The simplest story is probably closer to the truth. It is my contention that American Foreign Policy continues according to plan, including the prolonged occupation of Iraq. Even President Bush’s problems? Perhaps.
Occam’s razor (also spelled Ockham’s razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham (Guillelmus de Ockham in Latin). Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as a heuristic maxim that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity in scientific theories.
Occam’s razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or “shaving off”, those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. In short, when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (law of succinctness):
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,
which translates to:
entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
This is often paraphrased as “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.” In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam’s razor is usually understood.
What if America’s foreign policy objectives were to get exactly where we are: in permenant military occupation of pipeline routes, oil fields and shipping lanes that also literally surrounds Iran with well established permanent bases, 2 carrier groups, thousands and thousands of troops, and drones, and special forces units perhaps even infiltrating Iranian territory already. Perhaps the length of the Iraqi occupation and the comical length of The Deciders recent decision making process is just a way to keep the money flowing and to effect the ends above.
I don’t care that people call Iraq a quagmire, or another Vietnam, it’s really a bonanza. A bonanza for those who feel a competitive solution for Peak Oil (war) is better than a co-operative one. For them, the military situation is most profitable. From the perspective of a non-competitive gov’t contractor, it is also a bonanza – who can expect you to deliver under the awful security situation, so why do good work? And who is stealing all that Oil, anyway? And collecting the vig for the largest poppy crops in history? Qui bono, indeed.
Perhaps this was the plan from the get go:
Thinktank Wingnut #1: How do we solve America’s gordian knot of an Oil problem?
Thinktank Wingnut #2: Go take the oil from those who have it with our vastly superior military.
TW1:”That simple, hunh? OK, but how to we get our hands on all that oil without ruining America’s rep forever?”
(I know you must think that ruination is already here, but be patient).
TW2: Perhaps the solution for that is pretty simple as well. What if we had a “Bad” President?
TW1: What good would that do?
TW2: I mean REALLY bad. One that uses a ‘galvanizing’ event to justify completly excessive policies. Like a war on terror or something. But the thing is he has totally, monumentally, historically blow it.
TW1: He blows it?!!?
TW2: Yeah, does all sorts of crazy, criminal, corrupt, un-constitutional, evil things. Maybe he starts a few wars of choice, even as he is most unpopular, because he doesn’t care, because that has been the plan from the start: to go down in flames personally, even as he has truly succeeded. He is so unpopular and screwed up that he is eventually thoroughly rebuked both at home and abroad, bringing the undoubtedly disgruntled and betrayed world back in line with the equally disgruntled and ‘betrayed’ American people. New president makes obvious break with the past and hugs and mends fences with the world, but (wink, wink) not until the ‘damage’ is done. And all the while we are pumping away, simultaneously feeding the war machine and keeping the price of oil artificially manipulated, and threatening Iran into retaliation (for the next occupation) and waiting it out until it all can be made legal…
TW1: Cha-Ching! So, tell me about this galvanizing event…
Maybe there isn’t really much of a threat, or maybe we really do need to spend billions each month on a worldwide war against a few thousand guys with rifles and 60s era rockets and rotting planes. Nevermind that wasting and corruption the whole way being standard operating proceedure. Nevermind suspending freedoms for all Americans in hopes of finding the evil-doers that live and work amongst us. Nevermind the preparations for war with Iran. Nevermind the will of the people.
In a world where even phone conversation and email and mouse click and surveilance camera view is recorded forever, the balance that was struck even before it was so easy to penetrate every citizen’s privacy must be all the more sensible:
That the rights of the many outweigh the Fear of the few. We have to stop paying for all of this. The Democratic congress wants to buy our cooperation with minimum wage hikes and ethics reform and domestic bones of the like. Where in the first 100 hours of this new congress is the urgency to stop this policy of military domination of the southern half of asia. We can do housekeeping any time, guys. There is a War going on and others afoot.
Time for Democrats to put our influence to work in a focussed manner. Either we pull funding or they demand Bush and Cheney’s head. Otherwise, we are complicit every day that doesn’t happen.
