<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV> <DIV>Brad was quoted as saying:</DIV> <DIV><BR>>As you recall, I am taking a mental health break in order to avoid<BR>>having engraved upon my soul the conclusion that the global left are<BR>>a bunch of malignant fucks who are so afflicted with Nietzschean<BR>>ressentiment that they have lost every clue to the idea that they are<BR>>supposed to be trying to build Utopia.<BR>><BR>>I am reading _National Review_, the _Weekly Standard_, and the _New<BR>>Republic_--and they are very effective indeed at pushing one back to<BR>>the left...<BR>><BR>>I think that what the global left is trying to say (when they aren't<BR>>being malignant fucks... Nietzschean ressentiment... lost every<BR>>clue...) is that force "administered" by the current U.S.<BR>>administration and military is unlikely to make matters better, and<BR>>that 1/10 of the energy devoted to bombing goatherds in Afghanistan<BR>>would achieve much more in the way of positive anti-terrorist results<BR>>if devot! ed to making the Saudi princes behave like a proper client<BR>>state. I think that they are wrong in this--that the Saudi princes do<BR>>not behave like a proper client state because they do not have to,<BR>>for they have the oil and we depend on it--but it is, at least, an<BR>>argument...<BR></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Ahhh, those dulcet tones!  How I missed them (really, I did!).  Brad DeLong: LBO's own Velvet Fog!  Got a bit of a point, though, assuming the princes mght not get toppled by some sort of internal opposition if the U.S. were to cut all ties to them.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>!{)></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Todd</DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></html>