My co-author Bill Bonner on mail from his dear readers at the Daily Reckoning, taking him to task for wondering at the War on Terror:

“I value your insights into the markets, the economy and investments tremendously. Since becoming a reader of The Daily Reckoning, my portfolio is way up. However, I have just a few points to add to your liberal slant on all things non-financial. You say that the radical Islamists are impotent because they don’t have governments and standing armies? Did a government or standing army kill 3,000 plus people at the World Trade Center? Did a government or a standing army give the strategy, training, explosives and determination to kill 300 people in the Madrid train bombings? And don’t forget the Indonesian nightclub bombing. And by the way, if the 9/11 attacks were a criminal matter, could your ‘cops’ have gone after the Islamic brass in Afghanistan? And, sir, if you haven’t learned it yet, the threat of retaliation is not a reason not to attack your enemies. Particularly when they have already stated that their goal is your death, and that they are working on the means to accomplish their goals. So send your brandy-swilling friends out for a walk and grow some cojones!”

We never thought of our point of view as ‘liberal.’ But the liberals attack us as a ‘conservative,’ so we’re happy to annoy them both – liberals and ‘conservatives’…republicans and democrats. We are truly impartial; we love them all.

If you tried to apply a kind of ‘pure logic’ – admittedly impossible – to the matter, where would it take you? Our critics maintain that some criminals are special. They are so dangerous, so potent, such a threat to life and limb, that the cops can’t deal with them. They must be pursued by the army. (And any man who says otherwise isn’t a real man!)

Of course, to the average American, the current threat posed by the ‘Islamic terrorists’ is vanishingly small. Every day, more or less, someone is murdered in Baltimore. As far as we know, no one has ever been killed by ‘Islamic terrorists.’ Not a single one in the last 350 years. Logically, murder by a homeland Christian (just guessing) is a much larger threat. But there is no great demand for intervention by the troops from nearby Fort Meade.

“This threat is different,” say the cojones crowd. True, it is. But in order to justify a ‘war’ – such as the war in Iraq – they must also believe in a series of abstractions, theories, metaphors and guesswork:

– That there really is an organized group of ‘Islamic terrorists’
– That the group is growing, becoming more effective
– That it will continue to grow
– That it will pose a real danger sometime in the future
– That these terrorists really have it in for Americans
– That they will get powerful weapons and learn to use them
– That international police organizations cannot stop them
– That military intervention can stop them
– That we (or someone) knows what kind of intervention will be effective
– That the effect of military intervention will not be negative
– That collateral damage and unanticipated consequences will not outweigh the benefits
– That there will not be a backlash, actually aiding the terrorists
– That we can afford the intervention; that it’s worth it
– That we Americans are behind intervention (a consideration for true democrats)
– That God himself is on our side (a consideration for religious people)

And so on…and so on…

The odds that any of these things are correct are unknowable. Some are probably more or less true…some are probably more or less untrue. Logic requires that the individual odds be toted up…some added…some multiplied…in order to yield the likelihood that the whole list is correct. We don’t know, but our guess is that an unemotional logician – with cojones or not – would come to the same conclusion as Maggie Thatcher. War always has consequences you can’t foresee. In this one, there were too many “uncertainties,” she said.

No one ever accused Ms. Thatcher of lacking cojones.

“Cojones has nothing to do with it,” says the logical mind. But cojones has everything to do with it, is our guess. The actual odds that military intervention will make the world a better place are probably very small. In any case, they are certainly unknowable. So, the rational person would probably not want to use military force – killing thousands of innocent people…putting millions in danger…spending billions of dollars – except when he had to…

…or when he wanted to.

Critics of the war in Iraq don’t give cojones their due. Critics imagine that the war crowd has made a mistake. They try to argue with them…to meet their foes with reason…and with reasons. What a waste of time. They need to step back and look at the people they’re arguing with; look at all of us.

We have brains. But we have cojones too. Occasionally, we use our brains…and occasionally we howl at the moon…”

Bill Bonner

Comment: 

Is howling at the moon all this is about?

I beg to differ. I think a large component of the pro-war crowd has allowed themselves to be worked upon by propaganda, yes. But I don’t think the people who move policy are lacking in logic — though in my opinion the logic is faulty and is showing it at every step of the way.

So what is the logic?

The logic is to control the domestic population more fully so that its work product (savings) is available for financial elites to use as they please, its consumption is manipulated toward products that are most highly profitable to those elites (high priced drugs, weapons, for example) and its leisure is saturated with mind-numbing entertainment or political spectacles that are essentially distractions and lead no where. These days, politics is the opium of the people…..

Whatever will change people’s minds won’t be simply political. It will have to be something more…