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To: craig crawford who wrote (132273)	10/1/2001 11:37:35 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

if you stopped trying to trash pat buchanan and you actually debunked his ideas. Let's see, he was completely wrong about the outcome of Kosovo and Serbia now has a democratically elected government that is building bridges to both the west and the former Soviet republics. One region's Buchanan prognostications debunked and strong evidence that intervention, rather than isolationism, can lead to peace, freedom for oppressed people, and economic opportunity. Re the four Persian Gulf "consiprators", Buchanan's writing was not an argument against a cartel. It was an effort to create the image in voters' minds of a powerful foreign enemy comprised of some homogenous group of people who all see America as a nation of infidels, suitable only for looting. Does he (do you) really expect the producers of any major commodity product, especially one upon which their country depends for most or a large portion of its national income, to NOT try to balance supply and demand, and maximize sustainable, long-term cash flows? Does he (do you) expect the Brits to flood the market with cheap Brent out of gratitude for coming to their aide in WWII? Give me a break. Besides, OPEC, as a cartel, has lost most of the power it held in 1973. And pointing out the current $23 price of oil is hardly "nitpicking", much as you'd like to think. It is evidence that his alleged conspiracy either never existed or has failed. Since it hardly seems likely that Kuwait would join Iraq, or the Saudis or Iranians would join Iraq for that matter, in such a "loot America" conspiracy, I would argue that it never existed and that all four are behaving as any oligopolistic competitors in trying to maximize the earnings on their oil. Some, like the Saudis, have a longer term planning horizon while others, like Iraq who is in more urgent need of hard currency, have a shorter horizon. Hardly the stuff of anti-American conspiracies to "loot and gouge". We just happen to be the largest consumer in the global oil market, so it's fairly easy for him to paint us as the victims of this Persian Gulf conspiracy even though fluctuations in the price of oil really don't have the kind of economic impact they once did. He even chooses his words carefully to maximize the demagogic effects of his writing. That they "conspire" to keep oil prices up, rather than admitting that balancing supply and demand to maximize earnings is (when anyone else does it) simply rational economic behavior, creates images of dark, backroom dealings between criminal masterminds plotting world domination. The word "loot" conjures images of angry mobs rampaging through our city streets, throwing rocks through store windows, stealing TVs and jewelry, and terrorizing innocent civilians. This is your Pat Buchanan. Now, as for arguing globalization, try reading the articles from The Economist that I linked. They make the case for economic integration and point out the fallacies of the anti-globalist arguments better than I could. Re: i should broaden my reading to include UN, NATO, and new world order govt propaganda? I hardly think the official Web site of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Web site of Human Rights Watch qualify as "UN, NATO [or] new world order govt propaganda". You dismiss them simply because they don't support your weak argument, but I'm confident most would find them much more credible than your shadowy ".org" in Canada with nothing on Kosovo fresher than last winter.