Adios Wolfie!

Rumsfeld's protege Paul Wolfowitz was forced to resign in disgrace from the World Bank refuge he fled to when he sensed that the Iraq quagmire he created would soon engulf the flailing neo-con agenda. Sorry, Wolfie, you can run, but you can't hide. The Europeans are draining the swamp you were hiding in. Now it's time for you to write your memoirs, and whine about how abused you were and are. The question is: will you come to regret your actions, or will you cover them up? Will it be "Fog of War II"? Or will it be "Neo-Con's intellectual perspective led to lots of destruction, but he can't face up to it, and is in denial about his messed up world view." C'mon, Wolfie, even Fukuyama says that neo-cons are messed up. Time for a neo-con 12-step program. You can join Thomas Friedman and become a "geo-green." It almost rhymes with neo-con, and it has a cool hyphen too. (Although, I don't know, if you became a geo-green, then people would run the other direction, so you better not.) The other aspect I've always been interested in is Wolfie's personal life. After the comb thing in Fahrenheit 911, you got to wonder about Wolfie's girlfriend. Sounds like a Condoleeza Rice-type. Black stilletto heels, gritted teeth, and a frown. But I don't know, maybe she's a nice woman. Idealistic to work for the World Bank, with the mission of lifting the poorest nations out of poverty. And it's true that women in Muslim countries need some advocates. (Sad record of accomplishments for the World Bank, funding dams and deforestation, causing climate change, and linking to harmful IMF policies- see Stiglitz and Sachs for references on that.) And poor choice in men. Wolfie was the worst one since McNamara. Another one bites the dust.

Billions wasted

I've been working on climate change policy, and encouraging a cap and trade system which auctions (sells) permits to companies, and uses the money for public goods (renewable energy, transit, research and development of new technologies), and to compensate consumers for fuel price increases on a per capita basis. Sounds good, right? It could raise $2 or $3 billion per year.

Other people are emailing me, saying, "Oh, we need a carbon tax, it'll solve all of our problems." It'll raise all this money and help with the transition. Well, a carbon tax would have to be very steep to change any behavior. Politicians are not into raising taxes, they lose elections for doing that. But even more important, let's look at a few numbers:

$504 billion. This is the money spent on the war on terror and Iraq between 2001 and 2007.

$344 billion. This is money spent on the Iraq war. Not counting the current $100 billion pending before Congress.

$213 billion. Cost of the War on Terror in 2006 alone (Rumsfeld's last year in office).

$2 trillion. Possible total long term cost of the Bush wars, once you count veteran's benefits, health care for all the soldiers with injuries, disabilities, Gulf War II syndrome, etc.

(These figures come from a USA Today article "Researchers weigh war's other costs", January 31, 2007)

In some ways, we don't need a cap and trade system, or a carbon tax. All we need to do is move all those war costs into renewable energy, energy efficiency, and a new war on climate change. Yeah, let's use the National Guard for its true purpose, to guard the nation (climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity and 50% of all species on the planet). Of course, a cap and trade system that refunds money to consumers through a rebate/dividend/share would be nice too. But the $3 billion versus $300 billion gives us a little perspective about how we do things when we think they are really important (the military-industrial complex) versus just give lip service, so that the Rumsfeld Invaders Blog will go away and leave us alone.

I want to hear 2008 candidates say, "Capitalism 3.0."