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What They've Thought
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What They Thought December 10, 2006 Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
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As you might imagine, suicide bombers are very angry people. To those of us in the West, the idea of killing oneself for the purpose of killing others, and doing so for the goal of driving them from one’s country, is utterly foreign to our moral and ethical values. It is, however, a very effective weapon of the weak. It works. The succession of suicide bombings in Iraq influenced the outcome of the recent U.S. election to the point where a majority of Americans have signaled the government that it is time, in their opinion, to leave Iraq. Prior to the 2003 “coalition” invasion, Iraq had never had a suicide terrorist attack in its history. Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, is the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” He recently had an analysis published by the Cato Institute called “What We’ve Learned Since 9/11.” Policy wonks like myself read the Cato Analysis papers to get behind and beyond the daily headlines. Pape understands the suicide bomber like few others so let me share some of his insights. “Suicide is an especially convincing signal of future intent because it suggests that the attackers could not have been deterred, and future attackers will not be, by a threat of costly retaliation.” Put aside, for the moment, the dramatic 9/11 attacks. We know that the U.S. elected to inflict a costly retaliation on the Taliban in Afghanistan. They have returned and are once again waging a guerrilla war there. Just as they originally wanted the Russians out, now it is the Americans. We did not, however, invade Iraq as the result of 9/11 although it was sold on the basis of a potential future attack on the U.S. homeland or its allies in the region. We attacked Iraq for the strategic reason that it would (1) depose a troublemaking dictator, (2) lure terrorists to a place where they could be killed, and (3) provide the U.S. with a military platform in the most important, strategic location in the Middle East. Vital to understanding the action taken, there was clearly a perceived need to protect the West’s access to Iraq’s oil reserves as well as others in the region such as that of the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates, all of them Sunnis, and all of whom feared the Saddam Hussein regime and now fear Iran’s. A relative handful of suicide bombers have successfully forced the U.S. to reevaluate its strategic goals, nor is it surprising that most attacks occur in Baghdad where they receive maximum media coverage; a media that is largely opposed to our objectives there. Since the 1980s, the West has pulled back from military engagements, ranging from Lebanon, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia where our troops were garrisoned, and other places in the Middle East. Nations such as Spain and Great Britain whose troops were allied with the U.S. also experienced terrorist bombings. “The data showed that all suicide terrorists campaigns have in common a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists value.” Like 9/11, it is not the dregs of Islamic society committing these acts. As often as not, the bombers are educated members of the middle class. They are primarily motivated by a “deep anger over Western combat forces in the Persian Gulf region and other predominantly Muslim lands.” The vast bulk of the suicide terrorists have been Saudis and this is understandable if one considers that it is the locus of Wahhabism, the most fundamentalist of Islamic sects. “If al Qaeda no longer drew recruits from the Muslim countries where there is an American combat presence, the remaining transnational network would pose a far smaller threat and might well simply collapse.” This requires one to ask the question of the value of keeping American and coalition troops in the region. Pape concludes that, “The longer this suicide terrorist campaign continues, the greater the risk of new attacks in the United States.” The coup de gras he delivers is the view that, “Spreading democracy in the Middle East is not likely to be a panacea as long as foreign combat troops remain in the region. If not for the world’s obvious interest in Persian Gulf oil, the obvious solution might well be to simply to abandon the region altogether. Complete disengagement from the Middle East, however, is not possible.” Welcome to that spot between a rock and a hard place. Benjamin Franklin famously once said that, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” We need to find that delicate balance between the protection of our interest in the flow of oil from the region and the forces competing for hegemony there. Nobody said it was going to be easy, but the failure to project our power will only create a vacuum that would swiftly be filled by Islamic extremists. Middle Eastern nations have spawned a new, very long war between each other and, so long as we play soldier in their sandbox, one directed against the West as well. If we leave, does anyone believe it will get better? |
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R.A. Hawkins is on a brief hiatus as he puts the finishing touches on one book and works on another. His columns will continue to appear here on a sporadic basis until he returns to his regular weekly writing schedule. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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My local news station recently did a piece on something called “desk rage,” which is apparently supposed to be like road rage, only at work instead of on the roads. According to the reporter, desk rage can manifest in several ways: aggression; poor productivity; abuse of sick days; stealing supplies; and irritability or depression. My problem with this report isn’t that it’s untrue. It’s that they say it like it’s a bad thing. Workers are being aggressive towards each other? Slacking off? Stealing? Abusing sick days? Great! I’ve always felt the desk job environment is unnatural—even inhuman. What this news tells me is thousands of fellow human beings believe it’s unnatural and even inhuman, too. Take poor productivity, for instance. The very tone of the phrase“poor productivity” strikes me as negative spin. When was the last time you got a new job? How much did your new employer pay you? Most companies want to pay their employees the least amount of money they’re willing to work for. This isn’t because those companies are devious cheapskates; it’s just the basic idea behind having employees. Poor productivity is the same thing in reverse. Employees are extracting the most amount of money from the least amount of work. This is a bad thing? Why? The time and energy you save just from being inefficient are like money in the bank. After all, time is money. Wise employees turn a profit by paying themselves in time. Then there’s abuse of sick days. Who’s really abusing sick days here? Some companies are quite generous with their sick day policies. Others offer employees as little as five or fewer sick days per year. Both of these situations are equally ridiculous, because both are based on the flimsy idea that you can guess ahead of time how many days out of 365 you’ll be sick. Since sick days are paid days off, you’d be a sucker for letting those days run out at the end of the year. Companies shouldn’t staff themselves with suckers. They should staff themselves with people who call out sick even when they aren’t. Anytime you use a sick day, you’re basically saying, “Hey! This is why you hired me.” Finally, this brings me to stealing supplies. I can’t endorse embezzlement or skimming a bit off the top of petty cash here. But if we’re talking about little more than paperclips, ballpoint pens, and Post-It Notes, where’s the problem? The real workplace thievery takes place when you get a bonus check and find fully half of your earnings taken out for taxes. Maybe that bonus was your paper clip money, but you can’t afford paperclips because of taxes now. What are you supposed to do—continue living a paperclip-less existence? Wouldn’t that in some way be bad for the economy? The way I figure, there are two kinds of people who end up holding desk jobs. The kind who want to hold desk jobs, and the kind who hold desk jobs because holding desk jobs is what people in their social class are supposed to do. The second group outnumbers the first by roughly the same margin as bosses outnumber employees. This is why most people work 9-to-5 jobs that in no way, shape, or form resemble what they want to get out of life. And this is why repressive work environments turn ordinarily fun, happy people into aggressive, irritable, and possibly depressed white collar workers. The only way to survive this world is to make the most of it. And the only way to make the most of it is to make it work for you. Anything less would be unnatural. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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The financial press reported last week that the value of the U.S. dollar plummeted to a 14-year low against the British pound, and weakened against the Euro and Yen. Many financial analysts predict continued rough times for the dollar in 2007, given reduced expectations for economic growth at home and less enthusiasm among foreign central banks for holding U.S. debt. This decline in the value of the dollar is simple to explain. The dollar loses value as the direct result of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury increasing the money supply. Inflation, as the late Milton Friedman explained, is always a monetary phenomenon. The federal government consistently wants to spend more than it can tax and borrow, so Congress turns to the Fed for help in covering the difference. The result is more dollars, both real and electronic-- which means the value of every existing dollar goes down. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faces two basic ongoing choices: raise interest rates to prop up the dollar, but risk pushing the economy into a recession; or lower interest rates to stimulate the economy, but risk further declines in the dollar. This unfortunate dilemma is inherent with a fiat currency, however. Of course Mr. Bernanke inherited this tightrope act from his predecessor Alan Greenspan. The Federal Reserve did two things to artificially expand the economy during the Greenspan era. First, it relentlessly lowered interest rates whenever growth slowed. Interest rates should be set by the free market, with the availability of savings determining the cost of borrowing money. In a healthy market economy, more savings equals lower interest rates. When savings rates are low, capital dries up and the cost of borrowing increases. However, when the Fed sets interest rates artificially low, the cost of borrowing becomes cheap. Individuals incur greater amounts of debt, while businesses overextend themselves and grow without real gains in productivity. The bubble bursts quickly once the credit dries up and the bills cannot be paid. Second, the Fed steadily increased the monetary supply throughout the 1990s by printing money. Recent Fed numbers show double-digit annual increases in the M2 money supply. These new dollars may make Americans feel richer, but the net result of monetary inflation has to be the devaluation of savings and purchasing power. The precipitous drop in the dollar shows how investors around the globe are very concerned about American deficits and debt. When government policies in a fiat system are the sole measure of a currency’s worth, the currency markets act as a reliable barometer of how those policies are viewed around the world. Politicians often manage to fool voters and the media, but they rarely fool the financial markets over time. When investors lack faith in the U.S. dollar, they really lack faith in the economic policies of the U.S. government. Rep. Ron Paul Web Site Back to Top |
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No column this week. Nancy
Salvato
Web Site Contact
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©2004-2006 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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