Monday, January 22, 2007

pre-SOTU sentiment

Dan Drezner has a fairly sincere walkback of his support for the Iraq war, in the process even apologizing to Al Gore.

Meanwhile, for John Cole, Bush changed everything, not 9/11.

The incompetence, the deceit, the disdain for the law, the pandering to the religious nuts, and the fact that Bush diehards continue to swallow everything these losers throw at them has had a far greater impact on my life and my politics than 9/11.

And Jim Henley applies Hayek to Iraq:

The article is another angle on “the knowledge problem,” something I’ve talked about since before the invasion phase of our long war with Iraq began. Applied Hayek. Society works by widely distributed information invisible to any central authority. The necessary dispersal of information severely limits the constructive coordination of society by a central authority. What’s more, attempts to centralize social direction destroy information they would require to work. Hayek explained that this was true for economic central planning, nationalized means of production. But the same phenomenon applies to transformative foreign intervention.

As we say on the internet, we’ve been over this. The only Americans who move among Iraqis are heavily armed, heavily armored, traveling in packs, ignorant of the local language. The conditions in which they contact Iraqis severely limit the kinds of things they can learn from the meetings.

I’m told these men supported Bush at one point. It seems there are not too many libertarians among the 28% who still think he’s doing a good job. (via Atrios)

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