Fugato

I came across an interesting quotation this morning:

The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.

— Harry S. Truman, in a speech from the White House, Aug 9, 1945.

Hiroshima, of course, was not a military base, and rather a lot of civilians were killed.

It seems completely pointless to attempt to lie to the nation and the world that Hiroshima was a military base. When politicians lie, they generally lie about something that’s not so easy to disprove. This was an untruth that was hardly going to stay hidden for long. So I find it hard to believe that Truman was lying.

Yet it is even harder to believe that he didn’t know, when he ordered the use of the bomb, what it was that they were going to drop it on. He couldn’t have really believed that Hiroshima was a military base and that this choice of target “avoided, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.” Especially since the Nagasaki bomb had been dropped, too, by the time he gave this speech. And he couldn’t have ordered these bombings in an off-hand manner, as in “oh, drop’em wherever you want.” Not for the first use of the atomic bomb. No way.

So what the heck was that remark in his speech all about? Was it a lie, or a sign of monumental incompetence? Or something else?

I don’t know. But reportedly he kept on calling Hiroshima and Nagasaki military bases — and for the rest of his life he maintained that he had no regrets and would not hesitate to order the use of the A-bomb again.

I tend to see some sense in Leo Szilard’s victors-write-the-history-books comment:

Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?

Hjalti er að fjalla um hvers vegna Bandaríkjamenn fá ekki að kaupa lyf í Kanada (þar sem þau eru miklu ódýrari) og flytja þau yfir landamærin.

Kannski er það misskilningur minn, en mér finnst eins og hann sé að gefa til kynna að það sé rétt af Bandaríkjastjórn að banna slíkan innflutning, því að ef þeir afnema þessi innflutningshöft gerist þetta:

„Kanadabúar tapa vegna hærra lyfjaverðs, lyfjafyrirtækið tapar því það getur ekki stundað verðmismunun (sem leiðir til að þeir eru lengur að borga upp þróunarkostnað og þar með lengur þar til þeir lækka verð).“

Er ekki alveg jafngilt að orða þetta öfugt? Að vegna innflutningshaftanna gerist þetta:

„Kanadabúar græða [á kostnað Bandaríkjamanna ☺] vegna lægra lyfjaverðs, lyfjafyrirtækið græðir því það getur stundað verðmismunun (sem leiðir til að þeir eru fljótari að borga upp þróunarkostnað og þar með geta þeir fljótar lækkað verð).“

Ekki það að mér þyki slæmt að Kanadabúar og lyfjafyrirtækið græði — punkturinn minn er bara sá að það virðist vera mörkuðum Bandaríkjanna og Kanada náttúrulegt að renna saman, fyrst það þykir þurfa að grípa til stjórnvaldsaðgerða til að halda þeim aðskildum og gera þannig lyfjafyrirtækinu kleift að stunda verðmismunun. Án tillits til þess hvort verðmismunun er kölluð „góð“ eða „slæm“ (orðið „mismunun“ hefur nú aldrei verið vænlegt til vinsælda!) hefði ég haldið að það væri ekki sérstaklega í anda frjálsmarkaðshyggjunnar (sem ég hélt að Hjalti væri að hluta til að stúdera þarna úti :þ) að fagna svona inngripum stjórnvalda í hegðun markaða.

Þá kann einhver að segja „já en lyfjafyrirtækið er bandarískt, svo að ef maður lítur á Bandaríkin sem eitt risastórt fyrirtæki, þá var stjórn þess þarna að taka ákvörðun til að hámarka hagnað þess, og þannig á það að vera.“ Hm. Mætti ekki með sömu rökum halda uppi vörnum fyrir verndartolla á landbúnaðarafurðir og grunnvörur, t.d. stáltollana bandarísku? Þeir vernda innlendu framleiðendurna (sem losna við óþægilega samkeppni), á kostnað innlendu neytendanna (sem þurfa að borga hærra verð). Þeir sem skilgreina sig sem frjálshyggjumenn, hvort heldur sem er á hófsamari kantinum eða hinum, eru yfirleitt ekkert sérstaklega á þeim buxunum að hvetja til verndartolla eða innflutningsbanns. Það er þá líklega ekki „rétt“ (í huga frjálshyggjumanna) að líta á ríki sem fyrirtæki og stjórnvöld sem fyrirtækjastjórnir. Eða hvað?

Ég held að ég hljóti að hafa verið að misskilja í hvaða anda Hjalti fjallaði um þessi innflutningshöft.

Eða þá að misskilningurinn sé ofinn inn í þessar hraðprjónuðu útleggingar mínar um hagfræði — fag sem ég veit skrattann ekki neitt um. Það skyldi þó aldrei vera! Hjalti, feel free to put me in my place.

The vice-presidential debate last night seems to be generally regarded as a draw; each held his own pretty well, and it’s not expected to affect the polls much one way or the other.

But of course it’s the mistakes that are most interesting. Edwards made a couple of amusing gaffes, but I think Cheney must have won the whoops award with this one (pointed out by Lessig Blog, thanks):

“Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they’re trying to throw up a smoke screen. They know the charges are false. They know if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent website sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details, with respect to Halliburton.”

(transcript)

First, the independent website is called factcheck.org (and seems to be overloaded at the moment!). That mistake would be no biggie, if it were the only one.

Second, in response to the debate and Cheney’s remark, they put up an article that Cheney probably did not want to point anyone to (e.g. “Cheney wrongly implied that FactCheck had defended his tenure as CEO of Halliburton Co.” … though Edwards gets slapped a bit as well).

Third, and funniest, factcheck.com redirects to George Soros’ website … which Cheney definitely did not want to point anyone to! Their current front-page headline: “A personal message from George Soros; President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.”

Whoops-ee.

Like a lot of people, John Perry Barlow does not like Bush much. Calling him “convinced” would be putting it mildly.

But unlike a lot of the partisan election “blogaganda” around, he is pretty frank — and pretty amusing — about his opinions of Kerry in his blog entry Supporting Kerry Anyway… and if you read only the first half, it would be unclear which candidate is being supported. (The second half clears that up definitively.)

For some choice quotes, the pelvic region analogy:

Worse, Kerry’s transparently theatrical efforts to out-macho the Republicans make him seem, as a friend recently put it, all dick and no balls.

and the movie blurb analogy:

For the last month or so, the election seemed reminiscent to me of ads for the film “Alien vs. Predator, ” the tag line of which goes, “Whoever wins, we lose.” (Further, it has seemed right to me that one of these characters is an alien and the other a predator.)

That’s what bugs me too: “we lose.” I wanted (but did not really expect) to see a candidate about whom I could say “Oh yeah, this is the one,” regardless of who the opponent is. Hell, I want that in our own national politics as well (never mind the somewhat-smaller geopolitical impact of the Icelandic leadership). Where are those people? Where is somebody to be excited about voting for? Dripping with integrity, sound judgment, far-sightedness, deep knowledge and understanding of economics and history and current world affairs, respect for personal liberties, and enough charisma to get into office? And preferably mostly unencumbered by any particular type of belief in the paranormal, if that’s not too much to ask? Dammit, find me one o’those!

In the meantime, the question is: which candidate comes closer to that ideal? Barlow’s conclusion is unequivocal, and so is mine.

(Of course, Barlow gets to make one 106-millionth of the decision. I get 570 times that weight in deciding who runs Iceland. I am clearly far superior to Barlow in political influence. Yay me.)

Mukhtaran Bibi (photo: NYT)

World leaders occasionally sing the praises of “regime change” (generally in the months between deciding to do it, and doing it).

Strange; the history of such efforts doesn’t seem too encouraging: the Vietnam War, Pinochet in Chile, and a government said to be so nasty that Iranians were relieved to see it replaced by the ayatollahs (well, briefly relieved at least).

Granted, there may be (and probably are) instances of good, successful “regime changes” that I just haven’t heard about because news generally don’t cover stuff that works out ok. But there’s another change that strikes me as more challenging, more slowgoing, and thus ultimately more praiseworthy (and less newsworthy, which is why governments don’t attempt it much): how about culture change?

And, despite my respect for different cultures and a multifarious international scene and relativism and yada yada; despite all that, here’s what triggered this blog entry: an example of a culture that needs changing. (Note: nytimes.com requires you to sign up to read their stuff, but it’s free and they don’t send you junk mail for it; at least not so far).

My finger, whoever might pay any attention to it, is absolutely not pointing at Islam here. That would be like looking at Jimmy Swaggart and saying we need to abolish Christianity and TV.

No, I’m pointing the finger squarely at that dynamic duo: religious fervor (whether Islamic or Christian or otherwise) and ineducation, the muck in which brutal “cultures” thrive. Religious fervor suspends individual morality, enabling people to do just anything with the blind conviction that some higher authority sanctions or demands it. Ineducation enables them to have no idea what the rest of the world will think of it. And ineducation and religious fervor feed each other.

Change that, if you can.

[Update] A US university professor offers his balanced view on the matter. Now that’s the kind of common-sense, stand-up, good-Christian, “we will burn your mosques” approach we need in educating the young folks of the world for a brighter, more harmonious tomorrow. Yee-haa.