Tales from the Memory Hole II: Sowell

In my previous entry I quoted Mr. David Limbaugh who made the case that the justification for the war in Iraq was Saddam's continued development of WMD. However, if Mr Limbaugh was principled, and his beliefs flowed from his convictions, he would have simply said, "I thought Iraq had WMD. I was wrong. We should leave Iraq immediately." Of course, no such mea culpa was forthcoming from Mr Limbaugh, and that's because he is a shill for George Bush, a Bush Cultist as I like to call him, and will change his arguments to suit the partisan interests of the president.

Unfortunately, he is not the only Bush Cultist out there; they are legion. Mr. Thomas Sowell, who has history of promoting free markets and conservative causes, has now also revealed himself to be little more than a shill for George Bush. Let's see what he had to say before the war in Iraq began, and compare it to what he said later.

On January 6, 2003 Mr Sowell wrote a column entited "Dangers ahead -- from the right" where he did discuss the upcoming war in Iraq.

Those neoconservatives, especially, who were pushing an activist "national greatness" foreign policy, even before September 11th, have siezed upon that event as a reason for the United States to "use American might to promote American ideals" around the world.

That phrase, by Max Boot of the Counsel [sic] on Foreign Relations and the Weekly Standard, is breathtaking in its implications. When he places himself and fellow neoconservatives in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, it is truly chilling.

The track record of nation-building and Wisonian grandiosity ought to give any pause. The very idea that young Americans are once again to be sent out to be shot at and killed, in order to carry about the bright ideas of editorial office heroes, is sickening.

He concludes, "But to destroy regimes that are trying to destroy us is very different from going on nation-building adventures."

I applaud Mr Sowell for acknowledging the existence of neoconservatives and also for recognizing that their ideals are a far cry from genuine conservatism. When many people hear the term neoconservative, or Neocon for short, they think it is just a slur invented by the Left to ridicule Bush's foreign policy. However, at least Mr. Sowell demonstrates that, "yes Viriginia," Neocons are real, and, in fact, acutely dangerous. The last line sums up Mr Sowell's reason for supporting the war in Iraq: Iraq is a regime that is trying to destroy us.

So much like David Limbaugh, Mr. Sowell does not support invading Iraq to spread the germ of democracy, to liberate the citizens of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, or to involve the military in an exorbitant nation-building exercise. His argument is preemptive self defense: we must destroy Saddam's regime because his regime is about to destroy us.

In a January 30, 2003 column entitled "Disarming a country" Mr Sowell continues to hit on the same themes. He makes the shopworn comparison of Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and compares those who oppose the war in Iraq to reborn Neville Chamberlains. Mr. Sowell believes that almost every war, every military engagement, is just a re-play of WWII, as if that war exhausts all the wisdom there is to know about war. Comparisons between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler and between Iraq and Germany are absurd, but Mr. Sowell uses the comparison for polemical purposes: the more you can graft WWII onto the Iraq war, the more just and urgent it will seem. (Mr. Sowell is now comparing Iran to the Third Reich.)

Like Mr. Limbaugh and scores of others, Mr. Sowell put his faith in the Bush Administration and seemed to genuinely believe that Iraq's development of WMD posed an urgent threat to the United States. So what was his response when it turned out Iraq's WMD were just chimeras of an over active imagination? He addressed this in a February 10th, 2004 column entitled "Weapons of political destruction." It is here where Mr Sowell's profound dishonesty is on full display.

Was the Iraqi war worth it and should we have gone to war if we had to do it over again, knowing what we know now? On net balance, yes.

Among the things that we know now is that you get cooperation in the Middle East after you have demonstrated your willingness to use force. Would Libya have revealed and dismantled its weapons of mass destruction if the Qaddafi regime had not seen what happened in Iraq? Would Syria and Iran have taken a more conciliatory attitude if they had not seen what happened in Iraq?

Mr. Sowell is saying that even if he knew Iraq had no WMD and was not a threat to this country, on net, going to war was still a good idea. Why? Because it forced Iran and Syria into a "conciliatory attitude." So even though this wasn't a preemptive war after all, it was still necessary to show other Middle Eastern nations that we mean business. Note that Mr. Sowell has now invented a new argument to defend Bush's decision to invade Iraq. But does he take his new argument seriously, or is it just special pleading?

In an August 22, 2006 column entitled "Point of no return" Mr Sowell has the following to say about Iran: "Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and North Korea mean that it is only a matter of time before there are nuclear weapons in the hands of international terrorist organizations."

Is this evidence of a "conciliatory attitude" by Iran, Mr Sowell? So there is no indication that our invasion of Iraq has encouraged Iran and Syria to become more "conciliatory." Mr. Sowell made the argument in 2004 because he was desperate to find a justification to support the war in Iraq. He couldn't trot out the "we are turning Iraq into a democracy," because he had already dismissed the argument that the United States should participate in democratic nation building experiments in the Middle East. So he didn't have much wiggle room to concoct a new argument. But after it turns out that the Iraqi invasion did not force Iran into a "conciliatory attitude" does he now say that in hindsight, the war in Iraq was a mistake? Don't bet on it.

Let's finally untangle the layers of mendacity Mr. Sowell has weaved around the war. Prior to the outbreak of war, he made the very practical argument that we should invade Iraq because Iraq intends to "destroy" us. When it turned out that Iraq had no WMD, Mr. Sowell said that "on net" we should still have invaded Iraq because it forced nations like Iran into a "conciliatory attitude." However, in his latest columns, Mr. Sowell is accusing Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon, and says it's a greater threat than the one we faced from Nazi Germany. So he doesn't even believe his own argument about the war in Iraq making Iran "conciliatory". What is going on here?

Verdict: Thomas Sowell is not a conservative, and is not honest. Thomas Sowell is a purveyor of dishonesty because first and foremost he's a Bush Cultist. That's the ugly truth.