I hate Michael Moore for making me defend Bush.
I hate Bush for making me defend Michael Moore.
I hate Bush for making me root for Democrats.
I hate Kerry for making me agree with Ralph Nader.
And Edwards. I hate Edwards, too. Mostly because I can’t stand his corny face. And because of his creepy Israel obsession.
I hate the US Military for making me support Islamic fanatics.
I hate Islamic fanatics for making me support Iraq’s newest jackboots.
And I hate Bush again for making me support Saddam!
Tag: Antiwar movement
Guns, Oil, and Neocolonialism
Henry Hazlitt famously (Well, it’s famous in some circles) wrote that: “The art of economics consists of looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
This is not as easy as it might seem. The consistent popularity of erroneous economic beliefs and narrow, short-term perspectives seems to indicate an incongruity between a global economy and brains designed for a world of competing hunter-gatherer tribes. If Tribe A lived in a grove of apple trees and Tribe B killed them, the quantity of wealth (apples) remained about the same. But this method doesn’t work with a software design firm.
I’ve previously posted a paragraph by Francis Fukuyama describing the economics behind the decline of colonialism since the industrial revolution: as the percentage of wealth consisting of raw materials decreases, so decreases the benefits of military conquest. (Fukuyama’s final sentences refer to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but they may remind us of another situation: “of course, control over certain natural resources like oil confers potentially great economic benefits. The consequences of this invasion, however, are not likely to make this method of securing resources seem attractive in the future. Given the fact that access to those same resources can be obtained peacefully through a global system of free trade, war makes much less economic sense than it did two or three hundred years ago.”)
This post–Industrial Revolution phenomenon might be part of an ongoing process. From Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond:
…Wars, or threats of war, have played a key role in most, if not all, amalgamations of societies. But wars, even between mere bands, have been a constant fact of human history. Why is it, then, that they evidently began causing amalgamations of societies only within the past 13,000 years? We had already concluded that the formation of complex societies is somehow linked to population pressure, so we should now seek a link between population pressure and the outcome of war. Why should wars tend to cause amalgamations of societies when populations are dense but not when they are sparse? The answer is that the fate of defeated peoples depends on population density, with three possible outcomes:
Where population densities are very low, as is usual in regions occupied by hunter-gatherer bands, survivors of a defeated group need only move farther away from their enemies. That tends to be the result of wars between nomadic bands in New Guinea and the Amazon.
Where population densities are moderate, as in regions occupied by food-producing tribes, no large vacant areas remain to which survivors of a defeated band can flee. But tribal societies without intensive food production have no employment for slaves and do not produce large enough food surpluses to be able to yield much tribute. Hence the victors have no use for survivors of a defeated tribe, unless to take the women in marriage. The defeated men are killed, and their territory may be occupied by the victors.
Where population densities are high, as in regions occupied by states or chiefdoms, the defeated still have nowhere to flee, but the victors now have two options for exploiting them while leaving them alive. Because chiefdoms and state societies have economic specialization, the defeated can be used as slaves, as commonly happened in biblical times. Alternatively, because many such societies have intensive food production systems capable of yielding large surpluses, the victors can leave the defeated in place but deprive them of political autonomy, make them pay regular tribute in food or goods, and amalgamate their society into the victorious state or chiefdom. This has been the usual outcome of battles associated with the founding of states or empires throughout recorded history.
Bush: No WMD Stockpiles
In a speech typical of the kindergarten rhetoric, Jacobin black/white good vs. evil simplistic worldview and bad logic we’ve come to expect from Bush and his court jesters and sycophants, King George served up the same lame justifications for his murderous romp through Iraq, even while making an evasive and weak admission that his casus belli was um….still missing….
“Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq,” Bush said.
Disingenuous to the end, every statement has to be hedged about with sneaky qualifications and larded with euphemisms. “We have not found stockpiles….,” he says, even though they’ve found absolutely squat. “Go into” Iraq is such a nice way to say kill around 13,000 Iraqis and destroy the place in pursuit of a delusion.And, why was he right to “go into” Iraq?
“We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take,” Bush said.
Had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder. WMMs? What’s a weapon of mass murder? A gun? A tank? Jim Jones’ grape Kool-Aid? Notice he admits that there were no so-called WMD and then morphs the argument into WMM. The entire sentence is a lie because anything can be used for mass murder. In Darfur, right now, militiamen armed with swords and rifles and mounted on camels and horses are doing a fine job of mass murdering entire villages.
“…could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them.” Could have? Is there any state in existence that couldn’t have? Is there any evidence at all of Iraqi connections to terrorist attacks on the US? No, there is not, but you won’t learn that in a Dubyanocchio speech.
Saddam refused to open his country to inspections, Bush said.
Oh, right, no one knows about Hans Blix or anything. Does Bush really think everyone has Alzheimer’s or what? The US had to tell the inspectors to leave Iraq before they got bombed along with all the Iraqis doomed to die in the US invasion.
“So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman or defend America. Given that choice I will defend America.”
A classic logical fallacy called the False Dilemma. How about instead, we say: “….either take the word of a madman or defend America OR admit that diplomacy and ongoing inspections were better, less costly and bloody options that had worked well for the past ten years and give up the exciting, glorious thrill of being a War President and the, as it turns out, delusionary notion of remaking the Middle East.” Yeah. That’s better.
Disastrous Milosevic Trial
LewRockwell.com is running an article by John Laughland, from the UK Spectator, regarding the disastrous attempt to prosecute Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague. Milosevic is defending himself, and doing a splendid job. Now that Milosevic’s defence is about to begin, the judges are trying to force Milosevic to accept a lawyer, which Laughland interprets as an attempt to weaken his position:
“the intention here is to weaken his defence by requiring him to be represented by a lawyer who knows the issues far less well than he does.”
The article’s key phrase:
“The realisation is now dawning that lies were peddled to justify the Kosovo war just as earnestly as they were to justify the attack on Iraq.”
No kidding. Antiwar.com has been saying that for how many years now?
Amnesty for Atrocious Acts
Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawer said his government will soon offer an amnesty to those who have fought against the U.S.-led coalition, a British newspaper reported Monday.
“We are offering an amnesty definitely, for people who have not committed too many atrocious acts,” al-Yawer was quoted as telling The Financial Times. “Everybody except murderers, rapists and kidnappers.”
Too many atrocious acts? I wonder how many are OK?