[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> I could point out that Krugman has become such a loon that he has written
> in the New York Times his belief that Enron is more important than
> September 11th.
I truly find that hard to believe - 9/11 is obviously changing not just
international policy and outlook but internal politics as well.
Me:
>From the January 29th New York Times:
"I predict that in years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as
the greater turning point in U.S. society." You can find it on their
website pretty easily. He's completely gone off the deep end.
> Or comment on what a tragedy it is that one of the best
> economic minds of his generation has turned into the worst New York Times
> columnist in living memory. But I think the best thing to do is to paste
> Andrew Sullivan's response to Krugman's rant, from his superb website
> www.andrewsullivan.com. Below:
Thank Gautam. While I find myself in agreement with Sullivan about the
correctness of the Enron == Bush Budget equation, I have to say that he
(Sullivan) has done nothing to refute the essential points that Krugman
manages to get out before his rant derails - how are 70 ton artillery
pieces, missle defense, and a tax cut for rich contributors going to
help in the "War on Terror"?
-j-
Well, two things. First, "a tax cut for rich contributors" is, I think,
false rhetoric. Let me make my own position clear - I opposed the tax cut
at the time and think that it should now be rethought in light of the need
for higher defense spending. So I'm not a defender of it by any means.
But the rich pay a vastly disproportionate share of taxes in this country -
if your argument against cutting taxes is that the rich will get more back,
then you're arguing that taxes should never be cut. Even more than that,
it's not fair at all to say it was "for rich contributors". Yes, the
wealthy get more back. Jay Rockefeller and John Kerry will probably get
millions more back. But they're, you know, Democrats. John Kerry (he who
married $730M of Republican money) will probably run against Bush in 2004.
But he's still getting the benefits of the cut. So it's hardly fair to use
that turn of phrase - one calculated to make it sound like a corrupt payoff
instead of a policy decision that is arguable on its merits.
But as for 70 ton artillery pieces - Krugman (as he himself said) knows
nothing about the military. What I _think_ he's referring to is "Crusader"
the Army's program for a next generation artillery piece. I thought
Crusader was canceled, and I'm assuming that the Bush budget has
resurrected it. Artillery is the only major weapon of war that the
American military does not possess pretty much the best equipment in the
world. The G-5, used by any number of countries (Iraq springs to mind, I
believe that China does as well) is significantly superior. So the
Crusader is designed to rectify that problem. The reason for huge
expensive systems like that is that, in the end, they do _everything_ well.
They're big, they're expensive, they're hard to build, and it takes
incredibly skilled soldiers to use them effectively. But put systems like
that in the hands of the superbly trained and educated professional who is
the American soldier - and they're invincible. The reason that systems
like that are useful is because we _don't know_ what the war on terror will
require. It will almost certainly mean toppling Saddam's government. It
will, similarly, almost certainly mean maintaining the American military's
position of absolute dominance in conventional arms in order to maintain
the ability to do to any government who harbors terrorists who attack the
United States what we did to the Taliban. Since other governments saw what
we did and will try to improve their militaries to prevent us from doing
that, we too must improve. That's what Crusader and similar things are
for, and that's why the Bush budget asks for a large increase in funding.
As for missile defense - we can go back and forth on this one for ages.
Dan M. has convinced me that it probably won't work (I still think that
boost phase might, but it would be difficult). But if you think it _will_
work, then it seems to me that saying that Sept. 11th makes it more
necessary is an eminently reasonable position. Sept. 11th showed beyond
all doubt that there are people in the world who, if they get their hands
on ballistic missiles, will be willing to use them against us. Furthermore
we are now committed to destroying any _government_ that sponsors terrorism
against us - a position that is, in my mind, long overdue. If Iraq
acquired ballistic missiles, then Saddam Hussein would be able to hold NYC
hostage while still sponsoring terror. That, at least, would be a
reasonable thing for him to think (we can argue whether or not that's true
- it's not terribly germane to the argument). My point is not that the
Administration is right or wrong in making the choices it has made - it's
simply reasonable, and criticizing them in the way that Krugman has done
shows his intellectual bankruptcy - it doesn't demonstrate, one way or the
other, whether these are good decisions or not.
Gautam
