Hitch gloats (like a fool)

Seth Ackerman sia at nyc.rr.com
Thu Nov 15 11:38:59 PST 2001


Brad Delong wrote:


> >What's your evaluation of the war? You've been away a long time;
> >bring us up to date.
> >
> >Doug
>
> Look:
. Brad, I read your website piece on the parallels between the Christian and Islamic reformations and I thought it was incredibly perceptive. I had exactly the same thought when I read Mahmoun Fandy's book on the politics of dissent in Saudi Arabia.

He describes all these underground ultra-fundamentalist Saudi dissidents and analyzes their sermons and political tracts and they are amazingly similar to the weird underground English religious dissidents from the Civil War era -- diggers, ranters, etc. -- all with these bizarre theological ideas and conspiracy theories about the local political scene.

Having said that...


> The only thing I would disagree with is (4): that on balance it seems
> to me that the situations in Bosnia, in Serbia, and in the Persian
> Gulf are considerably better than if the U.S. had not intervened
> against Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
. ...you've seen the UNICEF, WHO reports, etc. about the apocalyptic rise in child and maternal mortality, malnutrition, water-borne illnesses, educational breakdown and social dislocation in Iraq. As a rare economist who gives weight to such indices, how can you say the situation in the Persian Gulf is better now than if the war and embargo hadn't happened?

Seth



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