101.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman and all-around economics guy Alan Greenspan recently suggested that the United States declared war on Iraq not because of WMD, but because of oil.

Of course, underage hippies have been shouting the same thing at the White House steps for years (I should know, I did it) but of course, it's news when Greenspan says it.

There's a lot of economic reasoning supporting this argument, and I think most economists would agree that oil had as much to do with the war as WMD (if it's not one three-letter word, it's another) Just like most economists would agree that the invisible hand is not (surprise!) self-regulating in the real world, and that the minimum wage encourages unemployment. These are facts, if you define facts as: something a lot of well-read people with a penchant for numbers either agree on or fight like horny cats about.

The moral is: is it wrong for the United States to invade a sovereign nation just to get our paws on its wells? Umm...ok, assuming this is not wrong, is it wrong to ask hundreds of thousands of American citizens to give up their lives because it's too damn difficult to conserve energy? Well, let's assume that it's inevitable. And it is, as anyone who's familiar with Marx will tell you. The "Old Kritz" was right about one thing: it is inevitable that the world will sing to the tune of money.

Put another way: today, I was walking down the street when I saw a guy in a massive SUV with about twenty yellow "Support Our Troops" stickers stuck to his bumper. And I thought to myself, If you really supported our troops, you'd be riding a bike.

And then I thought, If I really gave a damn about the troops, I wouldn't be invoking the phrase 'support our troops' to guzzle gas, lie about the war, or make a point on an untrafficked blog page.

But then again, if I really gave a damn about the troops, I wouldn't be much of an American.