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Dollar Auction
12 Sep 2007 11:27 am
Comments (3)
Excellent comment, Jon--your point is similar to one brooksfoe made a few threads back:
Matthew, don't you think it a bit optimistic about human nature to feel that people are more likely promoting a continued US military presence in the Middle East because of wounded pride and investment in old ideas, rather than that the people with influence over this policy benefit from US commercial ties which they think are enhanced to a great degree by dependency of local elites on US military power and economic and diplomatic support?
Sooner or later we have to confront the fact that the invasion and occupation has been a veritable financial and/or political boon to certain people, including many of the people making the decisions. Following the money (or power, or prestige) shouldn't be considered beyond the pale, but rather a simple recognition of human nature.
Sooner or later we have to stop presuming that the arguments being made by the advocates of continued occupation are being made in good faith, rather than out of naked self-interest.
Sooner or later we have to come to terms with the fact that many of the people who advocate particular policies as being in the best interests of the people or Iraq, or the people of the Middle East more generally, don't give two shits about any of those people, and never have.
I understand the position that people like Matthew find themselves in, and frankly I'm sympathetic. They want to be in the game, not yelling from the sidelines, and in order to stay in the game you have to proceed from an assumption of good faith all around. Those of us who have the luxury of not caring about the game, though, need to keep hammering this point again and again.
They're not "doubling down" on Iraq in a desperate last-ditch effort to actually make the occupation "succeed." They're doubling down in an effort to keep the occupation going indefinitely, because the occupation brings them enormous benefits. It needs no further justifications; it only needs an endless stream of new pretexts as the former ones grow obsolete.
Comments closed September 26, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I think Hayes' article is a bit naive. It assumes that the people claiming they are in a dollar auction are stating the true situation. In my opinion there are many interests which have unequivaocallty profited by the Iraq war and continue to do so. They are not fooling themselves into throwing good money after bad, they are instead merely ignoring the negative outcome to the rest of the country in order to gain the benefits themselves.
Many corporations have gained enormous amounts fo money as part of reconstruction efforts that earned them vast amounts of taxpayer dollars for little or no real work. Military research firms and firms that produce military equipment won enormous sums from contracts (some of them no-bid contracts), not to mention the private security firms that were hired. Media companies saw their ratings increase and got more advertisers as a result of the Iraq war. None of this came at any real cost to the corporations themselves.
Meanwhile, polticians, who might otherwise be considered unpopular, were seens as more powerful and charsimatic by speaking out in favor of the war. That may no longer be true, but nonetheless those same politicians may well be receiving enormous bribes from various corporations to continue the war, either directly, or through a promise of future job offers when they retire. Some of those bribes can be used to finance elections, which will more then make up for any unpopularity the war currently generates. No real cost to many politicians in continuing the war.
Meanwhile, the military sees its budgets increased and gets to acquire and test out many new types of equipment and strategies. Yes, this comes at a cost in soldiers, but lives are relatively cheap compared to the cost of the equipment.
Ultimately, the only losers in the Iraq war are the soldiers, the Iraqis, and the taxpayers, but apparently they don't really have any say in whether or not the war gets continued. If they did, voting in a democrat congress in 2006 is a fairly good indication they are not following the dollar auction game but do want to get out. The Iraqis have repeatedly said they want us gone. Nobody who gets a real say in the war's continuation has any real reason to end it.
Posted by Jon | September 12, 2007 1:01 PM