Brandon: I stand corrected on the unimportant issue of whether you belong to the Libertarian Party or not. Most of your assertions could come straight out of one of the Libertarian organizations; that’s what misled me. Yet, I confess that you are not a Libertarian but an orthodox libertarian (small “l”).

I think our conversations are fairly useful to the many who are repelled by orthodox libertarians although they have much analysis and many positions in common with them.

The most useful thing you did recently to help this cause is to affirm clearly that we, as a nation, have no responsibility toward the victims of mass massacres in which we could intervene at little cost and at little risk to ourselves. I refer to Rwanda, of course and not to Iraq where there was always much risk.

We have radically different moral compasses. There is an impassable gulf there.

The second problem I have with orthodox libertarians and that you illustrate concerns the use of facts. As you know, in one Republican debate, candidate Ron Paul affirmed, under his own power, with no incitement, that the US armed forces spent twenty billion dollars a year on air-conditioning alone in Iraq and in Afghanistan. No Libertarian and no orthodox libertarian of note took the trouble to question him on this absurd figure.

You too, seem to not pay enough attention to facts that are both important and easy to ascertain. I find this common among followers of severe political or religious doctrines. Here is your latest example.

You take to me to task tersely for something we would agree is very important: not understanding the constitutional provision that places the initiation of war within the province of congressional action. In particular, you insist that I and my readers agree with you that both the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War are illegal, unconstitutional. Here are the relevant facts:

A Joint Resolution of Congress was passed on September 18th 2001. It gave the President authority to use all necessary force against against whoever he determined planned, committed, or aided the attack on 9/11. (Public Law 107-40.) The votes were: 401 – 1 and 98 – 0.

How is that for Congressional authorization?

“Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq” was passed October 16th 2002. (Public Law 107-243.) The votes were 297-133 and 77 – 23. That’s comfortably more than 2/3 majority in both houses.

It’s disconcerting to me that sometimes, you seem to get your information impressionistically only and only from the liberal media.

I am not blameless myself. My statement that “95%” of terrorist acts in the past twenty years were committed by people who called themselves Muslim was a bit overblown. That statement needs correction. See below but let me explain my mistakes.

I did not include much of Columbia in my mental count of terrorist acts because I am under the impression that there have been few intentional homicidal acts committed in Columbia not directed at one chain of command or another (not civilians). In addition, it seems to me that so many homicidal acts there are connected with the drug trade that there is little room left in the numbers for victims of terrorism as conventionally defined.

As for the Tamil Tigers, I have followed their story from their beginnings to their recent end. They were formally classified as a terrorist organization by a large number of governments. Yet I don’t think they committed a large number of terrorist acts defined as deliberate acts of violence against civilians. They were responsible for considerable collateral damage, I think, they were callous, but that’s different.

Thanks to your influence, I have become more conscious of what I mean by terrorism. It includes intentionality and blindness toward the (civilian) victims. Thus, I have revised my concept of terrorism. I will be more precise in the future.

In response to your intervention, I am reducing my estimate of worldwide responsibility for terrorism by people who claim to be Muslims from 95% to 85%. That’s a big reduction of more than 10%. Yet, it has not implications at all with respect to the substance of my argument.

And I repeat that I am not anti-Muslim but that I deplore vigorously the moral blindness of American Muslim organizations. By the way, for readers who are interested, there is a good, thick recent book by a Muslim scholar that both documents and, ironically, illustrates the same blindness: Akbar, Ahmed. 2010. Journey Into America: The Challenge of Islam. Brookings: Washington D.C.