Robert Higgs is author of Crisis and Leviathan
Tag Archives: War Without End
“Blessed are the Peacemakers”
Obama solidarity with occupy Wallstreet
A friend posted this on FB:
In a show of solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, Obama has decided that he will occupy Uganda & Iran (in addition to Afghanistan & Iraq).
Imagine Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!
Timeline of United States military operations
Lots and lots and lots of wars. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Wars
A friend’s perspective on Afghanistan
Tom Woods destroys establishment foreign policy!
No, Paul Krugman, WWII Did Not End The Great Depression
Wow! Can’t believe this is making it into mainstream publications!
It’s a recurring fantasy for left wing academics fascinated by central planning that in cyclical downturns government should act decisively on a scale equivalent to war. Nobel Prize recipient Paul Krugman exemplifies this intellectual longing to steer our lives.
Krugman effortlessly slides into a war footing espousing intervention comparable to America’s crusade against Hitler, who, take note, centrally planned an economy himself:
“World War II is the great natural experiment in the effects of large increases in government spending, and as such has always served as an important positive example for those of us who favor an activist approach to a depressed economy.”
After WWII until its glaring failures manifest in the Seventies, Keynesianism inundated economic thought. Paul Samuelson’s textbooks became mainstays across the academy. Samuelson championed mathematical analysis, which transformed macroeconomics into a pseudo science spawning waves of budding planners infatuated with statistics.
From this basis the myth prevails that WWII finally overcame the Great Depression. History has revised Hoover, easily the most meddlesome peacetime president before FDR, into a laissez-faire reactionary. The New Deal – a disastrous example of everything not to do during downturns became beneficial, only it supposedly wasn’t aggressive enough.
(Read more from forbes.com)
US: bin Laden death ups terror risk for Americans
What a stupid headline. Government thrives on fear and hatred. Of course the terror risk goes up. If he lives, it goes up, if he dies it goes up.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says Osama bin Laden’s death has raised the risk of anti-American violence worldwide.
The State Department said in a global travel warning Tuesday that Americans should take precaution and maintain vigilance about terrorist threats, demonstrations and the possibility of violence against U.S. citizens.
It said al-Qaida and other groups are planning terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in Europe, Asia, Africa and Middle East. (Read more from yahoo.com)
Wow! Pretty much all of modern American libertarianism in a 1-hour rant:
. . . at least from an activist point of view.
Very thoughtful, comprehensive Ron Paul interview
Brilliant Review of Governmnet Criticism
I loved this Mises daily article.
Very comprehensive.
“Obama Has Legitimized & Normalized Policies A LOT Of People On The Left Called Immoral Under Bush”
And the media reports the White House spin uncritically.
US extends drone strikes to Somalia
The US has conducted its first drone strike on Islamist militants in Somalia, marking the expansion of the pilotless war campaign to a sixth country.
The missile strike on a vehicle in the southern town of Kismayo, reported last week as a helicopter assault, wounded two senior militants with al-Shabab and several foreign fighters according to the Washington Post.
Armed Predator and Reaper drones already operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, where they are controlled by the US military or the CIA.
The CIA-run programmes are controversial. Although they provide the Obama administration with a low-risk weapon against Islamist militants, they stir intense anti-American hostility among the local population.
Opposition is most vociferous in Pakistan, where the government said on Wednesday it was shutting down a big CIA drone base, and had ordered US personnel based there to leave. (Read more from guardian.co.uk)