I think you think I think

Just another right-winger playing BS insinuation games. Yawn. Stick in the roll of dishonor with Instapundit/Hitchens/Kaus/LGF/etc.

For me, this comment by Norbizness (at The Poor Man) pretty much sums up a certain stance:

Immediately speculate about what this means for the war effort. Get inside the mind of a loyal Ba’ath henchman. If you’re in the Administration apologeia business, allow yourself a brief moment to gloat over the foolishness of lefties and hippies worldwide. You’ve earned it.

If Norm’s happy, I’m happy!

OK, I’ll accept that Norm has a good previous record. I would like to have civil exchanges with the pro-war left, and ask only for reciprocity. (BTW, I can’t read Norm on this computer–if there’s an important link or something that I’m missing, apologies.)

While I admire Mr. Dsquared’s desire to maintain equanimity amongst the left, I really find it odd that he’d manage to do so. From reading Mr. Geras’s posts on the war and the anti-war left, he’s been pretty blunt in labeling anti-war lefties as objectively pro fascist dictators and as betrayers of the lefty cause. There isn’t much moralistic elbow-room in there. Either you don’t think your being called a supporter of a brutal mass murderer is much to get ruffled about, or you are spittle-spewingly pissed at Mr. Geras and all his insinuations. I really don’t see any room for a spirit of gentle mockery in all this, and I doubt Mr. Geras does either. It seems to me that if there’s any disagreement with Mr. Geras then it must be vehement. After all, “pro-mass-murderer crypto-fascist”, them’s fighting words!

I certainly hope this post won’t earn me the ignominy of getting deleted, ‘cause I really like your stuff d’squared, but oh well. I guess that’ll be the price us spade-callers must pay.

His point, as I understand it, is by all means oppose the war but do it by taking all relevant factors into account

No, I don’t think that’s his point at all.

The point here, I would say, is that one should give significant weight to the suffering of those who have to bear the cost. This is why I’ve felt from the very beginning of all this, given the scale of such suffering in Iraq, that those on the left who couldn’t bring themselves to support the war shouldn’t have opposed it either.

And do be careful that your wavering and quaverings don’t get you labeled as part of Mr. Geras’s “pro-tyrant” left.

Fair do’s–that’s a question that’s worth answering. And here I feel that Mr. Geras tends to neglect what Matt Yglesias calls the “opportunity cost.” Namely: Saddam’s fall from power is certainly a good thing. But bringing him down cost umpty-ump billions and many lives, disrupted most of our international alliances, and tied down the effective fighting force of the U.S. Had we not done so, we could have accomplished many other good things.
For instance, full funding to fight HIV in Africa; peacekeeping in Liberia (when I saw the Liberian crowds carrying the Nigerian peacekeeper on their shoulders, my thought was “That should be an American”); actual reconstruction of Afghanistan.
So I disagree, civilly I hope, with Mr. Geras’s rhetoric in the above quotation. I do not “think it would have been better for the Iraqi people to still be enduring the torments they suffered under Saddam Hussein than to be in the position they are now in, for all its many difficulties.” But I also do not think that the means were justified by the end in this case. (I recognize that that post is responding to some fairly virulent anti-war talk, but at the end of it Mr. Geras seems to say that the whole anti-war movement is in denial. Hence I take it personally.)

I think you word you want for Norm’s (if I may call him Norm) peculiar emotion is “Ãœberschadenfreude”, or something like that. I’m not sure because I just made it up.

Mr. Weiner, with regard to your post:

“Mr. Geras tends to neglect what Matt Yglesias calls the “opportunity cost.” Namely: Saddam’s fall from power is certainly a good thing. But bringing him down cost umpty-ump billions and many lives, disrupted most of our international alliances, and tied down the effective fighting force of the U.S. Had we not done so, we could have accomplished many other good things.”

I’ve always found Norm’s case for the war strong, but I believe you’re right here. Norm’s case for the war is largely moral. In short, getting rid of Saddam is very meet, right and just so let’s just do it. I think this alone is a reasonable case for the war, but there are plenty of other good things the US could’ve done with the money and people. So why does Iraq take precedence? I think this is a genuine weakness in the Norm’s position. He places ethical considerations above prudential considerations in a case where they both seem to point toward the same course of action. Why not avail yourself of the prudential argument for getting rid of Saddam? Here’s where Norm’s leftist internationalism gets in the way: The prudential argument is based partly on the fact it’s in the UK’s interest to get rid of Saddam. Marxists have hard time saying that patriotism is a valid motive for war. Would that Norm were as partisan for his country as he is favorite football clubs!

It doesn’t much matter to me: I think it was very meet right and just and it helped out US long term interests in a way that say, peacekeeping in Liberia, wouldn’t have. Both ethical and prudential motives gave it precedence over the alternatives. Of course, I’d love it if we could keep the peace in Liberia but you I believe Iraq is more pressing

I’m with Matt and Barry: irrespective of wht else he’s written, his web-writings seem so reptilian that his past oeuvre is as securely on my Unread Books list as the Collected Works of Steven den Beste.