Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Dear Lex,
Into the breach, once more, dear friends, into the breach…. Perhaps some of our own elected representatives would be better off not speculating about attacking Islamic holy sites – http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=101389 or invading (a nuclear armed, 150 million strong) Pakistan? It does make our dear Muslim friends a tad uppity, non?
Just a thought…
They have *their* loons,…
So. The Muslims have a billion bombs, to strap on to the billion angry followers of the suicide cult.
Where are these bombs? In the “Lockbox”?
But since they primarily target themselves in their indiscriminate bombings, wouldn’t that leave even fewer of them? Perhaps even the most reasonable of them?
Hmmm….
Didn’t they just mispell the names of their own cities?
Matt,
Translitering an Arabic name from Urdu into English is likely trickier than it sounds…
Matt,
i.e. don’t misunderestimate them.
I read this article yesterday and left a comment. Huh, my comment was deleted!
I responded to the part of the article that likened U.S. aid to the virus AIDS. I remarked that if the people of Pakistan would like to start a petition to stop all aid to their country from the U.S. I would sign it!
Dear Babs,
Perhaps, but back in the 80s the Pakistanis were on the front line against the evil empire and allowed us to do a lot to supply the mujahadeen (yes, it is worth remembering that once upon a time we equipped such forces – and no, we did NOT create the Taliban, they are not the same as the mujahadeen) in this little out of the way place known as the Northwestern Frontier/Tribal areas. And we had lots of aid projects going up there to, until around 88, 89 when we left all of a sudden, pulling up stakes and wrecking developing relationships with the tribes up there. Which is kind of a shame now, given that those once upon a time contacts might have come in handy as we look for bin Laden now.
Furthermore, there are Pakistanis who want us there, and took risks to hang with us when our new best friends, the Indians were going a squishy and pro-Soviet for the longest time. And Musharaff is quite westernized and his life depends upon showing that Pakistan’s returned strategic orientation towards the US is worthwhile, ergo, the reason some are trying to sabotage US aid to Pakistan is not due to ingratitude, but to the calculation of Islamists who want what you are proposing. I realize that your writing out of frustration with a good deal of the ingratitude that we face throughout the world, but in this case, I think the anger/scorn is misdirected. A country of 150+ million with nuclear weapons whose leadership has no choice but to fight Islamists (Musharef his nearest and dearest and many around him would be the first up against the wall if the Islamists won).
We can’t let our frustration with some of their crazies (egged on by Tancredo stating what we should not saying in public about our options if things go very badly) cloud our memories, judgement or aid decisions. We are giving aid in Pakistan for our purposes – a not entirely unstable Pakistan is better than a failed state of 150 million people and at least 1/2 dozen nuclear weapons.
What Curp said.
This’ll make it easier for you Babs. Whenever you see “Aid”, think “Bribe”. It’s one of the ways we influence events, and probably the best way. We need to keep them inside the tent pissing out, not vice versa.
Thank you David for your well thought out response. I would like to suggest to you that times certainly have changed. I see third world nations such as Pakistan as totally corrupt and I would wager that at least 80 cents on the dollar of our aid is stolen along the way. In addition, I have a really hard time with a national publication telling the world that our tax money sent to them, when they know full well that they have tremendous problems in their country, is like the “AIDS virus” and that “everyone” doesn’t want aid from the U.S.
Other than nukes, I am not aware of any strategic resource coming out of Pakistan (other than cab drivers).
Is your fear that they would fall into the Chinese or Russian sphere? Would the Chinese or Russians counsel them to blow off a bunch of nukes? Would either of those two countries pour aid dollars into Pakistan? I don’t think so.
What I do think is that U.S. aid to populations that are clearly hostile to us and living in an Islamic fantasy land should stop. I would put Egypt in this same category.
Musharaff is westernized? He leads a military hunta. The only time the guy delivers is when we send more bucks his way. Musharaff is a dictator. His people live in poverty and ignorance. And, the military of Pakistan took a cut out of every single thing we sent to the Muj to fight the Soviets.
It is an interesting fantasy and one I engage frequently; what would happen if we cut off funding for these corrupt regimes for just one year?
But Casca, I like your tent analogy from a humorous point of view. As to the morality of it, it sucks and I wish we would stop it.
Dear Babs,
We are in Afghanistan because a failed state became a kind of theme park for terrorist training. Pakistan if it falls apart, and it could, would be like that only much bigger and harder to police. The Byzantines figured out a long time ago that a strong enough power actually can economize by paying the danegeld, especially when we get the Pakistani’s helping us police their own. As for Musharef being a dictator, that is a problem because? Given what you’ve just written, do you really want the Pakistani people electing the person who most closely expresses their values and aspirations?
ps: And if we are only willing to work with regimes that are not corrupt it will get very interesting trying to get things done in much of the world.
pps: And putting Egypt in the same category might be emotionally satisfying, but, with respect, is not a good idea at all. Two words – Suez canal. And if God had wanted this to be easy for us He would have put all of our happy-go-lucky fellow monotheisistic followers of the religion of peace (or at least their oil) in some nice out of the way corner of the world like Australia.
Hmmm – sounds like this would simply our targeting solutions….
I don’t know how long you want to continue this debate but, I think we have to stop sooner rather than later proping up dictators, selling arms to people we know work against us and inflaming millions upon millions of people against us in order to keep them all “pissing out of the tent” or, whatever other analogy suits you today.
It is my opinion that in the long run we are making a big mistake.
I would just like to point out that oil can be produced with workers in radiological suits and, if that is where the gov’ts of these various countries want to drive this thing, I am willing to ride along. It is, after all, their countries.
You see David, I have lost patience with our molly coddling through vast aid dollars and arms sales. I find it no longer in our best interest and morally repugnant. In addition, all my “Christian” sensibilities have been numbed to the point where I don’t really give a damn anymore. I want it to stop. I want our country to stop playing a double game. I want us to stop “understanding” the barbarity and squalor. I want to stop excusing this on the basis of religious sensitivity and U.S. foreign relations, never mind historic precedent (that went out the window with the bombing of the Cole and 9-11).
When a national newspaper in Pakistan, hardly “the crazies” as you portrayed them in your first response, allow such an article to be published and, my comment deleted, then I think maybe the best approach would be to walk away for a while. Maybe one or two years without support might change the hearts and minds of these countries.
If you fear Islamic nations then maybe you ought to examine that thought. They have nothing to give to their people other than misery. Do not the people of these nations hold any obligation to their well being? Might they not have a memory of a time that was better? Can they not stand up for themselves in any manner, even internally?
I mean really, do you really think that if we pulled aid from the middle east that they would stop selling their oil to us? What, we would do without a few pistachios and the opium would still flow.
Sometimes, you have to walk through the fire. Based on my read of the U.S. domestic political scene and world events, I think we have staved off the fire quite long enough. How much longer do you think we can play this political game?
Dear Babs,
And sometimes walking through the fire looks like what we are doing. There is also a bit of tension in your post, on the one hand you seem disgusted with the violation of some of our scruples and values that working with less than savory elements in the Middle East entails, and on the other, it is hard not to read your lines about the strain in your “Christian” sensibilities and how they can extract oil in “radiological suits” as a veiled threat of the use of nuclear weapons. Please think about that – those are the most terrible weapons of last resort, that can kill millions of people, and make all of our enemies and many of our friends weight the possibility that maybe we are the rabid one’s in the international order, if we use weapons of last resort out of frustration. Oh – and actually, in my poor understanding, irradiated oil is pretty useless. And so, not only does playing with such notions represent a not quite open contemplation of genocidal killing, but just as bad, irradiated oil in a place like the Guld ensures a collapse of the global economy and famines and struggles for resources that will make the 1920s and 30s (and what followed) look like child’s play.
Also, we have walked away – we walked away from Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 90s as part of our holiday and are paying a price in blood for it. Furthermore, there are other powers in the world who can provide all sorts of capabilities to our enemies in the Middle East as said enemies slaughter our imperfect allies and co-beligerents while we are having our cooling off period/taking our time out (they are doing their warming up act in Darfur even as we write). And then, we will see a Middle East where anyone who might have sided with us is either dead or so rightly crazy angry with us that they have embraced the Islamists we are fighting as well as entering into alliances with other powers (not to name names, but the kind of people who threaten http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/07/bcnchina107a.xml or our other, more familiar sparring partner http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/europe/the_news_from_russia/ back and feeling tanned and rested).
We have been in a fight that President Bush warned us could last a generation for less than 5 years. We simply cannot afford to get tuckered at the price of seeing our friends and co-belligerents die in great numbers at a time when other enemies of this country great and small are feeling more uppish and aggressive. If we walk away, we are true to the jihadi’s narrative – keep hitting the Americans even in pin prick ways, and they will leave. I hate to say this, and I say it with real fear and trembling, because I am not in the least as good a man as than those who are fighting now, who have died and who are wounded for life, but if we cannot last for less than 5 years at the cost of fewer casualties than we suffered in any 20 days of World War II (our casualty rate then was 221/day – and in Vietnam we lost about 18 KIA/day – so we are the equivilent of less than a year into the Vietnam war in terms of casualties) then we are through. I don’t say that to make light of our soldiers sacrifice, to the contrary I want those sacrifices to achieve the object of a better world. But if we cannot take less than the casualties we suffered in Vietnam in any given year over a 5 year period for a strategic task of the first order like stabilizing the Middle East and Southwest Asia, then we had honestly best get out of the game entirely and accept that the future will be dictated to us by people for whom our freedoms are repugnant and subversive, and I do not mean the Islamists (though there will be very few breaks to them making all of the Middle East into Ahmadinejad world). Time to chose dear lady.
ps – the French lost 700+ men/day during World War I with only 40 million to our 300 million population, i.e. proportionally more men/day KIA in 3 days than we have lost in about 5 years. They were fighting for their lives to be sure, but then, the point is to not allow things to get that far out of control. And we get to pay in blood with a bit of interest now for securing the global order, or we can wait to “go through the fire” and risk the kind of meltdown that comes when we walk away.
pps: I didn’t mean the “time to chose” as snide or condescending. There is not a person who regularly participates on these forums whom I would wish to dis, and I really don’t mean to come accross as arrogant or professorial (occupational hazard).
I did not mean to imply that we, the U.S., would be the ones blowing off the nukes… Did you read the newspaper article carefully? I read it 3 or 4 times. You will find, if you read it again, that it is the Pakastanis that threaten to blow the nukes in the face of U.S. agression… By agression they then imply our aid to their nation and a rediculous claim that the U.S. wants to destroy their holy sites. One only needs to look at the battle of Najaf to see how insane that claim is.
That is where I was going with that comment. If the Middle East wants to blow themselves up then I am along for the ride. I don’t think the continuance of aid to these countries will deter, at this point, their blood lust to “do something in the name of Allah”.
I also happen to think that if the countries of the Middle East decide to innolate themselves then we, in the west, will find alternate energy sources; like the gulf of Mexico which has long been denied to U.S. oil companies for expansion even though Chinese oil companies as well as Cuban and E.U. companies are planning to drill for oil no more than 50 miles off the shores of Key West. As well as Alaska and oil shale. Hell, we can’t even get the citizens of Long Island to agree to a LNG terminal 7 miles off our shore. One guy in the local paper said “we don’t want to end up looking like LA”!!!
My comment regarding supply of arms stands. I find it repugnant and immoral that we are contemplating a huge arms sale to the Saudis. I have read several essays about why we should do this, none of them compelling to me. If China or Russia armed the Saudis instead of the U.S. what would the difference be (other than profit to U.S. weapons manufacturers)? I’ll tell you; we would send a very strong message (if we would only speak up about it) that we no longer choose to arm nations in the Middle East, with the exception of Iraq (and Israel) that we “hope” is on the road to democratic rule. We could then parlay this into more inflammation against supplying nations and possibly a better feel for the U.S. in the region.
I think that pretty much everyone that reads this site knows the Saudi’s can’t fight their way out of a paper bag. They have relied on the U.S. gov’t to protect their kingdom for decades. IMO, we have to stop doing that. What? Would they stop selling oil to us??? Would the Chinese or Russian weapons be less effective in a ground war against the Iranians than the Chinese and Russian weapons the Iranians have?
Here’s the thing David; I don’t think we can go on much longer with the kabokie game we play on the world stage, maybe a decade at most. The shite is going to hit the fan maybe tomorrow or maybe in a couple of years. My exhaustion is not with the U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq. My exhaustion is with the U.S. political system that keeps screwing us at every step and the recalcitrant mindset of Islamic dominated nations that revel in the muck of victimhood… Foreign aid is just one part of it. I don’t think the world will hold out much longer under the present arrangement.
It is long past time to figure out another paradime for our survival. Sending cooking oil to Pakistan just isn’t cutting it.
I wonder if “they” are diabolical enough to destroy (with plausible deniability) one of their own shrines and point the finger at us. We could deny it with reams of evidence but evidence does not even sway tinfoil hat nutroots.
Babs said: “…Do not the people of these nations hold any obligation to their well being? Might they not have a memory of a time that was better? Can they not stand up for themselves in any manner, even internally?..”
I don’t believe they do Babs, unfortunately. They don’t have a memory of a time that was better…better than what? What they know now is largely what they have always known. I believe that for the most part they can’t stand up for themselves because they fear their leadership as much as we do – the consequences of internal revolution are clear to them – beheadings, torture, family killings, etc…
The “raw nerve” part of me agrees with you – I want to bomb them all back to the stone age, since that is where they insist on “living”.
But in the end, I have to agree with Prof. Curp. This is a battle that is going to last long after we all are gone – indeed it’s been going on since 1979. We have to be in it for the long haul else we risk another 9/11 – or far worse. There is that classic “point of no return” – I believe that for the U.S. that point was 9/11/01. Like WWII, we have been dragged kicking and screaming into this fight, and like WWII it seems we will be the last ones standing – it’s going to take a helluva lot more time, energy and faith that what we are doing is the RIGHT thing – both for our own nation’s security and that of the rest of the world.
Because as has been said here many times – the U.S. is the world’s police force. If we abandon our post now, there won’t be much left of the world in short order.
Babs,
Two quick points – first of all, this is in a Pakistan where we are supporting Musharaf as a dictator AND whose people in the last week has heard a major Presidential candidate threaten invasion, as well as another US politico threaten to target Mecca and Medina. If, after September 11 one can have an Ann Coulter threaten a massive US invasion to “kill all their leaders and convert their people to Christianity” and then hear these kind of claims, even as our aid is culturally subversive, then perhaps the anger and fear of opposition parties that are after all using extemist rhetoric are not simply the result of psychosis.
Secondly, if we step out of the Middle East and tell most of the countries there that they are not worthy of us, and our rivals and enemies step in (Putin has been comparing us to the Nazis, PLA generals have talked about nuking LA – and given that they actually have the capability to do it and have targeted us for decades might it not be worth while to take them a smidge more seriously than Muslims who wish us ill when we idly speculate about ripping the heart out of their faith – and this is not the first time US politicians and pundits have speculated about such an attack). Our rivals/would-be-hegemons/enemies stepping in is a problem ’cause it takes time to work up the oil resources your talking about – one doesn’t make an infrastructure that could supply anything like what the current Middle East does overnight.
So, while we are drilling in the Gulf, etc. our rivals have the hands on what for a long time will be the world’s jugular vein, AND, by the way are arming the countries of the region without all the strings attached that our arms come with (and which even then don’t always help). These countries have a regional enemy for whom they have a religiously inspired hatred (and whose soldiers regularly take their oath of service in a place called Masada and have a large nuclear force sometimes referred to as the Samson option, and who have discovered that Hizbullah to their north is becoming a tougher nut to crack). When we leave these long time allies surrounded by a sea of their enemies, supplied by irresponsible would-be-hegemons, this is a situation ripe for another war, and I wouldn’t assume that a nation of 5ish million surrounded by many tens of millions of enemies is always going to win – they have so far, but since 73 the victories have gotten tougher, and these allies cannot afford to lose one war. If they do, I fear that we’ll find out that the “Samson option” wasn’t just an effort at playing cute, but was a statement of intent. ‘Cause if the Samson option means that large portions of the oil producing parts of the world would be reduced to glow in the dark glass, it would be decades before oil production could be brought up via the sources you specify to anything close to world demand. And while we were going broke trying to pay for the new infrastructure, find alternative fuels, tens of millions would face economic collapse and starvation, and much of the remaining oil would be in places of such stability and sanity as Nigeria, Venezuala, and Putin’s magic mafioso kingdom.
Our politics is frustrating beyond telling. But if our democracy tries to play “isolationism” the sequel, then we have demonstrated we really are incapable of global leadership to create a more decent world, even if that is slowly and by stages. If that were the case, then I would be hard pressed to make any argument as to why countries that were anything but pure democracies with Swiss levels of efficiency and Polish levels of pro-American sentiment should ever hope that we would have staying power in helping them transition out of tyranny or at least modify the domination by a small clique so it doesn’t include open gulags and all the rest, then prepare to see a global order where freedom was just a flash in the pan but we cannot cut our economic ties with countries that wish us ill.
Sorry David, we don’t want them down here.
With regard to the rest (and to pervert a phrase) it’s a crappy option, but not as crappy as the others.
I just hope it’s being managed with a greater eye to possible ill effects in the future, as Afghanistan proved so spectacularly.
And you’re quite right, comments about invading Pakistan and bombing Mecca and Medina may win a few votes but you have to think the people tasked with making things work were turning the air blue when they heard.
Dear Sim,
I presume the “they” who you don’t want “down here” (Middle East?) are the former vanguard of the workers’ movement and their largish eastern neighbors who are demonstrating how easily and seamlessly one can make the trasfer from Proletarian internationalism to fascism?
And as for the Pakistan and Mecca/Medina comments – yup, definitly not helpful, and likely as not to generate the kind of lose rhetoric that Babs rightly finds upsetting.
Here = Australia
Them = Religious extremists of any ilk (ref. comment #15).
And as I indicated in the post, God obviously wanted to put oil and Muslims together and far away from Australia, the better to promote Anglosphere creativity and diplomacy.
David,
Although there is a strain of isolationist in me, I do generally agree with all you have posted. ….. A cuppla comments….
When a super power speaks – even if it is a politician making totally ill advised comments about bombing Mecca/Medina – the words naturally reverberate around the world. Our words have great power and effect. But they can further isolate us, alienates us, and even endanger us. It also gives the Muslim fringe fanatics fodder to enlist and enrage the young, potential terrorist. I am reminded of the words of Nikita Khrushchev’s – his infamous, “We will bury you!” statement. It absolutely infuriated us, and it racheted up the Cold War to a much higher level.
Conversely, flipping an enemy into a friend can have extraordinary results ?
David,
Although there is a strain of isolationist in me, I do generally agree with all you have posted. ….. A cuppla comments….
When a super power speaks – even if it is a politician making totally ill advised comments about bombing Mecca/Medina – the words naturally reverberate around the world. Our words have great power and effect. But they can further isolate us, alienates us, and even endanger us. It also gives the Muslim fringe fanatics fodder to enlist and enrage the young, potential terrorist. I am reminded of the words of Nikita Khrushchev’s – his infamous, “We will bury you!” statement. It absolutely infuriated us, and it racheted up the Cold War to a much higher level.
Conversely, flipping an enemy into a friend can have extraordinary results – as can be seen recently in Anbar Province. There in a stunning turnaround, instead of continuing fighting Sunnis, we were able to enlist their help in revealing and fighting Al Queda insurgents, and eradicating them.
Of course the two elephants in our room’s discussion are OIL and NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Precious Oil is finite and will dwindle over time, while nuclear weapons and those who have them will likely grow. Mix those in with the proliferation of religious fanaticism, political de-stabilization and power plays, ancient animosities, acts of genocide, and 3rd world hopeless economies, and you have a world wagon of nitroglycerine bouncing down a bumpy, rocky road.
We can either isolate ourselves, close our eyes and ears and wait for the explosion, or we can somehow be actively involved in avoiding it or managing it. But we must be very wise and careful in our involvement. Finesse rather than force. Clumsiness in foreign policy or some regrettable action could once again “assassinate the ‘prince’ of this new millennia” and throw our world into chaos. And oceans no longer protect us.
Speaking of oil, no mention has yet been made of Peak Oil. Certainly, oil will not “run out” in our lifetime. However, even with finding new reserves and procedures, oil production will peak in the future (if it hasn’t already). Simultaneously, world demand for oil is growing nearly exponentially. I used to laugh at the doomsayers. And after having read the Limits To Growth over 30 years ago, I was delighted to see how very wrong the Club of Rome was. But today, I am not so sure.
Peak oil or not, the current stress on oil production vis-à-vis growing oil consumption is extremely taught. Any substantial disruption would send the US (and most of the world) into a deep recession/depression. Bin Laden has often said his next act of terror will attempt to decimate our US economy. Author Robert Baer has a prologue in his book “Sleeping With the Devil” called the “Doomsday Scenario.” In it he gives a fictionalized, but very plausible account on how a number of terrorists could blow up the Saudi oil fields. It is a chilling possibility in our ever more dangerous world.
Filterman,
Agreed on all counts. I think something that Casca said might be worth taking a bit further, when we started discussing proportionality. I took his comment on the other thread to mean the most basic issue of not using a B-52 to deal with a sniper in a mosque, somethng our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen know very well. But there is a kind of political proportionality as well, the ability to not take offense even where offense is met, not because we are afraid or indifferent, but because we are the grown up. When a Pakistani politician threatens the Vatican we can get all hot and bothered or treat it like you treat a fart at a polite party, something to tactfully be ignored, ’cause we have the biggest fish of all to fry, and we are frying them in a powder magazine (or in the middle of a gas refinery).
re Proportionality:
True- The US military does not use sledgehammers to crush mosquitoes. This follows a long tradition on the use of force in Western Civilization.
However, in any contingency/planning scenario, unless something has changed in our 60+ year old policy, nukes are never off the table. The big stick ia always available…
Which is, as it should be, because we ain’t fighting within Western Civilizations “rules” when we confront this “unruly Islamic mob”. As a matter of fact, in many situations our “restraint” has come across as “weakness”. What David says makes perfect logical sense to all of us rational Westerners but I am sensitive to the fact that, like criminals any cop will tell you, ideation often becomes action…the unthinkable or preposterous, can become a reality.
Like 9-11.
I know that is upsetting to some but that is the way it is. Finally, I offer this- Consider the implications if the tables were turned?
b2
Badbob,
I understand that the nuke genie is out of the bottle and it isn’t going back in, and that we actually do plan in the worst case scenarios to use such weapons. I would also submit that being proactive and pursuing deterence means doing everything in one’s power to make sure that we don’t come anywhere close to the worst case scenario. My objection to Bab’s disgust with our “friends” and her recommendation that we abandon them because they are not the sort of folks with whom we would like to have dinner (see Disreali and Gladstone in 1870s England about the relative merits of supporting the Ottomans) in many parts of the Muslim world is that if we effectively turn these places into a diplomatic/political/military terra incognita we will soon find ourselves like the Medievalists of popular legend inscribing “there be dragons” (or bears, if you get my drift) on lots of the globe’s real estate. And that will move us a lot closer to where nukes become a more necessary part of the mix to protect vital US interest.
To be honest, I don’t long for the unity produced by having an unambiguously pure cause while our backs against the wall – I wish we had more unity, I wish the people we were supporting were as politically pure as the driven snow, but there are worse things than pursuing a foreign policy whose object is to maintain the normal murk that is human life and in which we will never be sure just how bad were the evils which we averted.
And one of those worse things is a US tradition of finding that the world is not so pure or peaceful as we would like or tolerate at home, and then deciding we want nothing to do with it. That view almost cost us our hides for much of the last half of the 20th century, when we had to fight a world war against a racially genocidal enemy that came way to close to winning for comfort, AND then had to spend the next generation in a Cold War where the only other major global player had thousands of nukes aimed at our country and was in the grips of a leadership whose ideology was a little less murderous, but not one whit less imperial and whose leadership was entirely unaccountable and had a propensity for making some important decisions while drunk (some convincing anecdotes point to that it was with lots of liquid courage that a drug addled Brezhnev authorized the invasion of Afghanistan). These days, for all of their awfulness simply are better than what came before, and part of what will keep them better is a careful husbanding of alliances, continually building up the structures of IR law, judicious use of aid(okay Casca, bribes), and, at times of great need the application of force. We are more on top of this game than people think, but we also face threats that need attending to, weeds that need pulling.
Any fool may carry-on. It takes wisdom to know when to shorten sail ~Masefield
Well there you go, it’s called The Great Game.
When I used the word proportionality, my meaning was the broader one that you have arrived at. It’s not just a question of selection of weapons, it can be as subtle as who you say hello to when you walk through the ville.
Our young officers out at the tip of the spear are part Lawrence of Arabia, part Michael Corleone. It takes wisdom to play this game.
And even more wisdom to not fall into Lawrence’s trap of believing your own advertising/agitprop and thinking that your playing the other side when they are really playing you, but I guess that is the Corleone part.
or even worse in Lawrence’s case and thinking that everywhere in the world the people’s among whom one is workind and fighting are on the cusp of greatness simply because we’ve learned to admire a few of their positive qualities…
Proportionality and a nuclear option….
I’d be curious as to who exactly, we might nuke, exactly where, and what we would actually gain/lose by using such an option?
It is not Western Civilization “rules” nor “restraint” but rather common sense, judicious foreign policy, and successful warfighting that make the nuclear option a least desirable option.
Yes, if the tables were turned, the terrorists will likely not hesitate to use a nuclear option if available to them. But in asymmetric warfare, to assimilate and imitate the tactics of the enemy is to hasten your own defeat. We in this country have been conditioned to the quick fix, the sixty-minute solution to any problem. In this vein, for many, waving a magic nuclear wand may seem like the easiest and most expedient solution to rid us of our problems and mortal threats of great complexities. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
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re US aid to Pakistan: 90% of our aid to Pakistan is military aid.
Also it is important to note that the official name of Pakistan is, the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” And this Islamic Republic already has a small, nuclear arsenal. Pervez Musharraf and the US walk a tightrope in that country. Any misstep in our foreign policy, or by their president could have disastrous consequences for many years to come. Hence both our caution and aid.
Filterman and badbob,
Two things – I wonder if Michael Howard isn’t correct in arguing that, far from being practicing politics by other means, war is the absence of politics, i.e. we wage war when politics have failed and we are trying to get back to politics.
Secondly, I take your point filterman that it is pretty hard to connect nukes with most notions of proportionality, but then just like Purdue chicken, parts ain’t parts and we do have different kinds of nuclear weapons (and some of our proposals for using ICBMS with non-nuke munitions are perhaps bluring the line even further, non?). But they are weapons of last resort, to be used only in the face of a catastrophic international failure that insh’allah we never see, which is one of the reasons I support our intervention in Iraq as a means of staving off such a day (and I get that some regard the intervention as a means of hastening it – t’aint analysis fun).
There is always risk in entering into any major conflict. But without a clear-cut win, our nation is hurt by its effort, as witnessed in Vietnam. And we therefore fall into a more precarious position in the world.
I also believe our earlier policies and tactics in Iraq were very self-defeating, exposed our vulnerabilities, emboldened our enemies, and if continued would put us in even greater jeopardy. Fortunately, we seem to have finally seen the error of our ways, as Nathaniel Ficks’ excellent article on his Afghanistan experience, “Fight Less, Win More” in today’s Washington Post reveals.
Killing 1,000 insurgents in Iraq only to have 2,000 new fanatical recruits crossing borders into Iraq if continued, would have been a recipe for disaster. There are other major changes needed, but we finally seem to be on a better track that finally leads to some optimism.
Filterman,
One piece of the strategic calculus that might be benefiting both us and our partners in the Middle East – every 1000-2000 insurgents who are arriving in Iraq and sooner or later dying there (or running home with memories of what it is like to play jihad games against the varsity) might be buying a generation of something like stability in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia – we might be creating a “meeting engagement” with some of the most dangerous and radical elements throughout the region.
Re “rules”. Fliterman, the concept of proportionality was learned the hard way- “Western” style. It is not an Eastern concept. Remember that. Sure, we used the nuke first, but it was an experiment that greatly ‘exceeded expectations’. And we haven’t used it since.
re Nukes. I am a military man. To me they are another tool, albeit big, in the tool box. I served for the most part during the Cold War and had more than my share of practice “work” with ‘em, yet some days I can’t believe I have lived to see the day the world turned (again). There is a culture of death, the Islamic culture (there- I said it), amongst us that do not seem to care about their own survival. The horrors of 9-11 and the numbness to suicide as a collective strategy is beyond the pale. Don’t tell me they really don’t mean it- did you understand my point above about ideation becoming action? Be afraid.
This trait makes them a unique and dangerous enemy. Something new for the world- nearly science fiction almost! The Soviets were bad, but they were both symmetric AND sane. Same with Red China. Islamo-facists are neither. Not possessing the symmetric forces necessary to dominate the world traditionally, they have the fervent and realistic hope they can get the big one..Only the stupid could consider they won’t… And what will they do with it, or them? Posture and warn like the Soviets? Hell no.
They’ll use them.
What do we do then? In the ’50′s we had the policy of massive retaliation. What policy do we have now? I can answer that- Nada. And that ain’t good. What should we do? Don’t ask me. I don’t have an answer, but I have been seeking one since this became the #1 blip on my radar screen back in ’01. How ’bout you?
In essence David is right. All we are doing now, even IF the Dems let us continue to be successful, is buying time. Small beer, ain’t it?
b2
“All we are doing now… is buying time.”
I don’t see it that way. Iraq is a honeypot for the Jihadis, and we’ve killed them there at a wholesale rate. See Curp @39.
Curp, I believe you’ve very succinctly encapsulated what has all along been our strategy. Like most strategies, it’s not something one would like to share with one’s enemies.
Casca-
re “…buying time”
I’m seeing this as a clash o’civilizations, not a tactical engagement in the Islamic country Iraq is. Every last one of those countries has the same problem- it’s just that some governments have larger/more effective security arrangements to keep their “streets” in line. Sure, Iraq IS the mother lode for AQ and we need to be there (I can’t believe you would question I didn’t know that…) but, even if they stopped overt attacks this afternoon the “problem” would still be with us…like it’s been with us for 1200 years. I do acknowledge Iraq as a base of ops, centrally located, for future ops. Pulling out does not equate on any level with me.
That’s what I’m referring to Casca, and that’s why I consider OEF/OIF/PI/Somalia/ etc. etc. as “buying time”. This is a generational war being waged by a country where 50% of the people have a 30 minute sitcom sense of time and an entire political party in a 2-party system will not acknowledge the threat or offer “run away” as a strategy..
What is happening today is by no means the main event. IMO, that’s coming. Not a question of If, but When.
Therefore my question above. What are we gonna do? What is our policy beyond responding Proportionally? Is there one?
b2
David – You have fought your position hard and with aploumb. I just don’t happen to agree with you…
We can’t continue on with the support of dictators and a feeble western aid package. It is my read that indicators in Pakistan as well as Egypt tell me that American aid just isn’t bringing about the results you wish for.
I never said that we should bomb people, like Krisitn implied I did. My discussion only tried to talk about foreign aid. I happen to think that in the case we are discussing; the Middle East and the far East (or whatever you call Pakistan and the trashkanistans), it is a worthless geasture meant only to appease their military.
And, yeah Casca, I get it, it is no more than a bribe to the powers that be as most of it is stolen.
As a United States taxpaer I say stop the aid to Middle East countries. Stop supplying aid to militaries that denegrate women’s rights and fight for something that I fundamentally don’t believe in. Don’t give another dime to the Saudi’s and cut all aid off to Egypt, Musharaff and the Pakastanis. You say they will fall into someone else’s camp; let them. Either you believe that we have the greatest fighting force on the face of the earth or, you don’t… Either you believe in human rights or, you beieve in what is most expedious to your position… Either you believe in the rights of mankind to govern themselves or, you don’t.
You have all tried to argue a “greater good”. I respect you for that. I just don’t believe in what you are arguing for. No sacenario comes without pain.
Typos being one of them…
Babs,
Fair enough. I understand and sympathize with your view and recognize the heartfelt moral convictions behind it. I am also sorry for misreading some of your remarks – t’was not intentional.
I guess for me the bottom line includes the following:
first, “never again” – never again should my country sit by while genocidal regimes or movements gather steam. If we are not actively engaged this can happen too easily, and while I share your dismay at the corrupt, like Musharef, I fear many of those with passionate conviction even more. Darfur is an excellent example of what one of our eastern rivals consider acceptable business practices, Chechnya and Kosover are others. And the fact is that the people whose mass murder the world has largely watched (with our engagement in Kosovo being an honorable exception) would likely not produce political leaders who would meet the exacting standards for alliance you seem to have, since societies that have been brutalized usually throw up some less than genteel souls to the top of the political food chain. So we end up with either my willingness to work with these people or we watch entire nations die at the hands of others.
I believe in human rights and self-government in the abstract,but all too often in practice “self-government” means that some selves govern others in very dark ways (see above). Therefore, what some would call “imperialism” (which is what most people in most of human history would have simply called “the government) is not the worst tragedy. It seems to me that there is even a fairly significant tension between human rights and self-government; self-government in most of the south for a very long time meant the right of the majority to oppress African Americans, just as many countries have long defended their right to engage in massive human rights violations because of majority rule and national sovereignty. Given a choice, and as the only global power right now, we have that choice, I chose human rights over self-government without blinking.
Finally, and not necessarily in this order – the safety of my people. I do recognize that our country has great military (and economic power and deeper political cohesion than any of us really believe, especially with the silly season of campaigning upon us). Still, surprises happen in military and political affairs. The Nazi-Soviet pact for example was a strategic threat to the survival of freedom of a high order – and had Hitler a bit more sense, a bit more of the “vision thing” and not been haunted by the sense of his own mortality but rather nurtured a “worthy successor” (Reinhard Heydrich was at the top of the list – a monster of the type that we don’t see operating on the world stage right now), we might be having a very different conversation right now, po russki or auf deutsch.
We are strong – we are not all powerful and we had very strong allies the last time around, some of them, like Stalin, who also were very unworthy allies, and our collaboration with him assigned many tens of millions of people to stunted lives for generations (and many hundreds of thousands to death as well – some of which deaths we even collaborated in – I’m thinking about Sov citizens whom we repatriated to them after the war, many of whom the Sovs murdered). I’m afraid the choice is not whether we will work with some very bad people but rather if we will control the terms of cooperation and get to set boundaries on the worst our friends can do – with the way I’m advocating I think we can.
If the global energy economy collapsed for example (say something like our pullout from the Middle East precipitated a major crisis), we would be coping with all of the defeatists we so decry in this country, who would have at their backs many millions more semi-permanently unemployed people, while enjoyiing the spectacle of watching many tens of millions of people (mainly in the weakest and most vulnerable countries) die in fairly lingering and nasty ways. We possibly could be able to scrape together the resources to become a kind of American Sparta, poor but armed enough to deal with the greatly increased power of rivals whose respect for us would likely not grow as we became poorer and more militaristic, but maintained the purity of our principals. I don’t think we would win the war that would likely follow, sooner or later without major nuclear exchanges.
Thus, even with a knowledge of our power (and no, I’m afriad it dosen’t rise to the level of belief – when talking about military power faith and belief as modes of analysis should be banished – military power is primarily about logistic capabilities, training and technology – while motivation and ideology can help, even those are personnel factors that cannot win out on their own – our guys with the best will and motivation surrounded and without supply are so many admirable corpses at the end of the day – we cannot and should not “believe” in our military power the same way we believe in our constitution – as Tony Soprano would say, that part of IR affairs is “strictly bidness”). I do however, believe and think the possibilities for evil are much deeper and more immediate than even the clash of civilizations that badbob alludes to above, ’cause I think we can handle the Muslim world as such if only because their divisions and internal contradictions can be turned to our advantage. Empowered by more dangerous enemies, however, we might find ourselves living to see the opening rounds of World War III against enemies who don’t necessarily regard nukes as a last resort.
I realize this might sound like paranoia (no dear filterman, I do not clutch my teddy bear and cry myself to sleep with visions of inscrutable orientals giving legions of hashished up kill-crazy Muslim fanatics C 4 suicide belts at bargain prices while slipping Osama a nuke or two
) but I think our aid and military engagement now on the whole are the best way to maintain on the whole a just global order and lay the foundations for a better world.
Finally, t’is fine we disagree, and I’m glad for the idealism and love of truth and country that animates your post Babs. I don’t want to just be a cynic. And at the risk of discrediting my ability to offer commentary that will be taken seriously by anyone who has ever been in government service, I think that part of what makes us better is that really there are very few if any people who hold positions of power on our side who are nearly as cynical as they think they are. We are trying to do the right thing, and our record stacks up very well against our most worthy predecessors and world’s better than our nearest likely successor. I think that buying time is likely as not going to allow for the rise of new polities and powers more capable of maintaining a just global order and/or the change of our compeititors into more responsible, less bloody minded and handed collaborators in such an order. And so playing for time has its hope and strategy.
A thesis submitted for the approval of the College of Lex…