Quality of Decisions versus Quality of Outcomes
I raised the following point in discussion about Iraq with one of my friends recently:
In general, the quality of an outcome is not logically related to the quality of a decision. Thus, to argue the present poor outcome (i.e., the apparent failure to find WMD) implies a poor decision (i.e., the decision to go to war) is a logical misstep.
Of course: one can still argue that the decision to go to war was a poor decision on its own terms. But that would be a fundamentally different argument.
I am not the only one who thinks this way. Today, I saw an article arguing a similar point. ("The War in Iraq Was the Right Mistake to Make" by Jonathan Rauch) Even if you opposed the decision to go to war, it's a good read.
Excerpts:
So it is time to admit that the war was premised on a mistake. Had I known then what I know now, I would have opposed it. Next question: Does that mean the war itself was a mistake? Yes. But it was a special kind of mistake: a justified mistake.
A policeman shoots a robber who has killed in the past and who brandishes what seems to be a gun. The gun turns out to be a cellphone. ... In the end, if [the policeman] is exonerated, it is not because he made no mistake but because his mistake was justified. Reasonable people, facing uncertainty, would have thought they saw a gun.
George W. Bush and the CIA thought they saw a gun. So did French President Jacques Chirac, who last February warned of Iraq's "probable possession of weapons of mass destruction." So did Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean....
If reasonable people thought Saddam possessed forbidden weapons, that was because Saddam sought to give the impression that he possessed them.
In general, the quality of an outcome is not logically related to the quality of a decision. Thus, to argue the present poor outcome (i.e., the apparent failure to find WMD) implies a poor decision (i.e., the decision to go to war) is a logical misstep.
Of course: one can still argue that the decision to go to war was a poor decision on its own terms. But that would be a fundamentally different argument.
I am not the only one who thinks this way. Today, I saw an article arguing a similar point. ("The War in Iraq Was the Right Mistake to Make" by Jonathan Rauch) Even if you opposed the decision to go to war, it's a good read.
Excerpts:
So it is time to admit that the war was premised on a mistake. Had I known then what I know now, I would have opposed it. Next question: Does that mean the war itself was a mistake? Yes. But it was a special kind of mistake: a justified mistake.
A policeman shoots a robber who has killed in the past and who brandishes what seems to be a gun. The gun turns out to be a cellphone. ... In the end, if [the policeman] is exonerated, it is not because he made no mistake but because his mistake was justified. Reasonable people, facing uncertainty, would have thought they saw a gun.
George W. Bush and the CIA thought they saw a gun. So did French President Jacques Chirac, who last February warned of Iraq's "probable possession of weapons of mass destruction." So did Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean....
If reasonable people thought Saddam possessed forbidden weapons, that was because Saddam sought to give the impression that he possessed them.
// 2/11/2004 
