Thinking about War

Mark Byron crystallizes the reasons for American action against Iraq.

One nice thing you see in Byron's pro bellum apology is its reflective tone. I think in this day and age any argument in favor of military action is going to require the exercise of prudential judgment. Since the militarists of the 1930's, no one in the Western World has held a brief for the virtues of war. That brief - now self-deconstructing - argued that war built strong characters capable of self-governement, while weeding out silly, selfish opinions. [See e.g., Rudyard Kipling, Lord Baden-Powell, Teddy Roosevelt and, for that matter, Robert A. Heinlein.] Those days are gone for at least the present. On the other hand, anti-war sentiment is cheap and easy. Also, childish and foolish - exactly as Kipling or Roosevelt believed. Fox had a man on the street segment from Paris where a middle-aged Parisian woman explained that she was against the war because "war never solved anything." The statement is so obviously wrong it doesn't need any further ventilation than the deconstruction that Heinlein gave it more than forty years ago. ["War never solved anything? Tell that to the Assyrians."] Yet, that is the kind of logic that passes for deep thought among the gauchistas.

There is an incipient cognitive dissonance at work in the media. One news segment can report that Saddam is destroying missiles and that Blix is commending Iraq for its cooperation with UN inspectors, yet the very next segment can report on the prospect of Scuds being launched at Israel from Western Iraq. In other words, both situations are presented as being equally likely - Saddam is destroying his WMDs and he has undestroyed WMDs. And no one comments on the inconsistency. One of the news stories is obviously an exercise in propoganda. It probably isn't the second story or the media would have said as much.

In a very real sense the uncertainty alone justifies military action. In other words, if there is a reasonable doubt that Saddam has WMDs, he's convicted.

We have yet to hear anyone in the anti-war left - or in France or Germany - take the position that they are certain beyond a reasonable doubt that Saddam has disarmed. The fact that they cannot, or will not, demonstrates the cravenness of their moral position.

All I need now is a catchy expression that will fit on a sign.

Update:

Country Store provides an answer.