- Paul Craig Roberts interviewed Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow
at the Independent Institute and author of "Crisis and Leviathan,"
a study of how war and crisis lead to the growth of government and the
decline in liberty, about the unintended consequences of an American invasion
of Iraq.
-
- Paul Craig Roberts: Why do you oppose the Bush administration's
policy toward Iraq?
-
- Robert Higgs: I oppose it on both moral and practical
grounds. A "pre-emptive" war against Iraq entails a variety of
morally indefensible actions, but even Americans who do not admit or cannot
see its immorality will ultimately find its consequences intensely unpleasant.
-
- PCR: Isn't it desirable to overthrow a brutal dictator?
-
- RH: The world is rife with brutal regimes. If we hadn't
been forewarned, we might have thought the president in his State of the
Union speech was describing the tortures used in Turkey or Pakistan or
Egypt.
-
- Yet the administration has no qualms about joining hands
with these (and other) odious regimes. Worse, it is showering them with
tens of billions of dollars extracted from American taxpayers.
-
- The United States cannot rid the world of all its brutal
dictators, and even if it somehow managed to do so, new ones would pop
up soon afterward. We ought to decline the fool's errand of perpetually
enforcing our political standards on the entire world.
-
- PCR: Isn't it a good idea to get rid of Saddam Hussein
in particular?
-
- RH: The world probably would be a better place without
Saddam in power, but we have no assurance that a post-Saddam regime will
be flush with sweetness and light. In view of Iraq's history, we have good
reason to expect a regime more like the autocracies that have long prevailed
there.
-
- The notion current in certain circles that Iraq is a
democratic success waiting to happen is sheer nonsense. With its violent
ethnic, religious and political conflicts, Iraq may be incapable of cohering
as anything other than a dictatorship.
-
- Nor will conducting some phony-baloney elections alter
this situation; it will only put a pleasing ceremonial gloss on the ugly
underlying realities.
-
- PCR: What about the claim that the United States created
successful democratic regimes as a result of its triumph in World War II?
-
- RH: The analogy between postwar Germany or Japan and
present-day Iraq is much too loose to be taken seriously. Among other things,
our occupations and the reforms we imposed on Germany and Japan took place
in a completely different geopolitical context.
-
- If the United States takes over Iraq, it certainly will
inflame Muslim zealots all over the world, who will point to our conquest
as proof certain of our evil intentions toward Muslims who have the temerity
to challenge our hegemony.
-
- Nearby regimes in the region may be overthrown by factions
angered by their governments' unwillingness to stand up to the Western
crusaders. What good will it do to control Iraq if, for example, Saudi
Arabia falls under the control of Islamic fanatics?
-
- PCR: From your extensive research into previous U.S.
wars, have you drawn any conclusions that shape your thinking about the
present situation?
-
- RH: One conclusion stands out: from the Civil War onward,
engagement in war has left Americans less free when the war was over than
they had been before the war. In countless ways, the warfare state has
proved inimical to the preservation of liberty, just as patriots such as
James Madison warned us long ago that it would.
-
- War brings higher taxes, greater government debt, increased
government intrusion in markets, more pervasive government surveillance,
manipulation and control of the public. Going to war is the perfect recipe
for expanding the size, scope and power of the federal government.
-
- You have to wonder why so many conservatives, who claim
to cherish liberty, enthusiastically embrace the government's schemes for
plunging the nation into war.
-
- PCR: Many claim that whatever war's risks to civil and
economic liberties, it still generates definite economic benefits.
-
- RH: That claim represents a prime example of what sound
economists call the broken-window fallacy. Despite many current myths about
so-called war prosperity, war is always an economic disaster. The resources
used for war purposes cannot be used for alternative purposes; there's
no free lunch, and the Keynesian arguments that imply one are just bad
economics.
-
- I have spent years demonstrating that even World War
II, which allegedly rescued the economy from the Great Depression, did
nothing of the sort. Participation in the war simply substituted one kind
of economic deprivation - a worse kind - for another. Genuine prosperity
resumed only after the war ended.
-
- PCR: Will a U.S. conquest of Iraq make us safer?
-
- RH: No. It will probably increase the risk of terrorism
for Americans both at home and abroad.
-
- Dr. Roberts' latest book, "The Tyranny of Good Intentions,"
has been published by Prima Publishers. Copyright 2002 Creators Syndicate,
Inc.
-
- All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com
|
