Chatter and Babble

Once again, I have nothing new and profound to share, but I thought I'd chatter and babble about some interesting things I've come across. I have figured out that writing anything long and well-argued is difficult and time-consuming. My respect for Steven Den Beste has increased greatly. I don't know how he can, day after day, write the voluminous essays for which he is famous. Since anything I write can only on rare occasions approach the length and thoroughness of his stuff, I'll have to content myself with the Reader's Digest approach. As for you, gentle reader, when you come to a Burger King of blogs, don't expect caviar.

Democratic Party Implosion?

Ernie Fletcher has easily won the governor's race in Kentucky - the first Republican to win in 32 years. Arnold Schwarzenegger handily won the recall election in California a couple of weeks ago. A Republican, Haley Barbour, won the governor's seat in Mississippi with about 53 percent of the vote to his opponent's 45 percent - a fairly wide margin. I'd have to say that some recent high-profile elections have not been kind to Democrats. On the national level, the economy has been improving (although the job market is lagging still). An improving economy does not help the Democrats' presidential election hopes, and if the job market improves as well, I don't see any legitimate issue that the Democrats can use as leverage against George Bush. It seems to me that the Democrats have surrendered most of the center to the Republicans. I think that the Democratic party has swung further to the left than most voters are willing to go, and it doesn't look good for them in a lot of contests where they traditionally would be strong.

It's All About Oil! (Well, No.)

Daniel Drezner, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and a well-known blogger, has an article in Slate that debunks one of the left's favorite arguments - that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were all about fat, lucrative oil and reconstruction contracts for Bechtel and Halliburton, companies associated with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and other big corporations. The Center for Public Integrity released a report citing figures that, in theory, back up the charges. The report claims that the contracts show political favoritism in the contract-letting process. The problem is, the figures actually don't support the claim. According to Drezner, the coefficient of correlation between the size of campaign contributions and the contract award amount is only 0.192, and even that very small positive correlation isn't statistically significant. (He's got more on his blog about this topic.)

So, I'm having trouble now figuring out why we shouldn't have removed Saddam Hussein. Here's some of the arguments against it that I've heard:

"It's all for big corporations and Bush's cronies!"

No, that one won't work anymore. See the Slate article.

"Tens of thousands of civilians will be killed!"

Nope, that didn't happen.

"It will be a humanitarian disaster!"

Not that, either.

"There will be street-to-street fighting in Baghdad with massive U.S. casualties!"

Strike four.

"We need a U.N. mandate and an international coalition!"

Well, the U.N. passed something like 17 resolutions that Saddam ignored, and other than France, Germany and Russia, a whole lot of countries did support removing Saddam. I suppose Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, etc. don't count?

"It's not our job to be the world's policeman!"

But it was in Bosnia? That little operation didn't even have U.N. backing, either. Also, just because we can't do everything, doesn't mean we should do nothing.

"North Korea is a bigger threat!"

Maybe, maybe not. It's certainly true that North Korea is a bigger threat to South Korea. I don't know that North Korea is a bigger threat to the United States. Different circumstances require different responses, as well. Diplomatic pressure is being applied to North Korea. I think there's still time to see if that works. See the next point for the reason why.

"There were no weapons of mass destruction!"

That remains to be seen, and hindsight is 20-20. Most knowledgeable people, on both sides of the aisle, believed before the war that Saddam did possess WMDs. And, do you really think that if sanctions had been lifted, Saddam Hussein would not have restarted his WMD research and development? It seems obvious to me that as soon as the inspectors left Iraq, Saddam would have immediately geared up his WMD programs, including research and development on nuclear weapons. In my opinion, that possibility alone was worth the risks of going to war. A nuke in the hands of a madman like Saddam is an absolute nightmare. In my opinion, Kim Jong Il is simply an opportunist, using nuclear blackmail to gain economic concessions so that he and his cronies can stay in power. People whose job it is to think about these things think so, too. I believe Saddam, on the other hand, would have used a nuke if he had one.

"We have no plan for the peace!"

Well again, hindsight is 20-20. The post-war reconstruction effort has been and will be difficult. I have thought that a better job of planning for the post-war effort could have been done. Too many U.S. soldiers are being killed, primarily within the "Sunni triangle." However, when you read articles like this from the Saturday Evening Post, dated January 26, 1946, it's clear that post-war reconstruction efforts just plain aren't easy. (The article is titled "How We Botched the German Occupation" Thanks to Instapundit for the link. Here's another.). It took years to reconstruct and rehabilitate Japan and Germany. It will take years in Afghanistan and Iraq and the same kind of resolve to stick it out and make it work. By the way, did you see that Afghanistan has a new constitution? Maybe some progress is being made, after all.

"Iraq wasn't an imminent threat!"

Probably not, but the Bush administration specifically said that we need to act before Iraq became an imminent threat - an argument I very much support. I really do not want to wake up some morning to hear that some U.S. city, or a city in any other country for that matter, has been destroyed, with tens of thousands or even millions dead. The stakes are now too high to be reserved in our response to threats of this magnitude. We need to be judicious, but resolved and decisive, in my opinion, to deal with emerging, serious threats, such as the ones represented by Saddam Hussein and global terrorism.

"I hate Bush!!"

Ah. Well, to that there really can't be a response, can there? Hate Bush if you'd like, but the facts seem to be mostly on his side.

Flame Warriors!

What kind of Flame Warrior are you? I think I'm probably an Eagle Scout, but my propensity for sarcasm might disqualify me. (Thanks to Dean Esmay for the link).

The Vast Center-Wing Conspiracy!

I've joined the Vast Center-Wing Conspiracy. Thanks to Lesley at Plum Crazy for letting me join, even though I'm a Seattle Mariner's fan, and Lesley likes the *cough* gack!! *choke* Yankees. How someone that seems otherwise intelligent can cheer for the Yankees, I don't know. (Kidding! Just kidding!! Sort of.)

The Vast Center-Wing Conspiracy is dedicated to the ideals of centrism, such as, "We will cut government spending. Okay, not really, but it sounds nice. We want our pork too. Except those of us who are kosher. But we promise not to increase it any more than it already is. Unless somebody really wants us to."

So, for those of you that are centrists (or perhaps just want to tick off Frank J.), you really should join the Vast Center-Wing Conspiracy.

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