Key to the Whole Business: FOOL'S ERRAND by Scott Norton

By C. Edward Kelso

Cold Warriors in the mid 20th century were increasingly bellicose, ramping up their respective attacks, chiding and itching for heat.

Economist and philosopher Murray Rothbard fumbled through dark nights of the soul, wrestling famously with an attempt to bridge his nascent libertarianism with his ever-radical leanings.

Troubled by what he saw as an all-consuming cancer on the American Right in the 1950s (his incessant reading and digging brought him affection for what he’d call the Old Right and their conviction of non-intervention), Mr. Rothbard attempted to slide seditious columns and reviews in their magazines, especially William F. Buckley’s National Review.

Mr. Rothbard was successful on most occasions, making National Review much more readable. However, he was shedding his attachments to state solutions, be they economic or military. That position is radical now, and readers can imagine reception given Mr. Rothbard in 1956 when his proposed National Review article, tame for him, argued for mutual disarmament on nationalistic grounds, hoping to save the United States from certain disaster.

Mr. Buckley politely declined, and Mr. Rothbard took to personal correspondence, working out just what about martiality and soldiering captured this new, ascending American Right. He mused,

"...The thing is that I am getting more and more convinced that the war-peace question is the key to the whole libertarian business …."

These words have enlivened countless liberty-minded folks, long after his death, to carve a vibrant and new approach to governance. In fact, war and peace are arguably the uniting forces of libertarians and fellow travelers.

Social issues fracture, and dry economic discussions can sour zealous converts, but the war-peace question brings all factions together like no other libertarian proposition.

OUR NOAM CHOMSKY

It’s safe to type Murray Rothbard would be amused his heir in this regard was equally influenced by a confessed former John Bircher, noise rap pioneer Public Enemy, and comedian George Carlin.

Scott Horton, within this spectrum then, is liberty’s uniting voice. Paleos seek him out. Left-leaning cosmopolitans source him frequently. He’s a go-to guest on a philosophically wide ranging amount of podcasts and YouTube channels. Mr. Horton is our Noam Chomsky cum Murray Rothbard, a courageous and learned liberty representative we can offer to an outside interventionist globe.

Mr. Horton is best known for hosting his radio program, The Scott Horton Show. It’s a breathtaking amount of work, sourcing heavy hitters from all over the world regarding war and peace. The archive boasts many thousands of interviews, exploring, in depth, the names and geographies and players and politics of lands most Americans cannot pronounce much less offer literate commentary. Scott Horton does all the lifting for us, and to not utilize his treasure chest of documentation is to court genuine ignorance.

My own ignorance of Mr. Horton’s actual writing suddenly dawned on me as I began reading his newly published book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan (The Libertarian Institute, 2017). I’d never actually read Mr. Horton. He’s a literal voice in my head, one I consult frequently on foreign policy matters, but I’ve not had reason to encounter his prose.

Fool’s Errand, Mr. Horton’s first book length attempt, is a densely jammed five chapters of unrelenting assault on the United States’ foray into Afghanistan. He describes the process of writing as similar to that of his way of speaking: he just gets going and cannot stop.

Originally thought of as a cafeteria critique of the many places modern US military adventurism has sprouted and sustained, Mr. Horton began to write his book’s second chapter on Afghanistan. Over one hundred thousand words later, chapter two is finally finished.

FUNDAMENTAL MACHINATIONS OF STATE POWER

And if a three hundred page book on Afghanistan seems a wee genre specific for your taste, it’s important for me to emphasize Mr. Horton’s analysis reaches far enough to explore fundamental machinations of state power. It really is a book you’ll not be able to put down, and in the few days that I’ve had it I’ve referenced it at least a dozen times.

The liberty inclined will appreciate nods to the Austrian dean, von Mises, and, of course, Rothbard, but Mr. Horton’s page by page, line by agonizing line, footnoting assures scrupulous readers he is towing exactly no party line. His arguments are pulled from objective fact and publically available records, and, perhaps more importantly, primary source documents.

The book begins with an overview of the wider Muslim world, street and leadership and warlords. That setting of the cultural topography goes a long way toward helping readers understand his devastating critique of the usual bromides for invasion into Southwest Asia: Muslims are jealous of our tacos and Nikes; Muslims are taught to irrationally hate; Muslims are all religious fanatics just waiting to uncoil and destroy the United States.

One at a time, Mr. Horton dismantles each murder-inspiring cliche, heroically asking the reader to stretch her mind and follow the evidence rather than politically charged emotion. He’s even brave enough to take on the suicide bomber phenomenon, carefully citing a definitive study on just why it is some have chosen the grim route of self immolation as political expression.

From there, Fool’s Errand follows the sad chronology of the US’s longest war, including propping up several failed governments, tribal loyalties ignored by US planners, and ever-changing rationales for why the US and its allies invaded and remain.

No administration or political party is spared of their share of promoting the disaster that is American Afghanistan, and Mr. Horton scolds the normally thought-of dovish Obama administration’s pulling back and then upping troop levels, throwing countless lives into chaos.

EERIE TIMING

Literal hours after Scott Horton’s book debuted on Amazon, mainstream news outlets began the trial balloon leaking of a coming policy on the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan by the present presidential administration.

As I finalized this review, President Trump aped words of the main generals, McMaster and Mattis, who Mr. Horton credits as perennial hawks looking to keep kicking the losing can down the road for hosts of reasons, much of them strategic. I don’t think it’s careless to type Mr. Horton held a small glimmer of hope Mr. Trump would at the very least lower troop levels.

That, of course, is not the case.

The United States now enters its sixteenth year in Afghanistan with an administration run by the military. Mr. Trump eschewed nation building and the scoundrel’s excuse of schools for girls, loosening the rules of engagement, as reasons why the US stays. Mr. Trump also refused a timeline, insisting this was a kind of comfort to the enemy. In other words, regardless of your thoughts on military engagement strategy, there are no markers for success or failure. This is a bar US military apparatchiks have dreamed would be set for generations. They now have their war completely to themselves, free from real scrutiny.

This means Scott Horton’s Fool’s Errand has arrived at exactly the right time. It is written to Americans, and his continual use of pronouns like ‘our’ and ‘we’ stunned me in the beginning. But over time I began to soften because I’ve listened to so many of his broadcasts (he’s fond of colloquialisms such as ‘y’all’).

People who vote need to be talked to directly, written to directly, and so maybe this stylistic manner is ultimately correct. It is the subtle language of politicians Mr. Horton appears to be summoning.

Whatever the case, Fool’s Errand is the most important book on foreign policy published this century. I understand that can read hyperbolic, but it is beyond true. It should be a mandatory text adopted in every college course surveying US involvement in the Middle East, and it should be on every liberty lover’s bookshelf.

Murray Rothbard’s 1956 self might be tickled to know over sixty years later an overtly libertarian thinker is once again championing Rothbardian keys to the whole business.

C. Edward Kelso is the author of the forthcoming The Market Anarchist: Do not let the hero in your soul perish, due Fall of 2018. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.