The BIG Debate: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War in Iraq

Part 1    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 1of7 ...  
Part 2    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 2of7 ...  
Part 3    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 3of7 ...  
Part 4    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 4of7 ...  
Part 5    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 5of7 ...  
Part 6    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 6of7 ...  
Part 7    • FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 7of7 Q&A  

Libertarians Ron Paul & Doug Casey vs. Conservatives Larry Abraham & Dinesh D'Souza

Summary of points raised by D'Souza:

* For libertarianism to be consistent it should defend the principle of liberty.
* Non-intervention can be useful, but it is subordinate to the primary principle of liberty
* If you can intervene abroad to secure liberty should you do it? Or should you abstain in the name of non-intervention which would undermine liberty?
* It could seem paradoxical to libertarians to use force to secure freedom. However, we have imposed freedom at the point on a bayonet in the past on Japan and Germany. The results have been very positive.
* Freedom often comes through force. For example through a revolution. Revolutions are rarely peaceful and never legal. It took a civil war to secure freedom for African Americans. Hence freedom sometimes comes through force.
* In retrospect, should we have gone into Iraq? In retrospect, I wish we had focused a little more on Iran. They're clearly the ones seeking WMD's. Unfortunately we can't act in retrospect, we have to act based on the best information available at the time.
* Today Muslims have only two choices, Islamic tyranny (like Iran's rule of the Mullahs) or secular tyranny (like everyone else; Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc). From a Muslim point of view there is no freedom in the middle east. The war in Iraq is trying to create a 3rd choice; call it Muslim democracy.
* We're not the worlds policeman promoting democracy everywhere. In Iraq we're not trying to impose democracy everywhere, we're simply trying to impose it somewhere to give Muslims an alternative to the forms of tyranny that engulf their world.
* The Islamists already control Iran and have been trying for a generation to export the Khomeini revolution to other countries. They are desperate to get another major state, and they've said it should be Iraq. They've announced if they get Iraq they'll then target Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
* Is the libertarian position that we should sit back and watch this happen? Realistically we have interests in the Middle East and we should defend them.
* Why did Islamists attack the US on 9-11? Bin Laden believes that the U.S. is outwardly tough, but inwardly a bunch of cowards. When the fighting get's tough, they'll turn tail and run. They did it in Vietnam and they'll do it again. All they have to do is wait it out in Iraq until the great impatience and weariness of the American people to arise when stoked by the political left and some libertarians that say we should leave. Iraq then falls into their hands.
* If we believe in freedom, we should stay and fight for it.


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