Re: Bonobos digest, Vol 1 #387 - 1 msg

All:

I agree with Kendall in general so this is a nit, but
perhaps important anyway.

When we are speaking on "utilitarian grounds" we must
be careful to weigh consequences now vs. the future.
Kendall writes that an invasion now would be
preferable to many years of sanctions. That would
likely be true. But, one is not certain of the future
duration of sanctions. Will it be 12 or 10 years? 10
or 8? 8 or 6? etc. While no one wants to simply count
up the dead, the future is unknown so should factor
appropriately in any utilitarian analysis.

Also, as I am sure he knows, we must also factor in
the likelihood that Bush will truly carry out some
real democratic changes in Iraq. This seems a lot
*less* likely than 12 more years of sanctions -- I
mean who really believes Bush wants the people of the
Middle East to have power over their own societies,
and hence their resources!?

Finally, we must ask ourselves what actions we would
want if we were an Iraqi, and specifically if we were
an Iraqi likely to be killed by an invasion. It seems
likely to me that one would prefer 12 years of some
existence, where the possibility of freeing one's self
of Saddam is remote but non-nil, over being dead.

I submit the wrinkle has been smoothed! <wink!>

Thanks!! -- Quentin

> Kendall Clark writes that:
>
> One wrinkle from my point of view is that, however
> illegal and dangerous to
> innocent Iraqis a US invasion will be, it may be (on
> strictly utilitarian
> grounds) preferable to another 10 or 12 years of
> murderous US sanctions --
> which basically constitute a form of siege warfare
> -- at the cost of another
> untold, largely invisible genocide. UN and other aid
> agency estimates put
> avoidable Iraqi deaths, largely children, as a
> result of sanctions at as
> many as 500,000. It seems an illegal US invasion is
> the only realistic way
> of ending the US's murderous regime of sanctions;
> I'm not sure that
> constitutes a good reason to support an illegal
> invasion, but it could be an
> unintended good consequence nonetheless.


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