To the Editor:

Among the “welter” of emotions revealed in John McCain’s 1974 thesis was “a sharp impatience with the American government” during the war in Vietnam “for failing to ‘explain to its people, young and old, some basic facts of its foreign policy.’”

I welcome these words, and I only hope that the nominee still harbors the same feelings. For the Bush administration has failed much more grievously to explain the basis of the foreign policy that led to the invasion of Iraq.

During the last presidential campaign, President Bush got away with hiding from the public his true motives for starting the pre-emptive war. Senator McCain can be expected to embark on a wholly different course.

Now we have good reason to assume, on the basis of his own words, that he will at last provide the electorate with a full and clear account of just how and why this country got bogged down and remains in the mess in Iraq.

Joseph Pequigney
New York, June 15, 2008

Note from KBJ: The rightness of an act is distinct from the motive with which it is performed. A right act can be poorly motivated and a wrong act well motivated. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that motivation bears on rightness. There can be more than one motive for a given act. One or more of these motives can be reputable and one or more disreputable. The letter writer imputes only disreputable motives to President Bush (although he fails to specify what they are). How’s that for cynicism?

Note 2 from KBJ: The letter writer implies that pre-emptive military action is categorically wrong. Suppose you had reason to believe that your neighbor is stockpiling weapons with the aim of killing you and your family. Must you wait until the neighbor attacks before defending yourself? The law doesn’t require this, and neither does morality. The question is not who acts first, but who is in the right.