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I share your anguish about the Iraq invasion. What amazes me is that many libertarians, particularly objectivists, are defending it. In the libertarian philosophy the basic difference between a gangster and a government is that the latter uses force that is circumscribed by rule of law.

Objective laws determine when, where, and how much force is legitimate to exercise. The first thing that the rule of law requires is that all are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and it specifies the degree of evidence necessary to establish guilt. No law as of now declares possession of weapons of mass destruction as crime. (if that were the case, then the UN security council members will be the first ones to be punished!) And US has not given much objective evidence to prove Saddam Hussein guilty of any particular (international) crime, including of 9/11.

For any libertarian this should be sufficient to see the war as invasion–illegitimate use of force. Alas that’s not the case!

Parth J. Shah is President, Centre for Civil Society. He wrote this as a response to a friend’s email.

PS: I was a research associate with the Centre from June 1999 - December 2001.