"I was wrong"

Peter Beinert in the most recent (Mar 5 & 12) New Republic comes as close as he probably ever will for opposing the invasion of Iraq:

"...when our fellow democracies largely oppose a war -- as they did in Vietnam and Iraq -- because they think we're deluding ourselves about our motives our capacities or our motives, they're probably right."

He admits that this trillion-dollar, hundred-thousand-life was, for many who supported it, a roll of the dice:

"I was willing to gamble, too--partly, I suppose, because in the era of an all-volunteer military, I wasn't gambling with my own life."

Maybe these are some of the commandments we ought to be engraving on stone tablets:

1. Thou shalt not use military force except to protect innocent people from imminent violence.

2. Thou shalt not intervene in another country without building international consensus among democracies for that intervention.

3. Thou shalt not impose a form of governance upon another group of people. Persuade them through the moral force of your argument and the demonstration of your successes, but leave the decision up to the people themselves. This is the cornerstone of democracy.

4. Thou shalt not spill one man's blood without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the blood of that one man will spare the blood of many men.

The Iraq invasion violated all 4 rules. The first and last are similar, but I prefer the last. I think we should judge more of our actions with "blood calculus". Utilitarians may judge actions based on happiness, but before we can get to happiness we have to deal with the blood. Certainly blood is on a whole different order of magnitude than happiness. The amount of blood lost in the invasion of Iraq is far more than lost on 9/11, or 7/7, or from Hurricane Katrina. If you choose to do something that spills blood, you had better have some hard evidence that more blood would have been spilled otherwise.

The New Republic's credibility on foreign policy has been tarnished by its support of the Iraq War. It has only tentatively admitted what a more courageous publication would state boldly: "We Were Wrong." Fundamentally, the hubris to support such an invasion shows a gross misunderstanding of the principles of the evolution of society and government. They will have to do a lot to earn back our trust.