Miscellaneous

Before returning to the posts on economics, a little "this and that."

For family members who read this: remember the tommyblog and Alex and Rebecca's new website, with a "family forum." Alex is hoping to start a family forum.

On the campaign. I am over saturated with media coverage, but still have the vague feeling that I don't have a clear picture of where each candidate stands on issues. Media seems to love controversy and will spend days "picking" at a candidate over the smallest misstep, encouraged of course by the other candidates.

On reading: My current interests are in Iraq and the economy. Finished two books during latest trip to Seattle: "The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq," by George Packer, and "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism," by Ha-Joon Chang. A few words on each.

"Assassins' Gate," was an excellent overview of the whole Iraq mess, from a reporters perspective. There are a lot of different "perspectives" on Iraq: the military perspective ("Cobra II" and "Fiasco"), the intelligence perspective ("In the Center of the Storm,' "The One Percent Doctrine" and "Imperial Hubris"), the American on the ground perspective ("My Year in Iraq" and "Imperial Life in the Emerald City"), the terrorist's perspective ("The Looming Tower"), the Iraqi perspective ("The Occupation of Iraq") and the political perspective (all three Woodward books and Buchanan's books), etc., etc. "Assassins' Gate" touches on each, but is primarily the personal story of the author, as he struggles to make some sense of it all. It's an interesting and comprehensive book, but after 465 pages, there is no final answer, due perhaps to the fact that there are so many "potential answers" from so many conflicting perspectives. It's a tough nut to crack.

For every point of view on Iraq, there is a legitimate counter-point, even if one throws out the crazy neo-con ideas, which contributed so much to our initial invasion.

My own opinion is that our response to 9/11 should have been limited to destroying those who attacked us - Al Qaeda, rather than blowing up the 9/11 event into a "War on Terror." We should have gone into Afghanistan with considerable more force than we did, destroyed Al Qaeda, including its leadership, and left. Period. At the same time, we should have made it crystal clear that our actions were in retaliation for the attack on 9/11 and that such action could be expected in response to any future attacks. Assuming responsibility for the "Afghan people," and nation-building was a commitment that far overreached our resources. [Alternatively, since Bush had decided on the nation-building course, we should have increased taxes and built an imperial military force consistent with that goal. I would not have supported such a course, but it would have made more sense than the mess we have now.]

Regarding Iraq, in my opinion, the proper course would have been to increase pressure on Hussein (much as we did) regarding U.N. inspections and then to have let them run their course, while simultaneously and diplomatically ensuring effective international sanctions. Based on what we NOW know, it is clear to me that had we taken such a course, Hussein would have probably been destroyed from within, in 3-5 years, with aid to insurgent rebels coming from his neighbors: the Saudis, the Turks, the Iranians and the Iraqi exiles, with our own covert assistance.

There is also the fact that within 24 hours of the launch of the invasion Hussein offered to leave the country, along with his family and a great deal of money, via Egypt. The rejection of his offer strikes me as similar to the beginnings of World War I, wherein the act of armed mobilization on the part of all parties concerned made last minute diplomacy impossible and made war inevitable.

While no one can be certain that Hussein's departure and the conditions of that departure could have been successfully negotiated, it seems to me that the offer was worth a delay of 24 to 48 hours to allow time for exploring the alternative to war.

In retrospect, the failure to give "peace" one last chance, has cost us 4,000+ dead, as well as coalition losses and 100,000+ Iraqi dead, and the trillions of dollars which the war and occupation may ultimately cost us. And, a negotiated end to the Hussein regime may have well held our traditional allies, calmed the "neighborhood," and put the U.S. in a better strategic position in the Middle East vis a vie Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, et al than we now have.

Such an outcome would have probably left a Baathist dictatorship of some sort in power and would probably have not avoided the subsequent insurgency (i.e. civil war), but this would have been their problem (and/or a possible international police force), not ours.

Unfortunately, our President's competency (and control) was somewhat akin to Kaiser Wilhelm's in WWI. To paraphrase Churchill, seldom have so few done so much to harm so many.

The Bush Administration's various disasters will shortly become history. The question is really not what we should have done, but what must we do now, with the next Administration?

The definition of "winning in Iraq," seems to change with the wind. There is a vast difference between leaving the country "civilly stable" and "stable in sovereignty." One may imagine the former to be accomplished in 2-3 years. The latter may require generations, in the same sense that we are still in Korea. In Korea, the on-going division between North and South geographically and politically required our continuing presence. In Iraq, the division is both geographic (in Sunni Anbar and the Kurdish semi-autonomous northern state), and religious/political (in the central and southern Shite regions).

Iraq itself is a creation of British/French map makers following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. It may be both "natural" and advantageous in terms of Western diplomacy, to allow the country to divide itself into three distinct semi-autonomous regions (which seems to be the way things are working out, independent of what we are doing). As of the moment, the removal of the Baathists and Hussein regime seems to have only reconstituted and inflamed sectarian divisions that have been a characteristic of the region for hundreds of years. Unlike Korea, Japan, and Germany, an Iraq analogy may be found closer in Northern Ireland or Bosnia.

What seems often overlooked is the truth that there is, in essence, no natural Iraqi State and that we currently are there, with 160,000 troops, to essentially hold together a British construction of Post WWI colonialism. Aside from exiles and a secular minority, in all likelihood, "self-determination" on the part of the Iraqi people would mean the willing partition of the "country."

Unlike our post WW II occupation of Germany and Japan, we are not dealing with a homogeneous people, nor with the type of complete devastation found in those countries following the war. The situation in Iraq is more of one wherein we play the role of their former conquerors, going back to the Persians, the Ottomans and/or the British; ensuring some minimal level of stability among essentially tribes based on religious affiliations intend on killing one another, as well as the "ruler" of the moment.

If this scenario is accurate, I see no reason for any long-term occupation that would be to our advantage, either in creating some sort of democratic state as a base of sanity in the region, or in terms of our own national security; a democratic state may be impractical given religious differences in the region and our national security may be better ensured by "quarantine" and containment.

Within this context, I believe a timetable for withdrawal to be in the best interests of the United States. The Iraqis have had 5+ years to "put it together" and it is becoming increasingly clear that allowing them to essentially determine their own timetable for our withdrawal is not working and may ensure only the continuing loss of American lives and dollars.

A "reasonable" withdrawal timetable will force the present Iraqi government to either put their own house in order or face civil war. "Reasonable," in this case means 2-4 years, which is roughly the same time period being offered by Obama and Clinton.

With U.S. public opinion running 2 to 1 against our continuing presence in Iraq and given that we are, theoretically still a democracy, I can see only two reasons for remaining: 1) it has to do with the Bush Doctrine of "democratizing" the world, whether they like it or not, or 2) stubbornness in not wanting to admit to a failed policy. Both of these may be misguided, but understandable, reasons for a Bush Presidency, but I'm hard pressed to understand the thinking of John McCain. McCain, to date, has offered no good reason for remaining.

The second book, "Bad Samartians: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism," was essentially a view of the world economy from the view point of the developing countries. It's author is a transplanted Korean, who is now a UK citizen and professor at Cambridge University. "The Secret History of Capitalism" part of the title is a bit overstated. It's there because he believes that the present western world's emphasis (and imposition) on free markets, free trade and laissez faire capitalism is some sort of "conspiracy" to globally enforce western dominance on the global economy. Pat Buchanan fans (of which I count myself as one, in part) will be delighted to discover, in this book, that the developing countries dislike organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization as much as they do. In fact, after reading this book, you might ask: Just who is for these organizations? The answer to that is too complicated to get into here, but what struck me about the book was how many similarities there were regarding populist arguments within the United States and the arguments of the developing countries on free trade and globalization.

At one time I worked for a Fortune 500 company. During the course of that employment, I had occasion to meet once or twice with the CEO of the company (in a group meeting), to discuss the divisional level business strategies, of which I was a part. During one such meeting, the CEO told us (the divisional level people) that what he wanted was a 10% increase in market share annually. This was back in the days when the current fad was "market share." At that time, we held 85% market share. As the guy out on the front lines trying to sell a product, this struck me as self-defeating, because given really basic rules of capitalism, dominating market share would only encourage increased competition. In other words, with that kind of market share, who among our customers would really believe our pricing? Given that my understanding of free markets was that only competition produced the best value, I foresaw actually losing business to smaller competitors that were higher priced than I was, in order for the customer to over the long haul determine true value.

So, rather than achieve a monopolistic market position, which would only encourage additional competition, my strategy was to be the low cost producer in a competitive market. And, beyond that, I believed (as a good capitalist) that a monopolistic position would also lead to internal sloppiness and inefficiencies. In sum, I welcomed competition, believing that it got the best out of both myself and the company.

It strikes me that American "globalization," has taken on many of the attitudes of my former CEO; that our present drive to "dominate" the world economically and militarily is basically counter-productive, over the long haul. "Over the long haul," is a key phrase; what I didn't realize in that meeting is that the CEO and I were at cross-purposes. At the same time, he was planning on selling the company and wanted maximize market share, not for the long term benefit of the company, but to make it an attractive "sale," via Wall Street deal makers. I have similar concerns about the "movers and shakers" of today's U.S. economy - i.e. as long as we "appear" to dominate, we'll be an attractive investment, regardless of the actual state of our assets.

I will get into this more in later posts, but present American economic globalization theory strikes me more as a perverse sort of mercantilism rather than advanced capitalism. I say "perverse" because mercantilism is associated with protectionism and tariffs; in its present perverse way, we are "eating our own" through the sale of overvalued assets, with overvalued dollars.

Finally, for today, a word on Obama's latest gaff; the "bitterness" comment referring to fundamentalist Christians, gun owners, and that loose category of Americans the elites refer to as "rednecks." Although severely criticized for the comment by both Clinton and McCain, it struck me as encouraging regarding his candidacy. I interpret the comment within the context of a general feeling of helplessness in the face of globalization and a dysfunctional government, leading to a feeling of "bitterness" about the "system" and a focus on the things that make up their daily lives. That is the key; it wasn't that they are bitter about their religion or right to own guns, but that these aspects of their lives are the only aspects over which they still feel they have control - i.e. you can take my job; you can take my house; you can open our borders; etc., etc., but don't mess with my right to own a gun or my religion...that's mine. And, if you get to that point, you are bound to be bitter, if not damn angry, about the rest.

The response was sort of: How can he say that, when we're all basically happy, thankful people, participating in the Great Democracy? For me, again, this was rather an example of how in tune Obama is with the actual mood of the majority of the country and the feeling that there is not really much difference between the parties; that there is tremondous dissatisfaction and the bitter feeling of betrayal by the "system," in the "heartland," which largely goes unnoticed by those either figuratively or mentally within the "beltway." I think if you understand this about his comment, you understand the "Obama Phenomena" and if you don't, you're on the outside looking in...or maybe on the inside, looking out.

Enough for today!