The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #62901 Message #1646583
Posted By: Amos
11-Jan-06 - 06:03 PM
Thread Name: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
Old Guy:
I didn't say we should question the evidence. I said we should not use it to explain things that happened before it was known. You may not have noticed it but in this universe, time is pretty much one-directional. It would be a serious distortion of truth to try and move events around in past time in order to make them look more rational than they were.
In other news:
Martin Wolf: The failure to calculate the costs of war http://news.ft.com/cms/s/48ad9c0a-820f-11da-aea0-0000779e2340.html
" Before the Iraq war began, Lawrence Lindsey, then president George W. Bush's economic adviser, suggested that the costs might reach $200bn. The White House promptly fired him. Mr Lindsey was indeed wrong. But his error lay in grossly underestimating the costs. The administration's estimates of a cost of some $50-$60bn were a fantasy, as were Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and much else.
So far the government has spent $251bn in hard cash. But the costs continue. If the US begins to withdraw troops this year, but maintains a diminishing presence for the next five years, the additional cost will be at least $200bn, under what Profs Bilmes and Stiglitz call their "conservative" option. Under their "moderate" one, the cost reaches $271bn, because troops remain until 2015.
With these costs taken into account, the total macroeconomic costs may add up to $750bn and total costs to $1,850bn.
It is possible to argue that the benefits for Iraq, the Middle East and the world will outweigh all these costs. But that depends on the emergence, in Iraq, of a stable and peaceful democratic order. That has not yet been achieved.
Even those who supported the war must draw two lessons. First, the exercise of military power is far more expensive than many fondly hoped. Second, such policy decisions require a halfway decent analysis of the costs and possible consequences. The administration's failure to do so was a blunder that will harm the US and the world for years to come."