Marko: Why do you want there to be a war in Afghanistan?
Deterrence.
If someone bloodies your nose and you don’t respond forcefully, then potential threats will judge you to be a ‘paper tiger’ and it is more likely you will be attacked again.
Also, by supporting the Northern Alliance, the Taliban and Afghan Arabs (al Qaida) will be kept preoccupied by internal threats on their own turf and less likely to start something in our backyard.
Also, by creating a working low-level relationship with one of the important actors in the region, we can leverage them in future if our interests are impacted in any way.
All of this is very cost effective. No conventional forces, no great outlays of cash, less political and diplomatic risk too. Also, we have a ton of leverage to influence events with very little investment up front.
Sorta like buying puts and calls in Afghanistan to hedge against events without having to invest in the company directly.
Rothbard on the subject of national liberation. “Nationalism is not a unitary, monolithic phenomenon. If it is aggressive, we should oppose it; if liberatory, we should favor it.”
Daniel Muffinburg: What Taliban bloodied your nose?
To paraphrase Muhammed Ali: “Ain’t no Viet Cong ever call me nigger.”
Your thinking is partly illustrative of why there are zero viable anarchists societies yesterday, today, or probably in the future.
Preemption against emerging statist threats is not allowed, you know only fight if you get attacked first. That is okay in a fight by 5 year olds who cant really hurt themselves but in today’s world having a ’ please bomb me first sir’ policy is not a good idea.
Also, alliances with likeminded societies is not recommended (no entangling alliances), you know who cares that New York got wacked on 9/11 and the Taliban refused to hand over the perp, it aint any of my business (“aint no Taliban ever harbored a terrorist that blew up my joint”). this kind of thinking is not going to win you friends when you need them and if you dont have a posse it is tough fighting against one by yourself.
And deterrence is not in the anarchist mindset, so they will only attack when attacked and cease hostilities when the direct threat is removed. You know, just enough violence to provide for self-defense, no complete capitulation of the threat because that would be aggression instead of defense so it is bad. But the problem is that the threat keeps coming back and the next time it doesnt make the same mistakes as before.
I guess it would be nice if libertarians got a back bone because you guys got a ton of good economic ideas that society should try but doesnt because you have been whispering in a room where everyone else is shouting, especially the statists.
Just saying but then again what do you expect from war mongering, kitten hating, bitch slapping neocon without a conscious
Marko: But if you win there would no longer be a war. Don’t you want to win a war for a change?
Can’t win wars fighting gnats with hammers.
Probably the best we can do is to distract the bad guys by leveraging the ‘not so bad guys’.
Get them both fighting each other so they are not fighting us. It would cost less than one hour of federal government spending to provide the Northern Alliance will all the munitions, training, and logistical support for a year of fighting this low intensity conflict that our boys are not suited to fighting.
Also, forget about that nation building stuff, we can’t even nation build in our own country, how in the hell are we going to build a nation of totally alien goat herds 10,000 miles away in the mountains?
The Northern Alliance did more damage to the Taliban in a few short weeks at the beginning of the war with a little bit of air and logistical support than our conventional forces have accomplished in a like number of years.
Here is a good book chapter on this topic: Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and World Government by J. Pojman. It’s from Global Political Philosophy, 272 p., McGraw Hill.
I oppose global government no more than I oppose continental dictatorships or national governments. Self appointed global authorities are not necessary in a globalized economy. People have been trading around the planet for 100s of years. Globalization is just a buzz word associated with the advancement in telecommunications and travel with regards to global trade. There is nothing wrong with being an internationalist, being not attached to a fictitious nationalistic entity. Are you a product of where you were born or of where you have been? I oppose all forms of government be it local, national, continental or global. In fact I would oppose global government before my own national government and I find that exploiting the nationalistic tendencies in people, in the uk, is a great way to encourage resistance towards the EUSSR.
Similar to the way that people will try to use state law and the state process to get around federal laws. People will use the nationalism and similar to resist global government.
Centinel, it’s not that everyone is against any kind of war, but it’s who, what, when, where, why, and how that comes up. Alright, World Trade Center was attacked, so why should the entire country raise their fists against the Taliban? Did the Taliban mean to attack those individuals in the WTC, or was it more of a threat towards our government? Why should random individuals who probably had zero connection to the WTC go fight? A place in NYC is attacked, so should people in California care? Should we all fight on behalf of someone who was attacked before investigating and make our own minds? As far as I know this is a skirmish between our shoddy government and some people in the Middle East. I know neither those in my government or those in the Middle East.
It’s probably no surprise what people here view as a defense is most likely written out in The Private Production of Defense by Hoppe. It’s not about fighting wars to fight states, it’s the fact a terrorist group who isn’t really a State attacked “us” on behalf of our State, and collectively the State sends individuals over there to fight financed by money usurped from it’s citizens. Is that the idea anarchists suppose to support?
I’m sure that Marko will take this as you deliberately refusing to answer the question.
Your non-answer has no applicability, because Marko’s question referred to “a case in American history where the US went to war but you think it shouldn’t have done so”.
Oh yes, the old “today’s world” canard. Please do tell exactly how non-preepmtion is “not a good idea” in today’s world.
My understanding is that, until recently, US government policy when it came to war was to not go to war until attacked (although there’s plenty of evidence that it would let such attacks happen, or distort events to make it look like the US had been attacked first).
Furthermore, an important question regarding “emerging statist threats” is who will determine them and how they will make that determination. What’s your own answer there?
And finally, why do you implicitly give the US special privileges to be able to preempt “emerging statist threats”? Presumably you wouldn’t like it at all if the Chinese, the Russians, or even such as the Libyans decided to preempt what they saw as an “emerging statist threat” on the part of the US.
How do you know that “the threat keeps coming back”? That sounds like another prediction about the future to me.
Bert: As far as I know this is a skirmish between our shoddy government and some people in the Middle East. I know neither those in my government or those in the Middle East.
Amongest us warmongering, wife beating neocons we expect this defense from non-interventionists. Thats why anarchism is not going to make it in the real world.
If your neighbor gets bitch slapped by a statist task force, the only response from neighboring anarchists is ‘as far a I know this is a skirmish between some people next door. I know neither of them.’
Defense can’t begin at the moment you get nuked or when thousands of tanks roll across your ‘front yard’ because you were complacent when your neighbor ‘got his’
In most cases, you lose the war before you have even met the enemy with a failed policy of passive defense that you are offering.
And in the case of the Taliban, it is equivalent to your neighbor allowing a sniper to shoot at you from his bedroom window. You are perfectly justified to burn his house down for facilitating this criminal activity.
Just a few thoughts from a peace hating, baby shaking neocon.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
The absence of government has been the norm for thousands of years of human history. Even today, with our stifling bureaucracies and welfare-warfare superstates, the average person relates to his fellow man in an “anarchic” fashion (no policeman standing by with a billy club to make sure things happen a certain way) 99.9% of the time. Anarchy is not a political philosophy - it is simply opposition to politics. Of course, that is inconceivable for you beltway types.
Then I would welcome that in the same way that I welcome the fact that killing babies is generally frowned upon in most national sentiments, but this would not cause me to support that nation. I would oppose nationalism in any form so long as it exists the same way it does today. So long as nationalism is exclusive (that is, excludes individuals based upon where they live) and borders are relevant (like “sea to shining sea” is something to be proud of and everyone on the other side of an imaginary line is a different type of person) then I will consider it disgusting, but the more back seat the nation is the better. I wouldn’t oppose nationalism is there were no or minimal border patrols in particular and a type of “free market” on nations came into existence. That might be quite an ideal system.
Clayton: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Nothing like a little ad hominem to spice up the post.
Clayton: The absence of government has been the norm for thousands of years of human history. Even today, with our stifling bureaucracies and welfare-warfare superstates, the average person relates to his fellow man in an “anarchic” fashion (no policeman standing by with a billy club to make sure things happen a certain way) 99.9% of the time. Anarchy is not a political philosophy - it is simply opposition to politics. Of course, that is inconceivable for you beltway types.
Need I remind you that all of these interactions that you refer to occurred or are occurring within a statist society ?
The average person relates to his fellow man in an ‘anarchic fashion’ that is dominated and wholly influenced by statism in one fashion or another 99.9% of the time!
Otherwise, why are so many anarchists complaining about statism in general if it isn’t a wholly debilitating influence on just about everything we do?