UNRAVELING THE "ANTI-WAR" PARTY'S ILLOGIC
Suppose that, being unemployed, I propose to go to the church, passing Mazzini's shop and buying some candles, make a votive offering to the Virgin and pray for help in finding a job.

My four family members all object, but for different reasons.

My father agrees that I should get a job. But he objects to the plan because he's an atheist and thinks all religion is a load of hooey.

My brother agrees that I should get a job, and thinks that praying for one could be effectual. He objects because he is a Protestant and thinks that candles and Virgins are a distortion of the Christian religion.

My sister is a Catholic and is all for burning candles and praying to the Virgin. But she objects because she doesn't think I should be looking for a job, but should pursue further education instead.

And my mother objects because she knows that Cabroni's, which is just a little further than the church, sells candles for half the price that Mazzini's does.

Now, all four of my family members object to the plan, and if I proceed with it, they may all feel similarly offended. And perhaps they'll even have a certain impulse to make common cause. But they can't, because their objections are not only different but quite incompatible. If they try to pack their arguments into one, it will end up something like this:

"You wasted money at Mazzini's for candles that were cheaper at Cabroni's, to pray in a manner using candles and icons of the Virgin which is a distortion of the Christian faith, to a God who doesn't exist anyway, for a job that you shouldn't even be looking for because you ought to be getting more education."

The trouble with this is, first, it is not particularly coherent, second, none of my family members actually agree with the whole thing.

The anti-war movement is in a position similar to that of my four family members.

Bush and Blair had a plan: using a relatively small number of troops, with the stated motive of capturing and neutralizing the threat of WMDs, but with or without explicit UN authorization, we would attack and deal a swift knock-out blow to one of the nastiest regimes in the Middle East, then occupy the country and supply large dollops of reconstruction aid so that the country could get back on its feet, while politically laying the foundations for a democratic constitution, which, in turn, would trigger a "democratic domino effect," leading ultimately to the dissolution of all the disgusting old dictatorships in the Middle East.

Now, there are many possible objections to this plan, and a lot of them are quite plausible.

The pacifist objection: All wars are bad. Even in self-defense no individual has the right to kill (the Amish / Gandhian position) or must apply it only as the very last resort. No country should ever fight unless its borders are violated, and even then it should take the obligation with the utmost seriousness.

The national-interest objection: The US should wage war only when there is a compelling national interest. Saddam's WMDs, if he has any, are not a sufficiently large threat to justify the expenditure of money and diplomatic capital that the war will require. As for the Iraqis' freedom, or the lives of the children destroyed by sanctions, these are no part of the US national interest.

The anti-American objection: America is a cruel, vicious, greedy imperialist power, and all its works are bad. We must oppose all the actions of this "totalitarian democracy," for they are always in the interest of enhancing its capitalistic and corporate power.

The UN, international law objection: The war against Saddam can only be legitimately waged with the authorization of the UN. Since the interpretation of Resolution 1441 was unclear, and since some members of the UN Security Council clearly did not think it authorized a war, a second, clearer resolution would be needed.

The anti-democratic objection: Democracy and freedom are bad, opening the door to libertinism, chaos, and crime. Iraq should be ruled by an iron fist, not the will of the people.

The "human rights" objection: In the course of war, the US was likely to end up violating human rights; at Abu Ghraib, they did so. Human rights are sacred and must not be violated. (This is perhaps the most transparently weak of all the arguments, since Saddam's regime, as well as all the Arab regimes and about half the regimes on the planet, violate human rights much worse than the abuses at Abu Ghraib.)

The anti-Arab objection: Arabs are a benighted people who can't handle democracy. Trying to bestow it on them is misguided, and doomed to end in failure.

The anti-colonial objection: Colonization is bad and occupying Iraq is like a new phase of colonialism. (This is also one of the dumber objections, since the occupation is fairly obviously temporary.)

The anti-Islam objection: Muslims are fanatics and unfit for democracy. America should stay away from that bad crowd.

The al-Qaeda objection: the caliphate must triumph! For the infidel to be present on the lands of Islam is an affront to our faith, and must be avenged! This will set back the cause of jihad, through which all Muslim lands are regained for the caliphate from their treasonous, apostate rulers.

The philanthropy-first objection: The Iraq war may benefit a lot of people, but if the US will spend $100 billion, it could do more good by providing AIDS drugs to Africa free, and putting more money into various kinds of foreign aid.

Now many of these arguments have some merit, but they can't really be combined with each other. If you place a high value on order, you have to understand that this may sometimes involve sacrificing human rights. If you want to establish the caliphate, you probably aren't bigoted against Muslims. If you are a pacifist, then you can't accept the idea that the US should deploy force calculatingly so as to advance its national interests. In fact, pacifist arguments would fit very uncomfortably with international law arguments, too, since enforcing international law sometimes involves a resort to war. Pacifists, supporters of international law, al-Qaedists, human rights advocates of the more fuzzy-headed and quixotic kind, conservative anti-Arab bigots, soulless supporters of the US national interest whatever the cost, all may agree on this, but they are still deeply divide. If they try to mingle their arguments together, the result will be deeply incoherent.

That is more or less what has happened in the past year and a half. People who oppose the war in Iraq for completely different and incompatible reasons try to make common cause, to join their arguments together, and infuse the resulting arguments into the mainstream media's interpretation of the war. They have succeeded, but the result is vastly illogical and irrational, and an unbearable tangle of cognitive dissonance lies within. It's painful to watch the anti-war crowd writhe.

The Abu Ghraib scandal brings all this silliness to the surface. It will take years for the world to recover from the intellectual atrocity of the "anti-war" crowd. But I blame the Europeans above all. So Germans think that:

"America must now prove to the world that it is different from the dictatorships it is fighting against."

It's difficult to express adequate contempt for this point of view. There are many plausible arguments against the war that overthrew the world's most murderous tyrant, but human rights is most definitely not one of them. How stupid are the Germans, to think that proof of America's moral superiority to Saddam's murderocracy is somehow lacking?

What is deeply, deeply humiliating is that we are allies of the Europeans? Can we please put an end to this wretched trans-Atlantic relationship?! I don't mind paying the price of diplomatic isolation, higher oil prices, greater risk of terror attacks, whatever, just as long as we don't have to call these mindless, cringing, wretched hypocrites our allies.