War Politics Without Romance

I found this essay: “Public Choice: Politics Without Romance,” by James M. Buchanan, on the excellent (though pro-imperialism-tending) aldaily.com website.

“Armed with nothing more than the rudimentary insights from public choice, persons could understand why, once established, bureaucracies tend to grow apparently without limit and without connection to initially promised functions. They could understand why pork-barrel politics dominated the attention of legislators; why there seems to be a direct relationship between the overall size of government and the investment in efforts to secure special concessions from government (rent seeking); why the tax system is described by the increasing number of special credits, exemptions, and loopholes; why balanced budgets are so hard to secure; and why strategically placed industries secure tariff protection.”

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“There’s stuff that I’ve only seen in museums, in books or on the Internet,” said Sgt. 1st Class Nelson Castro, the 3-16th’s master gunner. “Most of this stuff is in fairly good shape.”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18397

Show Me the Hate Mail

Jonah Goldberg posted an extremely suspect bit of hate mail on the Corner today. I’m not sure what this (possibly made-up) rant is supposed to demonstrate–that everyone who opposed the war is a psychotic anti-Semite?– but I find it difficult to believe that Jonah “got quite a few [letters] like” the one posted, especially over this snoozer. Show us the hate mail, Jonah. If you want to be an object of pity (and frankly, I think that would be a good career move for you), then give us something to work with.

Nukes + Military Aggression = Proliferation

According to Albert R. Hunt, writing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (“It’s a Real War and It’s Not Going Well”), “Rather than an incentive to cooperate, the effect of the Bush pre-emptive doctrine on Iran and North Korea, the other members of the infamous axis of evil, clearly has been to expedite accumulation of weapons of mass destruction.”

And that ain’t all.

Eugene A. Matthews writes about “

Silber Strikes Gold

Arthur Silber sees two options for Iraq policy: we can spend decades and billions in a futile attempt to turn Iraq into Switzerland (as the brilliant Jonah Goldberg once suggested),

Or we can simply leave as quickly as possible — which means that Iraq is likely to become what it was not before our invasion and occupation: a state which serves as headquarters for those who wish to destroy us, and which is genuinely and in fact a grave threat to us. Which, I repeat, it was not before. That obviously is not a very good idea, either. So the only way out that I see at this point, which admittedly is not a good “solution” at all, is to bring the international community into a much more active role in rebuilding Iraq, and as quickly as possible. (That would mean, among other things, that we cease demanding that others pay for the reconstruction efforts, while maintaining almost all control ourselves.) That would serve several ends: it would lessen the financial burden on the United States; it would defuse at least some of the enmity currently directed toward us; and it might save some American and Iraqi lives. Not a good solution in my view, but markedly better than the others.

But there is one tactic the hawks ought to give up at this point. They should stop saying, as one of the commenters to my earlier post did, that none of those who opposed the war with Iraq are offering “constructive” proposals at this point. This is remarkably offensive for several reasons. First, it wasn’t the opponents’ policies that created this horrible dilemma. It was the hawks’ policies. They are responsible for this nightmare, and no one else. They shouldn’t expect — and often demand — others to offer solutions to the daunting problems that their policies have created. Where is the justice in that? Or even the common sense? They got us all here; they ought to show some intellectual responsibility and creativity of their own, and get us out.

Not to hog the spotlight, but I said pretty much the same thing here and here. At any rate, tell ’em, Arthur.

(Got this link from Liberty & Power.)