I've said it before, and it's appropriate again here -- these idiots never suspected they would be ripping an entire country to shreds. They expected quick and easy, Noriega East -- get in, take out the troublesome ex-ally, leave a puppet in charge.

Of course, there is nothing stopping them from acknowledging that the calculations went so wrong, but Greenspa shows they cannot bring themselves to do this -- either because the cost is still "relatively low" from their perspective, or because they are stuck in the "we brought freedom to Iraq" talking point. (Greenspan counts in the former category).

Did you see Greenspan on "60 Minutes" last night? He's just one inhabitant in the rarified atmostphere of upper class rich; so is Lesley Stahl, the supposed "interviewer."
Your post today made me despair. It will never change. Children are born to be victims or victimizers. How can we ever change it?

"...hideously cruel, vain monster"
I thought that's what they call a "leader," at least at the Harvard Business School.

And where do they call
"...splendidly kind, humble Mensch?"
A loser.

what do they call, not where

It is pretty telling that only “we” can be trusted to “protect” the world’s oil reserves. It is like everything that has happened in the recent past never actually happened. I would ask just who trusts us now?

Greenspan puts the "douche" in "fiduciary".

Why, just garden variety imperialism, nothing more. The White Man's Burden.

Why, just garden variety imperialism, nothing more. The White Man's Burden.

Whenever I hear the notion of, "We can't leave because they'll just slaughter themselves", it evokes that Kipling poem. Conventionally, WMB is viewed as the obligation to civilize/exploit. But now, it's become the white man's burden to "stay into perpetuity" in order to prevent the bloodletting. As only white men -- steeped in the intellectual honesty of western education can. Because they could never, ever, ever come to a compromise by themselves.

No, I don't buy it -- There will be some bloodletting, but there's no logic in insisting that they would do a worse job than we've been doing.

OK, so I'm getting in early on the "No Blood For Ice" bumperstickers. Fabulous riches will be mine!

How would you suggest we "wean ourselves off it"? It's comments like this that make liberal blogs so ridiculous. And I'm saying this as a liberal. You people are like paparazzi, digging through the detritus of right-wingers' public/private lives, emerging with a dirty hanky and a self-righteous grin on your face. In the meantime, you continue to live comfortably in the world they make, while maintaining a dream state where we can simply wean ourselves off of a petroleum based economy. Instead of spinning your wheels pointing out that the high-god of capitalism sees the world as a balance-sheet which he wishes to tilt in his favor, why not actually research and publish all that's known about our dependence on petroleum? With a view towards providing answers, direction, and hope? Because you don't want that. You want to be the sole beacon of virtuous light in a sea of shitty sub-humans who chiefly care about themselves, especially if they are Americans. The irony there is that you've bought into the conservative mythos that Americans are far more capable of being selflessly good than other humans in time and space. If you can point out this ideal society existing anywhere for more than 5 minutes, I'd love to know about it. Life is hard. The world is cruel. Every man has his reasons. Good intentions can produce horrible results. And 1000 other cliches. But just keep cursing the darkness hard enough - I'm sure 1000 points of light will emerge somewhere.

Hmm, it's a big gap between "being selflessly good" and murdering hundreds of thousands of people to improve your balance-sheet. "Life is hard" and "the world is cruel" don't necessarily justify the latter pattern of behavior.

Otherwise, as Jon suggested, why doesn't Mr. Greenspan just eat Iraqis' livers? He wouldn't do it, would he? But why not - after all life is hard and the world is cruel, right?

I'm thinking Nancy would be a better show than ABC's Caveman (it's gotten dreadful reviews). She's Bill Kristol's sister, isn't she?

Instead of spinning your wheels pointing out that the high-god of capitalism sees the world as a balance-sheet which he wishes to tilt in his favor, why not actually research and publish all that's known about our dependence on petroleum? With a view towards providing answers, direction, and hope?

That's a legitimate question, although I'd question the efficacy of just publishing information. In most cases we already have more than enough information. What we don't have is the power to act on the information, or even to be able to make people understand the information.

I don't think this is such a good question. When it's not oil, it'll be something else - natural gas, diamonds, bananas, copper (why Chile was so strategically important), water, trees, cheap labor. There's always something you need but someone else owns.

When it's not oil, it'll be something else

Well, yes and no. Certainly it will always be something else as long as our economic structure remains unchanged, but oil is so central to everything that I'm pretty sure the people in charge would be willing to blow up the world rather than share control.

They used to kill people and terrorize a whole continent for freaking bananas.

MAY I POINT OUT, the first piston internal combustion engines were run on HYDROGEN. (WE just bought Big Oil is all. Better sales pitch.)

We "bought" the oil sales pitch because the oil companies (which were a by-product of the railroad grease industry at the time) claimed that driving around with a tank full of water/hydrogen would cause cars to explode and catch fire. This is right in line with the BIG industries' history of using false information to serve their cause, e.g. tobacco/cancer, oil/global warming, insurance/health care, credit banks/reality, military industrial/national security.

What was the logic that got us? A tank of water is more prone to explosion and fire than a tank full of petroleum distillate?

If Donny Most is looking for information about how we can wean ouselves off of our oil dependecy, there's a website called Google.com that he might find useful.

Coming here and complaing that the host isn't giving you tips about how to power your car with used french-fry oil is like chewing out the kid behind the counter at your local hardware store because he can't find the kiwi fruit.

Donny Most wrote, Instead of spinning your wheels pointing out that the high-god of capitalism sees the world as a balance-sheet which he wishes to tilt in his favor, why not actually research and publish all that's known about our dependence on petroleum?

OK...here's my publication: drastically raise fuel economy standards, because that's the low-hanging fruit.

Gosh, that was really hard.