The book of peace
This weekend, the New York Times published an excellent review of what looks to be a good book on Iraq: No End in Site by Charles Ferguson. The catalog of error, arrogance, corruption, and violence looks overwhelming, and the review itself is very instructive. If the book is anywhere near as good, it seems very important.
In any case, what we see here is not so much an unusual case of failure but an example of a long-running failure of central planning of which war itself is typical case in point. But with war, we also have a very clear case of both many kinds of failure: social, economic, and moral. It is to this latter point that a book just added to the Literature section speaks. It is from 1845: The Book of Peace. It is 600 pages, so watch that link. It was scanned by Laurence Vance, and given as a gift to Mises.org. It looks outstanding.
Comments (3)
Although I supported the invasion, I can’t find anything in the review I disagree with. The level of our incompetence in Iraq has been utterly fascinating. It provides more data for my decade long struggle to understand how brilliant, intelligent people make so many utterly stupid mistakes, often, mistakes that less intelligent people would never have made. I think arrogance has a lot to do with it. To paraphrase Orwell, some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals can believe them to be true.
The way forward in Iraq? Get out immediately and let the neighbors decide its fate. Everyone claims that civil war will turn into a regional conflict, but the past five years have proven that no one knows anything about what will happen in the Middle East. Iraq, its Arab neighbors and the Iranians have the power settle the issues in Iraq peacefully. If they don’t want to, what makes Americans think we can do any better? Arrogance got us into this mess and arrogance keeps us in it.
Published: March 31, 2008 3:25 PM
It's unfortunate Mr. Harry Browne died so soon. Prior to his death, he was writing a book about the failure of war, about how the promises politicians present us to get us to support their wars are never fulfilled, and about how war itself never achieves positive results.
I've heard rumours that someone was going to finish his book for him, although I haven't heard anything more about that since a month or two after his passing.
Published: March 31, 2008 11:14 PM
mr tucker- sorry OT but as per your column at lewrockwell
http://www.amazon.com/Brother-John-Sidney-Poitier/dp/B00007CVRT
^another excellent christian movie
Published: April 1, 2008 9:01 AM