Richard Clarke On Iraq and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

Speaking of Clarke's recent TNR piece, I was puzzled by, among other things, his characterization of anti-withdrawal arguments as committing the sunk cost fallacy.

He writes:

"Too often in the Iraq debate, we have let intuition, slogans, and appealing thoughts cloud logic. Perhaps the most troublesome example is the argument that we must honor the American dead by staying until we can build something worthy of their sacrifice. Stripped of its emotional tones, this argument is, in economic analysis, an appeal to sunk cost. An MIT professor once promised to fail me if I ever justified actions based on sunk cost--so I learned that what is gone is gone, and what is left we should conserve, cherish, and employ wisely."

I've got a passing interest in sunk costs, and I don't think it's any secret that you can sometimes use the sunk cost fallacy to trick yourself into doing things you ought to be doing anyway. But that's not what I want to discuss.

But I have two questions here:

1. Is anybody really (overtly or covertly) appealing to sunk costs in this discussion? I don't remember anyone doing so, but, of course, I only read a tiny fraction of what's out there.

and

2. Is it really always fallacious to appeal to sunk "costs" in a situation of this kind? After all, the costs we're talking about here are human lives.

Suppose, for example, that we knew for certain that, except for any good that might be associated with remembering or revering the dead, or to conferring meaning on their deaths, the world will be exactly as good/bad whether we stay in Iraq or leave. In such a case, would it make sense to stay with a mind to finishing the job in order to prevent the dead from having died in vain?

A 'yes' answer here in no way seems irrational to me.

Though it's not clear that this is really an appeal to sunk costs, anyway.

One might respond that what determines whether someone dies in vain is not their actual accomplishments, but their intentions, in which case the outcome in Iraq won't matter in that respect.

Actually, I think that the concept of dying in vain is kind of complicated...

It's hard to discuss it, of course, without remembering the right's nefarious use of the concept to trick people into maintaining support for the war. Their little strategy went like this:

First, start an unnecessary and possibly unjust war. Then, when others point out that the war is unnecessary and unjust, respond by saying "Oh, so YOU think that our brave boys have DIED IN VAIN!" It's weird, but this rhetorical trick almost always seemed to work. Seems to me that the best response is something like: "Well, IF they died in vain, it's the people who started the unnecessary war who are responsible for that, not the people who point out that it was unnecessary."

Have you noticed how I've started rambling lately?

Why, just the other day when I was getting a hamburger at Five Guys...Oh, man, those are good hamburgers...