A Policy of Unremitting Force? Us?

Comment to Lew Rockwell on his artice: http://www.mises.org/story/2690

Dear Lew,

Amen.

We are supposed to believe that the wogs have always been killing each other and that we must "stay the course" to prevent civil war as we guide the heathens down the path toward civilization. Sounds pretty noble, doesn't it? We are noble if we are anything, that's for sure. But people should ask themselves how these native combatants managed to live together for six hundred years when they were part of the Ottoman Empire. Were the Turks so vicious that no one dared to step out of line? Do Iraqis now misbehave only because we are such nice guys? Could be …

Or, perhaps the troubles started when the Ottoman Empire was destroyed, dismembered and looted, from WW I to today — by us! (We? Actually, I didn't have anything to do with it and neither did you, I'm sure, Lew. But you know what I mean.)

I think the record shows that things were quite peaceful throughout the region when the Ottomans ran things in Mesopotamia, just as they were peaceful in the Balkans and also in Iberia when the Moors ran things there. Why, after Constantinople became Istanbul, the Orthodox Christian Church HQ stayed just where it had always been — in Istanbul. And the Jews lived there and in Sarajevo too. [And in Baghdad and in Cairo!] Fancy that. If that is true, then it suggests that we are the problem, not them. That ominously suggests that someone other than them is responsible for all those nasty suicide bombings we see killing the natives by the hundreds every week. Maybe it's us, or our agents. Maybe the real plan is to drive everyone out of Iraq, or kill them if they refuse to leave. It would be unthinkable to think something like that.

Of course that couldn't be true. We are the good guys, after all. Aren't we? Sure we are.

- Morley Evans

Keeping Canadians Safe

Prime Minister Steven Harper is keeping Canadians safe, he says. He just bought four C-17 Globemaster III monster airplanes from the U.S. aircraft manufacturer, Boeing. These giant transports will be used to send Canadian troops and materiel where they are needed anywhere in the world. (Has anyone wondered from where Harper got the money?)

The C-17s cost almost a billion dollars each. They will require additional money to operate and to be maintained. A trip to Afghanistan will cost a million dollars, they say. Canadian boys and girls can now go off to bludgeon the wogs to keep the subjects of the empire in line. They will no longer have to hitch a ride with the Americans. Canada now is self sufficient and independent! Well, sort of. But Canada will be "pulling its own weight" now. Canadians can be proud.

But are they making us safe? Would this money not be better spent helping people rather than harming them? Maybe there is a better way to make friends than invading some country and killing it's people. Oh, of course, they deserve what they get as we are told nightly on the news. And we are helping them too. And Boeing employees get to keep their jobs by building airplanes. And U.S. taxpayers get to help out by paying for the whole operation. Or do they?

Actually, the Chinese have been buying U.S. Treasury Bills with the dollars they have been accepting for the Chinese goods we have been buying. So the Chinese are actually paying for everything by loaning us the money to do it. See how that works? The Japanese have been doing this since 1945 when we finished bludgeoning them. Japan has magnitudes of order more U.S. debt than China.

So it isn't actually very simple to figure out who is doing what to whom — or who is responsible for what is going on. Maybe you, yourself, are responsible when you buy something made in China when you go to Wal-Mart. But then, you have no control over what Mr. Harper does, even if you voted for him. Perhaps you didn't even vote for him. And, unless you are an American, you didn't vote for Mr. Bush either, or Mr. Blair for that matter. And Mr. Blair is off organizing peace in the Middle East so we can't blame him, that's for sure.

Maybe the stories they have been telling us are true. But if you have been watching carefully, you know they are not true.

Terrorism in Minneapolis?

Bridge collapse? Terrorism in Minneapolis? We haven't heard that charge, yet. Why not? Municipal engineers have been blowing the whistle for decades. Nobody has listened to them. They are just feathering their nest it has been said. Bridges and other "infrastructure" have been aging as capacity has increased beyond design. Meanwhile the military-industrial complex has soaked up money for bombs and bullets. Of course militarists say these are required to keep everyone safe. Bridge maintenance is not as sexy as billion dollar fighter jet development programs. But how safe will those things make people as they drive to work across creaky, rotting concrete spans? (Yes, concrete rots.) Who are the terrorists? Where are the terrorists? It's time to take another look.

Justice: two versions

Yesterday, a Canadian judge rendered his verdict on Bre-X: everyone involved (who isn't dead) is exonerated, the investors, who lost billions in the massive fraud, can go whistle. That's okay here in Canada where massive theft and a possible murder get the nod in "the true north strong and free." A long vacation in Bali lies ahead for Mr. John Felderhof, former vice-chairman of Bre-X Minerals Ltd.

Today in Chicago, Judge Amy St. Eve told Mr. Conrad Black that he can go to Canada for the summer if he leaves his British passport and his travel visas with Canadian authorities at the border and if "the Lord" leaves another $40 million dollars with her. Since Black is broke because his assets have been frozen by some of the people he defrauded, he'll be spending his summer and autumn in "the land of the free." Then after sentencing in November, Mr. Black will become a tenant in the Big House where his money troubles will be over for the next 25 to 30 years, if the federal prosecutor gets his way.

It's just a matter of how white collar crime is handled in the two countries. As a victim of white collar criminals who got off scot-free over and over here in Canada, I am cheering for Amy St. Eve and Patrick Fitzgerald in the windy city. Black's Canadian cheer leading squad is free to pony up some cash to bail out their hero. But I doubt if he will see a dime. Black is not going to Bali. It's communal showers with felons of the lower classes, prison grub with them in the prison dining hall and work in the laundry for Black. I wonder if they still stamp out license plates where he's going?

I feel some satisfaction, not much, but some.