We note the passage of the anniversary in our typical Whiskey way: pissing off everyone in the room. Depending on your take on the Japanese “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor, you may never forgive us for the next handful of sentences.

In his 2007 review of the book The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable by George Victor, John V. Denson writes:

“The author, Victor, includes a chapter from the viewpoint of the Japanese. They were being pressured strongly by Germany to enter the war by attacking the Soviet Union, thereby creating a two-front war for the Communist nation. This strategy came within the actual interests of Japan since they, like Germany, saw communism as a great evil and a threat to their respective nations. Furthermore, Japan had substantial claims to parts of Manchuria as a result of defeating Russia in the war of 1905. Both Germany and Japan wanted to avoid a war with America at almost any cost.

“Roosevelt was well aware of this pressure on Japan by Germany but he felt that it was necessary to protect the Soviet Union as being the best weapon against the Germans, and therefore, he wanted to prevent Japan from attacking Russia. Roosevelt began extensive provocations to cause Japan to abandon its attack on Russia and instead attack America, which also served the purpose of giving Roosevelt the reason to enter the war.

“Roosevelt launched an eight-point provocation plan primarily through the cutting off of oil supplies to Japan so that by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor Japan was virtually out of oil and on the verge of industrial and military collapse. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines also would provide Japan with the ability to attack the Dutch interests in the Pacific, thereby giving them a new supply of oil.”

Some of you Whiskey Shooters will be incensed at this recounting of events. World War II was the last good war in the minds of so many…and the Japanese unforgivable cowards who attacked a blameless nation whose leadership had no idea it was coming. We risk earning some ill will at suggesting otherwise in order to draw a disturbing parallel about U.S. actions in Asia today.

Whether it was a deliberate machination of the progressive Roosevelt or not, interrupting the flow of the lifeblood of industrial civilization to an Asian power resulted in the U.S. entering a world war.

Looks like much the same is set to happen again.

We read in this morning’s Financial Times:

“The U.S. has sought to reassure China that its recent diplomatic and military initiatives in Asia were not directed against Beijing.

“‘The U.S. does not seek to contain China, we do not view China as an adversary,’ said Michele Flournoy, U.S. undersecretary of defense, after bilateral military talks.”

Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan of China doesn’t seem to agree when he says, “The United States is making much of its ‘return to Asia’, has been positioning pieces and forces on China’s periphery, and the intent is very clear — this is aimed at China, to contain China.”

The U.S. government may be whispering soothing words, but those words can’t be heard over the screaming of its actions. And come to think of it, not all those words are the soothing sort, either.

We gently remind you, good patron, that President Obama recently announced 2,500 Marines will be based in northern Australia. The president also made some rumblings about China’s dispute with its neighbors in the resource-rich South China Sea.

And then, also from the Financial Times, there’s this…

“The U.S. has also adopted a new strategic concept, AirSea Battle, which involves closer integration of the operations of the Navy and Air Force. The concept is meant to make U.S. forces more capable of operating in an environment where enemy forces are trying to deny area access.

“Chinese analysts see AirSea Battle as an anti-China concept. ‘Even if you say it’s not completely aimed at China, it is still mainly aimed at China,’ said Li Yan, a researcher at the Chinese Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. ‘For the Americans have said very clearly that AirSea Battle is mainly directed at anti-access and area denial warfare, and [past U.S. assessments] al l show that they believe China is conducting anti-access and area denial warfare.’”

Michael T. Klare writes in his article “Playing With Fire: Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China” (found on TomDispatch.com):

“President Obama said in Canberra, the U.S. is now in a position to begin to refocus its military capabilities elsewhere. ‘After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly,’ he declared, ‘the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific region.’

“For China, all this spells potential strategic impairment. Although some of China’s imported oil will travel overland through pipelines from Kazakhstan and Russia, the great majority of it will still come by tanker from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America over sea lanes policed by the U.S. Navy. Indeed, almost every tanker bringing oil to China travels across the South China Sea, a body of water the Obama administration is now seeking to place under effective naval control.

“By securing naval dominance of the South China Sea and adjacent waters, the Obama administration evidently aims to acquire the 21st-century energy equivalent of 20th-century nuclear blackmail. Push us too far, the policy implies, and we’ll bring your economy to its knees by blocking your flow of vital energy supplies. Of course, nothing like this will ever be said in public, but it is inconceivable that senior administration officials are not thinking along just these lines, and there is ample evidence that the Chinese are deeply worried about the risk — as indicated, for example, by their frantic efforts to build staggeringly expensive pipelines across the entire expanse of Asia to the Caspian Sea basin.

“As the underlying nature of the new Obama strategic blueprint becomes clearer, there can be no question that the Chinese leadership will, in response, take steps to ensure the safety of China’s energy lifelines. Some of these moves will undoubtedly be economic and diplomatic, including, for example, efforts to court regional players like Vietnam and Indonesia as well as major oil suppliers like Angola, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Make no mistake, however: Others will be of a military nature. A significant buildup of the Chinese navy — still small and backward when compared to the fleets of the United States and its principal allies — would seem all but inevitable. Likewise, closer military ties between China and Russia, as well as with the Central Asian member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), are assured.

“In additon, Washington could now be sparking the beginnings of a genuine Cold-War-style arms race in Asia, which neither country can, in the long run, afford. All of this is likely to lead to greater tension and a heightened risk of inadvertent escalation arising out of future incidents involving U.S., Chinese, and allied vessels — like the one that occurred in March 2009 when a flotilla of Chinese naval vessels surrounded a U.S. anti-submarine warfare surveillance ship, the Impeccable, and almost precipitated a shooting incident. As more warships circulate through these waters in an increasingly provocative fashion, the risk that such an incident will result in something far more explosive can only grow.”

We feel we’d be remiss not to note where we find issue with Mr. Klare’s analysis. He spends a few sentences wringing his hands over this mess resulting in drive for greater domestic energy dependency. He worries that that could lead to another Deepwater Horizon-type oil spill…greater reliance on the “dirtiest” of energies — the tar sands — and an increase in greenhouse gas emmisions.

But those are point to take issue with on another day. Mr. Klare’s take otherwise appears to be spot on.

A new Cold War is in the making. We’d all be lucky if that were the worst of it. The last time the U.S. tried to starve an Asian power of energy, the U.S. president got the war he was looking for…and the U.S. was the only one with atomic fire.

Things are a little different this time around. Nuclear weapons are in the hands of the nations the U.S. is provoking. And the current president may not actually be looking to start a fight…though he will likely get one anyway.

Regards,

Gary Gibson

Is the U.S. Warming up for a Hot War With China? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

It was as enthralling as Dr. Zawi Hawass opening the empty tomb, without the good doctor’s charm.

We already knew about the 20% enrichment capability, and 20% is a long way from what it takes to make enriched, satisfying noises and distinctive cloud formations. At present–again, “at present”–the celebration is precisely what I expected: a big fizzle which holds us as riveted as a speech by Castro, Chavez, or Obama.

We can read this one of three ways: that the A-man took himself seriously and is going to be so embarrassed by world opinion that he lashes out from vanity…or that he was just messing with our heads seeing if he could provoke an attack or disarm us mentally…or he’ll fling warheads around next week, once we’ve lowered our guard.

How many nukes would this chucklehead chuck if Ahmadinejad could chuck nukes? Probably all he had. How very frustrating not (apparently) to have enough to hit the Great Satan and Israel simultaneously. I’ll offer him a piece of advice, though: when you get the nerve and the hardware simultaneously, Mr. Ahmadinejad, strike the USA and the Vatican. It will be a great deal safer than thinking you can knock out all Israel will throw at you given a good excuse.

Israel already has ample reason.

Israel has more than that, beginning with a strong sense of survival and a solid year of Obama and Hillary siding with their (Israel’s) enemies. One of the few constraints on Israel for decades has been abiding by the wishes of its closest ally, Heaven help it. Time and again all outside parties including supposed allies have demanded that Isael act to its tactical and economic disadvantage. Give back territory I won fair and square when the other side attacked?! I think not. Give up part of my nation in an attempt to appease enemies? Nonsense. Restrict family growth in favor of Hamas, which is already being given millions by Clintonista, Congress, and Obama? Not in this lifetime, if I were in control, and I’m not even Jewish nor have I lived in combat conditions all my life. I wouldn’t even worry about collateral damage if my nation were attacked by ground forces and we flung the invaders back over their borders for a loss of ten. Football is our national game, and if we have to retake Pork Chop Hill several times we will. I think the Israelis are tougher than we are, and they are certainly playing on a much smaller field.

Yes, Netanyahu has a precarious coalition, but I’m moderately certain that the appeasement crowd isn’t a gaggle of cowards, just misguided; there is no diplomatic solution to the problem and never has been. Anyone expecting another Masada would be wise to find a bunker-buster-proof cave. For nearly sixty-five years Israelis have protected their tiny toehold. Every citizen is a soldier, and if we had any sense we’d be importing them (even chosen at random) as security experts. In my quaint hawkish way I think it is long past time to consider how much further it is safe to back Israel into untenable corners. It could just be that the Germans weren’t the only ones who ever considered lebensraum.

A big hunk of Jordan is part of historical Israel, and I have roundabout reason to suppose that the King of Jordan has long considered the possibility that Israel might, ah, “request” a bunch of it back. My husband was an advisor to the King for a while, and John remained vehemently anti-Israeli until his death. Of course I never questioned him about his military activities, and he certainly never told me one single thing I shouldn’t know. John was as cerebral and practical as they come, and I have never supposed that he was captivated by the hospitality his host showed and the friendliness of the population. My purely amateur conclusion is that Jordan frets frequently about what Israel may do and the effect that would have on tourism and the throne.

The Pentagon may have intended for the cessation of win-hold-win to be a threat to Congress over budget cuts, but possibly some country less aware politically might conclude that Iraq and Afghanistan count as the one war per customer and it is safe to try a little encroachment elsewhere. What do we do if Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and/or Egypt decide to go play alongside the Palestinians? Say, “Sorry, we’re committed to only fighting one war at a time?” Respond, “In this rare instance we’ll make an exception” or pull all our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan? No good can come from the Generals, Congress, and the President telling the world that we are tapped out financially and militarily.

Metals are up strongly and the DOW was up a tepid hundred the last time I looked which may reflect an attitude of, “Thank goodness that threat is over and we can get back to business as usual.” If so, the market reaction is a very short-sighted attitude. All calm today means is that thus far Amahdinejad did not strike at the “arrogant” West. I’m more inclined to think all four metals I track being up is indicative of a feeling that just because this firecracker fizzled doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention.

We need to go find our version of Krupp to follow, I think. We can’t just track Remington, Winchester, and Federal because of the run on sporting- and hand guns and ammo for the last eighteen months. A contact on the West coast was pleased to be able to pick up a hundred rounds recently, the shortage is that bad. To those who don’t shoot a hundred rounds of nine mil or a “brick” of 500 .22 shells probably sounds like a lifetime supply or enough to stage your own version of Waco, but it really isn’t. Four friends plinking at targets could go through that amount in less than half an hour.

What we want to know is how those making NATO rounds (which can be fired using an assortment of long guns) and tanks are doing. With the increasing number of “preppers” even the MRE isn’t a good measure of military preparedness any more…General Dynamics is almost certainly a good tell-tale. Maybe chart just the Friday close on Martin Marietta, DuPont, and Bell Helicopter?

MDC suggests the turbine engines used in helicopters, tanks, and other widgets made by Lycoming–which may be affiliated with Bell, now–could prove interesting. Avco, Vickers, Pantex, BSA, maybe keep an eye on exports from Israeli Arms…they hold the patents on Uzi and the practice rounds for 120mm, 30mm armor piercing, interesting things like that. Krupp, which has been in business since the 1500s, is still manufacturing munitions and chemicals and has introduced a 17.5 cm weapon recently. I didn’t put Krupp at the top of the list because investments overseas might be a little dicey if we end up in WWIII.

Signature chuckle…you don’t expect sweet little old ladies to while away rainy afternoons attempting to work out a reasonable equivalent of Krupp as an investment, do you? There are always wars somewhere, and the Keynesian solution when all else fails is a great big war. The possibility of WWIII as a solution to the crash of the dollar…or the Chinese economy…or even Japan has been bruited about. The Middle East is a perennial running sore but it isn’t the only danger. The stakes went up when the Pentagon announced the end of the philosophy of attempting to fight two wars simultaneously, known as “win-hold-win.” Anything which causes our numerous enemies to doubt our will or our ability to wage war increases the chances of conflict.

The premise for over half a century has been that the “military-industrial complex” foments war for economic gain. We’re always interested in economic gain, although we’d prefer ours to come from a new extraction method for shale oil or foreseeing that we should get out of buggy whips and in to pneumatic tires, or short whale oil and go long LPG. I don’t buy stocks on “hunches,” but I definitely believe in investigating sectors for potential growth or signals of future events on internal nudges. So…don’t count “I’m a dinner jacket” out because he didn’t cause a gruesome mess today, but start thinking like a merchant of death far afield. If you had influence and reason to believe widespread, long-term hostilities were on the docket, what would you invest in and what would you collect?

Remember what was in short supply and/or rationed during WWII: tires, gasoline, butter, clothing, meat, cooking oil…tires would be a good bet again because they aren’t made out of rubber from Malaysia any more. Worse, they are made out of oil, and most of them are made overseas. China just might not be on our side during WWIII. We Americans have a good stockpile of automobiles if the factories are converted again to produce automatic weapons, but if you might consider picking up a set of the things that need replacing periodically, such as points, plugs, condensers, filters, belts, hoses, engine oil, power steering fluid, starter, alternator, and so forth. If we’re thinking of investments, I might talk myself into some Good Year, etc., particularly since the most popular sizes of tires more than doubled in price following Obama’s imposition of an enormous tariff.

Interesting, isn’t it, how what we want for our own personal use is probably what the nation will need if we conscript grannies and teenagers to fight an even bigger war? Shades of “What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the country.”

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

February 17, 2010

Juggling Act was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

A.: I’m desperately looking for the time to visit Iran while that’s still possible. But my take, from reading and talking to overseas Iranians, of whom there are more than a million in North America alone, is that attacking it would be insane. One reason is that there’s plenty of restiveness among young people; they’ll likely, sooner or later, kick the mullahs out. Unless the U.S. attacks, in which case they’ll unite the way Americans would and try to find a way to counterattack.

Another reason is that Iran is a very large, sophisticated and well-educated place, with plenty of cash-although it’s cash that’s being badly managed, as is always the case with socialist economies. Since WW2, we’ve only invaded really small, poor, primitive places. Iran is big game.

Israel has threatened to act on its own if the Iranians build a nuke. I think that’s most foolish; nobody can hold back technology. But I’d let it be the Israelis’ problem, not ours. They’ve simply got to learn to get along with their neighbors. It’s too bad they live in such a bad neighborhood, but the location was their choice.

Q.: But isn’t Israel fighting for its survival?

A.: As hard as this may be to imagine, Jews, Christians and Muslims got on quite well in the Palestine before the aliyahs, the waves of Jewish immigration, began in earnest early in the 20th century. Then trouble started, as it does whenever there’s massive immigration from a different culture-especially if the newcomers are much better educated, cohesive and motivated than the locals. Things got out of hand when the Jews decided to transform Palestine into Israel in 1949. Israel’s formation is understandable, I suppose, in light of what the Jews had just been through during WW2. And what they’ve done is certainly nothing new in history, which, in addition to being little more than a compilation of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind, as Gibbon observed, is basically just a register of involuntary real estate transactions. Actually, if the Bible is to be believed, it’s the second time the Jews have done the same thing to the same people in the same place. The Promised Land and all that.

One thing seems baked in the cake: the Israelis aren’t going away voluntarily, and the Muslims, particularly the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, are very unhappy about it. And the Muslims don’t need to fight to win; simple demographics would seem to guarantee their eventual victory at the ballot box. Democracy in action; that should make the U.S. Government happy. Meanwhile, as the recent Israeli/Hezbollah dust-up in Lebanon has demonstrated, even the military situation is turning against Israel. Their hi-tech, American-style weapons are great for fighting a conventional army. But they’re nearly worthless in asymmetrical, guerrilla-type warfare, where they’re not even fighting another state.

Q.: Isn’t that an overstatement?

A.: I think not. Another thing Osama has said is that he plans to beat the Americans by letting them bankrupt themselves-but Washington seems to have disregarded this statement as well. The math is quite simple. Their cost of fielding a fighter, typically a highly motivated teenager who feels he’s defending his family from alien invaders, is next to nothing. Our cost of fielding a U.S. soldier, typically a teenager looking for a college loan, or an adventure to help him grow up, is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our cost for an M1 tank, or a Bradley fighting vehicle, is several million dollars. Their cost for an IED to blow up is next to nothing. Our cost for an F-16 to launch an air strike is maybe $40 million. Their cost for a SAM to bring it down is maybe $5,000.

Actually, it’s worse than that. The new Joint Strike Fighter will cost something like $300 million a copy. I can’t imagine who that’s supposed to be used against, besides the U.S. taxpayer. At best it’s an open provocation to the Russians and Chinese. And with the Persian Gulf, basically a shallow and narrow lake, full of U.S. warships at anywhere from $500 million to $5 billion per, it’s going to be a real shooting gallery for anyone who has a good supply of $1 million anti-ship missiles that can travel 2,000 mph. I’m sure the Iranians are planning on swarming the things. If the U.S. Navy isn’t careful, they’re going to wind up looking like the Japanese at Truk Lagoon.

It’s said that the generals always fight the last war. And that’s precisely what the U.S. military is prepared to do.

It’s perverse that the U.S. Government spends more than $400 billion per year on “defense,” almost as much as the rest of the world combined, and America basically has no defense at all. People are in a lather about North Korea launching missiles. This is a complete non-event. If the Koreans, or anyone else, want to attack a U.S. city, the last thing they’ll do is use a missile. Not only are they unreliable and inaccurate, but the victim can tell precisely where it came from, which is equivalent to the attacker signing its own death warrant. I have little doubt there will be one or more nuclear events in the U.S. over the next generation, but the delivery systems will be container ships or private yachts. Cargo plane or private jet. Or maybe FedEx. And nobody will know for sure who sent it. In today’s world, there is no military defense against attack.

Q.: So what should we do? Just roll over to the bad guys?

A.: Of course not. But it pays to think these things out beforehand, not jump around, hooting and panting like a chimpanzee the way Bush is doing. Start by noticing that the “bad guys” all sincerely see themselves as good guys. Even Hitler had the self-image of a man fighting for right against the forces of evil.

It’s insane to go out of your way to provoke people who can do you serious harm, especially if it serves absolutely no purpose. Remember “Bring it on!”? This is just one of several signs that Bush may be psychologically unstable, in addition to being demonstrably unintelligent, ignorant and thoughtless. The accelerating War on Islam has no upside. If it gets out of control, scores of millions of people could die. We’ll defeat them, of course, but it will be a totally Pyrrhic victory. The real winners will be the Chinese and the Indians.

So the wise course is to defuse the bomb before it goes off. Here’s what I suggest:

1. Withdraw all U.S. troops from foreign soil. As hard as it is for the average American to understand, foreigners like American soldiers running around in their country about as much as Americans would like an Islamic army here. Even if they were supposedly invited by Washington. Prognosis? This will eventually happen, but unfortunately, for pretty much the same reasons the Romans came home.
2. Cease meddling in other countries’ affairs. Despite our politicians’ certainty that they know what’s best for the natives, economic and military aid should stop. Not just because we have to borrow money from the Chinese to dispense it, but because it always makes steadfast enemies and gains only a fickle friend who has to stay bought. Prognosis? This will happen too, but only when the USG is forced to acknowledge bankruptcy.
3. Make a sincere and well-publicized apology to the Muslim world for having caused so much grief and promise it won’t happen again. Yes, I recognize the chances of this happening are about the same as those of Bush appointing me SecDef.
4. Return to the principles that made America unique and the world’s best-loved and most respected country. This is, of course, a complete pipedream.

In light of what needs to be done but won’t be done, I think it’s prudent to prepare for some really rough times ahead.

Q.: So you expect more terrorism?

A.: First, let’s discuss that word. Bush calls what he’s doing now a War on Terror. Which is completely idiotic. Terrorism isn’t an ideology, it’s a method, a tactic. Having a war on terror is as ridiculous as having a war on cavalry charges or frontal assaults or commando raids. Terrorism may be defined as an attack on a society’s non-combatants, with the intention of weakening their support for the status quo. It’s a tactic that melds the political with the military, much as guerrilla warfare does. But what’s new or strange about that? Clausewitz pointed out that war is nothing but the continuation of politics by other methods. Anybody can use terror, and most combatants do. We used terror extensively in WW2 with the fire bombings of places like Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, when there was no military reason for it. Terrorism was what the Phoenix Program in Vietnam was all about. Everybody accuses his enemy of terrorism. It only seems illegitimate when the terrorist isn’t a recognized state.

One advantage of terrorism is its low cost. You don’t have to invest billions for cruise missiles to blow something up if you can get a guy to drive a truck full of explosives to the same place. It’s strictly PR to style only the latter as terrorism. Remember the old line “I’m a freedom fighter, you’re a rebel, he’s a terrorist”? You don’t hear it much anymore, I suspect, because it strikes too close to home. It sounds somehow seditious now that the war is underway. But this is to be expected. Truth is always the first casualty in war.

Q.: The current U.S. foreign policy would seem to be the containment of Iran and Syria. But containment turned out to be a failure in Vietnam. Why do you think we are trying it again in the Middle East?

A.: You know, you put people in a position of power, and they’ll predictably find some way to justify their existence by using that power as promiscuously, and therefore stupidly, as possible. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the lowliest bedbug working for TSA or the Secretary of State.

Containment was a moronic concept not only when it came to Vietnam, but the whole Soviet empire. These places couldn’t even feed themselves. Their factories were museums of industrial archaeology. Their citizens joked “They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work.” The USSR would have self-destructed decades before it did, were it not for the U.S. acting as a bogeyman, which united its numerous nationalities, all of whom hated one another, against a common enemy. Worse, the U.S. propped the place up with technology transfers and loans. The only thing the Soviets had going was a military, which bankrupted them. And even the military was a paper tiger, as the Afghans proved.

Vietnam had absolutely nothing, only what the Soviets gave them. Except for one thing: spirit, because they were fighting invaders from an alien culture. People will always fight for their homes against foreigners, even if the homes are hovels, and even if they have nothing but sticks and stones for weapons.

To me it just showed how little confidence the average American had, and has, in his civilization that he could actually feel threatened by a small, desperately poor bunch of peasants, who barely even knew that America existed. It’s proof of what Spengler said, that a civilization can’t be conquered from without until it’s already rotted from within.

We should let these people work things out for themselves. By sticking our nose in their business, we make fickle friends but really serious enemies. In fact, we should have let the Soviets and the Nazis sort things out after Hitler attacked in June of 1941. The chances are excellent both empires would have collapsed in exhaustion, and the Cold War, which barely escaped turning into a worldwide thermonuclear war, would have been avoided. No Korea. No Vietnam.

Q.: The ultimate price tag of the war in Iraq alone is estimated to top one trillion dollars. That’s real money. How does the country afford that, and what are the consequences to you and me as taxpayers?

A.: In pre-industrial times, wars could actually make economic sense, at least for the short run. You sent your army somewhere to steal valuable goods-gold, cattle, fabrics, artwork, women, slaves-and bring them back home. The folks back home liked the improvement in their standard of living. Better, after you killed the natives, you could distribute the land to your soldiers. And the natives who were left would be a source of continuing tax revenue. In those days, the most practical version of the Golden Rule was “Do unto others-and do it first.” There was a lot to be said for devastating your neighbors before they became large and powerful enough to devastate you. War, assuming it was successful, had some real advantages.

In today’s technological world, however, war is a totally different animal. Wealth is no longer something you can steal wholesale. This is why I never felt the Soviets would have invaded Western Europe-you can’t effectively steal businesses and technology, which are the main forms of wealth today. As economically illiterate as Marxists are, the Russians intuitively understood that.

The argument is made that we’re in Iraq to steal the oil, which is absolutely the only thing of value in the region. After all, Boobus americanus might self-righteously say to himself, “What’s our oil doing under their sand?” Of course it’s true that the Arabs wouldn’t even know what oil was, much less how to extract and use it, were it not for Western companies-which discovered and developed the deposits, only to have them stolen by the local governments. But in my view, that’s a problem for those companies’ managements and shareholders. It’s perverse to make it the problem of the U.S. taxpayer.

The direct cost of this war has been estimated at between one and two trillion. But who knows? The tab depends on how long the war lasts and how it mutates before the Americans have to abandon everything they’ve done in a panicked exit. Put it this way. Even if we were to ship out every drop of Iraqi oil, at zero production cost, that oil would still cost about $12 per barrel due to the war alone. It’s a ridiculous proposition from an economic point of view.

But the real costs are indirect. I’m not talking about the tens of thousands of permanently maimed and disfigured U.S. soldiers who will have to be compensated. Or the hundreds of thousands of dead and disabled Iraqis who will never be compensated. Or the wholesale destruction of the country itself. After all, we did pretty much the same thing in Vietnam, and life went on. The problem here is that Bush may have started what amounts to WW3. Vietnam was a small, isolated, pitifully poor and backward place; so we could get away with destroying it… although we almost destroyed ourselves in the process.

The difficulty is that the Muslim world sees itself as a whole. The worldwide Muslim community, notwithstanding the Shia/Sunni conflict, very much sees itself as the ummah, which is somewhat their equivalent of our term “Christendom,” a term that no longer has much meaning. Fortunately, for most Americans and Europeans, religion is largely a cultural artifact, a relatively insignificant accident of birth. I say fortunately because it liberates their minds to pursue things like science, technology and business; it allows them to think for themselves and not automatically see those who believe in other religions as infidels. Muslims, as a rule, take their religion much more seriously. It’s one reason the Muslim world is so backward.

We forget that the conflict between Islam and the West has been going on for over 1,300 years. Up to the Battle of Vienna in 1683 where the Turks were turned back, the Muslims actually had the upper hand, except for the interlude of the Crusades, when the Europeans invaded the Levant. But since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we’ve had the upper hand. And since the 19th century, most of the states of the Muslim world have been either European colonies or puppet governments. And we drew the boundaries.

It’s a history they resent. So would we.

Q.: Turning to other topics, do you think it is realistic that the U.S. dollar could lose its status as the world’s reserve currency anytime soon? What are the implications and how soon do you think it could happen?

A.: The U.S. dollar will eventually reach its intrinsic value; it’s simply a question of time. The Forever War is greatly accelerating the process. The whole idea of a reserve currency is meaningless if the currency is backed by nothing but the good will of the issuing government. That’s why gold has always been used as money; you don’t have to rely on anyone’s full faith and credit, good will, competence, trade surpluses, self-restraint or anything else. And it’s why gold will again be used, in everyday transactions, as money.

The dollar is a hot potato. there are trillions-nobody knows exactly how many-floating outside the U.S. But only Americans have to accept them, and only the U.S. Government can create them (although the North Koreans do their best). The Chinese have good reason to worry about all those dollars. When they tried to buy the Unocal oil company, they were turned away by the U.S. Government. So, obviously, their dollars weren’t good for that. When Dubai wanted to buy companies that manage six U.S. seaports, they found their dollars had no value.

At some point there’s going to be a panic out of the dollar. When it happens, it’s likely to be the biggest financial upset since the 1930s. Part of the question is what they’ll panic into. The euro? As I have said many times, if the dollar is an “I owe you nothing,” the euro is a “Who owes you nothing?” I think the big beneficiary will be gold. The problem for the world’s economy is that just a trillion dollars-which is only about 1/6 of the dollars outside the U.S. alone-can buy a billion ounces of gold, even at $1,000 an ounce. But only about four billion ounces have ever been mined.

It’s an explosive situation. The one thing you can count on when there’s a crisis is that the government will “do something,” which means controlling its subjects-not, God forbid, itself. And that something is likely to be foreign exchange controls. A small straw in the wind is the new regulation making it illegal to export more than $5 worth of pennies and nickels, because their metal is worth more than their face value-even though there’s no longer much copper in the pennies or nickel in the nickels.

If an American doesn’t get significant assets outside the U.S. now, it may be impossible in the future. The best thing to do is buy real estate abroad, since it’s currently not reportable, like bank and brokerage accounts, and they can’t very well make you repatriate it. I expect, however, very few people will take my advice, even though they may agree with it. But everybody gets what he deserves, so it’s not a problem..

Q.: Looking at the broad picture, it seems like the U.S. government is facing nearly insurmountable odds. The cost of government has soared to something over 50% of GDP, weighing heavily on the private sector, yet there is no end in sight to the wide river of can’t-stop spending… on the military, on Social Security and Medicare-especially in the face of the baby boomers beginning to retire. How does the country manage to maintain that?

A.: Nothing lasts forever. I’ll be surprised if the U.S. is able to maintain its present geographic boundaries for this century. The Mexicans talk of the Reconquista; the gringos stole the Southwest from them in the 1800s, and they’re likely to take it back. What do you think the odds are that a young Latino male in California, 20 years from now, is going to pay 20% of his wages in Social Security and Medicare to support some old white broad in Massachusetts? Especially since he knows he’s never going to get an aluminum nickel back? Even today, polls show that more kids believe in aliens than believe they’ll see any Social Security money.

We’ve had really good times for a whole generation. People become fat and sassy, or in the case of Americans, obese and arrogant, during good times. They don’t think of hanging their leaders from lamp posts until things get seriously bad.

I don’t know how bad things will get. But when I’m asked, I’m prone to quip “Worse than even I think they’ll get.”

Q.: You and the team at Casey Research have been vocal about expecting a major inflation. Yet, other than occasional surprises-such as the 2% jump in the PPI for November-inflation doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. What gives?

A.: Things that you expect to happen usually take longer than you’d think. But once the process gets underway, they usually happen much more quickly. It’s like a boulder balanced on the edge of a cliff; nothing seems to happen until it happens all at once. Just adjust that analogy to the scale of a human lifespan.

The word “inflation” covers two different concepts, and it’s important to keep them separate. One concept is monetary inflation, which is an increase in the supply of money that outruns growth in the supply of goods and services. The other concept is price inflation, which is an increase in the overall level of prices for goods and services.

The relationship between the two is the relationship of cause and effect. Monetary inflation causes price inflation. But while almost everyone sees price inflation when it happens, few people notice the monetary inflation that is causing it. And so they tend to blame the producers of goods and services for higher prices-rather than the money-creating government that is the true culprit.

We’re now experiencing a lot of monetary inflation, which eventually will be reflected in price inflation. What’s really going to tip this over the edge, however, is the rest of the world deciding to get out of dollars. A lot of those $6 trillion abroad are going to come back to the U.S., and real goods are going to be packed up and shipped abroad. Inflation will explode.

It’s just a matter of time. But I think it’s going to happen this cycle.

Q.: Last year you went on record early calling for gold to top $700, which it did. But you expected it to end the year at about $750. Currently, it trades at around $640. Why do you think it didn’t hold up? And, just for entertainment purposes, how high do you think it will trade in 2007?

A.: I’m sure the government, directly and indirectly, did everything it could to keep the price down. The last thing they want to see is a gold panic. So the short run is hard to predict. But we’re still relatively early, certainly in terms of price, in what will be a bull market for the record books. It’s as if you can see the perfect storm brewing. Since I’ve been involved in the markets, there have been a number of times when things could have come unglued-’70-’71, with the stock market crash and the devaluation of the dollar, ’73-’74, with another market meltdown and financial crisis, ’80-’82, when commodities and interest rates both went through the roof, ’87, ’92, ’98, the tech meltdown… Throughout that time, I’ve always tended to be a bear. In other words, I’ve tended to make my money during the crises; it’s relatively easy to make money during good times. As the tech boom proved, any idiot who knows nothing about the markets or the economy, can do it.

My guess is that the next crisis is going to be breathtaking. And it’s not going to be just financial, but economic, social, military and political. Of course, I hope I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, I’m not likely to get hurt, for a number of reasons. But I don’t want to be inconvenienced if I’m right.

So where is gold going? I hate making predictions. I’m not a fortune teller. But I think this is the year gold goes over $1,000. And then the mania starts for the mining stocks…

Regards,
Doug Casey

January 25, 2007

Make War Your Friend, Part II was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The topic of war-with all its sorry implications-is, of course, emotionally and politically charged. Some believe to the depths of their soul that we need to “stay the course” in Iraq and Afghanistan, “fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here.” Others judge, correctly in our view, that any military effort in the Middle East is akin to entering a knife fight without a knife. You might survive, but not without losing a lot of blood. Individuals in the latter camp are accused of wanting to “cut and run,” as the talk show morons like to say. But few seem to remember the origins of that phrase. When weather demands it, sailors would cut the anchor line and run before the wind to avoid an approaching catastrophe. It was a sign of intelligence in the face of danger.

Missing from the debate is a candid discussion of the true implications of our current war, not just for the U.S. soldiers killed or wounded, and not just for the local citizens wounded or killed by soldiers sent to deliver “democracy” to people who don’t know what the word means. To an Iraqi caught in the crossfire between an occupying army and its tormentors, the word “democracy” now translates as “duck!”

Into this morass, we push forward Doug Casey, Chairman of Casey Research and the editor of the International Speculator, a monthly newsletter focusing on investments with the potential for a 100% or better profit over the next 12 months. Never one for moral equivocation or political correctness, Doug, who wrote the best-selling Crisis Investing (Harper Collins 1980), is an avid student of crisis in its many varieties. He foresaw the coming of what many are now calling a world war in his July, 2001, International Speculator article, “Waiting for World War III”. A pertinent excerpt…

Waiting for WWIII

What are the greatest problems facing us today? Domestically, I’d say the continual and accelerating loss of freedom, compounded by the prospect of what I suspect could be the biggest financial/economic crisis of modern times. What might that crisis be like? That’s unpredictable, although the odds are it will be unlike any others that are still fresh in people’s memories, simply because people tend to be most prepared for the things that have most recently scared them. The big problems usually come from an unexpected quarter, and/or at an unexpected time. Like the monetary crisis of 1998 that materialized in Thailand.

That said, the question remains of where to look. My guess (although it sounds so unprofessional to use a word like “guess”; a government briefing would substitute a phrase like “our research shows” or “expert opinion indicates”) is that it will come from outside American borders, in the form of war. War is perhaps the worst thing that can happen, not only for the destruction it will cause in itself, but because it will immensely exacerbate America’s domestic problems. As Stirner famously said, “War is the health of the State.”

But neither a declared war, nor a war in the conventional sense, is likely in the cards. U.S. troops have been in combat in a dozen countries since our last “official” war ended in 1945; the U.S. troops stationed in over 100 countries are an accident waiting to happen. Besides the Balkans and Iraq, Colombia is probably highest on the dance card, but almost any place could erupt unpredictably. Who, after all, could have predicted that the U.S. would invade Somalia in 1991, a country few people other than stamp collectors even knew existed. No place is safe from being attacked in The National Interest of the world’s self-appointed policeman.

Anything is possible within this context, but I discount the possibility of another Vietnam, again because of the “recent collective memory” phenomenon. Vietnam is possibly the major reason why the Iraq attack ended so quickly; quick withdrawal obviated any danger that ground troops might get stuck in a major tar baby. But when you’re sticking your nose absolutely everywhere it doesn’t belong, there are lots of ways to get it bloodied. My guess is that something resembling a Crusade is developing against those who live in the Koran Belt. It won’t be overtly religious like the Crusades of the Middle Ages, but it will have major cultural undertones. And there’s every prospect it will be highly unconventional in nature.

And in August of 2002, he (correctly, it turns out) extrapolated where the attack on Iraq would lead, even before the bombs started to fall. (For the full article, see August 2002 “The Forever War, Chapter Next” in the Archives.)

At risk of being unpopular (admittedly a risk I’ve run my whole life), let me state my brief: the impending war is not only unnecessary, it’s unethical, will turn out to be totally counterproductive, will serve to further erode Americans’ freedoms, and move them further towards national bankruptcy, to boot. Are there any positives to it? I’m not sure there are any at all.

Quite frankly, the current drive toward war with a small (13 million people), backward country pretty much on the other side of the globe puzzles me. I have no question that its leader is a sociopath. But that’s true of many, if not most of the world’s leaders, and we aren’t about to start wars with them for that reason; many have been, or are, “allies.”

And here we are, four years later-with Doug’s dire predictions borne out. Where does Doug see things going over the next four years, and what are the Forever War’s more immediate implications for the global economy? We caught up with him in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Q.: It’s sort of hard to know where to start. One day, the country was ticking along, the next, September 12, 2001, we were up to our neck in a global war. In the beginning, there was an international outpouring of support for the U.S. Now we are increasingly isolated. What was the name of the truck that hit us? Or, put another way, what do you think were the controlling mindset and principles of the Bush administration that led us to this point?

A.: First let’s look at who’s been pulling the strings in Washington. The Bush Administration is overwhelmingly composed of Neocons.

They’re highly ideological academics and intellectuals who started off as hard-line socialists but converted to “conservatism” because they were bright enough to see socialism is a one-way street to universal poverty. But they don’t believe in free markets for any reason other than they generate more wealth for the people in charge to allocate-pretty much the same pragmatic approach taken by the Chinese Communist Party. And they never believed in personal freedom. Political hacks are pretty similar, no matter where you find them.

The Republicans in the U.S. have always pretended to believe in free markets while they nurtured the warfare state, but they were quite sincere in their disavowal of social freedoms. The Democrats, on the other hand, have always pretended to believe in social freedoms, and sometimes mounted weak rhetorical attacks on the warfare state, but they were quite sincere in their dislike of free markets. It was logical that, as Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, and the rest of them saw the writing on the economic wall, they’d become Republicans. The Neocons, in other words, take most of the worst in both theory and practice from both parties. They’re fans of both the Welfare State and the Warfare State. They’re dangerous people.

In addition, almost all high-level Bush types are either Zionist Jews or Fundamentalist Christians, in either case reflexive and zealous supporters of the state of Israel. For myself, I have no problem with Israel going about its business; but I think the U.S. should treat it like any other of the world’s 200-odd countries.

Of course the U.S., as evidenced by the approximately $4 billion of aid it gives Israel every year, plus another $1.3 billion to bribe Egypt to be cordial toward Israel, has long treated the country as something approaching the 51st state. Bush has taken this to a new level.

Q.: How do Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda fit into this?

A.: It’s funny, people talk about Osama bin Laden all the time. But nobody ever listens to him. This is very unwise, in that the single most important thing in a conflict is to understand your opponent’s mindset. Osama has said several times that he’s conducting his jihad for three rather simple and clear reasons. First, he wants foreign troops out of Islamic countries. Second, he wants foreign powers to stop propping up dictators in Islamic countries. Third, he wants foreign powers to cease their support of Israel, which he views as the usurper of Palestinian lands. These impress me as reasonable goals. He’s never said he’s fighting the U.S. because, as Bush seems to think, he “hates our freedom.”

Of course he loathes the U.S. and what it stands for, but that’s really got nothing to do with the actual reasons for his attacks.

The attacks were vastly more successful than Osama could have imagined-but only because of the Administration’s idiotic response. Bush immediately puts the world on notice they’re either “for us or against us,” then invades two small, primitive countries, neither of which had anything to do with the attack. This is followed up with all kinds of draconian measures at home and abroad-Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, snatching people on suspicion, the PATRIOT act, disregard for habeas corpus. Then, at least initially, the American people jumped on the jingoist bandwagon with their self-proclaimed war president and make a big deal of things like Freedom Fries. A hundred heavy-handed and pointless measures added up to convince people around the world that the U.S. had whooped itself into an out-of-control bully, undeserving of sympathy.

The U.S. likes to blame all terrorism on Osama and al-Qaeda. That’s because it makes the problem seem containable; it makes it seem as though there’s just one little group of bad guys the U.S. can track down and eliminate. That was once close to the truth. But now it’s just posturing. Today there are scores of Islamic groups all over the world, with similar worldviews and agendas. Of course they are all mutually sympathetic and try to support one another, but they’re completely independent. The way the U.S. has handled the problem is directly responsible for the metastasis.

Q.: You seem to think that Afghanistan wasn’t complicit in the 9/11 attacks. But there is a strong connection between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and even bin Laden himself said he was behind 9/11. So wasn’t some sort of punitive action called for?

A.: The first thing is to decide whether the events of 9/11 were an act of war by another state, or simply an act of criminality by independent actors. Clearly it was the latter. There’s no evidence whatsoever that the government of Afghanistan, run at the time by the Taliban, had anything at all to do with it. Is there a connection between the Taliban and Osama? Yes, of course. Osama was something of a national icon for helping to drive out the Soviet invaders in the ’80s, which is why he was living there. But people forget that none of the 20 conspirators was an Afghan, and 15 of them, not to mention Osama himself, were Saudis. There was as much reason to attack Saudi Arabia as Afghanistan.

So we have an independent act of criminality with only an incidental tie to Afghans. And these are, incidentally, the same Afghans we armed and supported in their fight to evict the Soviets in 1980. At least the Soviets were invited in by the ruling government, as we were in Vietnam. Somehow we seem to think Afghans like our soldiers running around killing people and destroying property more than they liked the Russians doing the same thing. They don’t. The difference in political goals and the ideological distinctions between the U.S. and Russia are completely lost on these backward, religious, tribal people. So you can plan on the Afghan War growing ever larger and nastier.

Q.: Getting back to what should have been done…

A.: What should have been done if 20 IRA soldiers, or 20 Quebecois separatists, or 20 Colombian Mafiosi had done the same thing? It’s a crime, albeit a very large, spectacular and unusual one, but you treat it like a crime. The U.S. military is not suited for police work.

Few Americans realize that the Constitution provides for the issuance of “letters of marque,” that authorize private bounty hunters to bring pirates to justice. Outfits modeled on Pinkerton’s of the 19th century or Executive Outcomes of the 20th would be far more effective in dealing with al-Qaeda and vastly cheaper than a regular army. That, and less likely to invite retaliation against the U.S. itself. But who reads the Constitution anymore?

One interesting thing about al-Qaeda and its clones is that I think they’re indicative of the way the world is going to evolve. The nation-state, which is only an historical aberration in the big scheme of things, and a terrible idea, is on its way out. It’s going to be replaced by transnational groups of people who coalesce based on what’s important to them-religion, race, hobbies, philosophy, any of a million things that draw people together. Loyalties won’t be to a bunch of people who happen to share some government ID document, but to self-selected, and much stronger, groups. There’s a lot more I could say about this.

Q.: I think I know your answer this to one already, but why do you think the U.S. invaded Iraq? You’ve said that attacking Iraq for 9/11 would have been like bombing China for Pearl Harbor. So, why did we do it?

A.: Einstein said that, after hydrogen, stupidity was the most common thing in the universe. And I think that really is the best explanation. But Bush gave two reasons for the invasion. One, that Iraq was “linked” to al-Qaeda. Two, that Saddam was developing so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction. At the time I said that both excuses were pitifully transparent, even ridiculous, lies.

As to the first point, Saddam’s Baath regime was highly secular; the Baathists and the Islamic fundamentalists viewed each other as mortal enemies. True, they both had reason to distrust and dislike America in general, and the Bush regime in particular. But Saddam was precisely the type of Arab leader Osama wants to get rid off. The assertion they were “linked” is laughable.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction issue is more interesting. Anybody at all with some money, technical skill and motivation can develop biological and chemical weapons. Atomic weapons are more complex and expensive, but hardly rocket science in today’s world; the methods for making them are well known. My God, even North Korea, one of the most backward countries in the world, has done it. These things used to be lumped together as ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) weapons because they were unconventional. But only atomic weapons are actually capable of mass destruction. The WMD moniker was coined recently by the U.S. as a propaganda gimmick, to create an atmosphere of hysteria conducive to the war. It’s a stupid designation, but the press seems to like it. A classical artillery barrage, or a B-52 strike, is really much more of a WMD than chemical or biological weapons.

By the way, last November, there was a video released showing Saddam and his generals before the Iraq war, discussing the possible use of slingshots, Molotov cocktails and crossbows to fight back against the U.S. In the video, Saddam got quite excited about the idea of providing every Iraqi with a slingshot. So much for the scary WMDs.

In any event, was the fear of Saddam getting ABC weapons a reason to invade Iraq? Well, it wasn’t enough of a reason to invade Israel, India or Pakistan when they got them. The fact is that there are a couple dozen countries that could have a nuclear arsenal within a year if they wanted it. The nuclear weapons genie has long been out of the bottle.

And you don’t have to build them to own them. I’ll be quite surprised if some Russian general doesn’t sell some to a party with the right amount of cash. Or maybe some Russian sergeants, since they’re the ones who actually handle them. But the big danger here is Pakistan. The Islamic world views Musharraf as a stooge of the Americans. After he’s assassinated, the odds of which are very high, there’s no telling what will happen to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq has morphed from the Osama links and WMD’s to an altruistic desire to bring “democracy” to the Middle East. Like almost everything else the man says, it makes no sense. In the first place, democracy is just a means of installing rulers; it doesn’t in any way guarantee protection for free minds or free markets. In fact, in today’s idiom, it’s nothing but mob rule dressed up in a coat and tie. What I personally want is individual liberty, which is possible only with an extremely limited government, whose sole purpose is to protect one’s life and property from aggression. I recognize I’m in a small minority, even among Americans, who today view government as a cornucopia of all they desire and see democracy and majority rule as their opportunity to scoop out as much as they want.

But Americans, even though they’re pretty far from being libertarians, come a lot closer than the average devout Muslim, for whom the Koran is the direct and incontrovertible word of Allah. It’s not just the prohibition on drinking, gambling and earning interest and the other puritanical features that make the faith unacceptable to me. Not just the obligatory zakat, which, feeling as I do about charity (see IS 6/2006), doesn’t fit. Not just the ritualistic prayer five times a day or the pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s that Islam is more than a religion; it’s a way of life that submerges politics, philosophy, economics, everything. It’s not a religion that allows for much individual liberty; the word itself means “submission.”

Q.: So here we are, three years later, and the situation is a real mess, as you and others accurately warned would happen even before the first shots were fired. Humor us by describing how you think the current mess in the Iraq and then in the Middle East will unfold from here.

A.: One thing is now clear to all but the dimmest observers: the U.S. has lost this war, and the longer it goes on, the worse it will get. The outcome was obvious from the start, because it’s not possible for an army from the other side of the planet to win a guerrilla war. At least not in a politically correct way. You could engage in wholesale ethnic cleansing, the way the Romans, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane did, but, at least in today’s world, that would be counterproductive in any number of ways, entirely apart from moral considerations. Simply killing guerrillas serves no purpose; to the contrary, the more you kill, the more you get. And, as the statistics show, for every fighter you kill, you kill several non-combatants. And there you’re really sowing dragon’s teeth, especially in a society that has high chronic unemployment among young, unmarried males-which are extraordinarily dangerous and volatile creatures.

My guess is that the next U.S. president will try to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. But it’s going to be harder then, because the U.S. will be in full retreat, taking many more casualties than today. The Brits and other members of the phony “coalition of the willing” have already bailed. From a strictly tactical point of view, it’s going to be much tougher than leaving Vietnam. The only portion of the Iraqi army that won’t have stripped off their uniforms and turned into the biggest jogging team in Asia will be the ones who are working with the insurgents. But, unfortunately, that’s the best-case scenario.

The worst case, and a not unlikely one, is there is another incident like 9/11, possibly much more serious, especially while Bush is in office. At that point, mass hysteria may take over, and the government will lock the country down like one of its many new federal prisons. If the Iranians are implicated, it may be the excuse Bush is looking for to launch an air strike against them. Now you’re looking at WW3.

A surprising number of Neocon types are saying that WW3 has already started. They’re not just saying that to make an astute observation; they’re saying that because they want the U.S. to actually broaden the war. The enemy is Islam.

To be continued…
Doug Casey

January 24, 2007

Make War Your Friend, Part I was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.