THE SUBTLE PRESIDENT

Please don't make contradiction this obvious. But then, what better can we expect from you?

"Mr Bush said his proposal would cut "wasteful or bloated" spending and also urged Congress to make his tax cuts permanent.

The defence department's budget is set to increase by 7.5% and the Department of Homeland Security's by 11%."

HOLES IN THE WHOLE ENTERPRISE

I am amused by Vladimir Putin's comparison of repurcussions of the proposed US missile shield being possibly akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis. While the analogy sounds laughable and Putin is increasingly seen as no friend of democracy, the amusement is because whatever the reason for his ramblings, they make sense.

I am a little amazed at how more people in the US are not speaking up against the missile shield which will clearly roil the region and US perceptions abroad, especially during this time when US popularity is already execrably low and everyone in the world is wary of any US intrusions abroad. It is unacceptable to allow the Bush administration to create more threat inflation (hardly a new American tactic) trespass on foreign territory and spend billions more of tax dollars by citing some ludicrous future threat about North Korean and Iranian missiles, while small terrorist groups and homegrown terror continue to thrive and remain the primary threat. I think the Iraq war is as much of a travesty as can be incurred for taxpayers' money and it should be appalling that the administration wants to go gung-ho on more national security rhetoric and weapons spending.

I have already talked about the sordid and expensive history of US missile defense as well as its misguided purposes and technical infeasibility. What's even worse is that in the presence of short range missiles launched from ships near the US coast (a much bigger possibility than ICBMs), the proposed missile system will be even more farther than the previously proposed National Missile Defense system, thus being unable to protect the nation. In this particular case, physicist Richard Garwin has penned an insightful article in Scientific American that's worth reading. Garwin is an eminent scientist, protege of Enrico Fermi who worked on the hydrogen bomb, and a distinguished and dominant voice in four decades of US military and science policy. He reiterates the points above:

"What is more, the primary missile threat to the U.S. is not ICBMs. If a nation such as North Korea or Iran is intent on attacking an American city, it is far more likely to do so using short-range missiles launched from ships near the U.S. coasts. In a press briefing in 2002 Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld noted: "Countries have placed ballistic missiles in ships--dime a dozen--all over the world. At any given time, there's any number off our coasts, coming, going. On transporter-erector-launchers, they simply erect it, fire off a ballistic missile, put it down, cover it up. Their radar signature's not any different than 50 others in close proximity." Despite this acknowledgment, however, the Defense Department has no system planned for deployment that could defend against these missiles."

What I always feel is ironic and tragic is that in the midst of all the proposals of the Bush administration to increase national security, not only is American credibility being further eroded in the world and taxpayers' dollars being sapped from valuable domestic programs, but the country is actually becoming less safe than before because of the misguided policies and perceived belligerence of its government.

ONLY GOOD INTENTIONS DO NOT COUNT

I have written about Sam Harris's gripe with Noam Chomsky in a previous post, and indicated that I believe in a middle ground and consider both their arguments as valid ones; Harris's that hatred of the US springs from faith, Chomsky's that hatred of the US springs as a repurcussion to a long tradition of US imperialism. I am reading Harris's magnificent "The End of Faith" currently, and got a chance to consider his critique of Chomsky in detail.

I in fact find myself agreeing with Harris on many counts. I agree that to consider the Clinton administration's 1998 bombing of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan as being "morally equivalent" to 9/11 is absurd, even if the act was not justified. The US has blood on its hands, no doubt a whole bloodbath, but Harris says that in very few cases have US intentions been to maim innocent civilians, and this is true. Maybe its aims were misguided, and operations certainly were sloppily carried out, but unlike attacks by terrorists, it is rarely that the US has intentionally aimed to cause the deaths of innocent civilians.

I think Harris is largely right, and that's why I have always written about taking Chomsky with a healthy dose of salt. That's why I have also on numerous occasions said that in the historical book of atrocities, the US would still be way down in the list. But at the same time I think it's important to note that one cannot always put a high premium on noble intentions. For example, the intention of toppling Saddam's Hussein's regime was no doubt a valid and even noble one, especially when we consider it in a sanitized, isolated context; after all, there's no doubt that he was a repressive monster. But does that mean that what Bush did was right, even assuming that he had the truly good intention of getting rid of a murderous tyrant?

No, and of course there are a variety of reasons, but especially one important reason, that intentions put into effect without thinking about consequences can still constitute immoral acts. In case of Bush, apart from the fact that he lied, he also did not think about the bloody and far-reaching consequences of his actions. Sometimes good intentions can have violent consequences, and carrying out those intentions without thinking about those consequences is as bad and irresponsible as having malevolent intentions.

The problem with putting such a high premium on good intentions also is that one can then justify many acts that are carried out under that rubric. In short, it can lead to the ends justifying the means. Many events in World War 2 are good examples; most notably the civilian bombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many historians now judge these acts as unnecessary and immoral. But one can always justify them by saying that the intention was to defeat Hitler or Imperial Japan, which was a good one. No doubt it was a good one, but that did not mean that any and every action in support of that intention was justified.

Intentions can be sterling, but actions carried out in their support cannot be justified and are irresponsible if one simply fails to neglect the devastating consequences that follow.