Liberty For All

by Matthew R. Holmes

As a student of history I watch with great interest the development of the Iraq War. 

To see, as they would say in the Lord of the Rings, the “great doom” of our time played out before our very eyes is both extraordinary and a source of great anguish and sadness.  The Bush administration has embarked down a path that has an extremely uncertain ending, and yet many predicted the turn of events as they are happening even now.  This whole war could have been avoided if the President would have heeded the advice and counsel of the Founders, especially Jefferson, and the Enlightenment philosophers before them.

The American Founders embedded into our federal constitution the principle of non-interventionism as laid out by such Enlightenment thinkers as Baron de Montesquieu, Samuel Pufendorf, and Emer de Vattel.  De Vattel wrote The Law of Nations which was to become the foundational work for all future international law.  Especially applicable to the Iraq War are the words of de Vattel, “[…] while a Nation is bound to further, as far as it can, the advancement of others, it has no right to force them to accept its offer of help.  The attempt to do so would be a violation of their natural liberty.”  And a violation of natural liberty would most certainly result in armed rebellion against the violators.  We are learning firsthand that we cannot force others to accept our help, nor should we even attempt to.

Nations, like every other form of life, evolve down their own paths towards their own destinies, and all in their own time.  It is arrogant and foolish to think we can “create” democracy and capitalism in Iraq, as if Iraq were some kind of Petri dish in which we can conduct controlled experiments with human lives and destinies.  Another principle de Vattel laid out was that all nations should act in accordance with their own natures (so long as they are not harming other nations).  The nature of Iraqi government has been that of a despotic dictatorship for much of their history.  We cannot now go in, wave our magic wand and ‘presto!’ — democracy, capitalism, liberty and justice for all.  No, this is something the Iraqi people must work out on their own, and in their own time.  We can help them by engaging in commerce and cultural dialogue with them, and leaving them free to govern themselves as they see fit.

One of the biggest flaws with the Bush administration is that they still embrace the philosophy of modernism, albeit dangerously mixed with the evangelical and missionary zeal of the Religious Right.  Modernist thought flourished in the late 1800 and early 1900’s, and promoted the concept that Western Christian Civilization was the epitome of human development and evolution.  Therefore we owed it to the rest of the non-Christian non-European world to export our ideology and bring them up to our advanced level of civilization.  Notice how much President Bush loves to use that word, civilization?  This evidences his modernist views.  This philosophy is generally not embraced today and is extremely hostile to the principle of non-interventionism.

Non-interventionism is built into the US Constitution.  Look at the clauses surrounding national defense in Art. I, Sect. 8, they are solely defensive in nature.  The Constitution grants specific authority to Congress “To declare War […] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions […]“.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the President given the power to declare war, let alone pre-emptive war on un-established facts and for such uncertain and vague purposes.  The Framers of the Constitution intentionally left these powers in the hands of Congress, intending to establish a representative democracy, or republic, not a monarchy.

Where is the accountability of our President - and even of Congress — to the Constitution and to the People?  If Congress truly represented the People, then there would have been much more debate over going to war in Iraq.  And Congress could have forced the President to call off his plans for invading a country where we are obviously unwanted.  Hopefully our country will return to its roots of neutrality and non-interventionism as established by the Founders.  This cannot guarantee peace because so much is already in motion and at stake, but it would be a good start in the right direction.

Matthew Holmes has been an independent researcher and writer for 10 years, and is a History major at Northern Arizona University focusing on early American history. You can contact Matthew at houseofharris@yahoo.com

Originally published in Liberty For All June 03, 2004.