Sacrifice and Consequence

"Forty-four hundred Americans are dead, 30,000 severely wounded, and more than 100,000 are suffering from serious health problems related to post traumatic stress syndrome," Paul said. "This alone should tell us that it was not worth the investment and the needless sacrifice of our young people and the taxpayers." – Ron Paul statement on the Iraq policy, Sep. 1^st 2010

I have been a Ron Paul fan for some time. I watched the 2008 presidential campaign with great interest and enjoyed watching the sharp contrast between Paul and the other candidates. In a Republican party that had too few voices questioning the virtues of global American military presence and an ubridled culture of debt, Paul sparked debates which probably needed more intensity within the party. Interestingly, Paul’s “Campaign for Liberty” lived on unabated, notwithstanding the election of the first Post-American president (who shall remain unnamed).

Since 2008 the Republican party has succumbed to an infusion of tea party candidates who have primary challenged and defeated incumbents. Many have various degrees of similarity to Dr. Paul’s foreign policy views. With this new landscape, a nation afire in libertarian furor, Paul surely sees momentum for a 2012 run.

Perhaps in this light Ron Paul’s statement deserves a closer examination. The big price tag for America’s Iraq and Afghanistan policy is one of Paul’s common themes, an undeniable truth in the ugly face of war. In greater consequence than any other previous American conflicts, the campaigns in the Middle East have drained Americans of resources and goodwill around the world. A looming cloud of debt continues to darken over the US treasury, and perhaps the Congressman is right that it will be our financial insolvency that dictates American withdrawl.

Yet for only a moment, let us leave aside the issue of prudence and consider something a bit more profound. What exactly is it that determines the injustice of a war? Is it soley the misguided policy? If anything, Ron Paul has made one thing perfectly clear in this statement and many others - that not only does he believe that the policy itself is wrong, but that this particular military conflict is immoral primarily because of its tremendous cost. According to Paul, the dollars spent and the price paid by our military service members “alone" determines the morality of the situation. In other words, it is not an enormous leap to infer that even if there was an urgent and desperate need for military action(Iran nukes Mayberry), any war associated with high costs and casualties would be immoral. Given the high- cost scenario, one must therefore conclude (from Dr. Paul's viewpoint) the best moral option is surrender.

This leaves me with a few questions.

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Until the battle of Trenton, George Washington had lost more than half of his Continental army, lost battles in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania..was it then immoral for him to cross the Delaware river and capture 800 German mercernaries in the icy snow? Until that point the army had been decimated. It wasn’t until after the victory at Trenton that the Continentals had a surge of 15,000 volunteers.

-       The Allies in WWII lost most air and sea battles until early 1942. German U-boats and Luftwaffe destroyed countless Allied ships and aircraft. Was it immoral at that point for the Allies to continue the war?

-       Does the world look better or worse if the previous was indeed determined immoral?

To Dr Paul’s credit, he frequently talks about the Christian doctrine of just war, articulated by St. Augustine. I only wonder how significant a role it plays in his worldview. I wonder also about the consequences of an anti-war president. A synopsis of Augustine’s theory is linked to here:

http://www.hyw.com/books/history/War__jus.htm