But not in Iraq. :)
> so I don't know that there's a policy innovation that could explain the war,
Do you think I've been saying this? I'm not sure since you haven't responded.
I was thinking that the whole conversation reminded me of sufficient and necessary conditions.
> and 2) so far, there's been no attempt to privatize Iraqi oil (or wasn't
> last I'd heard).
I wasn't asking because I think it's evidence that the war is all about oil. I do, however, think that markets are about discipline -- control.
I'm not enough of a political economist to know if it makes a difference if that oil market is completely privatized, where there's competition within a nation-state or if it was enough to simply the nation state producing oil on the world market for that market discipline to work most "effectively" from the worldview of those who think it's effective. If that question even makes sense.
On irrationality: "If we reduce that enemy to "evil," we conjure up a shape- shifting demon, a wild-card moral anarchist beyond our comprehension and therefore beyond the reach of any counterstrategies.
The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as "irrational." Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting them. The better course is to think of these men as bearers of a rationality we reject because its goal is our destruction. If we take the trouble to understand that rationality, we might have a better chance of figuring out what its adherents will do next and preventing it." (google it. :)
On another note:
I can't resist sharing this with those of you still interested. Not long ago, I forwarded some material from a guy who was pissed at his fellow Walmart employees because he thought they took too many breaks when the company was required by law to give them that many.
This same guy says about his employer, Walmart, "Oh, and the propaganda they disseminate, makes any thinking man wonder who's running the ship." (He was responding to a thread about the article on Costco as a comparatively "better" retail employer.)
Kelley