Dear George:
Thanks for the invitation to the Class of 1968 Whiffenpoofs to sing for you at the White House. Unfortunately, I can’t participate. Here’s why.
I don’t remember much of what Kingman Brewster said in his welcoming speech to the freshman class of 1968 in September 1964, but in broad outline it was the usual one about what a great opportunity we had been given, and what a great responsibility went with it.
If he had just been talking about the responsibility to serve and to lead, I would be delighted to sing for you, because you have served and led more in the last 6 years than the rest of our class combined.
But as I remember Kingman Brewster, it’s more likely that he would have talked to us about the responsibility to think before you serve and lead. He would have told us that the main purpose of our four undergraduate years would be to learn how to think, that learning to think is hard work, and that learning to think will make your head hurt.
I don’t think you were listening, George. You among us were given the greatest opportunity to serve and to lead imaginable. But you have failed in your responsibility to think before you lead. Your head doesn’t hurt. That’s why I won’t sing.
None of us has been surprised to see how calm and self-assured you are about pursuing this war. You show the calm of a leader who has achieved moral clarity. And moral clarity is the surest sign of someone who has never learned how to think. Leaders who achieve moral clarity say things like, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Or things like, “we must destroy that village in order to liberate it.” Leaders like this tend to have followers who say, “My country, right or wrong.”
Does a leader endowed with moral clarity count costs and benefits before deciding whether a war is justified? I don’t think so. The leader endowed with moral clarity divides the world into two categories: Evil, and everything else. In opposing Evil, he abhors moderation and compromise, for compromise with Evil is Evil. All of this is very clear in his mind. As he enters the war against Evil, this leader is at peace with himself. He cannot conceive that the path he has chosen might lead him to Hell. Chatter about whether means justify ends is noise that obscures moral clarity. What is clear is that liberation of the village is just, and that moderation and compromise are damnable.
The way I see it, in all your moral clarity, you are sending several divisions up the road to Baghdad with the best possible intentions, to embark upon the mother of all liberations to be achieved, if necessary, by the destruction of that city and, if necessary, most everyone in it.
Am I a pacifist? If I were a pacifist, my case would be that all wars are immoral, this is war, therefore this is immoral. That is not my case. I think the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda needed to be fought, and you fought them well. And I’m not saying your war against Saddam is immoral or unjust. I’m saying it is stupid and irresponsible – an ill-conceived adventure whose risks far outweigh the possible benefits, a roll-the-dice approach to foreign and military policy on a scale our nation has never seen.
Sure, Saddam is evil. But I don’t believe that an evil regime should be taken out at all costs. It depends on the evil, and on the cost. In this world, evil and cost exist in varying degrees. Think about evil as something that has degrees, as do the costs of defeating evil. If you think hard enough about this, George, it should make your head hurt. I don’t think you have, and I don’t think it does. That’s why I won’t sing for you.
You told us, “The cost of doing nothing would be far greater than the cost of regime change.” But since no serious person was arguing that we should do nothing about Saddam Hussein, this was a silly thing to say. Obviously the real issue is whether the balance of cost, risk and reward with continued inspections would be better than the balance of these things with an attempt at regime change by war. I don’t think you ever tried to make the case that the cost/risk/benefit balance of an attempt at regime change was better than balance for inspections. I think your case went about as far as a shrug and a smirk: “Inspections don’t work.”
But why don’t they work? Don’t you think you should at least explain to those you have asked to die for regime change why a world with Saddam still in power, still oppressing his people, with no nuclear program, no means other than suitcases for delivering chemical & biological weapons (if they exist), and hundreds of inspectors with international backing prowling the country at will – why such a world is so dangerous or so evil as to justify death in battle for hundreds of Americans and many thousands of Iraqis? Not to mention the collateral damage to Iraqi civilians, to institutions of international governance, and to what America stands for in the eyes of the rest of the world?
Do you really believe there is a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, as about half of the American people do? I know you would dearly like to believe it, but unfortunately the 375,000 members of the intelligence community who work for you haven’t come up with anything very convincing. And I don’t think it’s because they’re under-funded. Is it that you know things you can’t tell us without endangering the lives of informers, so we just have to trust you? George, please don’t tell me we’re going to war because of what we have heard from informers.
If you were a thinking leader, you would understand and explain this to your people: that the evil of Saddam Hussein – a ruthless oppressor of ethnic and religious groups within his country, and an aggressor against his neighbors – is entirely different from the evil of al-Quaeda – a stateless clan of Muslim fanatics bent on vengeance against the Infidel, as directed by the book and the mullah. In pursuing the war on al Quaeda – a legitimate war of self-defense in the aftermath of 9/11 – America should spend 75% of its resources cracking the networks, and 25% of its resources going after states that support the networks. And of the resources spent going after the states that support the networks, 75% should be spent on Pakistan, 20% on Saudi Arabia, and 5% on everyone else. If the objective is the defeat of al Quaeda, going after Iraq should be about as important as going after Tunisia.
So why have you decided on a policy of regime change by war? The best answer you can offer, given the absence of any meaningful connection with al Quaeda or meaningful evidence of WMD, is that we will be liberating an oppressed people from their suffering. It’s a worthy cause, George, as it was in Vietnam, but how worthy? How much loss of life is it worth? Are there any risks that after we take out the regime, we might find the people(s) of Iraq more resistant to the ideals of democracy, civil society and the rule of law than we hope? Or that the transition to these institutions might take longer, be more expensive, and produce a more imperfect result than we hope? Or that neighboring autocratic Arab states might fail to fall over one by one (like dominoes) under the pressure of a democratic Iraq? Or that Muslims around the world will react to America’s forcible liberation of Iraq with deepened hostility to Americans and American ideals? Or that the cancer of al Quaeda mutates and proliferates into new and more virulent strains?
It should make your head hurt to ask yourself these questions, George, but you’re not asking, and I know why: to you, a world with Saddam in power and under inspection lacks moral clarity. Such a world is a compromise with Evil. End of story. Kingman Brewster would be ashamed of you, George, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Your head should hurt, but it doesn’t. That’s why I won’t sing.
Dan Badger
London
April 17, 2003
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