, but then, quite separately from the “intelligence” it had, it found WMDs? It may sound trite, but I think it is a fascinating philosophical question. Could you argue that the US had knowledge of WMDs in this case?
An analogy: I see a picture of Saddam Hussein writing with his left hand. I conclude he is left-handed. In fact, the picture I saw had been flipped using Photoshop — he was actually holding the pen in his right hand. However, he is left-handed, it just so happened that in the picture he was holding the pen in his right hand. Or this one: I tell everyone Matthew Rose cheats at Scrabble, not because I know he does but because I want to sully his reputation. Then it turns out he does cheat at Scrabble. Did I know that? Did I lie?
The Bush administration had what I consider a good case for going to war but felt it needed to ratchet the hysteria in order to get the support it needed domestically. It reminds me of how Truman hyped the threat of a Communist invasion to get the necessary backing to support Greece and Turkey in 1950 against insurgents – at the price of militarizing Kennan’s containment policy. Today we’re paying the price in credibility – which is a precious commodity, not to be wasted, when the US needs a lot of support in its war against terror, and when the world needs a hegemon that it can have some faith in. I still think the war was the right thing to do, but by spinning half-truths and, in one case, an outright lie, the administration has not only broken crockery but thrown the Elmer’s Glue out the window.
Stefan thinks I cheat because I beat him heavily this weekend at a time when he had no way of knowing for sure I wasn’t sitting at my computer with a scrabble dictionary in my lap (we play online). The evidence at hand: a humiliating 450-somthing to 250-something loss.
Would I train my DV Camera on my lap so Stefan could see I wasn’t cheating? Of course not. Fortunately, it’s not a practical option because the connection’s too slow when play with video conferencing. I could also hold the book somewhere else.
So should Stefan, convinced of my cheating and with no viable means to inspect my behavior, fly to New York and beat me up just in case I was cheating. The goal would be to stop me cheating more in future, perhaps when we play for money or if I should use the loss to embarass him in front of friends. Only I really know if he has just cause because only I really know if I was cheating. Everything else is educated guesswork.
wouldnt the cold war actions and US governement involvement on third world countries be justifieed with the same argument? tthe fear of being attacked or disempowered by the growing popularity of marxist ideas in these regions? Their preemptive action at the time consisted of careful and secretive intelligence coups and strategies planned against these countries and their people. The difference today is that back then, all this was based on assumptions that the USSR wanted to anihilate them. Today, it is based on the assumptions that the muslims do.
Is it not the bloody same war against a monster of eight heads, Loch Ness, or call it what you want?
Hydra? Yes, by Blair’s own definition, Vietnam would have been win-win. I think you put your finger on the problem: Intelligence data only becomes information through interpretation, and when your perspective is mainly ideological, you see demons.
I’m a bit lost, Matthew, does this mean you are inviting Stefan to come and beat you up, because educated guesswork suggested you cheated? That should be entertaining to watch. Stefan ‘0-0-2 featherweight boxing champ’ versus ‘glorifying-in-press-reports-calling-him-a-nancy-boy-Rose.’ Please tell me when so I can order it on pay per view.