Tradeoffs

Sowell on 'safe' medicine. He is absolutely right about everything in this column. It got me thinking about Iraq and TWOT, since Sowell seems to be a supporter of Bush's foreign policy on the whole. Putting aside (deontological-type) moral arguments, where I disagree with the invasion of Iraq is that it produced small benefits relative to the costs. Ignoring the money, ignoring the soldiers' lives lost, invading and staying in Iraq is playing with fire. It could turn out ok, though I'm skeptical, but if we keep doing this sort of thing, it will burn us. Full-fledged civil war (as opposed to the half-fledged civil war currently there), blowback (instead of just insurgents attacking the troops), and so on. Saddam wasn't someone to turn your back on, but he also wasn't that big a deal. The cure is worse than the disease, and one man is making the decisions for all of us. I don't know how to deal with the last problem, but it only makes the others more pressing.