RUFUS T. FIREFLY: Where's my Stradivarius?Let us presume that the Italian government is lying when it denies claims that it "bribed" the Taliban, paying them off in order to maintain calm in Afghan provinces patrolled by Italian troops. Wouldn't this simply reflect the adoption of the Anbar-Awakening Strategy, you know, As Seen On the Surge™?
OFFICER: Here, sir.
FIREFLY: I'll show 'em they can't fiddle around with old Firefly!
[he pulls a tommygun out of his violin case and opens fire]
FIREFLY: Look at 'em run! Now they know they've been in a war!
BOB ROLAND: Your Excellency!
FIREFLY: Hahahahahaha, they're fleeing like rats!
ROLAND: But sir, I've got to tell you...
FIREFLY: Remind me to give myself the Firefly Medal for this!
[he fires again]
ROLAND: Your Excellency, you're shooting your own men!
[Firefly fires again]
FIREFLY: What?
ROLAND: You're shooting your own men!
FIREFLY: Here's $5, keep it under your hat.
[holds out his hat to take the $5 back]
FIREFLY: Never mind, I'll keep it under my hat.
One of the most curious attitudes of our so-called capitalist society is the dishonor it assigns to certain kinds of monetary exchange. Like, it is okay to spend a gazillion dollars invading Iraq and Afghanistan, but no one ever considered offering Iran a few tens of millions a year in exchange for not building a nuke, or what have you?
And is there not also a lesson here about the supposed intractable, millenarian, indissuadable, extremist, fundamnetalist, murderous kook squad that is--supposedly--the Taliban, or al Qaeda, or whomever? I mean, if broke-ass Italy can afford the price of peace, then surely a) the price of peace is not that high, and b) the United States can afford to borrow the money to afford it.
This in turn is a roundabout way of saying that, obviously, neither peace nor "victory" are the point; the point is to prolong. That is all.
24 comments:
Ambassador Trentino: I am willing to do anything to prevent this war.
Rufus T. Firefly: It's too late. I've already paid a month's rent on the battlefield.
I can afford peace, and you can afford peace, but Boeing and Lockheed Martin can't afford peace.
there's also diminishing returns on that sort of thing.
and that bribes lack the "finality" or decisiveness of pew pew pew.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin can't afford peace.
Because the U.S. weapons industry is the main force behind the continuation of the wars? Is this like the story where Dick Cheney pushed the Iraq War just to benefit his former company? Please. I mean, the Pentagon and the weapons industry may be inseparable partners, but what's good for Lockhead Martin or Boeing isn't necessarily good for the empire (just most of the time).
Despite the fact that the U.S. government is already well-versed in exchanges with governments to essentially pay for their compliance (carrots???), they can't openly pay Iran or anybody else off because of the precedence it would set. It would actually incentivize anti-U.S. behavior (as attractive as that may sound), so that any potential 'rogue nation' could expect to reap a financial windfall for its badassedness. So no, that alone doesn't lead us to "neither peace nor victory" being the point of the current wars, however much it may be true.
But you can't hold all of us responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole blogosphere? And if the whole blogosphere is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our political institutions in general? I put it to you, IOZ - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
It would be more efficient it was just bribes all around, but there's a bit of a time inconsistency problem. What we need is a court of bribery to smack people around if they welch on bribe conditions. Nick Szabo explains some of the trouble, with reference to the Coase theorem, here.
"For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole blogosphere? "
Dude, haven't you been following along? The Blame falls on The Patriarchy.
We give a billion dollars a year to Israel, just for the privilege of acting as a proxy for their foreign interests. Why not pay goyim in order to not get shot/bombed? Maybe we could even get them to take treasury bonds at half-price (we'll accept payment in Euros only).
If those in power really cared about the deaths of any subset of our current lineup of boogeymen, they would long ago have increased the prices on their turbaned heads to the point at which the whole of the NWFP would have extracted our foes en masse from whatever dank caves had sheltered them, shredded them to bits manually, and formed a mob outside the US consulate in Peshawar to exchange the resulting grisly trophies for a hard-won bounty. It is somewhat surprising that the $50M on Osama hasn't gotten the job done, but even $500M would be cheaper than fighting a war, and at some point you have to think that mercenary groups would take an interest.
The Italians never forgave the French for accepting the Corsican pirate.
Oh and it comes down to the priapus Americanus fueled by Viagra and Amyl Nitrate?
An empire on the way up exacts tribute-- on the way down they pay the Goths not to kill them.
The American Empire never seemed to exact tribute; I fear our continental cousins got it mixed up somehow.
Yeah, when I heard the story my first thought was, There's an Italian Petreus?
Math problem: How many greenbacks could we have airdropped back in '03 to bribe Iraqis to toss out Saddam directly, and not exceeded the cost of the war so far? Express the answer in either pallets or C-130 planeloads.
-- sglover
Saddam offered to leave voluntarily for a cool £1 billion. Ye didn't need to pay anyone else ye daft American loons.
Wouldn't look as impressive on TV though.
Well, I keep getting "system error" in trying to retrieve the password for NYT site, but I like the teaser line: "Citing NATO and Western intelligence sources, The Times of London said that Italian forces had paid off the Taliban in 2008 to maintain calm in an area of Afghanistan under the country’s control."
...ummm, if you gotta pay of the Taliban to maintain calm, I'd say that the area is not really under your control.
Inspector Lee- the only tribute that has ever mattered is gold- and the US did a spectacular job of collecting it's tribute. US gold reserves in 1948 (30,000 tonnes) were more than 3x the nearest competitor, W. Europe- a direct result of US becoming a real empire. US is now second in the world in gold reserves to Eurozone (although I think US has been lying for a while about reserves- like Saudi oil). The US has partly financed it's trade deficits over the last 30 years with gold. US holdings fell from about 20,000 tonnes in 1950 to 9,000 tonnes in 1971 (Nixon suspends convertibility of dollar into gold). 1978 US pressures IMF to forbid countries to peg their currencies to gold. Gold has been at record highs- which doesn't bode well for US claim to empire. The oil for paper trade is coming to an abrupt halt soon and the US will have nothing to trade for it except pieces of it's empire-- which is really nothing because a soft empire doesn't have land to give away. Well, the blue states could decide to sell the welfare red states, but I don't think they would get much for them.
If only Helicopter Ben could take an Apache ride over Helmand.
Jess @ 6.32... it's not really that surprising the tribesmen haven't turned in their guests, hospitality being a significant aspect of their culture. Just because we might sell our own mothers for $50 million...
Sometimes the point of conflict is not to force a resolution of some issue of power, but to maintain tension.
If the ultimate aim is to secure access to oil and natural gas in the stans, then AfPak is the only available route that cuts out those regional powers too strong (for the moment) to be subordinated. Failing that, there may be value in creating a state of permanent instability: to the extent that the US can threaten Eurasian energy security, Eurasian powers are obliged to take US interests into account. Crudely put, the threat might go something like this: buy our debt (which you know we'll never repay) or freeze in the dark.
In the latter case, yes, the point is merely to prolong.
I'm sure they know what they're doing dude, relax!
Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute: America's first elevator pitch.
They made them an offer they couldn't refuse?
the United States can afford to borrow the money to afford it
Well said.
*I'm sure they know what they're doing dude, relax!*
They know stuff you don't. Really, dude.
Drip
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