Re: Beyond Quagmire

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/14/07, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> what's important is that just because X (destruction of Iraq as a
> social entity) results doesn't mean that X was the prior goal of the
> US elite. Even the most powerful country in the world doesn't always
> get what it wants. "Even the president of the United States sometimes
> has to stand naked."

Yes, but we can't assume that all members of the power elite have
economically rational and geopolitically realist goals, rational in
the sense of promotion of a better capitalist business environment,
and realist in the sense of desiring to change geopolitical landscape
to one's perceived economic and political advantage.  We live in a
country where some people shout at anti-war protesters, "Nuke them
all!"  The public face in high places is never _that_ crude, but, for
some powerful Americans, clearly blind adherence to ideology and
fanatical hatred that grows out of it trumps economics and
geopolitics.
--
Yoshie