re: was re-reading Jude Wanniski's piece on Richard Perle as the Price of Darkness (with relish):
This week's Barrons has a very interesting piece on Jude Wanniski, who definitely seems to have gone over the edge:
Jude the Obscurer?
A supply-side hero, arguing against war with Iraq, asserts that Saddam didn't use poison gas
By JIM MCTAGUE
There's nothing new under the sun, and that applies to media megalomaniacs. A decade before Rush Limbaugh discovered that Bill and Hillary were the source of all the world's ills, and two decades before Bill O'Reilly realized that he was the only honest newsman, God told Jude Wanniski to champion supply-side economics and a return to gold standard. Now, apparently, God -- or perhaps the devil -- is telling him to serve as an apologist for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Wanniski was one of the first celebrity conservatives. Twenty years ago, the New York Times and other prominent publications regularly quoted him on matters economic. In 1978, he had penned a book arrogantly entitled "The Way the World Works," which championed supply-side economics and its disciples, Arthur Laffer and Robert Mundell. Wanniski, a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal, had coined the term "Laffer Curve" to argue that cutting high tax rates can both increase government revenues and spur production. A presidential candidate named Ronald Reagan embraced the pro-growth theory when mainstreamers such as George Bush were dismissing it as "voodoo economics." Reagan became president, and his policies lifted both the stock market and Wanniski's standing as a right-wing guru.
...Today, Wanniski remains in right field on economic matters, and he retains a following that is willing to pay for a gold-centric analysis of the markets, via his Polyconomics Web site and a newsletter. He claims 1,600 subscribers, including more than 100 Wall Street investment houses. Wanniski also offers political analysis and commentary on the site. These, in contrast, are rather leftist. The former Cold Warrior declared himself a dove last year in the middle of the nation's war on terror. He derides those in the Bush administration who favor hostilities against Iraq as "the war party." Wanniski was pretty much a lone, ignored voice until recently, when prominent Republicans, such as House Majority Leader Dick Armey, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and former Secretary of State James Baker III cautioned against attacking Iraq.
According to Wanniski, the Bush team not only wants to fight Iraq, it wants to take on all potential opponents, including China, while the U.S. enjoys nuclear superiority. Wanniski also argues that if Bush were serious about bringing peace to the Mideast, he'd enlist controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to broker an agreement between Muslim and Jew.
More Iraqi defeats would simply fan the flames of terrorism, Wanniski contends.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz shook his head sadly when Barron's asked him about his one-time buddy Wanniski, who has accused Wolfowitz of being a dupe of the Israeli lobby. "About Jude ... no, I better not say anything," he told us when we button-holed him on Capitol Hill one afternoon a few months ago. Other old acquaintances, such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, refused to comment. Wanniski, one of those people who see conspiracies behind every tree, claims it's a strategy to mute his message.
Wanniski opposes military action against Iraq, which he says is a civilized country that had one of the highest standards of living in the Mideast before the U.S. crippled it with an ill-advised embargo. That embargo, he says, resulted in the deaths of at least 500,000 persons. "This was one of the causes of Sept. 11," he asserts.
In Wanniski's view, attacking Iraq would fan the flames of Muslim terrorism, not stamp it out. He asserts that Saddam isn't a threat to the U.S. or Israel, because he has neither nuclear bombs nor biological weapons. Nor is there any convincing evidence, he says, that Saddam used nerve gas on Iraqi Kurds in 1988, a charge that has been recited by Bush for months. "Show me the bodies!" demands Wanniski in a riff on a famous line from the movie "Jerry McGuire." Bush and his "War Party" are inventing pretexts to go to war, he contends. He cites a 1990 U.S. Army War College study that found no evidence that Iraq used poison gas on its Kurdish minority. Economist Peter Galbraith did a similar study for the Senate and came to the opposite conclusion. "Jude's position is akin to holocaust denial," Galbraith says. Wanniski counters that Galbraith won't admit that his report is erroneous because it was a basis of the embargo that Wanniski claims cost so many Iraqi lives. "Peter couldn't live with himself if the gassing charges were bunk. Well, they were bunk."
In fact, there never has been irrefutable medical evidence of a gassing -- because suspected mass graves are in Iraqi-controlled areas beyond the reach of investigators. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, says his group has 18 tons of Iraqi documents seized after the Gulf War, and that they provide hard evidence that the gassing took place. "It's no longer a matter of debate," he asserts.
Wanniski, who is kindly and mild-mannered in person, becomes aggressive at the keyboard. He has called his old friend Wolfowitz a "truly evil, albeit a second-class, Beelzebub." He described Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, as "the genuine article, the Prince of Darkness," in an anti-war e-mail to Illinois Republican Rep. Henry Hyde.
...One person who talks to Wanniski fairly regularly is Farrakhan. In fact, Wanniski has become the black minister's unofficial go-between to the white world. Wanniski asserts that Farrakhan would be an effective peace envoy because he has standing and credibility with the world's Muslims, and that this would moderate terrorism. "The whole Islamic world would say: 'Holy smoke! You really are going to listen to Farrakhan? We have a voice in the U.S.'!"
As for Iraq, Wanniski says he's not trying to start a movement or win anti-war converts, though his activities suggest otherwise. "I do not write editorials, I write analysis. I've spent most my life supporting wars, and would do so again if I found a just cause." However, the way to deal with Iraq and other Arab nations is not with the sword, he argues, but with creative diplomacy. |
