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Go Home Iraq, Libya, And Intellectual Persecution

JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 23, 2011

Iraq, Libya, And Intellectual Persecution

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

The Iraq War was a strange moment in American political discourse. The debate surrounding the invasion was heavily skewed toward the pro-war side, and dissenting voices were often marginalized. That experience has left a residue of anger among liberal doves, including those who were hawks at the time of the war.

One expression of this resentment, as I wrote yesterday, is the odd insistence that liberal intellectual hawks bear a large share of responsibility for the fact that the United States underinvests in non-military aid to the Third World, and the even stranger belief that this constitutes a reason not to intervene in Libya. Matthew Yglesias debated this with me on Twitter yesterday. When I pressed him to explain what this belief had to do with the case for or against intervention in Libya, he replied, "I'm mostly arguing, ad hominem, that people like you & the mentality you represent are a pernicious influence on US policy." That's about as close as you'll ever get to a full, Jack Nicholson-courtroom scene-in-"A Few Good Men" admission. It's not an argument about Libya. It's an expression of resentment.

The feeling of intellectual persecution has also popped up in response to some of the arguments made by my TNR colleagues, who stand accuse of moral bullying in their support for intervention. John Judis listed a few consequences of inaction, and then argued:

If you answer "Who cares?" to each of these, I have no counter-arguments to offer, but if you worry about two or three of these prospects, then I think you have to reconsider whether Barack Obama did the right thing in lending American support to this intervention.

In response, Glenn Greenwald retorts:

Note how, in Judis' moral world, there are only two possibilities: one can either support the American military action in Libya or be guilty of a "who cares?" attitude toward Gadaffi's butchery. At least as far as this specific line of pro-war argumentation goes, this is just 2003 all over again.

But that is absolutely not what Judis argued. He was simply conceding that, for those indifferent to the consequences of a slaughter, his argument would have no force. In other words, he was acknowledging that not everybody would agree with some of the premises of his argument, and that he wanted to aim his points at those who do agree with the premises -- which, of course, implies that some opponents of intervention do care about Qadaffi's potential victims.

Meanwhile, another colleague, Leon Wieseltier, deconstructed arguments advanced by various liberals that the lack of sufficient spending on humanitarian aide disqualifies the U.S. from intervening in Libya:

This was Ezra Klein’s gloss on Obama’s sentences: “Every year, one million people die from malaria. About three million children die, either directly or indirectly, due to hunger. There is much we could do to help the world if we were willing. The question that needs to be asked is: Why this?” And Andrew Sullivan cleverly objected, about Obama’s view that “the U.S. cannot stand idly by while atrocities take place,” that “we have done nothing in Burma or the Congo and are actively supporting governments in Yemen and Bahrain that are doing almost exactly—if less noisily—what Qaddafi is doing.”

These are debater’s points made by people who have no reason to fear that they will ever need to be rescued. It is important that this “logic” be exposed for what it really is, because it sounds so plausible. Is it hypocritical of the United States to act against Qaddafi and not against Al Khalifa? It is. But there are worse things in this suffering world than hypocrisy. Are we inconsistent? We are. But should we abandon people to slaughter, should we consign freedom fighters to their doom, for the satisfaction of consistency? Simone Weil once remarked that as long as France retained its colonial possessions it was morally disqualified from the struggle against Hitler. It was a breathtakingly consistent and stupid remark. We should be candid. All outrage is selective. Nobody cares about everything equally. Nobody can save everybody, and everybody will not be saved. If everybody who deserves rescue will not be rescued, should nobody who deserves rescue be rescued? If we cannot do everything, must we do nothing? The history of help and rescue is a history of triage. There are also philosophical and moral and political preferences that determine the selectivity of our actions, and those preferences must be provided with valid reasons. Maybe we should be intervening in Burma or Bahrain: let the arguments be made, the principles and the interests adduced. But of course it is not the expansion of American action that interests these writers. What they seek is its contraction.

Ezra Klein shoots back:

Faced with the argument that there are other humanitarian tragedies that are both far worse in scale and far easier to ameliorate, he calls this a “debater’s point” and compares those struggling with it to 20th-century Europeans who argued that “as long as France retained its colonial possessions it was morally disqualified from the struggle against Hitler.” As we’re less than a week into this intervention, I believe Wieseltier might have just set a land-speed record for Godwin’s Law violations.

Godwin's Law refers to the tendency of people in internet debates to compare their opponents to the Nazis. Leon did nothing of the sort here. He was comparing Klein's argument to the argument that France was morally disqualified from fighting Hitler on account of its colonialism. The point was about the silliness of using the lack of perfect moral consistency as an argument against moral behavior. If anybody was being compared to Hitler in this analogy, it would be Qadaffi, but Leon was not even doing that. he was simply describing the historical pedigree of a very poor kind of reasoning.

Now, I do feel a bit uncomfortable with Leon's point about "honor." There's no honor in trying to help Libyans if the attempt does not work. If our intervention simply leads to a more prolonged period of bloodshed and war, then we have failed, and honor has nothing to do with it. I concede that failure is a possibility. Intervention strikes me as the least-bad alternative, but that position could be proven wrong by events. As I've been saying, this is crux of the question.

But I don't think the "moral blackmail" of war supporters is what's preventing a straightforward debate over the likely outcome of this intervention. I see the impediment to this debate being the left's still-raw wound from Iraq expressing itself as an imaginary sensation of intellectual persecution.

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29 comments

Poor young Ezra Klein. He was so unhanded by Leon Wieseltier's eloquence that he hilariously and inappropriately invoked Godwin's Law. Glenn Greenwald and Matthew Yglesias are superb at contorting opponents' arguments, and Andrew Sullivan is not half bad himself, though he could learn a thing or two from G and Y. Andrew is always flogging the excellence of blogging. But here we have two prominent political bloggers, G and Y, who are driven by resentment and who are emoting, not reasoning logically and fairly. After all, why leave epistemic closure and rage solely to the right when you can utilize these tools against the starboard side and maybe sideswipe a liberal internationalist or two as a bonus hit?

- liberalref

March 23, 2011 at 1:48pm

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The tone of this debate is just so bizarre. Intervention in Libya is an incredibly difficult choice, with powerful and compelling arguments on both sides. Obviously the moral stakes are quite high. But still, these are intelligent people who should be able to debate in good faith. Yet the quality of the arguments, especially (but not exclusively) from those against intervention are so reactionary and hysterical. Does Matt Yglesias really think that Jon Chait's qualified support for intervention is a "pernicious influence on US policy?" Seriously? I am not a utilitarian, but when it comes to Western interventions, I think we ought to make a basic calculation: will we be responsible for more pain and suffering by intervening, or by not intervening? Nobody knows the answer to this, which is why its such a difficult choice. Its certainly possible that by intervening we'll cause more pain for ourselves and innocent Libyans down the rode. But opponents of intervention also seem to ignore the fact that we actually would be responsible for sitting back and letting a madman slaughter his own people.

- josh_y

March 23, 2011 at 2:05pm

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Iraq and Libya do not compare. Iraq arguably had WMD and posed a threat to its neighbors and the US. On the other hand, Iraq was ruled by a dictator who belonged to a minority ethnic group and used his power as dictator to persecute the majority ethnic group, making it likely that the country would descend into ethnic conflict (insurgency) and ethnic cleansing if the dictator were removed from power and less likely to emerge as a "democracy". Libya has no WMD and poses no threat to its neighbors or the US. On the other hand, Libya is ruled by a dictator who belongs to the majority ethnic group, a group that comprises over 90% of the population, making ethnic conflict (insurgency) and ethnic cleansing unlikely if the dictator were removed from power; however, Libya is comprised of rival tribes forced together into a single "country" by western colonialists, making it likely that the recent uprising is more about tribes competing for power and less likely about Libyans' desire for "democracy". My problem with the interventionists is that they can't seem to find a reason for not intervening, no matter the country or the situation, as if their ability to reason, to make distinctions, has been impaired, perhaps intoxicated by their desire to promote democracy and provide humanitarian assistance to those in need. Ordinarily, one doesn't look to the imparied, the intoxicated, to make judgments, for the simple reason they can't.

- rayward

March 23, 2011 at 2:07pm

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"Iraq arguably had WMD" Really?

- Jbryan

March 23, 2011 at 2:19pm

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Ray - given the NFZ we had operating over Iraqi skies, the fact that their military had taken a severe beating just a few years back from which it had nowhere near recovered, that we had every fixed-position high value target in the entire country zeroed with weapons at the ready and the ability to remove from the planet all their mobile forces within 72 hours, please share with me what threat Iraq posed to the U.S. And list what WMDs they arguably had, if you don't mind. Thanks - vincent

- Tristan

March 23, 2011 at 2:28pm

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Big time cherry picking here JC. John Judis' full statement is as follows: "So I ask myself, would these opponents of U.S. intervention (as part of U.N. Security Council approved action), have preferred: (1) That gangs of mercenaries, financed by the country’s oil wealth, conduct a bloodbath against Muammar Qaddafi’s many opponents? (2) That Qaddafi himself, wounded, enraged, embittered, and still in power, retain control of an important source of the world’s oil supply, particularly for Europe, and be able to spend the wealth he derives from it to sow discord in the region? (3) And that the movement toward democratization in the Arab world—which has spread from Tunisia to Bahrain, and now includes such unlikely locales as Syria—be dealt an enormous setback through the survival of one of region’s most notorious autocrats? If you answer “Who cares?” to each of these, I have no counter-arguments to offer, but if you worry about two or three of these prospects, then I think you have to reconsider whether Barack Obama did the right thing in lending American support to this intervention." Which STRONGLY implies that if you are not pro-intervention, then you 'prefer' the above. Please don't just pick out the part that suits your argument.

- tgatz85

March 23, 2011 at 2:30pm

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josh_y , I've wondered the same thing about this debate. However, I do not feel that this wild response is only from those against intervention. Pro-intervention types seem to think that you love tyranny and don't mind watching people die if you are against it. The craziness is on both sides even though I agree that JC does seem to be one of the more level-headed voices on this issue even if his complaints seem to only be with those who don't agree with him.

- tgatz85

March 23, 2011 at 2:33pm

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I don't see what's so difficult to understand about anti-interventionist arguments-- yes they are made with emotion, but they are not simply ad hominem and emotional themselves-- they Empirical (no pun intended). The lesson that folks like Matt Y are clamoring for Chait and interventionists to hear is that the costs of intervention need to be looked at, not simply the costs of not intervening. And using Iraq as an example (as well as others, even the 'good' interventions like Kosovo) those costs are likely to be underestimated by intervention proponents. That is we need to look at the 'what will happen if?', not just the 'What will happen if we don't?"

- modelj

March 23, 2011 at 2:35pm

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rayward, I do think you are correct that the interventionists don't spend any time on the counter arguments, the strongest of which is that we don't have a good picture of an endgame (or at least our stated endgame is unrealistic). In addition, their arguments don't discuss those who we are fighting for, their motivations (tribal or modern) or their capabilities for managing what they hope to liberate. For interventionists the question comes down to whether we can let a bad man do very bad things to a lot of people. Other questions are peripheral. That said, I think you are missing the point on what Chait is saying about the liberal response to Iraq. Chait in no way makes any parallels to the nature of Libya conflict vis a vis Iraq. He is point concerns the response to Iraq. Liberal doves and interventionists both are made skittish about taking out another dictator, using similar arguments, when our last go round was so botched. Sadly, for me, I'm persuaded by both the argument for action and by those who say we don't know what we are getting into. It seems like a roll of the dice to me. I am pleased that we have a president whose MO is picking the best among bad options. Maybe it's my age (middle)... unlike other similar events, I don't feel that enlightened about the correct path.

- rufus2fus

March 23, 2011 at 2:48pm

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Using Judis' list as a convenient ferinstance, I'll take a quick stab at the corresponding 'what will happen if"... Judis' What will happen if we don't: > (1) That gangs of mercenaries, financed by the country’s oil wealth, conduct a >bloodbath against Muammar Qaddafi’s many opponents? What will happen if: That Libyans, resentful of civilian casualties and outside interference flock to support Qaddafi, reducing local support for the rebellion. That some of our purported allies in this endeavor use this opportunity to leave us hanging and undermine the antebellum international condemnation of Qaddafi to score political points at home. That, should we succeed, the rebels will unleash a bloodbath amongst themselves or Qaddafi supporters that exceeds what Qaddifi himself was planning. Judis' What will happen if we don't: > (2) That Qaddafi himself, wounded, enraged, embittered, and still in power, retain >control of an important source of the world’s oil supply, particularly for Europe, and be >able to spend the wealth he derives from it to sow discord in the region? What will happen if: That the various factions amongst the rebels will fight for control of an important source of the world's oil supply. That an unfriendly government will take power and spend the wealth it derives to sow discord in the region. Judis' What will happen if we don't: > (3) And that the movement toward democratization in the Arab world—which has >spread from Tunisia to Bahrain, and now includes such unlikely locales as Syria—be dealt >an enormous setback through the survival of one of region’s most notorious autocrats? What will happen if: That the movement toward democratization in the Arab world, presented with the US bombing yet another Arab country, with Russia using the word 'crusade' to describe the action, will be presented with an external enemy sapping momentum from the democratization movements as they scramble to distance themselves from the US. That Islamist wings of those democratization movements will be gain strength, with negative consequences for liberalism and the US. -- This is not to say that all the above will come to pass, but we have some recent evidence variations on the above scenarios as a result of intervention. What drives anti-interventionists batty, and has them invoking the run-up to the Iraq war is the treatment of intervention as an unmixed blessing. --jt

- modelj

March 23, 2011 at 2:51pm

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GOOD GOD! you are defensive on this subject, Chait. And that's from someone who came around to supporting the U.S.'s moves (so far) after initially thinking Libya should be left to the Libyans. (Oh, I'm sure my position didn't evolve with the same intellectual rigor and elegance as that of some other Seattle TNR readers, but still. Here I am.) Leon Weiseltier has shown himself as a sputtering, self-righteous fool over the past month with his ham-fisted piousness and juvenile attacks on Obama. Judis sounds like a raw nerve, swaying in the wind, on this topic. And, as noted above, you left out some pretty important parts of his piece to the point of mischaracterizing it. He sounds every bit as hysterical as Michele Bachmann discussing the UN's plans to enforce one global currency and take over our public schools. You guys really need to let it go. TNR was wrong on Iraq. And if someone points that out, along with the similarities (and there are plenty! Just as there are some differences!) between Iraq and Libya, they're not trying to silence anyone. But if I ask Marty Peretz for advice on buying a car, and he talks me into buying a really crappy car, guess who is not going to be on the top of my consultation list when I need to buy yet another one? That's right -- Marty Peretz! And you can't take back your Lieberman '04 endorsement, either. You guys right on a lot of stuff, and you're wrong on some stuff. Like everyone. Move on from these pundit pissing matches.

- W_Bombay

March 23, 2011 at 3:02pm

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ModelJ has it right. It's not the "moral abuse" on either side of the argument going on. It's the "treatment of intervention as an unmixed blessing". Now it might be an unmixed blessing -- but that's hardly proven. And just because someone questions that assumption doesn't make them immoral, a coward, isolationist, weak, or reluctant to act. Nor does Obama moving to build a coalition at the UN to create a no-fly zone, instead of invading to force "regime change", mean he's weak or reluctant to act. He's reluctant to repeat the scenario we followed in Iraq, sure, but I thought we were ALL reluctant to repeat THAT fiasco.

- AllanL5

March 23, 2011 at 3:08pm

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JC attempts to defend Judis by stating "which, of course, implies that SOME opponents of intervention do care about Qadaffi's potential victims." (Emphasis added) This is a reprehensible statement. ALL opponents of intervention (other than Gaddafi and people in his circle, who I assume oppose intervention) care about Gaddafi's potential victims. EVERY DAMN ONE OF THEM, including Greenwald, Yglesias, Klein and Sullivan. It is slanderous and false to claim otherwise. No one has said "Who gives a crap about Libyans?" What they've said is that the cure for the evil he's unleashing may be worse than the disease. Surely this distinction is not hard for Chait to grasp. But, if he really can't understand why someone would care about Libyan lives yet not think it is the duty of the international community to intervene, or that an intervention may make things worse, not only for Libyans but a lot of other folks as well, then his opinion is not worth listening to, and, as unfair as some of the abuse directed at him is, he has brought it on himself.

- Geoff G

March 23, 2011 at 3:20pm

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The irony here is that this is the definition of a ad hominem attack! Chait is not arguing position so much as he's attributing resentment.

- NR851651

March 23, 2011 at 3:22pm

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Is the defense of Judis/LW here a farce ...? Judis isn't saying that *everyone who opposes intervention is indifferent to genocide! It's nice of him to give the rest the benefit of the doubt and actually try to engage in an exchange of reasons ... how high minded! And Leon wasn't calling Ezra a Nazi he was just saying that he's indifferent to the Nazis ... see the difference!!

- NR851651

March 23, 2011 at 3:23pm

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W Bombay - agreed, but I would go farther... to reiterate in brief some of yesterday's conversation, its not just that TNR was wrong about Iraq, it's that pelople like LF Kaplan were agressive advocates for war in Iraq, vociferous critics of any who had the spineless cowardice to question the drum beat to war, and when things went horribly awry assumed an air of pompous intellectualism and highbrow navel gazing that was breathtaking in its utter lack of responbility. "You can't help but be much more cautious with the ideas you put on the table". That's what Kaplan wrote after seeing the devastation in Baghdad, after the war had turned and US servicemen were being slaughtered in what was supposed to be, in Kaplan's and Kristol's opinions (their co-authored book being one of the most widely recognized in the demand for war against saddam). "You can't help but be more cautious" is, in Kaplan's world, a sufficient request for forgiveness after 4,000 us servicemen are killed, tens of thousands maimed and wounded, tens of thousands more left with shattered psyches all for an elective war found for no reason whatsoever. As if the call for war and the horrible aftermath was just an academic lesson, a "Hypothesis, Experiment, Conclusion, Discussion over Brandy", instead of a misadventure resulting in horrors these men calling for war will never ever know. TNR was wrong about Iraq. Wrong, and not nearly contrite enough. That they do not factor this into their thinking on Libya is obscene.

- Tristan

March 23, 2011 at 3:24pm

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I'm sick of this pointless meta-debate. Chait et al. would spend their time better debating the substantive issues attending the Libya intervention, in particular: what is the goal here?

- subterran

March 23, 2011 at 3:26pm

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I agree with W_Bombay, Chait seems very defensive about all this. That's understandable. He doesn't think it is fair or relevant to bring up Iraq -- the war or his embarrassing cheerleading for it. By that standard, I suppose we should be willing to regard Sarah Palin as an expert on health care policy in the future. Sure, she made that "death panel" stuff up out of whole cloth, but that was, like, over a year ago. Get over it, people! Move on with your lives. Just because she was wrong about health care in 2009 and 2010 doesn't mean she'll be wrong about it in 2011. So shut up and let's all give her a listen. I don't blame Mr Chait for insisting that this be the standard for expertise. It is, after all, the accepted standard among much of the DC chattering class. If we start judging the value of a pundit's advice by his or her rate of accuracy... Well, that's simply not fair. How the hell would Lawrence Kaplan feed his family? Answer me that!

- DC Spence

March 23, 2011 at 3:27pm

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Let me be clear about something, Mr Chait: I don't hold you responsible "for the fact that the United States underinvests in non-military aid to the Third World." I don't think the one thing has anything to do with the other and I suspect you keep returning to it because it easy for you to refute and doing so allows you to ignore the larger and more obvious point. Which is: I hold you [and many others] responsible for being spectacularly wrong about Iraq and for refusing to face the consequences of your mistake. Those consequences are that I and many others like me don't take you all that seriously about national security issues anymore. On budget issues I think you've done fine work. On the environment, I see much to admire in your writing. Your political horse race analysis is usually a lot of fun to read. But on national security issues you bet the wad on Iraq and you lost. Luckily for you, you didn't lose your life or the life of someone close to you. All you lost was your national security credentials among a lot of people on the center-left. That doesn't mean you're never correct about national security issues. It just means that you've lost any benefit of the doubt and your work has to be double-- no, triple-checked. And when we see you, once again, in the company of virtually all of the same people who also got Iraq wrong... Well, alarm bells go off. If that seems like an unfair ad hominem attack to you, too bad. I will not forget Iraq.

- DC Spence

March 23, 2011 at 3:41pm

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I agree with josh_y that the pro/con arguments offered by TNR editors and popular liberal bloggers are, generally, pretty unpersuasive. The TNR editors seem to be offering their usual dose of high-minded, morally righteous palather and the Kleins and Yglesiases offering impotent "hypocrite!" or ad hominem responses. It's all a good reminder that generalized punditry is not very enlightening when dealing with a complex foreign policy / national security issue.

- RerunStubs

March 23, 2011 at 3:46pm

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Sadly, for me, I'm persuaded by both the argument for action and by those who say we don't know what we are getting into. It seems like a roll of the dice to me. I am pleased that we have a president whose MO is picking the best among bad options. Maybe it's my age (middle)... unlike other similar events, I don't feel that enlightened about the correct path Co-sign. Apparently this willingness to countenance uncertainty and self-doubt makes us ill-equipped to comment on the events of the day.

- RerunStubs

March 23, 2011 at 3:51pm

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good lord, what is it with the navel gazing and this internet piss fests of these commentators endlessly debating with each other. At some point you have to say who the hell cares Does anyone imagine anywhere that the Obama administration has been reading this tit for tat bullshit? Politically I thought it would have been suicide for Obama to let the opposition get wiped out and Gadhafi remain in power, especially when the rest of the world was begging for US involvement. Pundits might matter in long drawn out policy making decisions, but events in Libya moved far too rapidly for that, it went from the Rebels winning Ras Lanuf to being thrown back in a very short time. philosophically the left might be squishy but operationally when Democrats take power they become interventionists, albeit using different methods and with different aims than neo cons. You don't want to go down in history as the guy who did nothing when Libya was in revolution trying to rid itself of a true sociopathic madman. Of course the method and aims might be different but we will still involve ourselves everywhere. So Klein can be as much of a squish ensconced in his office as he wants, he doesn't have to run, he will not be judged in the history books. And Chait, spare us the internet piss fests. Libya is sui generis, I don't think it can predict what we would do if Yemen fell apart, or far worse Pakistan or Saudi Arabia so I am not looking to draw any lasting lessons from this

- blackton

March 23, 2011 at 4:00pm

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Chait, you said the following in one of your posts: "They could well be vindicated. I come down on the side if intervention but I certainly see the merits of the case against." How can you say that and then spend all your time chasing down every blogger that's against the intervention while propping up all those that agree with you? Your defense of Judis is shocking to me to say the least as well as your mischaracterization of what he wrote. This a very heated and murky debate and the uproar is understandable because this is a big deal. You've been systematically choosing the arguments you think you can win in this debate and ignoring all the others in your posts. Geoff G. is spot on: "No one has said "Who gives a crap about Libyans?" What they've said is that the cure for the evil he's unleashing may be worse than the disease." Why not have a serious discussion about this? There are intelligent and well thought-out positions on both sides of this argument so why not discuss those? Instead, it seems you are too busy being defensive about your position on the Iraq war to take a real all-encompassing look at this debate. You said those of us agianst the intervention were harboring resentment but I think you are the one with the resentment from people questioning your judgment when it comes to military intervention, espcially when it comes to the war in Iraq. I find this issue extremely difficult and have been wavering a bit on what a good answer might be but where I disagree with you it is NOT because of your previous stance on Iraq (though we should be allowed to consider that despite what you think), I disagree on the particular merits of this case alone, so let's focus on that.

- tgatz85

March 23, 2011 at 4:38pm

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This is great: What Judis said: "So I ask myself, would these opponents of U.S. intervention (as part of U.N. Security Council approved action), have preferred: (1) That gangs of mercenaries, financed by the country’s oil wealth, conduct a bloodbath against Muammar Qaddafi’s many opponents? (2) That Qaddafi himself, wounded, enraged, embittered, and still in power, retain control of an important source of the world’s oil supply, particularly for Europe, and be able to spend the wealth he derives from it to sow discord in the region? (3) And that the movement toward democratization in the Arab world—which has spread from Tunisia to Bahrain, and now includes such unlikely locales as Syria—be dealt an enormous setback through the survival of one of region’s most notorious autocrats? If you answer “Who cares?” to each of these, I have no counter-arguments to offer, but if you worry about two or three of these prospects, then I think you have to reconsider whether Barack Obama did the right thing in lending American support to this intervention." By Judis's definition anti-interventionists are people who don't care about the consequences of non-intervention and therefore his pro-intervention areguments will have no effect since people who don't care about the consequences (those against intervention) 'prefer' the following: "(1) That gangs of mercenaries, financed by the country’s oil wealth, conduct a bloodbath against Muammar Qaddafi’s many opponents" Who do you think he's talking about when he says that his argument will have no force with people who are indifferent to the consequences of slaughter? Clearly, its those that are against the intervention. So we now have: A: People who are opposed to intervention must 'prefer' his list of consequnces. B: One of those consequences is a "a bloodbath against Muammar Qaddafi’s many opponents." So following these two statements quite clearly leads to: People who are opposed to intervention must 'prefer' a bloodbath against Muammar Qadaffi's many opponents. What Greenwald said: "Note how, in Judis' moral world, there are only two possibilities: one can either support the American military action in Libya or be guilty of a "who cares?" attitude toward Gadaffi's butchery." What Chait said: "But that is absolutely not what Judis argued. He was simply conceding that, for those indifferent to the consequences of a slaughter, his argument would have no force." Chait, did you even read what Judis wrote?

- tgatz85

March 23, 2011 at 5:12pm

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I know Greenwald wouldn't have intervened in Rwanda or Darfur or pretty much anywhere before the killing had ended, but Ezra? Matt? Were they against NATO's acting in Kosovo and Bosnia? Maybe TNR writers aren't making the analogy to Nazi Germany, but I will -- what the freak do these people mean when they muttered "Never Again" while visiting the US Holocaust Museum? "Never Again...as long as it meets the Colin Powell Doctrine and doesn't involve black Africans" apparently. Other than a flip cite to some debating "law" can they site anything to the contrary to refute?

- Lymon1

March 23, 2011 at 5:38pm

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A general methodological observation about the Libya debate: We all know, and likely accept, that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. But in order to so profit from history we cannot expect that past event A be just the same as current event B. WW1 was not WW2, the Korean War was not Vietnam, etc., etc.. OF COURSE there are any number of differences between Iraq and Libya, but why does that mean that lessons drawn about the impulse to intervene in the former are somehow inapplicable to the latter?

- robertgorton

March 23, 2011 at 7:31pm

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On a lighter note, everyone here is wrong about Godwin's Law, which, for the record, states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Jon's wrong to say that Ezra's misusing it -- Leon certainly made "a comparison involving Nazis" even if he wasn't comparing his opponents to Nazis. On the other hand, if Ezra thinks that one week is anything close to the speed record for Godwin's Law rearing its head, he hasn't spent much time on the Internet.

- m.w.holman

March 23, 2011 at 9:01pm

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Dr. Bombay, you are always good for a laugh. You are hysterical here, capitalizing the first two words of your rant, punctuated by an exclamation mark, even as you write about Jonathan Chait's putative defensiveness. I bet you would not let such an attack on you pass as Jonathan experienced from the egregious Matthew Yglesias. Especially not you. It is called defending oneself, not being defensive. Jb and Tris: We know now that Iraq didn't possess WMDs. It is easy to "know" all of the answers after the fact. Do you not even know that there was a widespread consensus that Iraq did possess WMDs, not just during GW Bush's first term but years before that, under Bill Clinton? Kenneth Michael Pollack, who was Clinton's point man on the National Security Council on Iraq, wrote a book in 2002 called The Threatening Storm: The Case For Invading Iraq, published in 2002, which I read the next year just as the war got under way. It influenced quite a few liberals to support the invasion of Iraq. Our intelligence turned out to be wrong, but you two seem not to even know any of this history. The invincible ignorance out here is nigh on unbelievable.

- liberalref

March 23, 2011 at 9:57pm

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Excellent point libref. The power of the media to re-write history, even for erudite and apparently responsible folks like jb and Tristan, is awe inspiring. Somehow the leftist party line has air-brushed pretty much the entire history of one of the very worst regimes of the 20th Century, including unprovoked wars of conquest in the world's most sensitive strategic region; active genocide and ecocide; not just illegal possession but USE of wmds to kill tens of thousands; numerous statements from officials in both Congress and the Clinton White House about the threat, culminating in "regime change" becoming official US policy in 1998; the most extensive violation of UNSC Chapter VII Resolutions on record by a factor of about twenty, including those concerning wmd's; and etc. Libya is certainly not Iraq, but the debate makes clear the extent to which politically skewed perspectives have been pernicious in both cases. Where is the Congressional Resolution authorizing the use of force by the US military? Even Dubyah wouldn't go that far.

- Robert Powell

March 24, 2011 at 6:08am

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