Six Reasons Why Conservatives Should Support Non-Intervention

While liberals are doing more than their fair share at intervening in other country's affairs, conservatives have generally been the ones promoting a foreign policy of aggression and abrasiveness, all in the name of "national security". Conservatives tend to smear non-interventionism as "isolationism" that amounts to nothing more than "appeasement" and a "Neville Chamberlain"-style foreign policy. But why? As the following points show, foreign intervention is antithetical to everything conservatives claim to stand for.

Let's get started:

1. Non-intervention is good for national defense. Millions of Americans have finally started figuring out what more than a few Saudis and Afghans have been putting into practice for quite some time: you reap what you sow. The actions of terrorists against the United States did not come from nothing; instead they are the inevitable result of constant meddling by the United States in Middle Eastern affairs, such as...

1. Inadvertently spurring on the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Iran
2. Provoking a Soviet attack on Afghanistan
3. Supporting Israel in its invasion of Lebanon
4. Dealing arms with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war
5. Dealing arms with Iran in the Iraq-Iran war
6. Invading Iraq
7. Creating no-fly zones over Iraq
8. Slapping down massive, deadly sanctions on Iraq
9. Establishing ties with the oppressive Saudi regime
10. Invading and occupying Afghanistan
11. Invading and occupying Iraq again
12. Supporting an oppressive fundamentalist regime in Pakistan,
13. Launching drone strikes in Pakistan
14. Constantly threatening action as drastic as nuclear attack on nations that have committed no aggressive action against us.

And that's just in the last 30 years.

While this intervention in the outside world by no means absolves foreign aggressors of their actions, if policymakers are serious about protecting the lives of Americans, both military and civilian, they must strongly consider implementing non-interventionism.

2. Non-intervention keeps government small. "Never waste a good crisis," the saying goes, and it's a saying the government has taken to heart quite well. Whenever there is some great crisis that threatens to kill us all, such as global warming, swine flu, or war, government jumps at the opportunity to save the day, as long as you just give it a little bit more power in return.

If you don't believe this, just look at the aforementioned swine flu. People are panicking all around from the swine flu, despite the fact that it only kills just as many people as the regular flu. Yet despite this, the feds are seizing more power to stop the infection. "It'll only be temporary," they tell us. But there is truly nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.

War, of course, is the crisis of crises. Nothing mobilizes a citizenry toward support for its government like military action. Regardless of whether or not the war is actually in self-defense, it always provides both an excuse for the government to increase its authority, and a means for the people to accept it.

3. Non-intervention is pro-life. As seen from point number one, non-intervention does a good job of keeping American lives out of an early grave. But consider that if America stopped pushing its weight around the world, fewer foreigners would die as well. Take a look at the sanctions placed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 as an example. The purpose of those sanctions was ostensibly good, both for the U.S. and the people of Iraq; they were supposed to dislodge the power structure of Saddam Hussein's brutal Ba'ath government and prevent him from gaining more authority. But something went very, very wrong. Depending on which source you look at, civilian casualties directly resulting from those sanctions range from 170,000 to 227,000, to half a million (please note that these are not even the complete count of civilian casualties--these are the number of casualties of children under five alone). Want to call yourself truly pro-life? Ask your government to discontinue its aggressive foreign policy.

4. Non-intervention is Constitutional. This argument applies in two different contexts. The first is under the idea that it is America's responsibility to defend other nations from attack (see Kuwait) or brutal dictators/genocides (see Darfur). The opening lines of Article I, Section 8 of the United States constitution reads as follows: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." That last part means "it's none of our business what other countries do."

The second context is that of national security, and the defense against it comes from the same part of the Constitution. It must be absolutely clear that an action, military or otherwise, is for the defense of the American people. While this concept may seem simple, for centuries it has been tossed aside by leaders who essentially say "whatever--we'll find the proof later". However, according to the very Constitution that conservatives say they hold in such high regard, this is completely illegal.

5. Non-intervention is conservative. If you look for past supporters of non-intervention, you will find that they are almost overwhelmingly conservative. Who started the Vietnam War? John F. Kennedy, and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson escalated it. Who withdrew from Vietnam? Republican Richard Nixon. Let's go even further back. Who started the Korean War? Liberal Democrat Harry S. Truman. Who withdrew from Korea? Conservative Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was one of the last great Republicans, one who understood the dangers of an overbearing foreign policy. Yet he was no pot-smoking peacenik; he was the supreme commander of the Allied Forces, a decorated general, and a great hero in American history. Conservatism and non-intervention have a long story together, and it is a story I would rather keep alive.

6. Non-intervention is American.

"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service."

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy..."

These quotes do not come from hippie musicians a la John Lennon or communists a la Noam Chomsky; these came from George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, respectively. The anti-war cause is not anti-American or unpatriotic, it is quite the opposite. Skepticism about the power of government abroad is truly in line with the intent of the founding fathers of American government.

These six qualities that I have just described are all ideas that resonate deeply with American conservatives. Unneeded war is the enemy of everything they believe in or think they believe in, yet they continually line up to give their support every time their government calls them to "duty" in the name of national defense or human rights. I can only hope this article persuades conservatives to rethink their ideas of the capabilities of government force and the military.

Resignation over Afghanistan

From the Washington Post:

When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.

A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.

But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

As more and more citizens of the United States grow dissatisfied with the war in Afghanistan, whether based on the strategy employed or the purpose of the occupation or some other reason, it seems as though the top officials of the federal government are blind and deaf to the reality of the situation in both the protests at home and the war overseas. Hoh is the first of his kind, the first to actually act on his conscience and his rational view on the Afghan occupation, not simply write later in his memoirs about his "deep reservations" but keep his position out of "loyalty to his commander-in-chief", as so many other have done after the damage is already done.

Hoh is also learning first-hand the devastating nature of blowback against U.S. forces. Continues the article:

But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

[later]

Hoh was assigned to research the response to a question asked by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an April visit. Mullen wanted to know why the U.S. military had been operating for years in the Korengal Valley, an isolated spot near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan where a number of Americans had been killed. Hoh concluded that there was no good reason. The people of Korengal didn't want them; the insurgency appeared to have arrived in strength only after the Americans did, and the battle between the two forces had achieved only a bloody stalemate.

Korengal and other areas, he said, taught him "how localized the insurgency was. I didn't realize that a group in this valley here has no connection with an insurgent group two kilometers away." Hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups across Afghanistan, he decided, had few ideological ties to the Taliban but took its money to fight the foreign intruders and maintain their own local power bases.

"That's really what kind of shook me," he said. "I thought it was more nationalistic. But it's localism. I would call it valley-ism."

By the time Hoh arrived at the U.S. military-run provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in the Zabul capital of Qalat, he said, "I already had a lot of frustration. But I knew at that point, the new administration was . . . going to do things differently. So I thought I'd give it another chance." He read all the books he could get his hands on, from ancient Afghan history, to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, through Taliban rule in the 1990s and the eight years of U.S. military involvement.

[Provincial Governor] Naseri told him that at least 190 local insurgent groups were fighting in the largely rural province, Hoh said. "It was probably exaggerated," he said, "but the truth is that the majority" are residents with "loyalties to their families, villages, valleys and to their financial supporters."

Hoh's doubts increased with Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election, marked by low turnout and widespread fraud. He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."

With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and Nato presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."

Hopefully Hoh will be the first of many. He has already become a figurehead of sorts for the anti-war movement, with his story appearing in news media all across the country. The article ends with an ultimatum of sorts for the occupation:

"We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," Hoh said. "But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve."

Equality. Fraternity. Crime.

While there are exceptions to every rule, the typical gun control advocate leans significantly to the left, supporting feminism, welfare, and the like, and generally pushing equality as the highest principle of a civilized society. This typical supporter of gun control does not realize it, but he or she is actually tearing down that central principle of equality in their support for the restriction of firearms.

Take feminism for an example. No matter the cries of the ardent feminists of today, men are physically stronger than women. If a man assaults a woman without a firearm, the terms are decidedly unequal in 9 out of 10 situations. Even if the woman does have a weaker weapon such as pepper spray or a knife, the physical superiority of the man will likely allow him to prevail. Now let firearms enter the picture. If the woman has a firearm and the basic knowledge of its use, no physical strength on the part of the attacker can allow him to somehow dodge the bullets or withstand a hit. Even if both the woman and the man have firearms, the terms are much more even in the situation. The man's advantage in strength will now play no role in the conflict, only shooting skill, and shooting skill is not naturally inclined to favor either sex.

As another example, think of the elderly. The elderly are often incapable of adequately defending themselves without some sort of advantage on their side; the possession of a firearm can clearly mean the difference between life and death. This argument works for the very young as well. While youth possession of firearms is often debated, no one can deny that a responsible young person who is trained in gun usage has a much greater advantage in a situation such as a home invasion than one who hasn't. Once again, guns become the great equalizer for those weaker individuals who are forced to defend themselves.

Now try support for the poor. Leftists decry the possession of firearms as dangerous to the low-income, inner-city residents, but the opposite is actually true. Firearms are a means for the poor to defend themselves against the elite. While there may be varying degrees of quality of firearms, a bullet is a bullet, is a bullet. The damage a cheap, Saturday-special handgun does is just as real as the damage a military-grade weapon does. Making firearms unavailable to the poor by enacting stringent regulations or taxes on their production, sale, or possession means higher crime rates in low-income areas, yet again defiling the social liberal's dream of equality.

Firearms are not some exclusively dangerous hazard to society. Rather, they are a tool that when used unwisely can result in great harm, but when used responsibly can and will bring far greater benefit than cost. Getting rid of them would set society back from decades or even centuries of progress, and would destroy the very principles that their detractors hold so dear.

Rent Control/Life Control (Choose Any Two)

Officials often impose rent control in one form or another at the behest of cries against the "evil capitalists" or "idle, rich landlords". The ostensible purpose of these rent controls is to bring down rent prices, thereby making housing affordable for the working class. However, a close inspection of the issue reveals two main arguments against the imposition of rent control: practical and moral.

Practically speaking, rent control actually works to harm everyone involved in the business of housing, and that includes the low-income tenants it is supposed to help. If rent control is enacted, there are several unintended consequences that may result.

First, rent control may drive landlords out of the housing market. According to the laws of supply and demand, a price ceiling will drive supply down and demand up. This will mean an excess of demand within the housing market and therefore mean a larger proportion of the low-income population becoming homeless. In an attempt to help low-income people obtain places to live, the officials who impose rent control do away with the possibility of simply a slightly more expensive dwelling and end up with no possibilities at all.

In addition to this, the quality of apartments that are available is driven down because the amount of demand means that landlords are able to pick and choose tenants based on how bad of living conditions they are willing to endure. Because rent control destroys the landlord's ability to reap the benefits of a higher-yield investment, the landlord then has no incentive to maintain the property he rents out to as high a standard as he would without controls. What would have been higher-quality housing is now deteriorating and dilapidated, once again hurting those the rent control was intended to help. To add insult to injury, regulation on the quality of housing may be initiated in addition to the rent control once the above situation takes place, and that will mean higher costs of maintenance with lower results. These regulations, in conjunction with rent controls, drive out more suppliers and aggravate the problem.

In another possibility, the landlord may decide to sell his property instead of renting it. Rent control is often enacted under the assumption that landlords do not work for the rent they collect, which is the truth, but not the whole truth. The whole truth is that the landlord, by renting out his property, has chosen to forgo a low payoff now in favor of a much higher overall payoff down the road. If rent control is enacted, the landlord may decide that the payoff later on is enough to justify the wait. Then the property is sold instead of rented out, and because most low-income tenants rent specifically because they cannot afford to buy, they are either left without a place to live or with a place of much lower quality than they would originally be able to afford.

In addition to the practical concerns raised by rent control, there are also significant moral questions to ask when advocating rent control. The foundation of a free and just society is based on the security of one's life, liberty, and property; these being individual rights and not collective rights, no one, even by majority vote, has a right to take these away. However, that is exactly what rent control does. Rent control takes away a landlord's liberty to do what he pleases with his property, for if someone else can tell a property owner what he can or cannot do with that property, is it really his? Therefore, as rent control takes away the landlord's rights of liberty and property, it can within reason be considered slavery and theft. If a person changes his path in life because he does not want to be involved in slavery and theft in the housing market, then rent control further leads to control of one's life, completing the circle of the violation of rights.

Rent control is impractical and immoral. It harms everyone involved with the process of providing housing, including the people it is supposed to help. A true advocate of economic prosperity and freedom should therefore argue forcefully against the destructive and unethical burden of rent control.

Liberty Links, 10/16/09

Links from the past week.

10/9

Future of Freedom Foundation: Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan
LewRockwell: Rich Uncle Pays your Mortgage
LewRockwell: Free the Clogged-Nose 25!
LewRockwell: A Demon in Need of Exorcism
LewRockwell: Are We the Martians of the 21st Century?
Reason: The Madness of the Mandate

10/10

Campaign for Liberty: Obama Deserved It
LewRockwell: Obamageddon
Reason: Why Ayn Rand is Hot Again

10/11

LewRockwell: Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

10/12

Future of Freedom Foundation: Obama's Tax on the Middle Class
LewRockwell: When War Becomes Peace, When the Lie Becomes the Truth
LewRockwell: Refuting Keynes
Mises: Tire Trade Tirade
Mises: You and the State

10/13

LewRockwell: Jim Rogers on the Next 10 Years
LewRockwell: Rush is Wrong
LewRockwell: The Empire is Going Down
Reason: Private Developers Have No Right to My Home

10/14

Campaign for Liberty: These Are Not Negotiable
Independent Institute: Partisan Politics--A Fool's Game for the Masses
LewRockwell: Warren Harding and the Forgotten Depression of 1920
LewRockwell: Perpetual War is Here
LewRockwell: Saving Face in Afghanistan
LewRockwell: Here Are Some Answers
Mises: Corporatist Pigs!
TakiMag: Israel's--and Only Israel's--Right to Self-Defense

10/15

Independent Institute: Diagnostics and Therapeutics in Political Economy
Campaign for Liberty: A Nobel Prize We Can Cheer
LewRockwell: What Happened to "Global Warming"?
Mises: The Illusion of Living Wage Laws

10/16

Campaign for Liberty: The Imperial Presidency Marches On
LewRockwell: Happy Days Are Here Again
LewRockwell: Tax Evaders Face Choice
Mises: The Death of Politics
TakiMag: Ignorance is Bliss

In Any Country

Gustave Gilbert was a German-speaking psychologist who was allowed to speak with Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering after the Allied victory. While the following comments were not recorded in the Nuremberg Trials, Gilbert kept a journal of them and released them as the book "Nuremberg Diary".

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."