By now the playing of the race card begins to be tawdry.

If the oil were pumped by Lapps, necessity would be unchanged.

I know the moralists think they're being pious and superior, but I wonder if they have the introspection to realize how narcissistic they sound.

We should admit just the possibility that Groppe's perspective contributes to an understanding of our role in the modern version of the great game. Asd Britain receded, we stood up to our replacement role as Weltmachthaber* in a region of greatest geopolitical importance.

It is better. We set up Israel as a hostage to empire. Israel has been, is, and shall be our domestic trump card against appeasement.

We see in this present squeamishness the same hypocracy which accepts the blessing of victory in World War Two, while smugly condemning the means of victory. Likewise, victory over the international Communist conspiracy was attained by decades of massive counter-value deterrence, which many of the same charletans now judge to have been "immoral."

Whether or not upsetting the balance by taking out Iraq at this time was a mistake, remains to be seen. Balances do not go on forever: at some point, matters must be rearranged.

If it were a mistake, it was our mistake and we must go forward from it. There is no going back, no dusting off Saddam Hussein, saying, "Sorry to have bothered you. Sir." It is not a matter of wishing the old balance within Iraq were in place, but of playing the game now to our best advanmtage.

*See, we do know how it sounds. The language is good not only for talking to dogs and horses, as Frederick the Great observed, but also for sounding monstrous.

There's no difference in being racist towards Lapps or Arabs. The point is that if having a dictatorship in America and giving up his own life would guarantee the free flow of oil Mr. Groppe would change his tune toot sweet. Realism depends on the notion that our security is so important that "others" oughtn't be free. It's perfectly Rational, but unAmerican.

"That was an energy policy that worked." The cynical policy did not work, it should die with the 20th century. It was a failed policy, it made us an oil addict, under the ruthless thumbs of the Arab oil pusher. They love to live in their Sharia utopia, let them. Instead, we pushed modernity on them, a people who stuck with a 7th century mentality, because of their oil. How about a policy that let us control our own Gulf and the Keys, so that Castro won't take all the oil off the coast of Florida? And develop other energy sources? Without Arab oil, we would have developed a much safer nuclear enery technology and other energy sources by now.

If they loved it we wouldn't have to impose and prop up dictators. It was we who loved it.

Very well said, Lou. I love your comments in here. The "realist" view is an important one to consider, and shouldn't be panned just because it can be made to sound "racist".

I love OJ's optimism, his long-term view of things, and his uncanny political sense, some of the things that set his wonderful blog apart from most others. He is a New England WASP and an academic at heart, but other than the occasional race stuff and an incomplete view of the Islamic threat, he seems to have overcome this. :-)

God bless you both

Racist views shouldn't be panned solely because racist either. They should be panned because they're incompatible with Americanism/Judeo-Christianity. If you don't believe that God created all men and endowed them with equal dignity then racism is a perfectly legitimate basis for policy.

Lapps? Which, the Estonian Lapplanders or the Finnish ones? Because the Estonian ones are squirly little buggers... always lurking about... hiding their oil.. the blighters... oh sure they look harmless enough with their reindeer and their happy little knit caps... but do they ever share their oil? No, not them. They're evil, pure evil I tell you.

The "realist" view is an important one to consider, and shouldn't be panned just because it can be made to sound "racist".

It's not that it's racist per se, but immoral. Or, as a realist might object, amoral. Same thing.