This is a strawman.

In law, the definition of "assault" rightly refers not only to throwing a punch, but to declaring one's intent to do so.

If Kim Jong Il announced an intention to nuke the US, taking him out would be a defensive, not preemptive, reaction.

FWIW, neither the government of Afghanistan nor the government of Iraq at any point announced any similar intention, which would have made the wars on them "defensive." Nor did the government of Afghanistan or the government of Iraq indicate, intentionally or unintentionally, in any way, that they harbored such intentions, which would have made the wars on them "preemptive."

The US _went out of its way_ to go to war with Afghanistan, even to the point of refusing to offer any reason why the Taliban should turn over Osama bin Laden, which it evinced an interest in doing. The US went even further out of its way to go to war with Iraq, with the justifications changing daily and with no offered concession, including the abdication and exile of Saddam Hussein, sufficient to deter it from doing so.

In other words, neither war was either defensive OR preemptive. They were both aggressive.

Tom Knapp

In researching Boortz' statements on foreign policy, I often find it informative to simply substitute the word "Libertarians" whenever he refers disparagingly to "liberals."

Like Rush Limbaugh and other conservative demagogues, Boortz spends an inordinate amount of space building up the self-esteem of his followers at the expense of "the liberals."

Besides Boortz' undermining of the Libertarian Party's foreign policy objectives, we should also consider that our unqualified association with him does great damage to the party's stated strategic objective of bringing more left-leaning people into the party.

Besides; statements like the above, in which he identifies the anti-war perspective exclusively with the Left, are perhaps more damaging than when he specifically mentions his disagreement with LP over the war issue. Statements like the above effectively _negate the existence_ of the Libertarian foreign policy alternative.

. . . damage to the . . . objective of bringing more left-leaning people into the party . . .

. . . negate the existence of the Libertarian foreign policy alternative.

Great points, Jeff.

Googling around on this, I've seen a few comments to the effect that no one had a problem with Boortz until he came out for the war. I wouldn't know, as he was already pro-war when I first noticed him. He was one of a few guests on some TV talk show.

My reaction was sadness that this person, one of the few self-identified libertarians to have a large audience, projects a persona of small-minded nastiness. Doubtless his audience likes it and it makes him money. That doesn't make him an asset to the libertarian movement.

Up until the war approached, as far as I was concerned Boortz appeared to be a pretty solid libertarian. I'm even understanding that a libertarian could have supported a war--the thing that unsettles me is that he is now advocating FBI spying on peacful protestors, including libertarians.

Tom Knapp summed up the rest of my feelings about this post, so I won't reiterate.

Boortz is obsessed with bashing the Left. I don't see the point of focusing on the problems with the Left right now.

Even when Boortz criticizes Bush's social spending, he always manages to condemn the Democrats more than the Republicans, somehow passing blame to the Dems for crimes primarily committed by the GOP. His bias against the Left has caused him to be, in spite of claims otherwise, more of an asset to Republicans than to Libertarians.

Boortz did indeed scrutinize Clinton during the 90s from a more-or-less libertarian perspective, but he always would implicitly pardon the Republicans, even though they were instrumental in increasing social spending, and even as they sat idly by and allowed Clinton to get away with everything from Waco to Kosovo.

Now the Republicans are in charge, and government spending and militarism have gone into ludicrous-speed. Boortz still supports the Republicans, because they're supposedly the only viable alternative to a worse future under the Democrats. "Sure, prescription drug subsidies are bad, but the Democrats would be even worse!"

What Boortz does is encourage many libertarian-leaning conservatives to rationalize supporting big-government conservatism, because even though it's not libertarian at all, it's at least better than liberalism. And he convinces many libertarian-leaning leftists who might support us that "libertarians" are warmongers, and not worth consideration.

That senario is absurd. Why would he announce an attack 60 hours in advance? Threatening someone is an innitiation of force and thus to defend against a threat is not a violation of libertarian principle. Pre-emption is when action is taken against a nation that has not made threats or engaged in military agression.

H. Rearden $

Threatening is not an initiation of force, but here
are some Hussein threats:

"One chemical weapon fired in a moment of despair could cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands."

"The United States must get a taste of its own poison..."

"We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth."

"Does [ America ] realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?"

He also organized an assasination attempt on a
former president.

I'll remind everyone that 15 nations' security
organizations independently studied this guy,
including the peacenik nations like France and
Germany, and they all clearly said he had to go.
These are folks that make there living off of
providing security. Only the politicians of these
nations lacked the willpower to back these
claims.

jdl

Threatening is not an initiation of force, but here
are some Hussein threats:

"One chemical weapon fired in a moment of despair could cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands."

"The United States must get a taste of its own poison..."

"We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth."

"Does [ America ] realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?"

He also organized an assasination attempt on a
former president.

I'll remind everyone that 15 nations' security
organizations independently studied this guy,
including the peacenik nations like France and
Germany, and they all clearly said he had to go.
These are folks that make there living off of
providing security. Only the politicians of these
nations lacked the willpower to back these
claims.

jdl

The alleged hit on Bush looks like another Kuwaiti disinformation ploy, from the people who brought us the incubator babies.

As for the 15 "security organizations", do you have a source for whatever you're babbling about?

Thanks for your comments, John. Here's a response:

The case of the assassination attempt was originally built on the idea that the bomb’s triggering device was of a particular kind, linking it to Iraq. This later turned out to be inaccurate.

As far as the string of threats, regardless of their degree of credibility, they need to be dated and put into a context. I would assume that they all occurred during or after the first gulf war. During that time the case can be made that Sadaam was responding to an aggressor, rather than threatening to initiate force against the U.S.

Not even getting into the fact that transcripts show the US Ambassador to Iraq essentially gave Sadaam the green light to invade Kuwait, saying that we had no interest in the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, it wasn't even our business in the first place. Kuwait’s relationship with the U.S. also served to embolden it.

Not that it matters then, but Iraq probably had a decent case for invading Kuwait. The border issue is pretty easily seen from the Iraqi perspective. In addition, the Kuwaitis had been ruining Iraq's oil business by violating OPEC production quotas, even after Iraq had threatened them repeatedly.

I'm not saying that these circumstances, in the final analysis, necessarily _justify_ the invasion of Kuwait, but they at least suggest that more was going on than Sadaam's "expansionist ambitions."

The CIA had more than a bit part in the process that eventually led to Sadaam taking power in Iraq. What happened after Sadaam got a little too uppity to be useful, falls into a familiar pattern: He was painted as a "Hitler' out to dominate the world.

Then, after the war, you have a ghastly regimen of sanctions the US was largely responsible for keeping in place, responsible for the deaths of at least half a million people. You also have continued bombing, over the course of years, in an area of Iraq that _only_ the U.S. and Britain decided to designate as the "No Fly Zones." Hundreds of people died in these bombings also. The context of these bombings is that Iraq was a sovereign nation, rather than that the U.S. and Britain had some God-given right to bomb a country and kill its people.

So, I think it's understandable that any self-respecting despot would feel compelled to make a few threats under those conditions.

The question remains: What business was it of ours?

As far as the security organizations from 15 nations determining that he “had to go” (during a period of time, I'm sure, significantly before the US invasion when the majority of them strongly desired inspections to continue), again:

Is that relevant? Are we believers in World Government now? 15 nations could be just as wrong about their right to play God as one nation.

I'm guessing this was mentioned primarily because of a perceived concurrence of intelligence data, rather than a kind of majoritarian justification for “regime change.”
Anyway, most of these countries clearly had different ideas from the U.S. about _how_ Sadaam "had to go," and any evidence that he was even a _potential_ danger to anyone is "not yet available."

Thanks for your comments, John. Here's a response:

The case of the assassination attempt was originally built on the idea that the bomb’s triggering device was of a particular kind, linking it to Iraq. This later turned out to be inaccurate.

As far as the string of threats, regardless of their degree of credibility, they need to be dated and put into a context. I would assume that they all occurred during or after the first gulf war. During that time the case can be made that Sadaam was responding to an aggressor, rather than threatening to initiate force against the U.S.

Not even getting into the fact that transcripts show the US Ambassador to Iraq essentially gave Sadaam the green light to invade Kuwait, saying that we had no interest in the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, it wasn't even our business in the first place. Kuwait’s relationship with the U.S. also served to embolden it.

Not that it matters then, but Iraq probably had a decent case for invading Kuwait. The border issue is pretty easily seen from the Iraqi perspective. In addition, the Kuwaitis had been ruining Iraq's oil business by violating OPEC production quotas, even after Iraq had threatened them repeatedly.

I'm not saying that these circumstances, in the final analysis, necessarily _justify_ the invasion of Kuwait, but they at least suggest that more was going on than Sadaam's "expansionist ambitions."

The CIA had more than a bit part in the process that eventually led to Sadaam taking power in Iraq. What happened after Sadaam got a little too uppity to be useful, falls into a familiar pattern: He was painted as a "Hitler' out to dominate the world.

Then, after the war, you have a ghastly regimen of sanctions the US was largely responsible for keeping in place, responsible for the deaths of at least half a million people. You also have continued bombing, over the course of years, in an area of Iraq that _only_ the U.S. and Britain decided to designate as the "No Fly Zones." Hundreds of people died in these bombings also. The context of these bombings is that Iraq was a sovereign nation, rather than that the U.S. and Britain had some God-given right to bomb a country and kill its people.

So, I think it's understandable that any self-respecting despot would feel compelled to make a few threats under those conditions.

The question remains: What business was it of ours?

As far as the security organizations from 15 nations determining that he “had to go” (during a period of time, I'm sure, significantly before the US invasion when the majority of them strongly desired inspections to continue), again:

Is that relevant? Are we believers in World Government now? 15 nations could be just as wrong about their right to play God as one nation.

I'm guessing this was mentioned primarily because of a perceived concurrence of intelligence data, rather than a kind of majoritarian justification for “regime change.”
Anyway, most of these countries clearly had different ideas from the U.S. about _how_ Sadaam "had to go," and any evidence that he was even a _potential_ danger to anyone is "not yet available."

GO CANUCKS!

GO CANUCKS!