The World A Lesser Place?

By Bob Stephens

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When the first Cruise missiles were launched last week in Iraq, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having both college-age daughters outside the borders of our country. One was traveling with friends during her university's spring break and the other is living in Spain as part of a "semester abroad" program. My first fatherly inclination, amid all the heightened terrorist alerts, was to want to bring them home. Of course, as young adults, they declined the opportunity. I was a bit relieved, however, when Rebecca emailed to say that all the protests seemed to be against American policy, not against individual Americans abroad.

But the situation of watching from the sidelines—unlike two of my co-workers who were called to active duty—has fostered a great deal of musing about this entire war situation. So, when the request came down from the editor of our state newsletter for an article supporting the war in Iraq, I said I'd take a shot at it.

And I have. I really have. I've started four different drafts only to delete each one when I wrote myself into a box. As much as I want to and try to, I just can't find a logical rationale to support this war.

I started with Saddam Hussein. Evil? Of course. Ruthless? He establishes the definition for that word. A model leader? Of course not. Deserving to be removed? Sure. America to be the assassin? . . . And this is where I get hung up. If we are truly committed to those basic tenets of libertarianism—"No fraud. No force."—then we've got a conundrum on our hands. The minute we cross another country's borders with the express purpose of engaging in war, we have admitted that, not only does diplomacy not work, but the free marketplace does not work and force must be applied instead.

Let's look at the economic situation. The world is struggling to come out of a recession. For decades we've been told that national deficits are to be reduced and ended; they cause inflation; they cheapen our savings; they shred our retirements. So what comes out of this war economically? From where I sit, we've gone from a small surplus to a huge deficit in two years and there's no end in sight. What pays for deficits? Taxes and increased taxes. What do libertarians abhor almost as much as IRS tactics? Increased taxes.

There are arguments that it's about the oil. However, petroleum prices were dropping before the fighting started. Venezuela is almost back to full production; the California refineries have straightened out their supply problems. According to news reports, Iraq has only about 7% of the world petroleum supply.

Finally, we are managing to entangle ourselves in alliances with "allies" that we may come to regret. Just as we are partially to blame for Saddam's being in power in the first place, if the U. S. topples him and the end result is equally bad or worse, what have we gained? Not only will the Iraqi people not be free and democratic, but our allies today—the Kurds and the Turks—are very close to fighting each other. Turkey can't wait to move into northern Iraq to "protect" the Kurds. But isn't that the same argument that President Bush is promoting: we're invading Iraq to protect the Iraqi citizens and our homeland?

In his book Libertarianism: A Primer, David Boaz relates that "classical liberals have always regarded war as the greatest scourge that government could visit upon society."

And then, our own national Libertarian Party Platform speaks to the issues:

We call for the reform of the Presidential War Powers Act to end the President's power to initiate military action, and for the abrogation of all Presidential declarations of "states of emergency."

We would no longer incorporate foreign nations into the U.S. defense perimeter. We would cease the creation and maintenance of U.S. bases and sites for the pre-positioning of military material in other countries. We would end the practice of stationing of American military troops overseas.

We make no exceptions to the above.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this op-ed piece, I truly wanted to fulfill this assignment. I personally feel the world would be a better place if Saddam were not in power. But if America, as the sole remaining superpower attempts to take out Saddam on its own and—in the process—becomes the town bully, then I also feel the world will be a lesser place. And a lesser place is not what Libertarians are about.