A Second Hand Conjecture

In the wake of a horrific magazine spread depicting Taliban fighters showing off war trophies looted from the bodies of French soldiers, President Sarkozy has been predictably and commendably resolute. France isn’t going to run away for a change.

Unfortunately and just as predictably, that might not be the majority opinion in France. A recent poll found that 55% of the French public wants to pull out. For his own part, Eric de Lavarene, the journalist who published the pictures, grotesquely defended his actions as morally equivalent to reporting as a NATO embed. A statement as contemptible as arguing that a serial murderer is as entitled to his perspective on his crimes being broadcast, as the detectives pursuing him in the cause of self-evident justice.

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Russia wants Saakashvili gone and then categorically rejects the French ceasefire agreement Saakashvili signed. Even while the increasingly uncomfortable Medvedev says they’re all but finished with military operations. The humiliating exposure of Medvedev’s “presidency” is one of the more comical aspects of this episode.

Putin, the master of I’m-not-you-are school of geopolitical disputation, accuses the US of a “Cold War mentality.” I would agree, of course it does tend to happen when you start acting like the Soviet Union.

He’s also rather upset that the United States flew the Georgian contingent home from Iraq. Quite literally, the absolute least we could do. One gets the feeling that an IBM sales office in Tbilisi would constitute unwarranted American influence in Georgia for Putin.

And…Estonia “the other plucky”, speaks:

‘Russia’s military strikes in Georgia toll a knell for many of Europe’s hopes, such as the possibility of sharing common fundamental values with Russia,’ Toomas Sildam said Ilves told the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Sunday.
(Forbes)

Enough to turn you green.

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photo: Tal Bright

Thomas Barnett bemoans the grotesque state of economics education in Europe, which often ranges from the anti-capitalist to the simply fatuous. But consider this item he cites:

Great French HS textbook: “Globalization implies subjugation of the world to the market, which constitutes a true cultural danger.”
(Thomas P.M. Barnett)

Somewhat bemused by this, Barnett asks “why is Europe so antagonistic on capitalism?” Perhaps the better question is why is Europe so antagonistic toward economics, because the item above isn’t really criticism of an economic philosophy. By elevating the primacy of culture over the market, we’re looking at the rejection of the economic premise, which is a concern for the material welfare of mankind. This is what Peter Drucker used to call the dream of “noneconomic man” and in his early work The End of Economic Man, he supplied some explanations for this impulse which might be of enduring relevance to Barnett’s question. (more…)

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Video of why I should have been a French pilot. Somewhat NSFW. Some tabloid back story on the scandal.

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