Suppose you're a fan of classic cars and you find a 1957 Chevrolet Impala in pristine condition that you want to buy. The problem, however, is that the asking price for the car is $50,000, and you don't have that kind of money to spend. Fortunately, you have a friend – we'll call him Bob – who is very well off, so you take Bob to see the car and rave about its every detail. After you get done raving about the car, you ask Bob to buy it for you. Bob, not being a car fan, declines, thinking it a bad investment.
"But, Bob," you plead, "look at this beauty. Isn't this the most wonderful car you've ever seen? Come on. You can afford to spend the 50 grand. Believe me; it's worth it."
Bob replies, "It may be worth it to you, but it's not worth it to me. No dice, pal."
Who can argue with Bob's logic? After all, it's his money, and thus he is the one to make the judgment about its worth relative to the car. Your opinion is irrelevant. If Bob thinks it's not worth it, then it's not worth it.
On the other hand, suppose you're the president of the United States and you've found a foreign country you want to invade. The problem, however, is that the invasion is going to require thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars.
Furthermore, two years after you've invaded this country – we'll call it Iraq – you find your troops bogged down in fighting against an insurgency that, despite your vice president's characterization of it as in its "last throes," seems to be growing, or at least not diminishing, in strength. "Insurgent attacks in the last six months," in fact, "have killed more than 8,000 Iraqi civilians, police, and troops, according to Iraq's interior minister," reports CNN. Even the head honcho of your military in the Persian Gulf region, General John Abizaid, says that the insurgency's strength hasn't changed in the past half a year, and your secretary of defense admits that it could last up to 12 more years.
As public opinion starts to turn against your foreign adventure, what are you to do?
If you're George W. Bush, you make a speech in which you tell the public: "Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying, and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it . . . ."
Now doesn't that sound just like you telling your friend Bob why he should buy you that '57 Chevy? Bob doesn't care for it, and it's his money, but you tell him he should go ahead and buy it anyway because "it's worth it."
The problem for Bush is similar: He wants to continue to spend taxpayers' money and citizens' lives (not to mention Iraqi lives) to prosecute a cause which he believes is "worth it" whether or not the people whose money and lives are on the line agree with him. A further problem is that his opinion of the worth of the occupation of Iraq is just as irrelevant to those actually footing the bill – both taxpayers and soldiers – as was your opinion to Bob. Unless the president is going to foot the bill for the war personally and then strap on some inferior, Pentagon-supplied body armor and go over to Iraq and fight, his valuation of the war effort doesn't amount to a hill of MRE's.
The only people whose opinions should matter in this situation are (a) the taxpayers who are shelling out their hard-earned cash to the tune of $5 billion a month and (b) the soldiers who are risking their lives daily to end the threat of Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of weapons of mass – er, to cut off the close collaboration between Hussein and al-Qae – er, to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. The ruminations of the president, whose job is funded by the taxpayers and consists largely of spending other people's money and sending certain others out to potential death or wounding, are almost entirely irrelevant.
What of the fact that Bush thinks he is spending Americans' money and lives on a worthwhile venture that will benefit others? Shouldn't that count for something? Well, you thought you were spending Bob's money on a worthwhile venture that would benefit another, but that didn't count for anything in the final analysis, and neither do the president's allegedly altruistic motives. As William Norman Grigg put it when critiquing both Bush's and the Iraqi prime minister's characterizations of Americans' sacrifices:
"Altruism" of the sort extolled by Prime Minister al-Jaafari – a president squandering money earned by taxpayers, and sacrificing the lives of their sons and daughters, on behalf of foreign strangers – is a moral abomination and a crime against constitutional republicanism. Nearly two centuries ago, Congressman Davy Crockett learned a critical lesson when a constituent rebuked him for supporting a "compassionate" welfare measure not authorized by the Constitution.
Our money, the angry voter reminded Crockett, was not yours to give. The same is emphatically true regarding the lives of the young Americans that Bush and his cronies have wasted in their war of supposed liberation in Iraq.
The problem of politicians' giving away what isn't theirs is not, of course, confined to war or welfare but is inherent in the nature of government. After all, government does not produce anything, so even to do the things most people would agree it should do (providing, e.g., police protection, a court system, and a military) it must supply to those performing those services that which is not the government's to give. Therefore, Bush cannot be said to be uniquely evil in this sense, for he is only doing what all government officials do. However, that he is spending not just our money but our very lives (and, again, the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, even less his to give than those of Americans) is deserving of the utmost contempt.
There are only two possible ways to put an end to the disconnect between what the president considers "worth it" and what the people actually paying the bill consider "worth it." The first is to end the occupation and bring all the troops home as soon as possible. This might disconcert those who do believe the occupation is worth it, but they would still be free to volunteer their money or their lives to the Iraqi government to help quell the insurgency. The second is to ask each taxpayer how much he wishes to contribute to the war effort and each soldier whether or not he wants to serve in Iraq. Then accept each one's answer and abide by it. While we're at it, how about surveying all the Iraqis and asking which ones want to continue to die in the fighting between foreign forces occupying their country and people trying to drive those forces out?
Of course, neither of these suggestions will be implemented. Instead, Americans will continue to expend blood and treasure on a fruitless quest to pacify Iraq – fruitless, that is, unless one's name is Osama bin Laden, in which case it's the best recruiting tool a few box cutters can buy.
Politicians and used-car salesmen routinely rank near the bottom of polls of the most trusted people in America. The reason is that both frequently try to sell us broken-down jalopies at exorbitant prices, all the while telling us that we're getting Cadillacs. George W. Bush is trying to sell us a jalopy we've driven for over two years and found an absolute wreck with little hope of repair. Let's not be fooled into believing he's selling us a Cadillac, or even a Yugo in good working order. Let's take our money and our lives and go buy from a reputable salesman – namely, anyone who isn't a government employee.
July 5, 2005
