| | Mark writes:
...where we disagree concerns the issue of what actions uphold versus violate the principle of self interest. Provided that it was clear that my life was imperiled by this hostage taker, I should take action to eliminate the threat, even killing the unfortunate hostage. But such action should be taken only as a clear last resort, because it is in my self interest to uphold the value of human life, in this case the life of the hostage.
If the hostage taker were threatening me with robbery instead of murder, then it is not clear that I have the right to kill the robber and hostage. For the retaliation ought to be proportional to the threat. If the retaliation may properly be disproportional, then most people have the right to kill most other people, including their parents, gym teachers and annoying kids. Moreover, I doubt that disproportional retaliation or defense accords with self-interest rightly understood.
No Mark, on all of this I think we agree. Now here is where we don't:
If we apply these thoughts to the War in Iraq, the American invasion and occupation is, to put it politely, grotesquely disproportional to the "threat" if any posed by Saddam Hussein. In what way did his army threaten Americans in the United States? In no way. Recall: no WMDs, no poisonous drones poised to fly over American cities, no nukes or delivery systems, no credible evidence of his intent to attack!
But that is contrary to the President's state of knowledge at the time of the invasion.
When, in the aftermath of 9/11, the President is presented intelligence reports contrary to all of those specifics you cited -- such as the information I linked in this post, especially here and here and here and, most comprehensively, here -- just what do you expect him to do? Sit on his hands? Wait and see if a sadistic thug -- who has invaded his neighbors, already used WMD against thousands of innocents, tried to knock off his own father, our former President and stalled for ten years against complying with international arms inspections -- had suddenly reformed? It all painted a grim picture of Saddam preparing all manner of WMD, harboring and conspiring with known terrorists and stonewalling international inspectors seeking the truth.
Our Commander in Chief, who had fresh memories of Ground Zero in southern Manhattan, was being fed -- from the best sources available to him -- loads of information that the Saddam regime represented a clear and present danger to the U. S. Now, a basic principle of the Objectivist epistemology is that one must rely on the best information available in making judgments. The information linked above was provided to Bush not only by the CIA and other U. S. intelligence agencies; it was ratified and augmented by foreign intelligence services, too. Even the UN believed Saddam had WMD he hadn't accounted for. Even the French, Russians and others who opposed our invasion believed that he did: that was why they voted for all those UN resolutions!
Again, put yourself in the man's shoes. Just what in hell was he supposed to do? Ignore all that? Twiddle his thumbs, look out his window and hope no hijacked airliner was headed toward the Oval Office, packed with WMD?
Okay, suppose those intelligence reports had turned out to be correct, and suppose America had been attacked by Saddam agents -- and Bush had done nothing pre-emptive to stop it. What would libertarian critics being saying then?
You and I both know the answer. They'd be raging against the government and Bush as incompetent in defending our rights and freedoms and safety -- as having ignored the clear message of 9/11 -- as being too focused on things other than our national defense.
Mark, meticulous bipartisan investigations of the lead-up to the Iraq War have not faulted Bush for his decision to go to war, but faulted the intelligence agencies on which he relied for providing him bad information. And the reason for their dismal failure at providing the President with sound information was because liberals, led by former Senators Frank Church and Robert Toricelli, had effectively gutted the CIA and FBI's ability to gather and coordinate intelligence. They imposed so many restrictions on information gathering, especially from "human assets," that the agencies were rendered almost impotent.
President Bush didn't cause this mess; he inherited it.
Ironically, however, these very same intelligence agencies have long been vilified by libertarians and anarchists, who have crusaded for years to shut them down as a risk to our civil liberties. In short, the anti-government crowd endorsed handcuffing and blinding of our spies -- but now excoriate them, and the President who relied on them, for being unable to foresee and prevent 9/11! And if they'd had their way, we wouldn't have these intelligence agencies at all.
In going to war against Saddam, Bush made the only rational and responsible decision possible, based on his full context of knowledge at the time. For him to have ignored the intelligence provided him, which consistently portrayed Saddam as a looming menace, would have been irresponsible to the point of treason.
Now, having made that decision, he has crafted a strategy to make Iraq a seedbed for individual liberty in the political sewer of the Arab world. And according to the information linked here, it appears that he is succeeding in this quest -- notwithstanding your closing misgivings, or the negative propaganda flooding from the mainstream media and the likes of scummy libertarian outlets like Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com. As for these latter, their continued screeching in the face of all the positive news (which they evade and bury) speaks volumes about their real sympathies and philosophical commitments.
So while we may nominally agree on the philosophical premises that apply to political issues, it is clear that we're applying these principles in very different ways, and to very different sets of facts. As in all things, reality will be the ultimate arbiter. Knowing you, I am sure that whatever your own misgivings, you hope that my optimism about the outcome in Iraq is not misplaced.
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My beloved nation is filled with flaws, errors and outright stupidities, and I will always strive against those. But Ed, there is no equivalency between the flawed West, and the primitive tyrannies; it's not close, it’s not even in the same fucking ballpark. Stop providing the moral sanction that the low life cowards and anti-Americans of LewRockwell and others use. They are beneath contempt, and to treat them with anything other than total contempt, is a betrayal of the good. 
