Andrew Sullivan titles a post "Did we save lives after all?" Dear God in heaven, we're still talking about this?
Okay, Posner's argument goes like this: the sanctions regime pre-war had killed, and was killing, lots of children and adults in Iraq, and if you take a ridiculously low estimate of the war casualties (the IBC is not credible, in any way whatsoever) the sanctions would have killed more people, left in place status quo, than the war has. And don't think about lifting the sanctions -- that just means that Saddam will invade Kuwait again!
Get it? The only two options were for us to maintain a horrible, bloody and bloody-minded policy that was killing tens of thousands of innocent people, or invade and kill tens of thousands of innocent people in much more destructive ways.
It's 2003 all over again: the same bad-faith stupidity on the part of war advocates. I would have loved to believe that they weren't dumb enough to fall for the same tricks twice, but apparently Andy is still that gullible. Fuck.
Okay, Posner's argument goes like this: the sanctions regime pre-war had killed, and was killing, lots of children and adults in Iraq, and if you take a ridiculously low estimate of the war casualties (the IBC is not credible, in any way whatsoever) the sanctions would have killed more people, left in place status quo, than the war has. And don't think about lifting the sanctions -- that just means that Saddam will invade Kuwait again!
Get it? The only two options were for us to maintain a horrible, bloody and bloody-minded policy that was killing tens of thousands of innocent people, or invade and kill tens of thousands of innocent people in much more destructive ways.
It's 2003 all over again: the same bad-faith stupidity on the part of war advocates. I would have loved to believe that they weren't dumb enough to fall for the same tricks twice, but apparently Andy is still that gullible. Fuck.
