Courtesy of Ken Macclune:

Here is this week’s weekly comment from John P. Hussman the head of Hussman Funds, an investment fund. It is overall quite interesting except the “other comments” section which is exceptional.

Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: November 24, 2003

Other comments
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

The notion that we are the sum of our actions is as true for nations as it is for individuals. It is difficult to achieve peace without having peace within ourselves; without taking actions that embody peace; without understanding whether our actions have planted seeds of suffering or seeds of reconciliation. If our actions, or those of our enemies, regularly contain violence, our lives will be dominated by violence. If our actions regularly contain peace, our lives will be grounded in peace.

Justice and enforcement are essential when they center on those responsible for criminal actions. Force can be effective in overcoming a specific enemy, or as a method of bringing an intransigent enemy to the negotiating table. But when there is no centralized authority to persuade, the ability to achieve peace through violence and retaliation is very limited. Force, directed broadly, does nothing but to encourage each side to spill its own fresh suffering onto the other side. Under these conditions, peace can only result from leadership, moderation, understanding, and diplomacy.

There is no shortage of advisors surrounding the Administration, particularly from the American Enterprise Institute, who have long supported regime change in Iraq, and advocate a theory of democratizing the Middle East through force. It is doubtful that the American public would have willingly bought into the idea of placing the lives of our troops at risk for the sake of these theories, regardless of the appeal of freeing Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Iraq was interminably frustrating, but the risks to America were containable. The proper and humanitarian opportunity to remove Hussein was when he was gassing the Kurds – which could have been a multinational effort with much less risk to U.S. troops. In any event, the path to war was undoubtedly paved with a blurred line of distinction between those actually responsible for our suffering on 9/11, and Iraq.

Our obligation now is to see the situation clearly; to look for truth without filtering reality through wishful thinking. There have been enough positive outcomes from the Iraq war to begin bringing our troops home with gratitude and pride, and their safety cannot be separated from perceptions of the U.S. as an occupying force. In the occupation of the Philippines in the early 1900's, the U.S. was forced to maintain over 50,000 troops and a presence for over a decade. Attacks on these troops were relentless despite successful strikes on rebel leaders and magnanimous efforts in building schools, hospitals and public infrastructure. As historian Martin Gilbert wrote, “it was the tactics of guerrilla fighting that proved impossible for even the most disciplined army to master. The guerrilla forces could melt away… as soon as they made their strike, and then regroup whenever they decided to strike again.”

The situation in Iraq will not be changed simply by running elections of candidates appointed solely by the U.S. Administration, which would probably risk widespread boycotts. It certainly will not be changed by plans to “privatize” the Iraqi oil industry. The best way to achieve peace is through actions that contain peace – limit the use of broad retaliatory strikes, shift enforcement to a NATO coalition, abandon plans to privatize Iraqi resources, and delegate civil matters to the United Nations. It is essential for this process to end in a stable and agreeable government in Iraq, but this does not require exclusive U.S. control. Our true enemies are elsewhere, and our security requires as much cooperation and peaceful action toward the broader world as it requires enforcement against those actually responsible for terrorism. The roots of terrorism lie in ignorance, hate, suffering, misperception, fear, and resentment of foreign influence. It is still possible to address these in a way that increases our security.

All of this has been said before, of course, both here and elsewhere. But each day that an American soldier's family has to bear the sorrow of a foreign policy that has ceased to advance the security of America and its troops, it becomes obvious that it hasn't been said enough.