Wednesday, December 31, 2003

What is ‘right’?

(Subject: In Flanders Field

I was reading a book the other day, and the author was making a distinction between leadership and management. He said that management is doing things right, while leadership is doing the right things. I couldn’t help but think how this theorem applies in the non-argument taking place concerning Iraq. In other words, it almost doesn’t matter how well we have done, or will do in “bringing democracy” to Iraq if being there in the first place is not “the right thing.”

Ostensibly, we are waging a war on Islamic extremist terror that manifested itself with the attack on the United States Sept. 11. 2001. To that end, the “right thing” ought to be anything that limits the likelihood or capacity of Islamic terrorists to attack the U.S. or its interests.

Our intelligence network identified the attack as originating with the al Qaeda network out of Afghanistan. We gathered our military forces with the blessing of most of the world and launched a devastating attack on the people harboring these murderers. Undoubtedly this was the right thing.

Mr. Bush then shifted his focus onto Iraq. At that point Mr. Bush ostensibly went back to the question, Is this the right thing to do? Arriving at the answer “yes,” one would think he had his reasons, and therefore his arguments pretty much down pat. An examination of Bush statements, and those from senior officials, does not seem to bear this out.

He started with the “Axis of Evil” (North Korea, Iraq, and Iran) speech and proceeded to let us know that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, had a history of using them, and given the changed environment (9-11) we could not let that stand. In August of last year he repeated that charge with the threat of invasion if Saddam did not immediately allow return of the inspectors.

Saddam did in fact let the inspectors back in, but as expected, didn’t cooperate. Meanwhile the argument seemed to be changing. Saddam was now allegedly working on getting nuclear weapons and had confirmed ties to al Qaeda, this they called “the nexus.”

Pretty soon we were hearing that not only could Saddam be a threat, he actually posed a present and imminent threat to our national security. Then it became Iraq’s failure to comply with UN sanctions that would form our casus belli.

By the time we actually got around to the war, we were determined to bring democracy to the Arab world by way of example in Iraq, thus Operation Iraqi Freedom.

So was it “the right thing”? Has our invasion of Iraq limited the capacity or likelihood of another Islamic extremist terrorist attack on us or our interests?

We have deposed Saddam Hussein, no small gesture in the world of eliminating despots. He no longer has the capacity to make trouble in the Middle East, or to build anymore weapons, or to terrorize his own people.

But my question here would be, What link did Saddam ever have with Islamic terrorists? And the answer is, None has ever been proved by the Bush regime or anyone else.

I never thought it made sense for a Stalinist style dictator to cede power (control) to a group with a different agenda, and one he couldn’t control. You can’t attack a country with 7000 nuclear weapons with any sense of impunity, nor would it be wise to allow a traceable surrogate to do so.

What about the evolved reasoning: bringing democracy, by way of example to the Middle East? I don’t find this an outlandish supposition, if only from a humanitarian point of view. I’m just not sure it is possible to force democracy on a people, nor do I adhere to the notion that it will magically spread by the will of Iraq’s neighbors.

More importantly, from a cost-benefit point of view, will the amount of lives and treasure expended on such a risky venture be worth our effort?

So far we’ve sacrificed 400 dead, thousands wounded, billions in war costs, and 87 billion more pledged, and that’s just what we know about.

And here’s the key: The outcome of this nation building is 100-percent unforeseeable at this juncture. It could get a lot more expensive, and like Vietnam, turn into a black hole with an adverse ending.

If it works out, we have a happy, healthy Iraq in the middle of a bunch of perennial losers and troublemakers. Any real benefits against Islamic terrorism may be decades off if any really exist.

In the meantime, we live in the real world of limited resources. If the right thing is protecting ourselves and our interests against radical Islam, could not all these resources in Iraq be used against the actual proponents and actors of Islamic terrorism?

This is the part I have not understood from the beginning. Whatever your bent on Iraq, you have to ask yourself, have our limited resources been most beneficially used in the subjugation and open-ended rebuilding of Iraq? Would they have been better used tracking down and destroying the guilty, solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem (the terror Petri dish), and opening a real dialogue with reasonable Muslims?

If you look at this miasma from the point of an American, rather than a cultural warrior on either side of the current divide, you have to say, there’s a great possibility we have not done the right thing in Iraq, and we may well be throwing good resources after bad.

Timothy J. Parker

Peachtree City, Ga.