Root Causes

I don't know if SDB has changed his brand of coffee or something, but he's been even more interesting than usual lately. I found his article on farm subsidies fascinating, not just for why they are in general poor policy but for how they hinder the "War on Terror".

A lot of folks on the right get annoyed at the mention of "root causes", and not entirely without reason; examination of root causes tends, to some on the far left, to involve a lot of hand-wringing about what shits we Americans are, complete with rhetorical flourishes like "Bush = Hitler" placards that really do, at times, seem to imply the idea that we had 9-11-01 coming and that it was some kind of cosmic return of the chickens to their roost.

I think that it's important to look into "root causes" like these, not so that we can be "humbled" or "learn why they hate us" and leave it at that, but out of the realization that maybe, just maybe, there are things we've done that have led certain other cultures to embrace terrorism. This strikes me as at least as important to the ultimate goal of defeating terrorism as the short-term military operations such as Afghanistan.

And besides, if we stopped propping up Archer Daniels Midland, maybe we could return to Coke flavored with sugar. (A lot of old-time Coke fanatics insist that the beverage tastes different since the switch to corn syrup as the sweetener.)