I don’t agree with your classification scheme, although I understand the need for simplicity. On the WMD issue, there is also a group of people, limited to those of us who follow things closely, who think that the WMD estimates were badly flawed, and pretty exaggerated, but that Saddam probably still had small quantities because (a) much effort was taken in moving materials of some sort across the border, along with the fact that most of the WMD scientists have vanished into thin air, and (b) small quantities of chemical weapons have shown up, once used against U.S. troops (although they could have come from Syria).

That being the case, Bush should have freely admitted that Saddam wasn’t near having nukes, and that he didn’t have this ongoing WMD production plants the CIA claimed he did. I don’t think that requires an apology per se, but where the intel was wrong, admit that it was wrong, and move on. But he should have done that a while back, now would be a little late.

At the same time, I believe the administration should be more aggressive with regard to its critics on the terrorism issue. The evidence is as stong now as ever that Saddam was cultivating Islamist terror groups, and al-Qaeda is included in that. They never claimed that Iraq was involved in 9/11 (although Syria may have aided the Hamburg cell), so the lack of any tie to that operation is irrelevant. Given that Iraq clearly maintained the capability to produce biological and chemical weapons, its relationship with terrorist groups was a legitimate point to raise. And it should be raised more often.

Without getting into the mathematics, I have the same problem with this as I have with my own work: mathematics is a crutch. We are not built to think mathematically, and too often the mind shuts off when confronted with numbers.

More specifically…

The best outcome is an improved correlation of forces. M and R only make sense in that context. M, R, etc seem to be assigned values out of some moral worth. The post discusses payoffs, but a qualityless (semantically meaningless) act (“making a mistake,” “accepting responsibility”) never has any payoff; that act only generates heat when it produces friction against a sea of other entities.

The real work comes from calculating potential friction in a complex environment, which is pseudo-Bayesian / magical, not from rationalist arithematic.

Quantitative analysis does have a place in research—Edwards’ and Hibbing’s groundbreaking works, for example—but not so much in decision making. Methodological Struggle went out with the Marginot Line.

Excellent post, btw—great for discussion! :)

You’re on the right track but let me make a counter-offer. :-) Bush should “pre-emptively strike” his detractors by appologizing, resigning and going to jail for a very long time.

As far as I know, criminals don’t pay for their crimes with an “I’m sorry!”, but with hard time. If I were to steal a loaf of bread in the US, would I get off with an “I’m sorry!”? Should a man individually responsible for a lot more?

The legal double-standard for the political class must end! If I was wiretapping an organization, I’d go to jail or pay a huge settlement, at least. When Nixon did it, he just had to resign. There’s “justice” for you.

The ancient Chinese Thinker Hanfeizi talks a lot about how to stay in power and how to advise someone in power.

Yes, I’d say George Bush is definitely following the path of Han Feizi and the Legalists, who insisted on fear rather than humanity or virtue as the foundation for government. Their system was put into practice perfectly by the Qin Emperor, who buried scholars alive, banned all scholarly books and built the Great Wall with a gigantic slave army.

Bush is certainly not following Mencius, who stressed the need to provide for the people and always act with virtue.

Unfortunately, it is not just Western martial arts afficcianados like Scott who embraced Han Feizi, and cast aside the traditional Confucianist focus on virtue rather than power. Mao Zedong, and George Bush to a lesser extent, showed how much power was to be had by being ruthless and conniving. It must be great fun to have your nation pay the price for your experiments in political philosophy.

Lots of interesting comments. I admit this is a simplification, and might not make any sense to someone who isn’t familiar with game theory.

First of all let me clarify my idea of “apology.” I think Kirk said it best:

Bush should have freely admitted that Saddam wasn’t near having nukes, and that he didn’t have this ongoing WMD production plants the CIA claimed he did. I don’t think that requires an apology per se, but where the intel was wrong, admit that it was wrong, and move on. But he should have done that a while back, now would be a little late.

The intelligence wasn’t wrong. It was unclear and dated. But they took a gamble. This is what the apology is for. And yes, it is too late to do it now (thought maybe coupled with the speech last night…)

Second, to answer Curzon’s question:

First, why is not making a mistake and not taking responsibility the best outcome?

Actually, the best outcome is Not making a mistake and TAKING responsibility. In other words, you do something good and take responsibility for it.

Dan says:

M, R, etc seem to be assigned values out of some moral worth.

Yes, that is the assignment of numbers. And like I said, you don’t have to agree with me. That is why I ran the game using two different sets of numbers, to account for moral sensitivity. The interesting thing is that the results were identical.

Kelvin criticizes:

The game goes something like this: I am about to do something tomorrow and I have to decide today on whether to give a press conference tomorrow on whether I goofed. That’s not the way the world works.

This is called “What if?” analysis and it is used all the time, before deciding on all kinds of policies. If I am going to make a decision based on something, I should always ask “What if I am wrong? What do I do then?” You should have a backdoor plan.

Gabriel, Bush could resign but he couldn’t go to jail since he didn’t commit any crime. I don’t think he has to resign. A strategic “fireside chat” apology for foaming at the mouth over WMD coupled a review of the other arguments for going into Iraq backed up with evidence we have found (and there is lots) could pay off politically. Bush is revered as being a straight talker with values. I think this would have a big payoff for him. Like I said, he differs with Carter in that he is not looking for re-election.

The only negative effect I can see (and it is a big one) is that the high-ups in his administration (Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney) would be blackballed since they were part of the decision-making process and have a future in other US administrations. Maybe he is protecting the others?

Gabe, I am not advocating he apologize for the war. I think a strong case could be made that (a) doesn’t apply at all, though Guantamo sure makes (b) hard to refute.

I expect comparing the Bush Administration to the Third Reich will generate some commentary from those far more knowledgeable than I…

Gabe’s analysis is amazingly fact-free with regard to international law issues. Even assuming that the WMD claims were 100% wrong, as to the legal issues:

1) The U.S. and Iraq were technically at war when Bush came into office, because not only were we shooting at each other, but Iraq violated the terms of the 1991 armistice, and

2) the Geneva Convetion makes a clear distinction between legal soldiers who are prisoners of war (i.e. members of Iraq’s regular army), and terrorists and others who don’t follow the convention’s rules about wearing uniforms, separating themselves from civilians, etcetera. The former get Geneva treatment, the latter get Gitmo or some equivalent. Although there have been instances of Geneva violations in both Iraq (i.e. Abu Graib) and Afghanistan, there is no evidence Bush ordered those violations.

Yeah, Han Fei-Tsu talked a lot about exporting economic and political freedom”¦.

/sarcasm

Well, you got me there. However, Han Fei-Tsu did go on at length about the need to maintain order and security by crushing freedom.

Yes, I would, but no Bush has ever been wrong. It seems to run in the genes. I would expect that in any such speech, he would admit that mistakes were made, and that some of those could be laid to his door, while others could be laid to Rumsfeld’s. At the same time, I would expect a steely-eyed “that said, we have cogent interests in Iraq that demand we stay the course.” In short, something akin to Pericles speech to the Athenians during the Peloponesian War. (Kaplan probably knows it by heart. It runs something like … we may not have asked for this empire, but for our own good, we must now defend it…) We can, but certainly must, iron out the Constitutional matters later. On an unrelated note, several stories in the press suggest that we now have a Chairman of the JCS worthy of his stars. We appear to have found a Brasidius (OK, wrong side), now we need to find a Pericles.

Dan tdaxp: LOL, I guess that means I should stay away from that new US base they’re building in Romania!

lirelou: No. It’s true. They’re builing an US base in Romania. It was temporary during the land campaign in Iraq (it was used for air transit) and now they’re making it permanent. Regarding the secret prisons scandals and the suggestion that Romania had one, I can’t comment since I don’t know more than you do. I wouldn’t consider it outside the realm of possibility, seeing how my government likes the US government, etc.

Gabriel, I apologize for trivializing your concern. And as a Romanian, you have every right to view any foreign military presence in your country with a jaundiced eye. But note just how quickly U.S. forces can be sent packing. All it takes is the host nation authorities saying: “Go.” But I do think you may be reading too much into it. Sonagi, are you referring to the tank firing incident? If so, I would have to heartily disagree that it was intentionally meant to kill an Al-Jazeera cameraman. Tank guns are not exactly a point weapon, and tank commanders lack the radio link-up with higher level commands that such an operation would entail.

I guess the original reason I tried to bring Hanfeizi into the conversation is that in ancient China there was an ideal of having a single leader at the center. Our ideal is broad political participation by informed citizens.
Hanfeizi said that you know you are in power when no one else knows your true thoughts—you have no intimates and when you don’t have to say thankyou or “I’m sorry.”
By apologizing to us citizens, Bush points to the American people as the true rulers. Perhaps he did need to say he was sorry, but we never need to say we’re sorry—and secret ballots allow us the possibility of having no one know what we are actually thinking.
I remember how offended I was when Clinton apologized on behalf of all Americans for Slavery, what a jerk.