Monday, May 21, 2007
Al Qaeda
What is so odd about the war in Iraq right now is that people are willing to give up and leave even though they admit that Al Qaeda is fighting us there. Lots of people say that Al Qaeda is only a small proportion of the people that we are fighting in Iraq. But even if that is true, what difference does that make? If it is Al Qaeda fighting us there why would we ever leave until we have defeated them? Moreover, whatever proportion of our enemies there are Al Qaeda no one thinks that it is Iraqis that are blowing themselves up to murder civilians. What could ever make us give up the fight against such an enemy?
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3 comments:
look, I don't care about politics here, let's just talk about money. the estimate is that the war in Iraq has cost USA so far about $1 trillion, i.e. equivalent to a payment of $10,000 from every american family (this is 20% of median annual family income). Are you willing to pay that much really? I'd rather take a check for $10,000 and take the minuscule risk of being blown up in some USA city.
if the above does not sound good to you there's another way to grasp what $1 trillion is. The statistical value of a life of a young american is about $5 mln. Thus the war is equivalent to a loss of 200,000 young men and women. Do you think that if USA never went to Iraq terorrist groups would have killed 200,000 americans? somehow I don't think so.
I have no particular reason to doubt your figures; they certainly seem to be in the range of possibility. I do not agree that the insurance value is captures the value of the consequences of losing in Iraq.
For one thing, your account leaves out Iraqis. The lives that will be lost and the lives that will return to being something less than human are worth something, surely.
But I don't think that the actuarial method comes close to capturing the costs even to us. The danger of letting al Qaeda win in Iraq goes beyond the increase in their ability to launch attacks due to having a secure base. The danger lies in the signal given to friends and enemies. To our friends it is a signal that our word is not reliable. The Iraqis that defied al Qaeda and worked for the US and the democratically elected government will be hunted down and killed. The people that defiantly voted, voting to take our word that they would be the first people in the Arab world to have a true chance to choose their own leaders, voting to trust our offers of protection in defiance of al Qaeda's and the Baathists' threats to those that voted that they would pay with their lives, these people trusted in our friendship. If we abandon them to al Qaeda because al Qaeda is willing to commit mass murder who will ever trust us again?
And what conclusion will our enemies draw? that we are weak. that we can't take it. that we judge victory and defeat by a balance sheet. that our words about honor and democracy are hollow. those words carry an escape clause that lets us out if the enemies of democracy are willing to carry on their campaign of murder past our political attention span.
the danger to us from so betraying our friends and encouraging our enemies goes far beyond the sums registered by actuarial tables.
man, you should run for congress or something...I personally put no value on honor or betraying "friends" (are there friends in politics anyway?) which is probably why we disagree. Of course putting an infinite value (as you seem to) on those abstract concepts and feel-good "values" will make any costs worthwhile. But then again, this was exactly what bankrupted the Soviet Union...
same anonymous
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