Great Explanations of How and Why Stuff Works (or Doesn’t)
The always provocative David Friedman has a new blog, where he shares with us his often jarring insights into the world. (Whether I agree with him on this or that issue or not, I always find David interesting. I’ve sent his excellent book Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life to plenty of people over the years. I’m sending copies of that and of his Law’s Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters and Price Theory: An Intermediate Text to a number of Iraqi university libraries as part of a large shipment of books, mainly made up of economics books, but also including sociology, history, law, philosophy, and literature.)
Let’s hope the libraries don’t get blown up by U.S. Forces “in order to save them”.
That seems unlikely. But a terribly clever remark.
First, thanks for the lead. DF is brilliant and fun to read; the blog is great (though his reader/respondership is less clever, as of yet, than yours.)
Second, I agree that Einzige’s concern is unlikely. US air forces, as is well known, aim for pharmaceutical companies, not libraries. (Is that more clever?)
Ross
Not really. Members of the military aim at what their civilian leaders tell them to aim at. President Clinton decided it was pharmaceutical plants and tents in Afghanistan, a Chinese embassy (oops!), and Serbian military forces and whatever was around them, (not to mention the occasional bombing of Iraqi missile sites, and whatever and whoever else was around them; sometimes the bombing was occasioned by such national security crises as impeachment votes). President Bush decided it was the allegedly threatening military and the state institutions of Iraq, and whatever and whoever else was around them. The civilian leadership, Democrats and Republicans alike, made the decisions to go to war, not the military.
As a general rule, after being given its mission, the leadership and members of the U.S. military attempt to reduce casualties among civilians and volunteer to expose themselves to substantial risks in order to avoid harm to non-combatants, who most surely did not volunteer to risk their lives. There are bad apples among them (Abu Ghraib certainly comes to mind), but as a rule they are honorable men and women.
I there some way we observers can contribute to the work of sending good books to Iraqi libraries?
Sure! Drop me an email (tpalmer@cato.org) and I’ll be happy to tell you. A donation of quality books (can be used, but in good shape) are welcome (but please let me know, as they’re expensive to ship and I’m sending a select group) or send a tax deductible donation to the Cato Institute and let me know about it so that I can apply it to the project on Middle East Liberty. Thanks for the offer!