June 8, 2005

The Imperial EU Is Heating Up
Everett

You know, one problem with trying to indicate all of the subjects that will be addressed in a piece with a relatively short title is that it can imply a direction to the piece that simply doesn't exist. Anyway, this piece this piece should be more Impromptus-like than my last couple of pieces which were more of the essay variety.

*It is true that the United States entered WWII only after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It is also true that the US declared war on Germany only after Germany declared war on the US. However, what is missing in the chronology of events is a little remembered radio address by FDR on 9 December, 1941 that called for the US to declare war on Germany and led Hitler to believe that war with the US was inevitable (for good reason as FDR would have undoubtedly gotten his way) and so declared war on the US as a result. FDR had actually wanted to bring the US into the war in Europe since early on in the war, but Lend-Lease was the best he could do until Pearl Harbor.

*Global warming is real? Contrary to media coverage, the occurrence of global warming, let alone man-made global warming has not been established by scientific research. Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" offers an excellent primer on the current state of climate science. Is it possible that global warming is occuring. Certainly. Does the science bear this out. Despite media reports to the contrary, not in the slightest.

Besides, even if global warming is occuring, it is not at all clear what the consequnces would be. After all, it was warmer on average in the late middle ages than it is today, and the biggest effect seems to have been increased crop yields. The horror.

*I've heard the whole US-supplied-arms-to-Saddam-in-the-80's thing before, and it seems to me to be more of a "Gotcha!" point than anything else, sort of like the chicken-hawk "argument". Setting aside the question of whether or not the US assistance of Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war was justified, the point of bringing this seems to be make the case that since the US provided military assistance to Saddam, possibly including WMD assistance, in the '80's, the US was unjustified in removing him from power because it would be somehow hypocritical or something like that. It would seem to me that because the US was at least partially responsible for creating the whole Saddam mess, it would follow that it was our responsibility to clean up the mess.

*The whole Halliburton canrad is another thing that strikes me as another "Gotcha!" point. The basic syllogism is that: Dick Cheney was an executive at Halliburton. Dick Cheney is now Vice-President. Halliburton received the contract to put out any oil fires in Iraq and rebuild its oil infrastructure on a no-bid basis. Therefore, the war in Iraq was waged to make money for Dick Cheney's pals at Halliburton.

Aside from being too conspiratorial by half, the syllogism ignores some inconvenient facts. After the first Persian Gulf War, Saddam had the Kuwaiti oil fields torched to cover his retreat. The first Bush administration contracted the firm Kellog, Brown and Root (KBR) to put out these fires. During this time, KBR developed revolutionary tactics for putting out oil-well fires. In the mid '90's, KBR was bought out by and became a subsuduary of Halliburton. In 1998, Halliburton was awarded the contract to be the firm to deal with oil-well fires and the rebuilding of oil infrastructure should the need arise. In 2000, they were awarded this contract on a no-bid basis by the Clinton administration, both times largely because Halliburton subsidiary KBR was the only firm with experience in fighting oil-well fires on a large scale. The contract was up in 2002, and a new contract would need to be awarded to someone. The normal bidding process for these contracts takes two years, and the US needed someone within six months. Obviously, a two year process will not lead to a finished product, so Halliburton was once again awarded the contract on a no-bid basis, largely on the experience of KBR.

Now, it has been learned that Halliburton has charged too much for its services. This can be read two ways. The first is that Halliburton is fleecing the government. The second, and more plausible, is that the government and Halliburton agreed on terms based on the assumption that certain things may go wrong and money would be needed to overcome any difficulties that would arise. Instead, Halliburton has performed more efficiently and run into fewer problems than they expected, thus lowering their operating costs.

*Regarding Gitmo, detainees have been stuffing pages of the Koran down toilets in an attempt to block them as a protest. They have also accused American soldiers of doing the flushing. Needless to say, I find accusations leveled by members of Al Qaeda against American soldiers, or just about anyone else for that matter, to be highly unbelievable because they are instructed to level false accusations of torture and abuse against their captors in an attempt to gain public sympathy.

*I have one question. What does it mean to "European"? Besides living in a common geographical area, what binds Europeans together other than the Euro and an abstract belief that there ought to be a European Union? I ask this because even though the US was formed in the late 1700's, it took a Civil War in which over 600,00 were killed to forge a common American identity that took precedence over state-based identity.

*As to drilling in Alaska, the United States has been drilling in Alaska for about 25 years at Prudhoe Bay. The reason ANWR hasn't been tapped is because the US Senate won't get its act together.