Agreed. Trashing an article just because it came from a liberal/conservative publication is pretty silly. EVERY article has a bias (it's human nature). Chances are a liberal will disagree with a neo-con publication like NRO (and vice versa), but that doesn't mean the article is without merit. Read the article, size up its ideas, and formulate your own educated opinion.
Going by the author's logic, there's one point he left untouched. The ones that hope U.S. to fail would be Halliburton and companies that profit more from a prolonged war.
Since our companies only make money if we succeed in rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure that was destroyed by Saddam, I can only disagree with you on this point.
Expecting French support would be the equivalent of asking them to admit that investment in American-style air-conditioners was necessary not merely for their dead, but for the living as well — or that those lengthy August retreats to the beach and mountains while their parents and grandparents fried was an indictment of their entire socialist paradise. With writing like this this genuinely hard to respect this guy, despite his resume. I would expect this from Rush Linbaugh. I suppose it's possible he gotten carried away in dumbing down his article for National Review readers. Hey Macbeth, what do you think of him? He appears to be more or less in your field of study? Have you heard of him academically?
That's false. See other articles on Halliburton regarding their mail delivery and meal service. Not to mention the arms sales of other companies.
I think I know this man, and some of his work. He also, if I am not mistaken, made some contributions to the 4 volume compilation on the Peloponesian War. I will check later...He is a bright man, with excellent credentials, if he is the man I am thinking. All that said, there arw a few points of note: He has, if I am not mistaken, sided with Socrates regarding Democracy. He tends to regard it as 'rule of the mob.' I have not read this entire piece yet, will later, ( just got home, am tired) but i wouldn't be surprised one little bit if he slipped that view in there once or twice in the piece. As he is more of an elitist/oligarchist by credo, I wouldn't be at all suprised if he sides with the US on this issue. At it's core an oligarchist assumes that some are qualified to tell everyone else how to live: not unusually the person belieiving this considers himself or those who agree with him to be the very type of person he/she sfeels should be in the position of oligarch. I could be doing Hanson a disservice...as I said, I am tired, I haven't read the whole peice, but I skimmed through his list of works, many of which I have read, and I'm pretty sure of his position. When i read the whole pice I will be in a better position. But the position as stated in the opening 2 or 3 paragraphs, and the reason I skipped ahead, is a very outdated one, and classic propoganda. Everyone disagrees with you...so piece by piece, built on the foundation of the certainty that you are in the right, construct an argument when each and every person who disagrees with you is either corrupt, disqualified, or dismissed. No joke, this was exactly what the Nazis did, only they argued about who qualified as a real German rather than a real Iraqi. While Hanson dismisses Ba'athists, theocrats, and others, irrespective of what actual part they are of the real Iraq, as not counting, as having no objective objection, the Nazis dismissed the jews, Communits, Catholics etc. as being 'obviously opposed" to what the real German wanted for his country, because of their obvious motives. When you disqualify everyone who disagrees with you, or disavow any argument against you as being a sign that you are influenced by those disqualified, or that you are naive, uninformed, or too afradi to speak the truth, well gosh if that don't only leave you with people who do agree with you. I haven't read further into his arguments about why the rest of the world is opposed; presumably it will come down to the fact that a Russian and French company would lose money if Iraq fell. How he will stretch this to explain the fact that, without knowing this, the populations of these countries were against the war, or how that same economic interest came to influence the rest of the globe will make for an interesting read. Maybe he will, as some in here have done, assume that a blanket accusation against two companies from two countries will cover the globe..or mayebe just Old Europe...or maybe he'll throw in the old " they're all just jealous/looking to regain power" argument for good measure, I don't know. But we'll see. Either way, from what I did read if it doesn't get any better, it will serve more for a chuckle than a ponder.
