Second, Bina seems to me to pose a false alternative: either it's oil or its power and prestige/need to set an example. Rather it is evidently both. The choice of the country to use to set the example is dictated by economic and strategic considerations as wella s political convenience. The US hasn't chosen to swat Sierra Leone because S.L. isn't sitting on the world's largest relatively untapped oil reserves and isn't strategically locateda t the intersection of three continents.
Moreover, "oil" isn't shorthand for "lowering oil prices here in the US." I agree that isn't particularly a priority. But oil matters very much. It's a strategic resource that powers the world economy. It offers the prospect of megaprofits for energy firms. Control over Iraq's oil would out the US's thumb on Europe and Japan's cartoid artery -- they need Middle Eastern oil on a way way we don't. So oil is crucial here.
The long and short of it is that it's not hard to see what is going on. The motives are power, oil, and bases, not necessarily in that order. You don't need to be an economist to figure this one.
jks
--- Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed 19 Feb 2003, Reed Tryte wrote:
>
> > > I think he exaggerates U.S. economic decline,
> but that's my particular
> > > bete noir.
> >
> > Can you elaborate on this? Aren't the US trade
> deficit and general
> > economic decline eventually going to put some real
> limits on our empire?
>
> I don't think Bina would argue with that (and
> neither would I).
>
> But the way Bina gets there is weird, IMHO. After
> dismissing the idea that
> the war is about lowering the price of oil (with
> which I agree), he still
> wants to see it as immediately motivated by a desire
> to increase the
> profit rate. And since he's just argued that
> doesn't make sense, he
> decides that it must spring from the US's pure
> economic desparation, as if
> it were lashing about wildly in its death throes.
>
> There's at least two problems with this idea. One
> is that, relative to
> its competitors, the US isn't doing badly. It's
> remarkable how long the
> US has been stumbling only to be propped up by
> Europe and Japan's talent
> for doing worse.
>
> But in the second place, insofar as the US does have
> huge macroeconomic
> imbalances that could endanger its wellbeing in a
> big way in the near
> future, all evidence indicates that the people who
> are bringing us this
> war are completely oblivious. Such weakness doesn't
> enter into their
> thinking in the slightest. Quite the contrary.
>
> Rather theirs seems to be aggressive strategy based
> on maximizing our
> strategic advantages. The US is arguably more
> dominant militarily right
> now than any country has been in human history. And
> there is a very good
> case to be made that in 25 years time this will
> still be true, which is
> even more remarkable.
>
> So the Bushits want somehow to make that advantage
> pay. They want to
> remove the lilliputian cords that bind us and make
> the world face the cold
> hard truth that there is nothing it can do to stop
> us and it had best stop
> trying.
>
> They are sure that somehow this will work to our
> advantage.
>
> The weak part of this world view is how precisely
> this is supposed to
> benefit us economically. Aggresive Bushits see the
> US as dominant in the
> world militarily, economically and culturally. And
> because they see the
> first aspect stretching unbroken into the future,
> they assume the second
> two will naturally go with it.
>
> But there is no good reason to assume that. On the
> contrary, there are
> very good arguments to be made that in 25 years time
> the US will not be
> economically or culturally dominant in the same way
> that it is now. And
> that its future economic weakness will only be
> hastened by this aggressive
> military strategy. And that in addition, economic
> weakness will decrease
> the US's strategic power. So that it would be much
> better off setting up
> new hegemonic (aka multilateral) institutions, like
> it did after WWII, to
> shore itself up. So that even from an elite
> perspective, this is a bad
> idea.
>
> BTW, a very good article that sums up the Bushit
> world view (from a mildly
> critical liberal perspective) is "American Primacy
> in Perspective" by
> Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth in the
> July/August 2002 _Foreign
> Affairs_.
>
> Michael
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