THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, September 16, 2010


9


IRAQ IN THE BALANCE? UN ITED N A -


by John J. Metzler Syndicated Columnist


TIONS—In an near emotion- less and vapid address from the Oval Of- fice, President Barack Obama told Americans that the “page h a s b e e n turned” and


American combat units have been withdrawn from Iraq. Thus seven years after the start of the contentious war in Iraq, we were happily heading home. Had we won? The President failed to say so.


The timing of the White House speech in itself was interesting; a week before Labor Day during the deep summer news doldrums, when few people were actually tuned in. But then most Ameri- cans have already tuned out on the Iraq story, largely because the situation has measurably improved there, and the economy has deteriorated here. The overthrow of Saddam Hus-


sein’s brutal dictatorship, de- spite the initial political chaos, eventually and painfully led to a fractious but weak democracy and cautious socio/ economic growth. This remains a positive achievement for the U.S. and the Middle East. Overall economic growth over the past few years stood at 4.5% and this year the IMF indicates growth may reach 7%, impressive numbers which must be seen the context of re- building from a very low base.


But many myths continue. The


long standing Left-wing argu- ment that “we invaded Iraq for access to the vast oil reserves” has been part mythology of the war. In fact, the dilapidated Iraqi petroleum industry is produc- ing about the same amount as it did before the conflict. In the years prior to the 2003 invasion, Iraq produced about 2 million barrels a day for export. Eight years later Iraq exports about the same. More surprisingly, is that American petroleum companies presumed to have had the inside track to oil concessions, have been largely outmaneuvered by a spate of foreign firms including BP, China National Petroleum, Total of France, and Russia’s Lukoil. So the myth that the war was about U.S. oil access was just that, a myth. Clearly the cost of the was un-


reasonably high—both in blood and treasure. After the quick top- pling of Saddam’s rule, the USA was woefully un-prepared for the serious counterinsurgency chal- lenge which soon followed from the remnants of Saddam’s regime as well as Al Qaida terrorists. Mistakes were made which led to an entrenched insurgency which cost the lives of 4,000 American soldiers, 1,000 allied troops, and serious injury to thousands of others. The American military excelled in the field but at a high price. Confronted by a dangerously


deteriorating security situation in 2006, President George W Bush’s ordered the politically unpopular


but militarily crucial military surge and change in tactics un- der the brilliant General David Petraeus in 2007 which turned the tide. Then Senator Obama opposed the surge. Today Presi- dent Obama can be thankful for


it. So can the Iraqi people who stood on the precipice of a civil war between Sunni and Shiite religious factions. Violence has dropped by 90 percent from 2007. The bloody See METZLER on 14


A NON-PREDICTION When people


by Thomas Sowell Syndicated Columnist


learn that you are an econo- mist, they of- ten want you to predict which way the econ- omy is going. There seem to be more than t h e u s u a l numbe r o f


calls for such predictions lately. But an economist should be more aware than others are of how hazardous such predictions can be. One reason is that what hap-


pens in the economy is affected by what politicians do in Wash- ington-- and who can predict what politicians will do? However, let me go out on a


limb, and try to predict what poli- ticians will not do. What would probably get the


economy recovering fastest and most completely would be for the President of the United States and Congressional leaders to shut up and stop meddling with the economy. But it is virtu- ally impossible that they will do that.


Think about telling all the mil-


lions of people who have lost their jobs, their homes or their busi- nesses: “I really messed you up but, hey, nobody’s perfect. So I’m going to leave things alone now.” In fact, that would be hard even to tell yourself. If the stimulus isn’t working,


the true believers have to believe that it is only because it hasn’t been tried long enough, or with enough money being spent. There are always calls for the


government to “do something” when things are going bad. Those who make such calls have almost never bothered to check out what actually happens when the


government does something, as compared to what happens when the government does nothing. It is not just free market econo-


mists who think the government can make a mess bigger with its interventions. It was none other than Karl Marx who wrote to his colleague Engels that “crack- brained meddling by the authori- ties” can “aggravate an existing crisis.” The history of the United States


is full of evidence on the negative effects of government interven- tion. For the first 150 years of this country’s existence, the federal government did not think it was its business to intervene when the economy turned down. All of those downturns ended


faster than the first downturn where the federal government intervened big time-- the Great Depression of the 1930s. There are two conflicting as-


sumptions about what happened during the Great Depression. The most popular assumption, espe- cially among politicians, is that the market failed and the govern- ment had to intervene to save the economy. Another assumption is that the


market went down and was on its way back up when federal inter- vention sent it down again and led to massive unemployment. If you don’t let facts get in the way, you can just pick whichever as- sumption you like-- and the first assumption wins that popularity contest, hands down. But, if you look at the facts,


they go like this: Unemployment never hit double digits in any of the 12 months following the big stock market crash of 1929 that is often blamed for the massive unemployment of the 1930s. Un- employment peaked at 9 percent, two months after the October See SOWELL on 14


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