Iraq War | World Bank, IMF, WTO

The Ellensburg Film Festival is in full swing and I just caught an interesting double feature. The first movie was Falluja: Caught in the Crossfire and the second was Argentina: Hope in Hard Times.

The Iraq War
The first movie was about the devastation of Falluja caused by US troops. The city was decimated and now operates under marshall law in an effort to crush the insurgency. It was devastating.

One of the facts that the film brought up is that the average family in Falluja had six to eight children which means that the majority of the civilians killed or wounded and that the majority of the refugees are children. I am not a proponent of large families, but I am even less of a proponent of killing, maiming, and orphaning children.

I don't believe that the American presence in Iraq will ever have a positive outcome. The resentment against American troops runs deep.

Our top down theory of control has failed.

We should pull our troops out of Iraq and allow the people of the region to determine their own fate. The consequences of our actions will no doubt be terrible, but our continued presence is not stabilizing the region and is engendering a dangerous amount of resentment.

How then can we get our government to pull the troops out of Iraq?

I just received a phone call from moveon.org asking me to make phone calls encouraging individuals to vote in those areas where the Democrats have the potential of winning a seat in congress. I think I am going to take them up on their offer.

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World Bank, IMF, WTO
The second flick I caught was about the Argentine depression which apparently was caused by the Argentine government listening to the advice of the IMF and WTO.

The Argentine economy had been the sixth largest in the world with a flourishing middle class. The government supported and regulated industry.

Following the advice of the aforementioned organizations the government privatized many government services and reduced industry regulations. Government and industry borrowed heavily. The farming industry was encouraged to specialize and export. The end result was a depression, bank closures, 40% unemployment and starvation. There are now basically only rich and poor in Argentina with no middle class.

The former head of the World Bank, a nobel prize winning economist, is featured in the film. He states that current economic theory has failed in every emerging economy. I expect that he is no longer head of the World Bank because it was easier to get rid of him than to change a failed system.

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There are certain issues that we need to look at globally. For any issue that impacts your neighbor, your neighbor should be allowed input. Pollution and toxins including nukes as well as population are issues that impact us all. Other than that people should be allowed to resolve their issues locally.

The ideas of the WTO seem contrary to the long term survival of the human race. Massive imports and exports in no way diminish the global climate change of which we are in the midst.