“…President Bush’s much more modest plan for regime change in Iraq. And the continuing inability of the war critics to come up with a viable alternative to Bush’s plan…”

A viable alternative to this modest plan will never quite make it if one’s ideology sees Hussein as a real threat.

Absent all the reductio ad Hitlerums,

Hussein is a regional nuisance.
He is not a direct threat to the U.S.

Ergo, the viable alternative is to put this modest plan on the shelf resting along side other interesting yet poorly articulated apocalyptic fiction…

That is the gamble, isn’t it? It comes down to a question of the facts. If in fact Hussein is a direct threat to America via WMD’s then there is no principled paleo antiwar case; thus the need to cling to lack-of-threat as indisputable fact and to refuse to discuss the possibility of am actual threat. One the possibility of an actual threat is admitted it becomes a judgement call, and there is no longer any principled paleo anti-war case.

“If in fact Hussein is a direct threat to America via WMD’s then there is no principled paleo antiwar case; thus the need to cling to lack-of-threat as indisputable fact and to refuse to discuss the possibility of am actual threat…”

Appears rather cicular: “discussion and possibility of an actual threat” seem worthy of time, but that’s not what’s happening today.

Discussion and possibility have morphed into dictates and pre-emptive certainities. Moreover, I gather it’s all about judgment — one hopes that principle informs rather than distorts judgment: the “lack of threat” is not an indisputable fact; regarding this particular situation facts are inseparable from one’s perception of them.

Charley Reese provides a cogent musing on the consequences of War: http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20021007/index.php.

Specifically on VFR I have yet to see a single paleo post conceding unequivocally that whether or not to attack Iraq is a legitimate judgement call based on an assessment of the level of threat, and that some threat certainly exists (unless my own posts or Mr. Auster’s count as paleo). Does MJK want to be the exception?

They can’t concede that the decision whether or not to attack Iraq is a judgment call based on objective facts, because if they did concede that, then they would be admitting the possibility of a factual circumstance in which they themselves would logically have to support the war, in which case all of their ad hominems against “war mongering blood thirsty power hungry imperialistic neocon lackeys who have never served in the military” would suddenly revert on THEMSELVES.

Which is, of course, one of the reasons why ad hominem arguments are considered illegitimate.

MJK believes a strike to neutralize an unjust aggressor would be morally permissible, but requires proper judgment and proportion.

However, the Bush pre-emptive doctrine makes force permissible on the basis of potentiality or the possibility of unjust aggression. This is too low a bar for me. I concur with George F. Kennan and find this policy pre-emptive doctrine dangerous,unconvincing, and a bad precedent. At this stage, the threat assessment regarding Iraq does not merit pre-emptive military action on the part of the U.S.

I find the ad hominems and invectives surrounding the inevitable war with Iraq useless and obfuscating.

More interestingly though,what is “a possibility of a factual circumstance”? How does conceding to this “possibility of a factual circumstance” make one’s argument more than just musings of the possible. Is it a factual circumstance per se? Or, does the phrase simply mean the possibility of the existence of a factual circumstance. Arguably, aren’t all circumstances possibly factual in some sense. If someone conceded to the possibility of factual circumstance wouldn’t the real issue be whether the actual circumstance involved objective facts or hyperbole.

MJK appears to assume that everything that is known is public, or that if not it should be made public, despite GWB’s openness about the fact that much would remain secret. Also, Iraq is already an enemy and already in violation of treaty. An “attack” could be spun as preemption or it could be spun as just an escalation of hostilities, including the firing of antiaircraft weapons at American planes, which are already taking place. I do think that it is being spun as the former in order to specifically provide doctrinal basis for future neocon aggressiveness; otherwise why spin it that way at all?

I agree that the dominant pro-war elites are primarily neoconservatives, which is to say that they believe in imposing our culture throughout the world via military force while destroying it at home through unrestricted immigration. Thus any action against Iraq carries not only the obvious overt risks but also the risk that neocon imperialism will be strenghtened thereby. So there is some principled reason to oppose war on those grounds, but it is not plenary: it can be overridden by whatever the actual facts happen to be about the actual threat.

I simply don’t see the distinction MJK is attempting to draw, though. Any preventative action of any sort involves the use of force based on the potentiality or possibility of aggression. Is it MJK’s position that prevention is always wrong, that retaliation is the only justifiable pretext for forceful action? And even if so, then how is it unprincipled to engage in retaliation in response to a violation of treaty which itself was the result of turning back aggression? Aren’t paleos fighting a straw man by painting Hussein as an innocent who has never fired a weapon at the U.S., and won’t that straw-man argument interfere with principled opposition to future imperialistic tendencies? Is there some statute of limitations on treaty violation of which I am unaware? Would the police be wrong to aggressively hunt down and arrest a known murderer simply because new information and context made him seem more of an immediate threat? Isn’t that just a judgement call about deployment of law enforcement resources?

I don’t personally have a definitive answer to the problem of Iraq. I think it is complicated, and depends on both facts and principles. Any answer is bound to be a bad answer. Paleo opposition to the Kosovo nightmare was clearly principled and correct. But if paleo opposition becomes opposition to any use of the military to protect threatened U.S. interests I am afraid it becomes indistinguishable from unprincipled leftist opposition to everything military. I think that paleos would be better off saying that Iraq is a legitimate judgement call (always arguable as such based on facts and circumstances) within the President’s discretion but that there is no new doctrine of plenary preemption implied that applies against anyone at all, justified by Iraq as a specific case. If I were such a paleo I could oppose an Iraqi invasion as a matter of judgement and, separately and not applying to Iraq, oppose plenary power to invade anyone thought to maybe be a threat on principle. That distinction will be key, I think, if paleo antiwar principles aren’t to become a victim of whatever neocons do to destroy antiwar leftism.