Warmonger!:)

Happy holidays to you and your family, Professor DeLong :)

Here in the UK too, the flying activity of the RAF has become very noticeable: Tornado fighter bombers at 150 feet, etc. Also night firing exercises, etc.

We are preparing for war.

My bet is the date of the invasion is February 1, 2003, but it could well be sooner.

Send in the F18s!

I read so mnany posts on this website from Europeans and other foreigners about how the US shouldn't do this, shouldn't do that etc.

Iraq, Iran, and N.Korea are engaged on a joint mission to destroy the US -- as the President said an Axis of Evil -- and we have to strike first. If we don't they'll destroy us.

They are jealous of our freedom and wealth, and nothing will put a stop to that except bombing them.

Well Brad, the mere mention of F18s seems to get visitors to your site quite excited!

I like your harsh comments on the book 'Dow 36000' or as you point out 'Dow 22000' [assuming translating a long-run return ratio into an index price for a dynamic guess-related object like the Dow even makes sense].

I wonder if the sheer silliness of that book title was an early pinprick before the later events that made anyone rethink the stock-market miracle? When a friend gave me a copy of the Atlantic Monthly article about it back in the go-go months I did gently suggest to him that the sheer size and humour value of their number was a very good signal to start urgently buying DJ put options.

I used to be a futures trader, but had no spare cash. He had spare cash then but didn't take my advice. Such is life!

@ George

>Iraq, Iran, and N.Korea are engaged on a joint
>mission to destroy the US -- as the President
>said an Axis of Evil -- and we have to strike
>first. If we don't they'll destroy us.

Now you *must* be kidding. The countries defined as part of Bush's axis may suppport terrorists and, yes, one could probably even argue that their governments are evil, mostly with reference to the suffering of their own people. A significant number of other poor and badly governed countries on this planet would certainly qualify for *that* axis, too.

However, whatever these countries do with respect to terrorism, they don't do it "jointly". Although I begin to wonder whether the "axis" discourse could possibly prompt them into some sort of cooperation. In my opinion, the "axis" is merely an attempt to simplify the actual complexity of fighting against individual terrorist cells or non-governmental terrorist organisations for the (predominantly American) public.

As far as critical Europeans are concerned, the current quarrels are, in my opinion, mostly the result of difference in discourse style. On the one hand, Europeans, included myself, all too aften don't understand the domestic element of US (foreign) politics, policies, and discourse - as with the "axis" above. On the other hand, US politicians don't seem to care too much if they're simply misunderstood or there is fundamental disagreement about policy options.

From a European.

Tobias

@ George too:

For the record, there are currently more European soldiers in Afganistan than American troops. Ditto in the Balkans. And Europeans did take part in Desert Storm.

Their question is in general: "military intervention okay, but after it? just the same old mess?" There hasn't even been an attempt to democratize Kuwait and the Bush administration has declared it's not into "nation-building" regarding Afganistan.

So, what is it into? Pardon us, but could you please tell us what we're fighting for before we blow the next ennemy?

P.S. George, don't worry: Europeans may be posting annoying stuff on Brad's blog, but the good news for you is that the Bush team doesn't even care what their leaders think.

So what is the urgent need to burn baghdad to the ground? I mean, the guy presumably had chemical / bio weapons in 1991 and could have used them against us, but did not. That puts him in the crazy but not suicidal category.

methinks that our brave leader needs some war, any war, to keep the focus away from Harken and Thomas White and halliburton. A war to redress the 'mistake' his dad made ten years ago will do just as well.

And finally, how will destroying saddam destroy bin Laden? after all, destroying the Taliban had no effect on him...

I wonder if it was really a party for everyone involved. Perhaps some of those fish were jumping out of the water to escape the dolphins.

Down in La Jolla we get F18's out of Mirimar every day, often loud enough to set off car alarms. You'd think there's a war on.

F-16s were flying over NY and Washington for several months after 9/11. As with Brad DeLong, for me it was some measure of reassurance at least against one type of threat. Then, it was announced that they would be discontinued because of the cost.

Why is cost an issue? Why shouldn't the money be there to protect us? Is it the tax cut? the farm bill?

This is the National Security issue that people are afraid to bring up. Put aside reorganizing the departments and all of the Homeland Security wrangling. There are things that can be done right away that are not being done because of cost. That's unconscionable, yet no one calls Bush (or the Dems) on it.