THE WAR IN IRAQ, CONTINUED: And unfortunately, it does continue. During the 2004 Presidential Campaign, John Kerry said that Iraq was “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time”. This was widely discussed in the blogosphere. The quote actually came from Army General Omar Bradley during the Korean War. The Chinese had just entered the war to help North Korea, and General McArthur wanted to declare war against China. In May, 1951, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Bradley said “Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.”<\/p>\n
Amazingly, it still fits the present day situation. Sadaam Hussein was definitely an enemy. But he wasn’t the right enemy, just as “Red” China wasn’t. The Iraq invasion has used up a whole lot of American resources, and is still very uncertain of a positive outcome. If Mr. Bush gets lucky and a stable Arab democracy does emerge, then maybe it will have been worth it. But that’s still a 50-50 proposition.<\/p>\n
I honestly think we have to look at the Middle East in terms of economics. How can we bring that part of the world into the world economy in a way that creates opportunity for the common man and woman? They used to do all right as traders, about a thousand years ago, because they were right on the land routes between Europe and the East (China, India). But then better ships came along and cut them out of the deal. They have their oil, but that just causes more problems because the wealth goes to a small set of princes and sheiks; everyone else stays poor. How do we get them into modern times? It seems impossible, but go back 30 or 40 years and it seemed impossible then that China and India would ever get into the economic mainstream. I don’t have an answer for the Middle East, but it seems to me that the ultimate answer will respond to the question of economics, not the question of military strategy. <\/p>\n
NEW ORLEANS – BYE BYE PUBLIC HOUSING: I know a guy who does consulting work with public housing agencies, so I asked him was going to happen now in New Orleans, which once had a huge public housing system (with 19,995 units). He said that public housing is pretty much finished there. (GOP Congressman Richard Baker of Baton Rouge was overheard telling lobbyists: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn\u2019t do it, but God did.”) They will rebuild some senior citizens buildings and will use the land formerly occupied by family tenements for mixed use developments (e.g., some affordable apartments, some homeownership units, some retail stores). Most former tenants will get Section 8 certificates to subsidize their rent (up to a point) where ever they move to. <\/p>\n
But the big conglomerations of units for low-income families won’t be brought back. A lot of the people who lived in them may not want to come back anyway (there was an article in the NY Times saying that a survey showed that up to 20% of the former population doesn’t plan to move back); they may find work in Texas or Baton Rouge. So, the new New Orleans will be a less poor city. Let’s just hope that the silver lining works both ways — i.e., that the poor who were scattered by Katrina will also find better lives where ever they wind up. Let’s hope that Mr. Bush makes good on the little detail of honestly helping them achieve that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE WAR IN IRAQ, CONTINUED: And unfortunately, it does continue. During the 2004 Presidential Campaign, John Kerry said that Iraq was “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time”. This was widely discussed in the blogosphere. The quote actually came from Army General Omar Bradley during the Korean War. The Chinese had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}