Afghanistan Forever?

[Mike]

Unless the United States can accomplish one (or all) of three of the following objectives, I see us remaining in Afghanistan indefinitely without ever achieving our over-arching goal. We must (a) create an Afghan army capable and willing to take our place against the Taliban; (b) obtain in Pakistan an ally capable and willing to stop the supply of Talban recruits; and (c) inflict sufficient damage upon the Talban to the point that it will come to the negotiating table.

General Petraeus knows that the U.S. military cannot kill its way to victory over the Taliban. The lessons of Viet Nam with emphasis on “body counts” are applicable in Afghanistan. The average life span of a mid-level Taliban officer may be something like three weeks, but for every one killed another arrives to replace him with more waiting in the wings.

Of course we may simply arrive at the point where WE are unwilling to accept the ratio of sunk costs to unattainable benefits—something that many people have difficulty perceiving.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Unless the United States can accomplish one (or all) of three of the following objectives, I see us remaining in Afghanistan indefinitely without ever achieving our over-arching goal. We must (a) create an Afghan army capable and willing to take our place against the Taliban; (b) obtain in Pakistan an ally capable and willing to stop the supply of Talban recruits; and (c) inflict sufficient damage upon the Talban to the point that it will come to the negotiating table.

General Petraeus knows that the U.S. military cannot kill its way to victory over the Taliban. The lessons of Viet Nam with emphasis on “body counts” are applicable in Afghanistan. The average life span of a mid-level Taliban officer may be something like three weeks, but for every one killed another arrives to replace him with more waiting in the wings.

Of course we may simply arrive at the point where WE are unwilling to accept the ratio of sunk costs to unattainable benefits—something that many people have difficulty perceiving.

I think that Afghanistan is moving in a bad direction. Recently Karzai's brother freed one of the top commanders of the Taliban in Kandahar Province. I think that other senior Taliban leaders have been freed by Karzai. My overall impression is that Karzai is basically just trying to appease the Taliban. I think the Taliban would like to see democracy fall, and so I think they would like to get rid of Karzai, not to mention that Karzai is a vote-rigger and seems unpopular, which just gives them more reason to get rid of him.

With that being said, I still fully support our attempts to build a stable government there. A stable Afghanistan and Pakistan region or "AfPak", as the new term has been coined, is essential to national and international security.

As for point (a), I don't know what the current status of the Afghan army is. The US/UK and some other countries still appear to be doing the vast majority of fighting, although that could be a good thing no matter how good Afghanistan's army is. Only US troops are equipped and trained to work with close US air, artillery and armored support.

As for (b), from what I can tell, Pakistan is actually supporting the Taliban, while at the same time allowing us to shoot them down like dogs from the skies. They are trying to support both sides so that no matter who wins, they can claim to be an ally with them.

As for (c), I have read that the Taliban is war-weary, but other commentary I've heard leads me to believe that they are just waiting us out.

I don't know about people coming in to replace the Taliban due to resentment of the US. I've actually heard on NPR that a lot of people come in for weird reasons like they just wanted to get in on the fight, or they got some economic benefit out of doing it. I don't think this conflict is like Vietnam, which just saw carpet bombing and firing into the brush and assuming that a certain tonnage of ammunition expended automatically meant a certain number of enemies killed. We are using McCrystal's strategy of winning hearts and minds, or at least we tried to.

[Mike]

I don't think this conflict is like Vietnam, which just saw carpet bombing and firing into the brush and assuming that a certain tonnage of ammunition expended automatically meant a certain number of enemies killed. We are using McCrystal's strategy of winning hearts and minds, or at least we tried to.Just to be clear, I don't think this conflict is like Vietnam, either. But I do think that Vietnam provided lessons that are applicable. As I said, I believe General Petraeus understands the "body counts" lesson. I'm less confident in our ability to win the hearts and minds given our track record.

www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/09-0

In addition to undiminished violence, people in Kandahar live with the sour taste and gnawing frustration of unfulfilled promises of development made by the U.S. and the international community.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

The US has the ability to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan, but only in so far as we have the political will to keep our troops there so those hearts and minds can be won. Before Obama's surge there, my impression of Afghanistan is a few major cities held by the Afghani government and NATO. The rest of the country was mixed between no man's land and a series of fiefdoms of the Taliban. There's not going to be many promises kept if the Taliban is disrupting the economy with violence and destroying infrastructure, much the same way that promises were not kept in Iraq while the insurgency there was blowing up market places and infrastructure.

I think that if we followed the views of someone like Senator McCain and I daresay, a generic Republican, we would stay in Afghanistan, we would leave our 120,000-odd large force there and simply give the Taliban no room to breath. Then we would be able to deliver on our promises. That's the surge strategy that worked in Iraq. Hopefully, Obama will slow walk the withdrawal, although Karzai's releasing of top Taliban figures indicates that things there might not end as well as they did in Iraq.

[Mike]

The US has the ability to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan, but only in so far as we have the political will to keep our troops there so those hearts and minds can be won. I would like you to be right on this, WEB. I really would. I would love it for us to have a decisive once-and-for-all win for a change. This is the kind of issue that I would even love to be proven dead wrong, hahaha. But I'm just way skeptical. Political will? Well, that's a big thing, isn't it? I mean I daresay just about all Americans regardless of how far either way on the spectrum they are politically, feel different kinds of pride in our country. Nobody (here) wants to see our reputation or standing reduced in the world. But nobody (here) wants to see our boys and girls coming come in bags, either. We all recognize the price of peace, the price of world leadership, the price of freedom. But there is a limit to how long we'll endure the loss of our precious blood. I'm not saying we've reached that limit. But I think we will reach it because I'm not convinced that victory is achievable. I am also not convinced that victory in Afghanistan will prevent another 911.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

I would like you to be right on this, WEB. I really would. I would love it for us to have a decisive once-and-for-all win for a change. This is the kind of issue that I would even love to be proven dead wrong, hahaha. But I'm just way skeptical. Political will? Well, that's a big thing, isn't it? I mean I daresay just about all Americans regardless of how far either way on the spectrum they are politically, feel different kinds of pride in our country. Nobody (here) wants to see our reputation or standing reduced in the world. But nobody (here) wants to see our boys and girls coming come in bags, either. We all recognize the price of peace, the price of world leadership, the price of freedom. But there is a limit to how long we'll endure the loss of our precious blood. I'm not saying we've reached that limit.

Well considering that there was a lot of skepticism over Iraq and defeat was all but certain in 2006 and people were talking about getting out of there, and there were massive marketplace blasts every day with 200 people being killed at one time or on one day of bombing, and then look at how much things turned around. Now we have pulled out approximately 100,000 troops and can you remember the last time there was a blast in Iraq?

I'm saying that on a theoretical level, there's a lot similarities and it could work again. Are things going well right now? No, I don't think so. However, I think that's really due to the US public's loss of patience with Afghanistan. That's not really the fault of the US public or the military's fault. It's Bush's fault for taking the US down a path he had not prepared it to go down. If he really wanted to invade Iraq, he should have waited till Afghanistan was stabilized and expanded the US Army while he was doing it. He didn't do that, so we left for Iraq and the Taliban came back in Afghanistan and ruined everything.

We can turn that all around though, but the American public is not sophisticated. It lacks the ability to see nuance and even a small amount of complexity. So regardless of who caused the loss of political will, it has been lost, and I think that's the biggest problem.



But I think we will reach it because I'm not convinced that victory is achievable. I am also not convinced that victory in Afghanistan will prevent another 911.

Afghanistan could be harder than Iraq due to the mountainous terrain, which provides natural cover to guerrilla bases, makes guerrillas harder to run down and makes ambushes and hit and run attacks more easy. There could also be ethnic issues and the loss of confidence among the Afghani population. However, we did defeat the Taliban 8 years ago. I think we threw them right out of the country. The US could do it again.

I think that in large part, the Taliban is not really on the offensive. I think they are trying to wait us out. That could be used against them, allowing economic activity to resume, and running out the clock on the corrupt Karzai administration, so that a new election can take place and maybe someone elected by the people can take power. In any case, to be realistic, it's out of my hands, and it's out of your hands too. We participate in the political process, but for the most part we are spectators. We'll have to see how things play out.

[Mike]

You know, I’ll warrant that right after 911 about 9,999 out of every 10,000 Americans (me included) stood united for going in to Afghanistan to grab Osama Bin Laden and haul his ...his donkey back here for trial (most of them preferred to simply see him swing from a gallows and didn't care where.) Moreover, 90% of the rest of the world stood with us, morally speaking.

But when President Bush talked about Iraq, a whole bunch of us stopped in our tracks and asked, “Say WHAT?! Iraq? Saddam Hussein? No, dude, you’ve got it all wrong!!” From there everything went down hill, our political will began to divide, our world-wide moral support eroded, and worst of all, most important of all is that we diluted our focus and our assets, and we let the bad guys get away. I am so unconvinced as I said earlier that this thing is salvageable in terms of our original purpose. As far as protecting ourselves here at home we lost the day, and we’re back to where we were just wondering when and where the next hit will come, regardless of all our tough talking heads, our YouTube videos and our songs on the radio. I'm just venting, I suppose.


Well considering that there was a lot of skepticism over Iraq and defeat was all but certain in 2006 and people were talking about getting out of there, and there were massive marketplace blasts every day with 200 people being killed at one time or on one day of bombing, and then look at how much things turned around. Now we have pulled out approximately 100,000 troops and can you remember the last time there was a blast in Iraq?Well the following doesn't seem to be all that uncommon to me.

www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=36490&wf=rsscol

The latest wave of violence in the strife-torn nation of Iraq has left at least 100 dead and 300 people injured. In a gangland-styled twist, some assailants are now using silencers on guns in the latest assaults.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Officials say that there were at least 20 separate attacks over the weekend. There were three to four car bomb attacks at the State Company for Textile Industries in central Iraq; 62 miles form the nation's capital of Baghdad.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

I'm just venting, I suppose.

There is much to vent about during the two year Bush administration. It was a long bad time for Democrats, at least in my experience in following politics.



Well the following doesn't seem to be all that uncommon to me.

www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=36490&wf=rsscol

It appears to me that the attacks in question occurred in May, and not November.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_May_2010_Iraq_attacks

Other parts of the world switch around the month and the day, so I can see how this could cause some misunderstandings.

[Mike]

May not recent enough? How about this?

www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/26/104351/round-up-of-daily-violence-in.html

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Part of a trend where violence is down 84% from peak levels in 2006.


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48891000/gif/_48891052_iraq_deaths464x261.gif

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11107739

[Mike]

Graphics are always interesting, aren't they? For example, the one above shows that a decline in violence began before the surge. Taken in isolation (the graph) one might almost be tempted to speculate whether the anticipation of a surge actually caused violence to increase, and the subsequent withdrawals of troops caused violence to diminish. Of course, there's always the logic that if you put more police on the streets in any city, violent street crime will decrease, at least in the short-run. Isn't it true, however, that the violence essentially started when we arrived and isn't really substantively lower in late 2010 from the 2003 levels?

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Graphics are always interesting, aren't they? For example, the one above shows that a decline in violence began before the surge. Taken in isolation (the graph) one might almost be tempted to speculate whether the anticipation of a surge actually caused violence to increase, and the subsequent withdrawals of troops caused violence to diminish. Of course, there's always the logic that if you put more police on the streets in any city, violent street crime will decrease, at least in the short-run. Isn't it true, however, that the violence essentially started when we arrived and isn't really substantively lower in late 2010 from the 2003 levels?

The surge began in Mid 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007#Units_deployed). So looking at the graph, it could be the case that the surge started while the violence was raging and quickly halved the level of violence. The surge was announced in January 2007, and the violence had clearly been in escalation a year prior to this. Given that, it's clear that the surge destroyed the violence coming from insurgents.

With regards to the comparison of violence between today and 2003, I think the graphs hows a reduction of maybe 10-20% in violence, and if you look at the very last bar and that turns into a trend, then that could be a huge reduction in violence since 2003. Even if that does not happen, I think that a 10-20% decrease in violence coupled with a net reduction of US troops by a large percentage is something that is sustainable from a foreign policy perspective. If you can do your occupation, set up a new army, new police and then withdraw most of your army and the country remains stable, then that's been a war that was ultimately successful.

[Mike]

As I've said before, I hope you're correct. Perhaps it will be interesting to re-visit the situation in Iraq in about 3 months, and again this time next year to see if the trend continues.

[Mike]

Periodic reality check:
They saw their brethren murdered during Mass and then were bombed in their homes as they mourned. Al-Qaida vowed to hunt them down. Now the Christian community of Iraq, almost as old as the religion itself, is sensing a clear message: It is time to leave.

Since the Oct. 31 bloodbath in their Baghdad church, Iraqi Christians have been fleeing Sunni Muslim extremists who view them as nonbelievers and agents of the West.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/93497/#ixzz194EDAwJaAny additional remarks?

[discuss]

The simple fact of the matter is that there is no plan for Afghanistan. The percentage of our tax dollars that go to support this unwinnable war as well as the amount of our overall federal budget that supports it is nothing short of sickening. Obama has solidified the Bush administration's foreign policy despite the fact that the majority of Americans want out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The larger problem from the standpoint of democracy is that our so- called leaders have such a disdain for the public that they make decisions against popular opinion, in the interests of the wealthy. Rather than being influenced by their constituency, whom they are supposed to be serving, they look for ways to circumvent what most Americans want.

[Dewey]

The simple fact of the matter is that there is no plan for Afghanistan. The percentage of our tax dollars that go to support this unwinnable war as well as the amount of our overall federal budget that supports it is nothing short of sickening. Obama has solidified the Bush administration's foreign policy despite the fact that the majority of Americans want out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The larger problem from the standpoint of democracy is that our so- called leaders have such a disdain for the public that they make decisions against popular opinion, in the interests of the wealthy. Rather than being influenced by their constituency, whom they are supposed to be serving, they look for ways to circumvent what most Americans want.




Yes. I guess. That's one way to put it. Our so-called leaders are pressing ahead to defeat the Taliban and stabilize afghanistan for the ‘interests of the wealthy’ — i.e. the interests of Americans.

But that's what governments and nation-states are supposed to do. And it's something Americans really ought to support unless we'd rather see some more of our embassies be obliterated and have bounties put out on the heads of American tourists abroad — anywhere and everywhere: in Argentina or France or Egypt or Greece...

And you could look at it this way: the cost of continuing the war effort in terms of additional money and lives lost is negligible or nonexistent compared to discontinuing it; unless we were to dismantle our military and save 3 percent of our GDP that we spend on defense to support a standing army — which secures the liberal world order in all of Europe, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Japan and South Korea etc.... America's military is the pillar that provides stability in the world: withdraw the U.S. carriers and fleets and forces from the rest of the world and pretend America exists in a bubble: until the world economy collapses and the tsunami of hobbesian hilariousness comes home to roost like it did on 9/11.

Personally, I'd rather not see that happen, however exciting and enthralling that might be to watch from a safe distance as civilization unravels and reassembles itself in completely unpredictable ways. I'd much rather see America remain committed to however long is necessary to stabilize Afghanistan — even if we have to wait another generation or two for the millions of women who are enrolled in unicef sponsored schools to raise a more modern and educated nation of liberated women and much more moderate, semi-literate men.

[discuss]

That is exactly the kind of thinking that's gotten us stuck in a permanent war economy. The U.S. has no plan in Afghanistan and all it is accomplishing is to help recruit more people for groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda through the devastation it's wreaking in that country, along with Iraq and Pakistan. The cost of the war is money that could be used for nation-building at home. It's arrogant to think that the U.S. is keeping the world safe by playing the big cop. And it should be obvious to anyone who doesn't have their head in the sand that the U.S. only gets involved militarily in places where it stands to benefit economically.

[Dewey]

That is exactly the kind of thinking that's gotten us stuck in a permanent war economy.



A “permanent war economy”? Can any sector that receives 3 percent of a nation's Gross Domestic Product represent the ‘economy’? Or is this the familiar theme from Orwell's 1984 that ignores facts and reason and remains article of the faith for those on the far left and the extreme right-wing (two arbitrary distinctions that describe the same thing: a disconnect and/or neglect from ‘the establishment’ or the mainstream.)







The U.S. has no plan in Afghanistan and all it is accomplishing is to help recruit more people for groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda




The Bush administration had a plan: 1. to topple the Taliban and defeat alQaeda... and 2. proceed to regime change in Iraq—replace fascist regime with an elected representative regime—thereby sowing the seeds for liberal reforms and democracy in the middle east. Bush only accomplished the last of those things, but freeing Iraq and establishing the first liberal democracy in the middle east—outside of Israel and Lebanon—was, I believe, by far the most important and transformative of those three. Now it's up to the Obama administration to finish the first two — the two most ambitious and difficult of the three to achieve: since unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has hardly any middle class or Third World infrastructure. After almost a decade of Soviet scorched earth campaigns, followed civil war and the traumas inflicted by the Taliban, all that really remains is a feudal society that's governed by warlords. And now Obama is president and he has a plan....and if you care, and want to know what it is, I recommend this book (http://www.amazon.com/Obamas-Wars-Bob-Woodward/product-reviews/1439172498/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1). <-







. . . through the devastation it's wreaking in that country, along with Iraq and Pakistan.




You're serious, right? The Soviets subjected Afghanistan to a scorched earth campaign that uprooted that flattened thousands of villages — and uprooted every tree and orchard and vineyard and wiped out their principle source of revenue by rerouting the water supply orchard and vineyard by rerouting the water supply to agricultural basins. Did you already know that? ?

Were you aware that by 1989 when the Soviets withdrew there were well over five million refugees forced to flee from Afghanistan — 3.3 million afghan residing in Pakistan and two million more in Iran. And since late 2001 when America toppled the Taliban regime, more than 5 million Afghans have been repatriated and many more expats from have returned from exile in Europe. And did know that under the Taliban there were no girls attending schools; now there are 2.5 million girls — and more every year — enrolled in thousands of schools sponsored by ngos like unicef (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_19975.html) and oxfam?


And with respect to your somewhat confusing position that both opposes to nation-building and decries the devastation of Iraq.....I have to ask whether you were among the insignificant fraction of anti-war protestors who were protesting during the twelve years that a US imposed UN embargo was enforced on a nation of over twenty million — during which many more (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4) Iraqis died as a consequence than have been killed since 2003 — during the tramautic transition from a fascist dictatorship to a free and open democracy—a federal constitutional democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Iraq) free of crippling sanctions; a representative democracy with some actual prospects at a peaceful and prosperous future where the wealth is fairly divided and belongs to the people—as opposed to a sectarian police-state that has absolute rights to the oil and the lives of its people—or even worse: a failed-state and reprisals and a sectarian civil war — which, of course, was all but inevitable when their sanctions starved, genocidal regime lost control and imploded.

And.....were you among all the other 330 million Americans who freely consumed 2/3rds of all the oil exported “legally” through the UN ‘Oil-for-Food (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/oil-for-food_12-3.html)’ program? And if so, were you for a continuation of that conveniently self-serving ‘status quo’? Did you favor the completely conservative option of ‘containment’? Or did you just happen to ‘oppose’ the radical one of regime change — the only one that could conceivably enable a divided and abused sectarian country like Iraq to make transition to a pluralistic and prosperous democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_legislative_election,_December_2005)? Why do you hate freedom? (no, but srsly: do you??) :p ?







--> rebirth & revolution (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxbdXVqWGk): https://www.iraqbodycount.org ?




or. . .


--> continue the status quo (http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm): http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/sanctions.html ?










:rolleyes: :confused:










The cost of the war is money that could be used for nation-building at home. It's arrogant to think that the U.S. is keeping the world safe by playing the big cop. And it should be obvious to anyone who doesn't have their head in the sand that the U.S. only gets involved militarily in places where it stands to benefit economically.



okay, fair enough. But there's just one thing I think you really should know that may or may not come as a surprise or concern you: your positions and every one of your criticisms are exactly the same arguments that represent the unanimous views of the extreme right-wing: every word and sentiment you've expressed are completely interchangeable and indistinguishable from the views of every right-wing ultra-nationalist group in America, Europe and England — like those of the B.N.P. (http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/iraq-and-afghanistan-get-our-troops-home-now), the K.K.K. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1595931), the John Birch society (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq), Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul and the ‘right-wing’ of the Tea party...

. . .and no: it's not them agreeing with you; it's you agreeing with them and their uncompromisingly isolationist, militantly anti-interventionist/nation-first rationalizations and views — that have always been the position and defined the worldview of the ultra-nationalist right-wing (which to be fair, is only the principled and consistent for reactionaries of the ‘super-conservative’ persuasion.)





http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/iraq-and-afghanistan-get-our-troops-home-now
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1595931















:rolleyes:

[Coward]

I am a Conservative, or at least lean that way, I like and agree with most of what the Tea Party stands for, and I am a retired United State Marine, combat veteran of Veitnam.....I have been against the United State being in Afghanistan since the Bush Administration failed to support the attack on Tora Bora. We, the USA, ought be in two countries, Iraq and Pakistan. They are the keystone countries and Iran is the center of gravity of this muslim war on the West.

[discuss]

A “permanent war economy”? Can any sector that receives 3 percent of a nation's Gross Domestic Product represent the ‘economy’? Or is this the familiar theme from Orwell's 1984 that ignores facts and reason and remains article of the faith for those on the far left and the extreme right-wing (two arbitrary distinctions that describe the same thing: a disconnect and/or neglect from ‘the establishment’ or the mainstream.)









The Bush administration had a plan: 1. to topple the Taliban and defeat alQaeda... and 2. proceed to regime change in Iraq—replace fascist regime with an elected representative regime—thereby sowing the seeds for liberal reforms and democracy in the middle east. Bush only accomplished the last of those things, but freeing Iraq and establishing the first liberal democracy in the middle east—outside of Israel and Lebanon—was, I believe, by far the most important and transformative of those three. Now it's up to the Obama administration to finish the first two — the two most ambitious and difficult of the three to achieve: since unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has hardly any middle class or Third World infrastructure. After almost a decade of Soviet scorched earth campaigns, followed civil war and the traumas inflicted by the Taliban, all that really remains is a feudal society that's governed by warlords. And now Obama is president and he has a plan....and if you care, and want to know what it is, I recommend this book (http://www.amazon.com/Obamas-Wars-Bob-Woodward/product-reviews/1439172498/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1). <-









You're serious, right? The Soviets subjected Afghanistan to a scorched earth campaign that uprooted that flattened thousands of villages — and uprooted every tree and orchard and vineyard and wiped out their principle source of revenue by rerouting the water supply orchard and vineyard by rerouting the water supply to agricultural basins. Did you already know that? ?

Were you aware that by 1989 when the Soviets withdrew there were well over five million refugees forced to flee from Afghanistan — 3.3 million afghan residing in Pakistan and two million more in Iran. And since late 2001 when America toppled the Taliban regime, more than 5 million Afghans have been repatriated and many more expats from have returned from exile in Europe. And did know that under the Taliban there were no girls attending schools; now there are 2.5 million girls — and more every year — enrolled in thousands of schools sponsored by ngos like unicef (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_19975.html) and oxfam?


And with respect to your somewhat confusing position that both opposes to nation-building and decries the devastation of Iraq.....I have to ask whether you were among the insignificant fraction of anti-war protestors who were protesting during the twelve years that a US imposed UN embargo was enforced on a nation of over twenty million — during which many more (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4) Iraqis died as a consequence than have been killed since 2003 — during the tramautic transition from a fascist dictatorship to a free and open democracy—a federal constitutional democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Iraq) free of crippling sanctions; a representative democracy with some actual prospects at a peaceful and prosperous future where the wealth is fairly divided and belongs to the people—as opposed to a sectarian police-state that has absolute rights to the oil and the lives of its people—or even worse: a failed-state and reprisals and a sectarian civil war — which, of course, was all but inevitable when their sanctions starved, genocidal regime lost control and imploded.

And.....were you among all the other 330 million Americans who freely consumed 2/3rds of all the oil exported “legally” through the UN ‘Oil-for-Food (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/oil-for-food_12-3.html)’ program? And if so, were you for a continuation of that conveniently self-serving ‘status quo’? Did you favor the completely conservative option of ‘containment’? Or did you just happen to ‘oppose’ the radical one of regime change — the only one that could conceivably enable a divided and abused sectarian country like Iraq to make transition to a pluralistic and prosperous democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_legislative_election,_December_2005)? Why do you hate freedom? (no, but srsly: do you??) :p ?







--> rebirth & revolution (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxbdXVqWGk): https://www.iraqbodycount.org ?




or. . .


--> continue the status quo (http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm): http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/sanctions.html ?










:rolleyes: :confused:












okay, fair enough. But there's just one thing I think you really should know that may or may not come as a surprise or concern you: your positions and every one of your criticisms are exactly the same arguments that represent the unanimous views of the extreme right-wing: every word and sentiment you've expressed are completely interchangeable and indistinguishable from the views of every right-wing ultra-nationalist group in America, Europe and England — like those of the B.N.P. (http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/iraq-and-afghanistan-get-our-troops-home-now), the K.K.K. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1595931), the John Birch society (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq), Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul and the ‘right-wing’ of the Tea party...

. . .and no: it's not them agreeing with you; it's you agreeing with them and their uncompromisingly isolationist, militantly anti-interventionist/nation-first rationalizations and views — that have always been the position and defined the worldview of the ultra-nationalist right-wing (which to be fair, is only the principled and consistent for reactionaries of the ‘super-conservative’ persuasion.)





http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/iraq-and-afghanistan-get-our-troops-home-now
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1595931















:rolleyes:








It's hard to believe these views you express are serious, but it does demonstrate how naive many in the public are about these issues.
You haven't cited where you got that 3 percent statistic, but one thing's for sure: it is a distorted way to view our expenditures on the military.

It's also hard to read these statement with a straight face. I don't even know where to begin. The Bush administration fabricated lies to get the U.S. involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. And a democratic regime in Afghanistan? It's one of the most corrupt in the region. All the other things you're throwing in here are off topic.

You seriously think things are better since the U.S. became involved? I suppose in some ways they couldn't have gotten much worse, but that's a ridiculous argument and doesn't justify what the U.S. is doing over there.

The extreme right wing supports these wars. What are you talking about?
And what is the book that supposedly explains our stategy in Afghanistan?

[Dewey]

It's hard to believe these views you express are serious, but it does demonstrate how naive many in the public are about these issues.
You haven't cited where you got that 3 percent statistic, but one thing's for sure: it is a distorted way to view our expenditures on the military.





Why question my claims and cite them as evidence that I am naive or ask me to cite the source that states that it costs approximately 3 percent of our GDP to field a standing army — at our current troop strength — when you can fact check these figures very easily yourself? Had your profound sense of disbelief credulity been serious and sincere you could have easily disproved it—by verifying it yourself: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/hist.pdf


The cost for 2010 is as follows: $154.2 billion to cover wages and benefits for about 1.4 million active duty personnel and 850,000 reserves; another $283.3 billion for operations and maintenance and $3.1 billion for ‘family housing’ = $439.6 billion to support our armed forces which is 2.96 percent of $14.834 trillion.


The total revenues that went to the DoD last year in 2010—which includes all of the Pentagon's programs plus the armed forces plus discretionary spending: i.e. the “military industrial complex” was $664 billion or 4.5 percent of the GDP. But of course that cost includes R&D grants to Universities and contracts awarded to the defense industry — all of which is reinvested back into the economy + any dividends from the cutting edge advances in technology.


And that amount allocated to the DoD over the next five years will shrink the Pentagon's budget by 78 billion and reduce the Army and USMC by 6 percent—47,000 enlisted men—beginning in 2015.



--> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/us/07military.html



That's what the gubermant claims the congress a lotted them.....I guess it's up to us whether or not we choose to believe them.









It's also hard to read these statement with a straight face. I don't even know where to begin. The Bush administration fabricated lies to get the U.S. involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. And a democratic regime in Afghanistan? It's one of the most corrupt in the region. All the other things you're throwing in here are off topic.



Tell me, as a liberal who believes in democracy and human rights, why should I care why the Bush administration intervened in Iraq? Maybe he didn't like fascists with mustaches and decided Saddam had to go. Maybe he did it out of personal animosity because Saddam ‘tried to assassinate his daddy’ or something. But why should I support or oppose a foreign intervention based solely on the stated reasons and rationales that my government gives? Why is that more important than the fact that the immoral, imperialist sanctions that had been in place for 12 years were killing of tens-of-thousands of innocent children? Why would WMDs concern you—as an aware and responsible American citizen—when you were among the 330 million who had consumed 2/3rds of their oil exported—that was stolen from 20 million people through the UN and used to prop up their bloated police-state while the people they ‘policed’ and put in mass graves were being slowly strangled by sanctions: simply because their unelected dictator refused to cooperate to the satisfaction of UNISCOM under Clinton?


WMDs? Please.....America has thermonuclear weapons mounted on ICBMs and eleven carrier fleets why in the world would I worry about whether some sanctions starved dictator has hidden a cache of out-of-date chemical weapons stockpiled somewhere when there are tens of thousands children dying from malnutrition and medicines and sewage treatment plants that are in complete disrepair because the state uses its scarce resources to bribe UN Oil-for-Food (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/10wed3.html) directors and French UN ambassadors and two billion dollars on presidential palaces ?






You seriously think things are better since the U.S. became involved? I suppose in some ways they couldn't have gotten much worse, but that's a ridiculous argument and doesn't justify what the U.S. is doing over there.





Sanctions or prosperity and free trade; ruthless parasitic police state or first free elections that 79.6 participate of the electorate turned out to vote for their candidate...


I won't presume to speak on behalf of another entire nation of people. But I think the fact that your need to know is satisfied with some cynical assumptions reveals the extent that you care whether or not the majority of them think they were better or worse back before 2003....Does it not?




http://iraqblogcountexp.blogspot.com/








The extreme right wing supports these wars. What are you talking about?
And what is the book that supposedly explains our stategy in Afghanistan?



I've been imbedding hyperlinks in certain words sort of at random (but only your cursor can reveal which words since they're invisible.)










. . . every word and sentiment you've expressed are completely interchangeable and indistinguishable from the views of every right-wing ultra-nationalist group in America, Europe and England — like those of the B.N.P. (http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/iraq-and-afghanistan-get-our-troops-home-now), the K.K.K. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1595931), the John Birch society (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq), Pat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwk5WwroXY) Buchanan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYtti8MzvBk), David Duke (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4VBmanM_uk), Ron Paul and the ‘right-wing’ of the Tea party. . .





http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/iraq-and-afghanistan-get-our-troops-home-now
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1595931














[INDENT] :rolleyes:

[discuss]

[QUOTE=Dewey;2002]Why question my claims and cite them as evidence that I am naive or ask me to cite the source that states that it costs approximately 3 percent of our GDP to field a standing army — at our current troop strength — when you can fact check these figures very easily yourself? Had your profound sense of disbelief credulity been serious and sincere you could have easily disproved it—by verifying it yourself: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/hist.pdf

Does somebody want to show the statistics that prove we spend more on defense than anything else? And please post a link for Dewey to see the information.

[discuss]

Tell me, as a liberal who believes in democracy and human rights, why should I care why the Bush administration intervened in Iraq? Maybe he didn't like fascists with mustaches and decided Saddam had to go. Maybe he did it out of personal animosity because Saddam ‘tried to assassinate his daddy’ or something.

So you don't question why your leaders ask for war and the reasoning doesn't make any difference?

But why should I support or oppose a foreign intervention based solely on the stated reasons and rationales that my government gives?


Who is saying you should only go by what the government officially says? That statement doesn't make sense.

Why is that more important than the fact that the immoral, imperialist sanctions that had been in place for 12 years were killing of tens-of-thousands of innocent children?

The question is not whether we should be involved in intervening in human rights issues, but what the government is actually doing over there.

Why would WMDs concern you—as an aware and responsible American citizen—when you were among the 330 million who had consumed 2/3rds of their oil exported—that was stolen from 20 million people through the UN and used to prop up their bloated police-state while the people they ‘policed’ and put in mass graves were being slowly strangled by sanctions: simply because their unelected dictator refused to cooperate to the satisfaction of UNISCOM under Clinton?

WMD's was the Bush administration's lie to get into Iraq. What does that have to do with consuming oil?


WMDs? Please.....America has thermonuclear weapons mounted on ICBMs and eleven carrier fleets why in the world would I worry about whether some sanctions starved dictator has hidden a cache of out-of-date chemical weapons stockpiled somewhere when there are tens of thousands children dying from malnutrition and medicines and sewage treatment plants that are in complete disrepair because the state uses its scarce resources to bribe UN Oil-for-Food (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/10wed3.html) directors and French UN ambassadors and two billion dollars on presidential palaces ?

What's your point here?

I won't presume to speak on behalf of another entire nation of people. But I think the fact that your need to know is satisfied with some cynical assumptions reveals the extent that you care whether or not the majority of them think they were better or worse back before 2003....Does it not?

Please clarify. And what are my "cynical assumptions"?


You are mixing up issues and throwing things out in a sloppy manner. If you can clarify specific points and build a reasonable argument for your views (which I fail to deduce) perhaps we can have a real debate.

[dave fagan]

I'm a Vietnam Vet and see that the Taliban is not a standing Army to be driven into Pakistan, but a steady flow of the Afghan people refilling the ranks because the Taliban represent the hearts and minds of the Afghani. That is exactly who the Viet Cong were in Vietnam. The support of the people was strong and they could not be defeated. We, as in USA corporate interests, need the pipeline across Afghanistan to drain the Caspian Sea OIL basin. Like the Iraq War, the war is for one reason only. OIL. If you don't know that GWSh**ForBrains represented BIG Energy interests since forever, then your cloister needs outside air. Big money, big energy, big corporate run our gov't for their own self-interest. None of the corporate charters imply that patriotism or loyalty would be a relevant issue. Big money, corporations, energy are loyal to the strong currency. Those are realities. Big money runs the country. Who was bailed out in the recent economic crash? Joe Citizen and John Q. Public got the elevated middle finger! That would be the voters.

[dave fagan]

[QUOTE=

The cost for 2010 is as follows: $154.2 billion to cover wages and benefits for about 1.4 million active duty personnel and 850,000 reserves; another $283.3 billion for operations and maintenance and $3.1 billion for ‘family housing’ = $439.6 billion to support our armed forces which is 2.96 percent of $14.834 trillion.


The total revenues that went to the DoD last year in 2010—which includes all of the Pentagon's programs plus the armed forces plus discretionary spending: i.e. the “military industrial complex” was $664 billion or 4.5 percent of the GDP. But of course that cost includes R&D grants to Universities and contracts awarded to the defense industry — all of which is reinvested back into the economy + any dividends from the cutting edge advances in technology.(end quote)

Here's a useful link in analyzing the defense budget.
< http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/jan132011.html >
It is a long article but very good. If the military budget is $600 billion, and interest on the debt of $14 Trillion is $376 Billion, how much is left for anything else? Just read the article and ponder the possible realities. Very uncomfortable to say the least.

[discuss]

Are you essentially saying that between the military budget and the national debt there is very little for everything else? That sounds right and as far as Dewey's argument would mean that the tiny percentage he claims goes into military spending doesn't give us the whole story, which was my point exactly.

[Dewey]

Tell me, as a liberal who believes in democracy and human rights, why should I care why the Bush administration intervened in Iraq? Maybe he didn't like fascists with mustaches and decided Saddam had to go. Maybe he did it out of personal animosity because Saddam ‘tried to assassinate his daddy’ or something.


So you don't question why your leaders ask for war and the reasoning doesn't make any difference?




Yes, of course you question their reasons. When an administration decides to resort to military force, they're not always going to articulate all of their reasons and objectives and lay them out in order of significance the way they do at the Pentagon and meetings between the president and his cabinet; they're going to explain them to the public the way politicians need to: that's why Bush and his people put a lot less emphasis on Iraq being a ‘keystone state’ that could profoundly undermine (or transform) stability of the region that America relied on for oil.







. . .and the reasoning doesn't make any difference?




No, of course not. Why would it? No government ever sacrifices their nation's blood and treasure solely for the benefit of another nation unless doing so is seen to serve some vital self-interest. America didn't build an air-force to bomb Europe and send thousands of GIs to invade France just to defeat the Nazis or liberate Europe for their own sake from fascism; we did it because the Axis powers in Europe and Japan were aligned against the ‘free world’ — what little remained of it — and also to prevent the Red Army from conquering the whole continent. But if the Japanese had never attacked us and instead Roosevelt declared war on Germany because he knew they had nuclear physicists and an advanced nuclear program — which, after Europe was liberated, were discovered to have been cancelled before America invaded Normandy: so would the fact that the threat of their atomic program was overblown or nonexistent have made the war against Germany any less justifiable or worthy of America's sacrifice and support?


Did Karl Marx care that Lincoln's reasons for invading the Confederate states of the South was not to ‘liberate the slaves’? Why was Karl Marx so vocal in his support for Lincoln's imperialist war against the slave states of the Confederacy two years before Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862? Why was he so vehemently pro-war before the first shots were even fired at Fort Sumpter? Because Karl Marx was a not a partisan who relied on cheap propagandists like Michael Moore (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1pI8SFCIM) for his facts and opinions. Marx was a progressive with principles and enough common sense to grasp the fact that the North would have to deal decisively with the issue that had divided the nation throughout the previous decade and compelled the southern slave states to secede and declare independence — he knew right away that Lincoln would have to abolish slavery if there was a war since that was the only way he could restore the Union and secure the peace once he conquered the South (assuming he won: which he did.)


--> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/25.htm






Who is saying you should only go by what the government officially says? That statement doesn't make sense.



Exactly. I agree. I think we should be able to think for ourselves and decide whether the decision to resort to military force is an imperative that will most likely save lives or whether the status quo would be more responsible and ethical.

In the case of Iraq after 12 years of a crippling oil embargo under a genocidal dictator: for a liberal, it was really a no brainer.

In the case of Bosnia and Kosova: it was really a no brainer for any liberal a humanist imperative. If anything America should have been criticized for not intervening in Bosnia much sooner.

But the fact that well over 100,000 Bosnian muslims were butchered before Clinton did something decisive doesn't stop the left from losing respect for their ‘oracles of truth’ like Chomsky (http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Chomsky-denial.htm#section4) et al—and agreeing with him as rapes logic and truth so he can paint the same completely predictable picture that portrays the West as the villain and—in the case of the Bosnians and Albanians—blame the victims of genocide for ‘provoking’ the Milosevic's fascist regime for the systematic ethnic cleansing campaigns he planned and perpetrated. All he has to do is memorize lots of stuff and sound convincing as he regurgitates it — while repeating the words “logical” and “rational” every other sentence and people believe him.

The “intellectual elites” of the New Left — i.e. Chomsky, Tariq Ali, and the late Howard Zinn and Edward Said — are a clique of conspiracy kooks and professional propagandists for an anti-Western cult made up of people who will ignore genocide and make endless excuses for fascists and minimize their abuses if they stand up to the West. Facts don't matter and fascists are allies of convenience for the righteous gurus of this neoleft movement.




http://www.thecommentfactory.com/criticising-chomsky-on-the-balkans-three-activists-speak-out-3043/
http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Chomsky-denial.htm







The question is not whether we should be involved in intervening in human rights issues, but what the government is actually doing over there.

WMD's was the Bush administration's lie to get into Iraq. What does that have to do with consuming oil?



You were consuming oil, were you not? We were stealing another nation's blood resources during the sanctions: everyone in America was propping up their police state every time we bought oil at Exxon-Mobil or Chevron/Texaco: the two american oil conglomerates that had acquired a 2/3rd monopoly of the oil exported through the UN ‘Oil-for-Food (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/10wed3.html)’ scam under the sanctions — which apparently took a lot more innocent lives than have died in the past 8 years since Bush's intervened. Where were ‘anti-imperialists’ — who were MIA for twelve years before they protested the invasion by the millions that has reconstructed Iraq as free and open society that's finally free from their regime and the sanctions?


The ‘New Left (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left)’ is less than irrelevant: it's no longer “anti-establishment”; it is ‘the establishment’. It is a cult of cognitive dissonance that discourages rational thinking; and promotes clueless activism, hysteria, and smug indignation. It has nothing to do with anything remotely liberal or humanist; nor does it generate honest debate or real reforms or rational thinking. It's the same in substance, insight and appearance as the Tea party.


I think it's time for liberals to dissociate and question everything in the world that the left claims to stand for (or against.)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left

[Dewey]

I'm a Vietnam Vet and see that the Taliban is not a standing Army to be driven into Pakistan, but a steady flow of the Afghan people refilling the ranks because the Taliban represent the hearts and minds of the Afghani. That is exactly who the Viet Cong were in Vietnam. The support of the people was strong and they could not be defeated. We, as in USA corporate interests, need the pipeline across Afghanistan to drain the Caspian Sea OIL basin. Like the Iraq War, the war is for one reason only. OIL. If you don't know that GWSh**ForBrains represented BIG Energy interests since forever, then your cloister needs outside air. Big money, big energy, big corporate run our gov't for their own self-interest. None of the corporate charters imply that patriotism or loyalty would be a relevant issue. Big money, corporations, energy are loyal to the strong currency. Those are realities. Big money runs the country. Who was bailed out in the recent economic crash? Joe Citizen and John Q. Public got the elevated middle finger! That would be the voters.


How is “OIL” is a ‘reason’? Oil is a ‘resource’ — unless ‘OIL’ is an acronym that spells out a reason?

Just saying that it was about ‘OIL’ isn't being serious. Is it? That three letter word might seem to say something sinister or revealing about their true intentions: but in reality, one word “reasons” rarely offer specific insights about anything; but rather are meant to be ‘suggestive’ of many things — which leads to ambiguous conclusions that can only mislead people: since it leaves them to speculate which one to choose from.

But if the invasion was about depriving billions in OIL wealth from a organized crime ‘rogue regime’ with a well known history of seeking nuclear weapons, and using chemical weapons against its own population and its neighbors — and reckless, repeated attempts to invade and annex and acquire the oil from two of its neighbors — if the invasion sought to replace a destabilizing dictator of an oil rich country with a more stable and sustainable government before the corrupt sectarian police-state lost control and imploded and unleashed three decades worth of sectarian reprisals and power struggles — that it had created and had ruthlessly contained and suppressed with ethnic cleansing and chemical weapons. . . then those might be seen as some justified reasons, no? Would it be a worth while reason to go to war if it sought to ‘pre-empt’ that and prevent a violent power vacuum left by a failed police-state that would flooded in all of its neighbors — like Saudi and Bahrain and Kuwait and Iran that all share the same oppressed religious sects and ethnic minorities as in Iraq — which would then have to accommodate even more radicals and a flood of abused and oppressed refugees — along with most of the thugs from the former regime.

Imagine having to “invade” and restore order to Iraq in the middle of a full blown civil war to prevent the surrounding region from falling apart — like another Yugoslavia or Lebanon — as Saudi Jordan and Kuwait and Iran are being flooded with millions of refugees and radicals and criminal elements. That would be ‘bad’ if that's where our oil comes from.

[Mike]

Our so-called leaders are pressing ahead to defeat the Taliban and stabilize afghanistan for the ‘interests of the wealthy’ — i.e. the interests of Americans. But that's what governments and nation-states are supposed to do. And it's something Americans really ought to support unless we'd rather see some more of our embassies be obliterated and have bounties put out on the heads of American tourists abroad — anywhere and everywhere: in Argentina or France or Egypt or Greece...(By the way, welcome to the forum, Dewey.) I construed your remarks to mean that our government is supposed to stabilize Afghanistan for our interests. You framed it as a choice: either we support the war in Afghanistan or we see U.S. embassy buildings destroyed, and U.S. citizens (tourists) killed or kidnapped for bounty money. I disagree with you, but I would like you to explain more about the connection you perceive between stabilizing Afghanistan from Taliban rule and protecting our embassies and citizens throughout the world.

I think Dave Fagan’s comparative analogy (the Taliban with the Viet Cong) while not absolute still seems apt to a degree. Moreover, if I understand your opinion (above,) the old Domino Theory about Southeast Asia seems comparable, too.

[Dewey]

(By the way, welcome to the forum, Dewey.)


Thank you for the warm welcome. :)






I construed your remarks to mean that our government is supposed to stabilize Afghanistan for our interests. You framed it as a choice: either we support the war in Afghanistan or we see U.S. embassy buildings destroyed, and U.S. citizens (tourists) killed or kidnapped for bounty money. I disagree with you, but I would like you to explain more about the connection you perceive between stabilizing Afghanistan from Taliban rule and protecting our embassies and citizens throughout the world.

I think Dave Fagan’s comparative analogy (the Taliban with the Viet Cong) while not absolute still seems apt to a degree. Moreover, if I understand your opinion (above,) the old Domino Theory about Southeast Asia seems comparable, too.


I think the analogy between the Taliban and Viet Cong should be avoided, since it could easily be misconstrude as an insult to the Vietnamese people and to their national liberation struggle to free themselves from the Japanese and the French colonial occupation. I don't doubt that the Viet Cong could be just as ruthless as the Taliban when they fought against the French or the Japanese or the Americans—or their own people when they collaborated with any of them—but nevertheless: the ‘socialist republic’ they eventually established at least allowed their women to learn how to read (and have so far achieved 90 percent literacy.)

I believe the Taliban is a lot more similar the Khmer Rouge. Any ‘resistance movement’ whose agenda includes reenslaving half the population and keep them illiterate — and is willing to attack hundreds of schools and students and throw acid in the faces of children to achieve that — will make itself a menace to the rest of world; it is a cult that rejects culture and will always be in violent conflict with civilization just by sharing the planet.

And even though the Vietnamese people were divided into two countries by the French and Chinese, they were still the same people bound by a common culture and language; whereas the Taliban were ‘Pashtun’ religious students from Pakistan who were recruited and armed by the ISI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Services_Intelligence) and sent into Afghanistan in 1994 to topple Massoud (http://www.afghan-web.com/documents/let-masood.html)'s government (which received support from India and was recognized by the UN.) Massoud repeatedly tried to warn the US about the threat that the Taliban and alQaeda posed to the West — America, in particular — after the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, and a two years later two of our embassies were obliterated in Tanzania and Kenya and three years after that Osama bin Ladan sent suicide bombers disguised as journalists to assassinate Massoud and two days after that America was attacked....


The Vietnamese left America and France alone once we left but I don't think cults like the Khmer Rouge and the Taliban can ever make peace with civilization. That's why the Khmer Rouge wasn't able to coexist peacefully with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam even tho Pol Pot claimed to be a “communist” too; and that's why regimes like the Taliban cannot coexist with America either — especially if the American forces retreated or withdrew — which, I don't think we will. But still, if America did withdraw without defeating the Taliban and allowed them to reconquer afghanistan, Islamists everywhere would turn afghanistan into a place of pilgrimage to attract Islamic militants who dream of joining in the global jihad against the West; it would be where the mujihadeen defeated both of the superpowers—and proved each to be weak.

[dave fagan]

The Vietnamese left America and France alone once we left but I don't think cults like the Khmer Rouge and the Taliban can ever make peace with civilization. That's why the Khmer Rouge wasn't able to coexist peacefully with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam even tho Pol Pot claimed to be a “communist” too; and that's why regimes like the Taliban cannot coexist with America either — especially if the American forces retreated or withdrew — which, I don't think we will. But still, if America did withdraw without defeating the Taliban and allowed them to reconquer afghanistan, Islamists everywhere would turn afghanistan into a place of pilgrimage to attract Islamic militants who dream of joining in the global jihad against the West; it would be where the mujihadeen defeated both of the superpowers—and proved each to be weak.


Allegedly, we are in Afghanistan to smite one Osama binLadin. You don't hear his name mentioned anymore. OIL and its centralized distribution network feeding on USDollars is the root cause. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al thought it looked real easy to smack a backwater Nation into submission and 9/11 generated the public support to use the big hammer. "Lies" generated the support for the big hammer in Iraq. One doesn't even read about binLadin anymore. I personally believe that Afghanistan would have to be glazed to submit to a foreign occupier, and to blame all Afghanis for the binLadin problem is naive and overkill. As far as helping any Nation, "how do you help by bringing war and death to a country?" A young Vietnamese woman asked me that once and I had no answer.

[Mike]

I think the analogy between the Taliban and Viet Cong should be avoided, since it could easily be misconstrude as an insult to the Vietnamese people and to their national liberation struggle to free themselves from the Japanese and the French colonial occupation.Yes, and at the moment I think you and I are talking about somewhat different aspects. I know that's an inherent pitfall with comparative analogies--each of us focuses upon different comparisons. Just let me try to clarify to avoid misunderstanding what I was comparing. I already mentioned the part about Dave Fagan's comparisons--I would hope that would be sufficient to avoid misinterpretation that an insult to the Vietnamese was being put forward.

Additionally I was thinking that as the Domino Theory was used to clarify the need for American intervention around the world, your remarks seem to articulate a similar need. In the sixties the argument was that if one country were to fall under communist rule then others would follow—thereby threatening U.S. interests throughout larger parts of the world. You seem to argue that if Afghanistan reverts to rule under the Taliban then other areas of the world will be unsafe for U.S. interests as a result. I think it’s ironic that the U.S. supported the Taliban against the Soviets. What now might appear to be irrelevant old history actually, I think, enhances the possibility of entertaining alternative explanations for why the U.S. should be perceived by some of us to have a world-wide police-like role.

The Viet Cong perceived the U.S. as a threat to the way of life they preferred and thought best for themselves and their compatriots. Although it conflicts with our paradigm, it resembles us in that their attitude like ours was that an outsider (in that case we, the U.S., were the outsiders) should have no right to enter their country and change things. Likewise, the Taliban many years ago struggled AGAINST the Soviets (the outsiders at THAT time to them) in order to preserve what they believed was best for their land--they chose to allow the U.S. at that time to assist them in that struggle. Now, however, we are again the invaders in their minds. That's about as far as I would even want to take the analogy--it doesn't serve to illustrate much more than my attempt to look at the issue from more than a single unilateral paradigm, that's all. I hope that clarifies what I'm thinking and what I intended with the analogy.

[discuss]

No, of course not. Why would it? No government ever sacrifices their nation's blood and treasure solely for the benefit of another nation unless doing so is seen to serve some vital self-interest. America didn't build an air-force to bomb Europe and send thousands of GIs to invade France just to defeat the Nazis or liberate Europe for their own sake from fascism; we did it because the Axis powers in Europe and Japan were aligned against the ‘free world’ — what little remained of it — and also to prevent the Red Army from conquering the whole continent. But if the Japanese had never attacked us and instead Roosevelt declared war on Germany because he knew they had nuclear physicists and an advanced nuclear program — which, after Europe was liberated, were discovered to have been cancelled before America invaded Normandy: so would the fact that the threat of their atomic program was overblown or nonexistent have made the war against Germany any less justifiable or worthy of America's sacrifice and support?

I think we're having a misunderstanding here. That's not what I thought you were saying.

Did Karl Marx care that Lincoln's reasons for invading the Confederate states of the South was not to ‘liberate the slaves’? Why was Karl Marx so vocal in his support for Lincoln's imperialist war against the slave states of the Confederacy two years before Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862? Why was he so vehemently pro-war before the first shots were even fired at Fort Sumpter? Because Karl Marx was a not a partisan who relied on cheap propagandists like Michael Moore (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1pI8SFCIM) for his facts and opinions. Marx was a progressive with principles and enough common sense to grasp the fact that the North would have to deal decisively with the issue that had divided the nation throughout the previous decade and compelled the southern slave states to secede and declare independence — he knew right away that Lincoln would have to abolish slavery if there was a war since that was the only way he could restore the Union and secure the peace once he conquered the South (assuming he won: which he did.)

I'm not following this. Your argument gets convoluted because you throw in all these other tangential points that need examining in their own right.

--> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/25.htm



In the case of Iraq after 12 years of a crippling oil embargo under a genocidal dictator: for a liberal, it was really a no brainer.

What was a "no brainer"?

In the case of Bosnia and Kosova: it was really a no brainer for any liberal a humanist imperative. If anything America should have been criticized for not intervening in Bosnia much sooner.

Another thread would be appropriate to discuss this issue.

But the fact that well over 100,000 Bosnian muslims were butchered before Clinton did something decisive doesn't stop the left from losing respect for their ‘oracles of truth’ like Chomsky (http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Chomsky-denial.htm#section4) et al—and agreeing with him as rapes logic and truth so he can paint the same completely predictable picture that portrays the West as the villain and—in the case of the Bosnians and Albanians—blame the victims of genocide for ‘provoking’ the Milosevic's fascist regime for the systematic ethnic cleansing campaigns he planned and perpetrated. All he has to do is memorize lots of stuff and sound convincing as he regurgitates it — while repeating the words “logical” and “rational” every other sentence and people believe him.

I don't know why you're bringing Chomsky in, though you are not in a league to be able to criticize him at his level. As far as most of us are concerned, he could dessimate our arguments in one sentence! A genius in the true sense of the word, and someone who has no equal on the right.

The “intellectual elites” of the New Left — i.e. Chomsky, Tariq Ali, and the late Howard Zinn and Edward Said — are a clique of conspiracy kooks and professional propagandists for an anti-Western cult made up of people who will ignore genocide and make endless excuses for fascists and minimize their abuses if they stand up to the West. Facts don't matter and fascists are allies of convenience for the righteous gurus of this neoleft movement.

Again, nonsense. Said is also an acknowledged brilliant figure in intellectual and cultural fields.




You were consuming oil, were you not? We were stealing another nation's blood resources during the sanctions: everyone in America was propping up their police state every time we bought oil at Exxon-Mobil or Chevron/Texaco: the two american oil conglomerates that had acquired a 2/3rd monopoly of the oil exported through the UN ‘Oil-for-Food (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/10wed3.html)’ scam under the sanctions — which apparently took a lot more innocent lives than have died in the past 8 years since Bush's intervened. Where were ‘anti-imperialists’ — who were MIA for twelve years before they protested the invasion by the millions that has reconstructed Iraq as free and open society that's finally free from their regime and the sanctions?

Fine, we supported Hussein when we bought oil. And how much could consumers do about that? Stop driving their cars? That doesn't mean we support what Bush did. You speak as though there were no alternatives to dealing with Iraq.

The ‘New Left (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left)’ is less than irrelevant: it's no longer “anti-establishment”; it is ‘the establishment’. It is a cult of cognitive dissonance that discourages rational thinking; and promotes clueless activism, hysteria, and smug indignation. It has nothing to do with anything remotely liberal or humanist; nor does it generate honest debate or real reforms or rational thinking. It's the same in substance, insight and appearance as the Tea party.

You're throwing stuff around now. What you are saying is incoherent.

I think it's time for liberals to dissociate and question everything in the world that the left claims to stand for (or against.)

I do agree that the left is a mess. It needs strong leaders and it needs to reorganize around truly progressive principles. And it needs a populist movement!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left[/QUOTE]

[discuss]

Sorry Dewey. Couldn't figure out how to separate your quotes from my responses!

[Dewey]

Allegedly, we are in Afghanistan to smite one Osama binLadin.



Who told you that? That's news to me. Does the illuminati really think we ‘merikans are that naive — that we would believe that the United States would mobilize its military and those of Canada and the countries of NATO, along with their “non-profit” corps of NGO's and their army of go-doers, and send hundreds of thousands of people from wealthy Western nations and have us invest 370 billion of our $ — and tonnes of the £ and € — just to smite “one” evil doer who is believed to be holed up in a cave or some safe house somewhere inside Pakistan?

They don't seem very clever or discreet for an organization obsessed with secrecy and concealing all evidence that they exist. Couldn't they offer us any better explanation? Or are they intentionally insulting to our intelligence by rubbing our faces in the fact that we are willing to be oblivious and obey like sheep? I liked it better back when they at least made the effort to hide from view the fact that a select few from some secretive dynastic occult group were behind the wars and revolutions that brought the rise and fall of global empires, and I don't care much or take it personally if some cabal has been blowing bubbles in the stock market through a few machiavellian money lenders who buy up corporations and then trade in their stocks for a large share of the world's gold bullion reserves — and always get away with it because of all the pandemonium confusion it creates when the global economy hyperventilates into hyperinflation and evaporates into a fog of accusations and denial. But I don't like them talking down to us by claiming that now our wars are being waged just to capture or eliminate one man? Who do they take us for? And for that matter: I'm not buying this pathetic excuse about a pipeline either just because their propagandists or “conspiracy theorists” claim to have it “all figured out” when what they claim is even more absurd than what the government and their ‘mainstream media’ is claiming. If we are in Afghanistan to build a pipeline to supply us with an inexhaustible supply of natural gas: then wtf is taking them? Where is it? I'm paying a small fortune for my gas bill because I gotten used to showering with hot water — especially in the winter, in New England — but I should be paying fraction for that privilege if what they claimed was true: that we have so far spent $370 billion over the past decade to secure a sparsely populated country of 30 million people — to build a five billion dollar pipeline that will supply 330 millions in America with an insatiable appetite for natural gas and oil. And they've not even broken ground or awarded any contracts for its construction. In fact, the government claimed they cancelled it! What are they waiting for? What are the illuminati really up to? (and will it save me any money on my gas bill or utilities?)








You don't hear his name mentioned anymore. OIL and its centralized distribution network feeding on USDollars is the root cause. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al thought it looked real easy to smack a backwater Nation into submission and 9/11 generated the public support to use the big hammer. "Lies" generated the support for the big hammer in Iraq. One doesn't even read about binLadin anymore. I personally believe that Afghanistan would have to be glazed to submit to a foreign occupier, and to blame all Afghanis for the binLadin problem is naive and overkill.






“OIL and its centralized distribution network feeding on USDollars is the root cause.”


Really....what is that supposed to mean? It sounds to me like some sort of soundbyte that was meant to be repeated and internalized without conveying anything specific or intelligible. ?




Why do you let the people on the internet who've rejected the world around them and abandoned their ability to reason critically so they can search for simplistic patterns that can be forced to fit their with their hunches? Do you? Because yunno, that can really only lead us to conclusions that are completely incompatible — one with glaring contradictions that are simply discarded or ignored: because any reality that rests on some conclusions we can't question—can freely create itself from nothing very easily: just by tuning out the dissonance and reinforcing its assumptions with whatever resonates (and then it owns you.)

[dave fagan]

“OIL and its centralized distribution network feeding on USDollars is the root cause.”


Really....what is that supposed to mean? It sounds to me like some sort of soundbyte that was meant to be repeated and internalized without conveying anything specific or intelligible. ? end quote

Let's picture a threat of Global Warming caused by waste heat from fossil fuels because that's easy to calculate with none of the ambiguities generated by CO2. All the fossil fuels marketed through a centralizewd distribution network. Now, if you try to address through the US Energy department they put 5% of their resources to Alternative Energy. Let's see, Alternative Energy would combat Global Warming, reduce pollution, build jobs in at least three different ways. Manufacture of the Alt Energy products, distribution, installation, and continuing maintenance. Win, win, win. One really big money loser and that would be the Centralized Distribution of Energy Network. This Network is well financed and can buy Congressmen and even Presidents to prevent policies which address our major problem and create jobs in local communities all over the Nation. Alternative Energy decentralizes the network and its monies.
I've stated this short and concise. I could go into detail, but do not think it necessary. This is simple. Corporatism and control at its finest and simplest.

[Dewey]

“OIL and its centralized distribution network feeding on USDollars is the root cause.”


Really....what is that supposed to mean? It sounds to me like some sort of soundbyte that was meant to be repeated and internalized without conveying anything specific or intelligible. ? end quote



Let's picture a threat of Global Warming caused by waste heat from fossil fuels because that's easy to calculate with none of the ambiguities generated by CO2. All the fossil fuels marketed through a centralized distribution network. Now, if you try to address through the US Energy department they put 5% of their resources to Alternative Energy. .



Obama raised the percentage dedicated to Energy Efficency & Renewable Energy (http://www.eere.energy.gov/) to almost 9% of the budget that the Dept. of Energy received ($2.3 out of 26 billion for the DOE.) Not that that increase proves or disproves anything one way or the other....just thought it was worth the mentioning.


http://www.eere.energy.gov/








Let's see, Alternative Energy would combat Global Warming, reduce pollution, build jobs in at least three different ways. Manufacture of the Alt Energy products, distribution, installation, and continuing maintenance. Win, win, win. One really big money loser and that would be the Centralized Distribution of Energy Network. This Network is well financed and can buy Congressmen and even Presidents to prevent policies which address our major problem and create jobs in local communities all over the Nation. Alternative Energy decentralizes the network and its monies.
I've stated this short and concise. I could go into detail, but do not think it necessary. This is simple. Corporatism and control at its finest and simplest




Yes, alternative energy sources that are renewable and don't contribute greenhouse gases are a great idea and a great source of jobs for at least one of the two biggest oil conglomerates in America: Chevron (http://www.chevronenergy.com/renewable_energy/) (AKA: “Chevron-Texaco”) which invests about $300 annually into renewable energy R&D — which ranks it among the highest of any multi-national for its investment in renewables and R&D — among them a collaborative effort with the DOE to make biofuels from algae: a much more efficient means of obtaining solar than silicon solar panels (which are cheap but haven't achieved any breakthroughs in efficiency since they were first mass-produced in the '80's.)

http://www.chevronenergy.com/renewable_energy/


But the energy from renewables is derived from the same source as fossil fuels — the sun — which is one of the two energy sources available to us at the moment and the foreseeable future. Unless someone figures out a way to generate energy by fusion, the sun and the radioactive remnants from other massive stars that supernova'd that are among the elements on earth that we have to work with. Fossil fuels are the most concentrated and abundant source of solar energy on earth since the energy that's deposited in coal and petrol is solar radiation that's been accumulated and stored over entire epochs: they contain the energy that's been absorbed and concentrated over hundred of millions of years — there's obviously no way a plant can absorb as much solar energy in a few weeks or months and convert it into biomass that contains an equivalent amount of energy per kg as coal or oil — ethanol only contains a fraction of the energy stored in octane. Since fossil fuels are by far the most efficient, cost effective means of obtaining energy the amount invested in renewables will likely remain at a fraction of what we spend extracting fossil fuels — at least until our reserves of fossil fuels have been depleted, or our energy needs exceed our ability to extract them.

[dave fagan]

Quote"But the energy from renewables is derived from the same source as fossil fuels — the sun — which is one of the two energy sources available to us at the moment and the foreseeable future. Unless someone figures out a way to generate energy by fusion, the sun and the radioactive remnants from other massive stars that supernova'd that are among the elements on earth that we have to work with. Fossil fuels are the most concentrated and abundant source of solar energy on earth since the energy that's deposited in coal and petrol is solar radiation that's been accumulated and stored over entire epochs: they contain the energy that's been absorbed and concentrated over hundred of millions of years — there's obviously no way a plant can absorb as much solar energy in a few weeks or months and convert it into biomass that contains an equivalent amount of energy per kg as coal or oil — ethanol only contains a fraction of the energy stored in octane. Since fossil fuels are by far the most efficient, cost effective means of obtaining energy the amount invested in renewables will likely remain at a fraction of what we spend extracting fossil fuels — at least until our reserves of fossil fuels have been depleted, or our energy needs exceed our ability to extract them. Last edited by Dewey; Today at 12:42 AM. End Quote"

How about just calculating the number of btus in that wonderful fossil fuel, acknowledge that it will be used at current rates of efficiency (about 30%, the balance waste heat 70%), calculate how much that number of btus will raise the temperature of the finite weight of the world atmosphere, and then decide if the option is good for humanity. It is only a viable option because it profits Corporations that do not live and breathe and have no sense of patriotism beyond loyalty to the strong currency. Does that sound crass. Actually, a very efficient way to cook the planet.

[discuss]

Dewey's central argument seems to be that if we didn't get involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. and the rest of the world would have big problems. I'd like to examine that a bit. My argument is that the U.S. went in for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way and thus is creating unnecessary problems out there as well as in the U.S. Would someone like to suggest to Dewey ways that we could have intervened from a humanitarian standpoint to curb the evils of those governments (Taliban and Hussein) rather than our imperialist strategies? I was not arguing that we should be isolationist, and even if I did advocate that, I don't see how that represents an ultra-conservative view. Dewey, you haven't explained that part as I requested. Rather than ignoring what is going on in fascist regimes, and rather than being imperialist, what about true coalitions with our allies around the world to support popular uprisings? What happened when the U.S. pulled out of Iraq the first time? Those Iraqi's who rose up against Hussein were butchered and received no help from the U.S. That's the whole problem. If our government really listened to the people of these countries and provided support without imposing our economic demands, maybe there would be more democracies in the middle east and elsewhere. And then there's the long history of the U.S. backing up extremists in toppling democratically elected governments, as has happened in Central America.

[Mike]

Dewey's central argument seems to be that if we didn't get involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. and the rest of the world would have big problems. I'd like to examine that a bit. My argument is that the U.S. went in for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way and thus is creating unnecessary problems out there as well as in the U.S. ... That's the whole problem. If our government really listened to the people of these countries and provided support without imposing our economic demands, maybe there would be more democracies in the middle east and elsewhere. And then there's the long history of the U.S. backing up extremists in toppling democratically elected governments, as has happened in Central America. My, this thread has sent out feeler roots in all kinds of directions hasn't it. You've set me to ruminating:

Perhaps (some of) our constant involvement throughout the world has contributed to a lot of the world's problems. For those of us who believe the U.S. invasion of Iraq made things worse, Iraq is a microcosm and an example of how our meddling impacts the rest of the world. Few of us doubt the correctness and the appropriateness of the "greatest generation"--those who fought WWII. But often we have behaved as if we don't know when to stop, and we end up squandering the good accomplishments and the good will we originally created.

Another aspect of the issue is our dual nature which is at once a blessing and a curse. I'm talking about our democratic and individual freedom ideals juxtaposed with our free-market ideals--both sets of ideals are desirable, but they often clash and produce undesirable results sometimes for ourselves oft-times for our fellow travelers (on spaceship Earth.) Nobody can doubt the blessing derived from our approach to capitalism on the one hand--it has driven our prosperity as well as our technological know-how--in short it propelled us into a position of eminence. But our multi-national corporations are sometimes like gremlins (or worse)--they thrive in the environment we created for ourselves, but they reach throughout the world in ways that are deplorable. I'm thinking of how we utilized our military to the hurt of the Philippines--adjudged by many to be one of the first demonstrations of our evolution from a champion of those words in the Declaration of Independence to an imperialist host of corporate profit opportunities.

Regarding our democratic ideals who among us would voluntarily forfeit the freedoms written in the Bill of Rights? I dare say not one. But the abuses of some of those rights by some of us have produced hellish results for others of us--mocking the notion of liberty and justice for all. President Bush was famous in the beginning of his first Administration for frequently saying that we are a nation that lives by the rule of law. That's a critical ingredient for the maintenance of a free people. But one need not look very hard to find the myriad examples that make us look rather hypocritical.

[discuss]

I'm looking forward to Dewey's response. I can't imagine anyone could argue against true democracy, i.e. letting the people of Afghanistan and Iraq choose what they want and then supporting it, rather than forcing our own interests on another nation. I think I just checkmated him!

[Mike]

I'm looking forward to Dewey's response. I can't imagine anyone could argue against true democracy, i.e. letting the people of Afghanistan and Iraq choose what they want and then supporting it, rather than forcing our own interests on another nation. I think I just checkmated him!Although I disagree with some of Dewey's arguments, I don't perceive them as arguing against Democracy per se--have I missed something? I don't know that I've ever observed anyone checkmated in the context of a political discussion. Hahaha, I don't think I've ever even convinced anyone to agree with me. :)

[Dewey]

My, this thread has sent out feeler roots in all kinds of directions hasn't it. You've set me to ruminating:

Perhaps (some of) our constant involvement throughout the world has contributed to a lot of the world's problems. For those of us who believe the U.S. invasion of Iraq made things worse, Iraq is a microcosm and an example of how our meddling impacts the rest of the world. Few of us doubt the correctness and the appropriateness of the "greatest generation"--those who fought WWII. But often we have behaved as if we don't know when to stop, and we end up squandering the good accomplishments and the good will we originally created.

Another aspect of the issue is our dual nature which is at once a blessing and a curse. I'm talking about our democratic and individual freedom ideals juxtaposed with our free-market ideals--both sets of ideals are desirable, but they often clash and produce undesirable results sometimes for ourselves oft-times for our fellow travelers (on spaceship Earth.) Nobody can doubt the blessing derived from our approach to capitalism on the one hand--it has driven our prosperity as well as our technological know-how--in short it propelled us into a position of eminence. But our multi-national corporations are sometimes like gremlins (or worse)--they thrive in the environment we created for ourselves, but they reach throughout the world in ways that are deplorable. I'm thinking of how we utilized our military to the hurt of the Philippines--adjudged by many to be one of the first demonstrations of our evolution from a champion of those words in the Declaration of Independence to an imperialist host of corporate profit opportunities.

Regarding our democratic ideals who among us would voluntarily forfeit the freedoms written in the Bill of Rights? I dare say not one. But the abuses of some of those rights by some of us have produced hellish results for others of us--mocking the notion of liberty and justice for all. President Bush was famous in the beginning of his first Administration for frequently saying that we are a nation that lives by the rule of law. That's a critical ingredient for the maintenance of a free people. But one need not look very hard to find the myriad examples that make us look rather hypocritical.


You don't have to “sell-out” and support the ‘big-corporations’ to support president Bush's foreign policy and agree with his post-9/11 conversion to the ‘neo-con’ agenda and views — namely: that using force to topple totalitarians and is preferable to policies of ‘containment’ with crippling imperialist sanctions.

And you don't have to support the torture of terrorist suspects to support Bush's decision to liberate the people of Iraq and Afghanistan or to support Obama's decisions to remain there to fill the power vacuum with our military and prevent sadists and fanatics from reversing the ‘progress’ provided by thousands of unicef and oxfam schools — and other nation-building development initiatives — so their populations can begin to rebuild their society and maybe even establish some sort of representative-government to enforce their new constitutions that they've drafted and debated and ratified by a popular referendum.


You don't have to support Bush or Obama — or praise Cheney or Rumsfeld — to support any of that. You only have to be liberal of principle rather than a partisan who defends the positions of politicians or populist demagogues like Moore or Naom Chomsky — without carefully examining the truth and logic of their claims.



People who assume without fact checking and are willing believe pretty much whatever fits with their meta-narrative — regardless of the facts to the contrary — believe the “neo-conservative” foreign policy serves some cabal of corporations or hidden conspiracy.

The neo-cons who supported the intervention in the Balkans and Iraq and Afghanistan are mainly former Trotskyites and socialists who still support and lobby for a leftist- internationalist and interventionalist foreign policy — which the opposite of ‘conservative’ and their principles and agenda were not contrived to serve big corporations: that is the cliched caricature. Until someone can cite facts from some credible sources to make a coherent case for a ‘corporate conspiracy’ to support that: that's pure propaganda.


Any humanist who rejects any form of fascism that committed to acts of ethnically cleansing and cultural genocide that's defended in the name “cultural-relativism” and pacifism — when it costs more human lives to do nothing at all — has no problem supporting military intervention when the alternatives are continued “containment” — or, even worse: lifting the sanctions and allowing Iraq to control its own airspace over autonomous Kurdistan and southern Iraq. To a “neo-con” — or any liberal with liberal principles — it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the intervention is done by a Republican or a Democratic administration or Sarah Palin . And whether or not replacing a totalitarian ethnic cleansing regime—that starves its people and keeps them contained and secluded with a democratically elected one that allows outside investment and awards contracts to multinationals that bid on their resources and offer them the best deal — in fact: that's much more of an argument for regime change; certainly not any kind of argument against it.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism#Views_on_foreign_policy





From wiki:


Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that combines a pragmatic approach to economics with a traditional approach to culture and social issues. In economics, unlike paleoconservatives and libertarians, neoconservatives are generally comfortable with a limited welfare state; and, while rhetorically supportive of free markets, they are willing to interfere for overriding social purposes. On Military issues it defines national Interests in a manner that allows for the inclusion of ideological interests e.g. the defense of other nations with similar ideologies for geopolitical purposes. . .

Michael Harrington, a democratic socialist, coined the current sense of the term neoconservative in a 1973 Dissent magazine article concerning welfare policy.[5] According to E. J. Dionne, the nascent neoconservatives were driven by "the notion that liberalism" had failed and "no longer knew what it was talking about (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left)*."

*In reference to the “New Left”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left

[Dewey]

btw....This little word ‘neocon’ sure does seem receive a lot of abuse and denunciations from both sides of the divide — from a lot of conservatives and a whole lotta lefties — but how many on ‘the left’ of have read the views of so-called “neo-conservatives” like Paul Berman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDB-7dL5pmQ), Robert Kagan, Christopher Hitchens (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Qgqj1hbwc) or big shots like Paul Wolfowitz? Don't underestimate the power of partisans and propaganda to stigmatize enlightened things that they misrepresent and don't understand simply because they are too partisan and paranoid and preoccupied with passing around more free refills of koolaid.


Who knows what the difference is between the conservative Realist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_in_international_relations_theory) tradition of foreign policy is verses the views that ‘Neo-cons’ advocate?

They are radically different: one school is conservative, amoral and absolutely indifferent to the human consequences; the other is radical and proactive: progressive and humane.



Conservative--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_in_international_relations_theory

Not-conservative--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism#Views_on_foreign_policy






The Realist tradition — i.e. the foreign policy philosophy favored by Kissinger, Jacque Chirac, Reagan, Colin Powell as well as George W. Bush (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9SOVzMV2bc) and Dick Cheney (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY) before 9/11 (*links imbedded in both of their names btw) — relates to the world according to what serves their nation's narrow and immediate and short-term self-interests. Investing our nation's blood and treasure in foreign interventions that involve ‘nation-building’ or “policing the world” and any other foreign policy initiative that serves some moral or humanitarian imperative are almost always an absolute anathema and folly to the realpolik of realists.

That's why people like Kissinger, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney and most other conservatives were completely opposed to American involvement in Bosnia and Kosova during the 90's — since the ethnic cleansing of Europe's muslim population by the Serb in Yugoslavia was a european affair that did not involve American interests. The realists did not regard what was happening there as a significant threat to our allies and our nation: therefore the best policy was to steer clear of it.

It was the ‘neo-cons’ who were pressing people like Madeline Albright for American to intervene: which Clinton finally did. After waiting five years.

Unlike the conservative realists, the so-called ‘neo-con’ worldview is cognizant of why Western democracies were able to achieve their prosperity and peacefully coexist to begin with — the neocons are mindful of what was necessary for liberal democracies to develop and recognize America's role in establishing them in Europe and securing the liberal order in Europe and elsewhere up to today. And the ‘neocons’ realize that the same principles that enables a Hobbesian (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/) society to organize itself as a stable and prosperous liberal democracy are principles that also apply to the hobbesian world of civilizations and nation-states: the same principles that organize people in stable and free-market liberal societies provide the stability among nation-states — both those outside and with the liberal world order:


Pluralism i.e. Open societies that allow a free market place of ideas and free market capitalism establish competing factions creates an interdependence that ensures a creative tension between diversity—the source of destruction and creativity; and conformity—the source of coherence and stability and the economic and social cause of tyranny and totalitarianism when charismatics and demagogues or intolerant societies and popular mass-movements lead to self-censorship or coercively censure and silence dissent.

Globalization — the internet, communications, investment and trade — provides precisely the same dialectal forces between societies and brings the world community together into an interdependent order of competitive nation-states, multi-nationals, and “globalized citizens” who are “condemned to be free”—and compete—and rely on each other.



Law enforcement: Without people with the power and the means to enforce commonlaw within a community there would obviously be no ‘law and order’ and the society would disintegrate: since each person would then have to rely on themselves to secure their own lives and property and seek out alliances with others who share similar self-interests and factions with conflicting ideas and self-interests would clash and demagogues and charismatics would promise peace and stability by demanding unquestioning obedience... etc. — if there were no state and no police to mediate our disputes and protect our rights by defending our lives and our property from those who would violate them.

The same ‘police principle’ applies to the community of nations that also coexist in a classical Hobbesian state of competition and conflict and disorder: nation-states interact and behave exactly you'd expect self-interested people to behave—state of nature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature)—in a society with no government—or tribes or nations or nomads who coexist in a feudal anarchist order where only warlords — i.e. regional powerbrokers that consolidate their power through friendly alliances and force — can mediate any conflicts between them or provide order.

The ‘community of nations’ is made up open societies—constitutional democracies that freely interrelate and trade with each other; and dictatorships—closed societies that are kept more or less isolated by their state; and corrupt “democratic dictatorships” with underdeveloped democratic and economic institutions and authoritarian regimes; and failed-states that have fragmented into factions and consume themselves in ethnic conflict and despotism.



The United States is the sole superpower: when the world was divided between two imperialist powers — the tension between them was the main source of conflict in countries where they competed for influence but it was also a critical source stability among the developing countries: like Sudan, Yugoslavia, or Iraq. Collapse of the Soviet Union destabilized the client states of both superpowers — countries in Eastern Europe and especially the artificially colonial contrived nation-states in places Africa that relied on Soviet and American financial aid for political power base and to provide for their people and secure their countries and their borders from neighboring populations and states.

Foreign interventions for destabilizing and dangerous failed states and nation-building and enabling democracy are thus the most self-interested and enlightened foreign policy that should replace the narrowly self-serving views of classical ‘realism’. The world is unipolar now: the United States has interests and responsibilities like dealing with genocidal ‘rogue states’ —*that the Realists on the right and clueless “anti-corporatists” on the left would rather ignore — if its in Yugoslavia or Africa or someplace deemed strategically irrelevant or ‘expendable’ — or, if it happens to be a ‘keystone state’ in a vital strategic region like Iraq, send in the CIA to try and topple “rogue regimes” by replacing one despot with another, or simply “contain” them with crippling embargoes that strangle their country's economies and kill thousands of people.

[Mike]

Perhaps (some of) our constant involvement throughout the world has contributed to a lot of the world's problems. For those of us who believe the U.S. invasion of Iraq made things worse, Iraq is a microcosm and an example of how our meddling impacts the rest of the world. Few of us doubt the correctness and the appropriateness of the "greatest generation"--those who fought WWII. But often we have behaved as if we don't know when to stop, and we end up squandering the good accomplishments and the good will we originally created.

Another aspect of the issue is our dual nature which is at once a blessing and a curse. I'm talking about our democratic and individual freedom ideals juxtaposed with our free-market ideals--both sets of ideals are desirable, but they often clash and produce undesirable results sometimes for ourselves oft-times for our fellow travelers (on spaceship Earth.) Nobody can doubt the blessing derived from our approach to capitalism on the one hand--it has driven our prosperity as well as our technological know-how--in short it propelled us into a position of eminence. But our multi-national corporations are sometimes like gremlins (or worse)--they thrive in the environment we created for ourselves, but they reach throughout the world in ways that are deplorable. I'm thinking of how we utilized our military to the hurt of the Philippines--adjudged by many to be one of the first demonstrations of our evolution from a champion of those words in the Declaration of Independence to an imperialist host of corporate profit opportunities.

Regarding our democratic ideals who among us would voluntarily forfeit the freedoms written in the Bill of Rights? I dare say not one. But the abuses of some of those rights by some of us have produced hellish results for others of us--mocking the notion of liberty and justice for all. President Bush was famous in the beginning of his first Administration for frequently saying that we are a nation that lives by the rule of law. That's a critical ingredient for the maintenance of a free people. But one need not look very hard to find the myriad examples that make us look rather hypocritical.You don't have to “sell-out” and support the ‘big-corporations’ to support president Bush's foreign policy and agree with his post-9/11 conversion to the ‘neo-con’ agenda and views — namely: that using force to topple totalitarians and is preferable to policies of ‘containment’ with imperialist crippling sanctions.

And you don't have to support the torture of terrorist suspects to support Bush's decision to liberate the people of Iraq and Afghanistan or to support Obama's decisions to remain there to fill the power vacuum with our military and prevent sadists and fanatics from reversing the ‘progress’ provided by thousands of unicef and oxfam schools and other types nation-building development projects — so their populations can rebuild their society and maybe even establish some sort of representative-government to enforce their new constitutions that they've drafted and debated and ratified by a popular referendum.

You don't have to support Bush or Obama — or praise Cheney or Rumsfeld — to support any of that.

You only have to be liberal of principle rather than a partisan — who defends the positions of politicians or populist demagogues like Moore or Naom Chomsky — without carefully examining the truth and logic of their claims.

People who assume without fact checking and are willing believe pretty much whatever fits with their meta-narrative — regardless of the facts to the contrary — believe the “neo-conservative” foreign policy serves some cabal of corporations or hidden conspiracy.

The neo-cons who supported the intervention in the Balkans and Iraq and Afghanistan are mainly former Trotskyites and socialists who still support and lobby for a leftist- internationalist and interventionalist foreign policy — which the opposite of ‘conservative’ and their principles and agenda were not contrived to serve big corporations: that is the cliched caricature. Until someone can cite facts from some credible sources to make a coherent case for a ‘corporate conspiracy’ to support that: that's pure propaganda.

Any humanist who rejects moral-relativism and pacifism — when it costs more human lives to do nothing at all — has no problem supporting military intervention when the alternatives are continued “containment” — or, even worse: lifting the sanctions and allowing Iraq to control its own airspace over autonomous Kurdistan and southern Iraq. To a “neo-con” — or any liberal with liberal principles — it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the intervention is done by a Republican or a Democratic administration or Sarah Palin . And whether or not replacing a totalitarian ethnic cleansing regime—that starves its people and keeps them contained and secluded with a democratically elected one that allows outside investment and awards contracts to multinationals that bid on their resources and offer them the best deal — in fact: that's much more of an argument for regime change; certainly not any kind of argument against it. I'm having difficulty understanding the relationship between my remarks and your rebuttals, Dewey. Forgive me if I seem dense, but maybe this is a situation where you should parse my remarks a little. Normally, I dislike parsing, but we may find we actually agree on some things that we only THINK we disagree. Should we try again and take it from the top (of this post)? :)

[Dewey]

Dewey's central argument seems to be that if we didn't get involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. and the rest of the world would have big problems. I'd like to examine that a bit. My argument is that the U.S. went in for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way and thus is creating unnecessary problems out there as well as in the U.S. Would someone like to suggest to Dewey ways that we could have intervened from a humanitarian standpoint to curb the evils of those governments (Taliban and Hussein) rather than our imperialist strategies? I was not arguing that we should be isolationist, and even if I did advocate that, I don't see how that represents an ultra-conservative view.


Who is the “U.S.” ? That acronym refers to ‘us’ — i.e. you and me both (if we both happen to be United States citizens, does it not?) Why would you support or be against our country's foreign policies based on whether or not you agreed with the reasons and justifications that our elected politicians and policy makers provided for public consumption or whether they may have been motivated by some ulterior political purposes?

What does that have to do with the necessity of the foreign policies themselves on the people in the foreign lands whose lives they affect?



That makes no sense.





Dewey, you haven't explained that part as I requested. Rather than ignoring what is going on in fascist regimes, and rather than being imperialist, what about true coalitions with our allies around the world to support popular uprisings? What happened when the U.S. pulled out of Iraq the first time? Those Iraqi's who rose up against Hussein were butchered and received no help from the U.S. That's the whole problem. If our government really listened to the people of these countries and provided support without imposing our economic demands, maybe there would be more democracies in the middle east and elsewhere. And then there's the long history of the U.S. backing up extremists in toppling democratically elected governments, as has happened in Central America.


1. The Cold War is over. (we won)

The U.S. is no longer an “imperial superpower” that needs to contest the every nation that the Soviet imperialist superpower courted or intervened in. America does not need to depose democratically elected populist regimes and replace them with military juntas and right-wing dictators and arm ruthless warlords and militias to fight against revolutionary communist regimes.

The U.S. is still a superpower, however, and can create big problems for countries when our politicians act out of arrogance and/or unbelievable incompetence: i.e. what happened in with Aristide: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/americas/29haiti.html


2. The UN approved US enforced sanctions regime that was in place for twelve years preceding the intervention was the imperialist policy: the intervention following it however, was not, in any way, “imperialist”: it was the antithesis of imperialism — exactly the opposite of it. Democracy = self-determination.

The UN embargo and the police-state dictatorship that Americans paid to prop up at the pump = imperialism: Naked imperialism — that went on for twelve years — and killed many more lives than Bush's “invasion” — and received a miniscule fraction of the objections and outrage as did the intervention that ended them.

[Dewey]

Yes, and at the moment I think you and I are talking about somewhat different aspects. I know that's an inherent pitfall with comparative analogies--each of us focuses upon different comparisons. Just let me try to clarify to avoid misunderstanding what I was comparing. I already mentioned the part about Dave Fagan's comparisons--I would hope that would be sufficient to avoid misinterpretation that an insult to the Vietnamese was being put forward.

Additionally I was thinking that as the Domino Theory was used to clarify the need for American intervention around the world, your remarks seem to articulate a similar need. In the sixties the argument was that if one country were to fall under communist rule then others would follow—thereby threatening U.S. interests throughout larger parts of the world. You seem to argue that if Afghanistan reverts to rule under the Taliban then other areas of the world will be unsafe for U.S. interests as a result. I think it’s ironic that the U.S. supported the Taliban against the Soviets. What now might appear to be irrelevant old history actually, I think, enhances the possibility of entertaining alternative explanations for why the U.S. should be perceived by some of us to have a world-wide police-like role.

The Viet Cong perceived the U.S. as a threat to the way of life they preferred and thought best for themselves and their compatriots. Although it conflicts with our paradigm, it resembles us in that their attitude like ours was that an outsider (in that case we, the U.S., were the outsiders) should have no right to enter their country and change things. Likewise, the Taliban many years ago struggled AGAINST the Soviets (the outsiders at THAT time to them) in order to preserve what they believed was best for their land--they chose to allow the U.S. at that time to assist them in that struggle. Now, however, we are again the invaders in their minds. That's about as far as I would even want to take the analogy--it doesn't serve to illustrate much more than my attempt to look at the issue from more than a single unilateral paradigm, that's all. I hope that clarifies what I'm thinking and what I intended with the analogy.


Yes. You can only take analogies so far that share some similarities on the surface but seem to me to be quite far from analogous. Afghanistan became one of the most desolate, dangerous, and devastated place on earth because of the billions Reagan provided to arm the mujihadeen and the Red Army's reaction that amounted to nation-wide scorched earth policy for across almost all of Afghanistan. The Soviets allegedly uprooted every tree — torched every vineyard and orchard — and cut off the water supply to the agricultural basins of Afghanistan: causing droughts that depopulated entire provinces and dried up main source of income for the country. And, of course, they left behind millions of mines and millions more refugees in Iran and Pakistan — who could not return until the United States and the Northern Alliance toppled the Taliban because of the civil wars that ensued when the Soviets left.

Had Reagan not supplied the mujihadeen with billions of aid and supplied them with stinger missiles then perhaps a Soviet backed communist dictatorship might have been able to subdue the rural peasants and religious reactionaries who rejected the Peoples Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_Afghanistan) forceful attempts to ‘socialize’ and secularize Afghanistan by banning the burqa and growing out beards and adopting an secular curriculum in state sponsored schools, land reforms to free up farmland for peasants who rented it from feudal landlords... etc.

We'll never know what might have been. But I think the principled position that responsible and aware Americans should advocate would be to acknowledge our nation's role in turning Afghanistan in an uncivilized wasteland of fanatics and misery and embrace the challenge and the opportunity that we have to rebuild it into a Third World country again.

[discuss]

Although I disagree with some of Dewey's arguments, I don't perceive them as arguing against Democracy per se--have I missed something? I don't know that I've ever observed anyone checkmated in the context of a political discussion. Hahaha, I don't think I've ever even convinced anyone to agree with me. :)

It happens all the time that people get checkmated in a discussion. When you make an argument that someone can't defeat, you've won the argument. How would we measure who wins a debate otherwise? Not that I am trying to be competitive, but this is a place to try out your ideas against others.

[discuss]

Although I disagree with some of Dewey's arguments, I don't perceive them as arguing against Democracy per se--have I missed something? I don't know that I've ever observed anyone checkmated in the context of a political discussion. Hahaha, I don't think I've ever even convinced anyone to agree with me. :)

I didn't say he's against democracy. I asked how he could be against a true democratic process. A rhetorical question.

[discuss]

Who is the “U.S.” ? That acronym refers to ‘us’ — i.e. you and me both (if we both happen to be United States citizens, does it not?) Why would you support or be against our country's foreign policies based on whether or not you agreed with the reasons and justifications that our elected politicians and policy makers provided for public consumption or whether they may have been motivated by some ulterior political purposes?

What does that have to do with the necessity of the foreign policies themselves on the people in the foreign lands whose lives they affect?



That makes no sense.






1. The Cold War is over. (we won)

The U.S. is no longer an “imperial superpower” that needs to contest the every nation that the Soviet imperialist superpower courted or intervened in. America does not need to depose democratically elected populist regimes and replace them with military juntas and right-wing dictators and arm ruthless warlords and militias to fight against revolutionary communist regimes.

The U.S. is still a superpower, however, and can create big problems for countries when our politicians act out of arrogance and/or unbelievable incompetence: i.e. what happened in with Aristide: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/americas/29haiti.html


2. The UN approved US enforced sanctions regime that was in place for twelve years preceding the intervention was the imperialist policy: the intervention following it however, was not, in any way, “imperialist”: it was the antithesis of imperialism — exactly the opposite of it. Democracy = self-determination.

The UN embargo and the police-state dictatorship that Americans paid to prop up at the pump = imperialism: Naked imperialism — that went on for twelve years — and killed many more lives than Bush's “invasion” — and received a miniscule fraction of the objections and outrage as did the intervention that ended them.

I'm sorry Dewey, but you're going to have to change the way you argue your points. You need to be concise. In your responses you are writing in a very long and meandering way. As far as I can tell you have not addressed my last point, and you are going off on tangents continuously. If you have a valid point or argument, you should be able to state it clearly and briefly, otherwise your posts can only be read as a smokescreen.

[dave fagan]

Reply to Dewey #44

You have failed to include super big Central Banks in your Worldview. These banks can buy and sell many countries, as can many financially large Corporations. If they can, they will, that's just good business. So where do they fit. Do they manipulate and control with Trillions of dollars or do they do the Scrooge McDuck and swim around in huge pools of money. Remember that if the money ain't moving, it ain't working.

[Mike]

We'll never know what might have been. But I think the principled position that responsible and aware Americans should advocate would be to acknowledge our nation's role in turning Afghanistan in an uncivilized wasteland of fanatics and misery and embrace the challenge and the opportunity that we have to rebuild it into a Third World country again.I agree, we could speculate until the cows come home about what if and what might have been. :) I also agree that it's important to acknowledge our nation's mistakes. Pragmatically, however, I am so skeptical about our unilateral conceits. I don't believe that we are even capable of rebuilding other countries. Where have we unilaterally done it before? I can't think of any example.

[Dewey]

I didn't say he's against democracy. I asked how he could be against a true democratic process. A rhetorical question.



Yeah. About that.....Which ‘democratic process’? I think perhaps you ought to expand on that a little — and be a little more specific before self-congratulations are in order. Maybe?

But seriously, can you paraphrase or C&P the part from your post(s) that describes the ‘democratic process’ that you're referring to? (the one that I've allegedly failed to address or carelessly overlooked and argued against.)





Vous: “I'm looking forward to Dewey's response. I can't imagine anyone could argue against true democracy, i.e. letting the people of Afghanistan and Iraq choose what they want and then supporting it, rather than forcing our own interests on another nation. I think I just checkmated him!”



I didn't mean to ignore you.....but I also didn't know where to begin to respond to that....because I did not know what you were referring to. I did go back went back and reread both yours and Mikes posts from the previous page tho. (It's not like I didn't try or anything of that sort.)

[discuss]

Yeah. About that.....Which ‘democratic process’? I think perhaps you ought to expand on that a little — and be a little more specific before self-congratulations are in order. Maybe?

But seriously, can you paraphrase or C&P the part from your post(s) that describes the ‘democratic process’ that you're referring to? (the one that I've allegedly failed to address or carelessly overlooked and argued against.)





Vous: “I'm looking forward to Dewey's response. I can't imagine anyone could argue against true democracy, i.e. letting the people of Afghanistan and Iraq choose what they want and then supporting it, rather than forcing our own interests on another nation. I think I just checkmated him!”



I didn't mean to ignore you.....but I also didn't know where to begin to respond to that....because I did not know what you were referring to. I did go back went back and reread both yours and Mikes posts from the previous page tho. (It's not like I didn't try or anything of that sort.)

Okay, lets clarify then, shall we? Your main argument (as far as any I can clearly understand given all the things you've thrown into the mix) seems to be that we should go into other countries and "stabilize" them so they don't fall to dictators. Furthermore you say we should do it for moral reasons when it's called for. You are claiming that our current military involvement is justified. What I am asking is why don't you consider the fact that the people in these other countries have their own needs and we have no business dictating to them what they should be doing? If we are to get involved from a humanitarian standpoint to stop atrocities from occurring we should be supporting native movements, not oppressing countries as imperialists.

Rather than trying to take apart terms or throw in various historical events or randomly attack important voices of conscience like Chomsky with unsubstantiated claims, just address the question.

[Dewey]

Dewey's central argument seems to be that if we didn't get involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. and the rest of the world would have big problems. I'd like to examine that a bit. My argument is that the U.S. went in for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way and thus is creating unnecessary problems out there as well as in the U.S. Would someone like to suggest to Dewey ways that we could have intervened from a humanitarian standpoint to curb the evils of those governments (Taliban and Hussein) rather than our imperialist strategies? I was not arguing that we should be isolationist, and even if I did advocate that, I don't see how that represents an ultra-conservative view. Dewey, you haven't explained that part as I requested. Rather than ignoring what is going on in fascist regimes, and rather than being imperialist, what about true coalitions with our allies around the world to support popular uprisings? What happened when the U.S. pulled out of Iraq the first time? Those Iraqi's who rose up against Hussein were butchered and received no help from the U.S. That's the whole problem. If our government really listened to the people of these countries and provided support without imposing our economic demands, maybe there would be more democracies in the middle east and elsewhere. And then there's the long history of the U.S. backing up extremists in toppling democratically elected governments, as has happened in Central America.


I believe this post is what you were referring to? If it is, I'll address the parts I didn't previously. No problem.

I don't believe the point you made is one in your favor, rather I believe it is representative of a fundament misunderstanding or disconnect between much of the populist left-wing and political theory regarding the principle reason that nation-states engage other nations in trade or cooperative treaties — and especially when and where they choose to intervene in conflicts within or between other nations. The reason America allowed Saddam Hussein to crush the uprisings that threatened his regime is that Iraq is sectarian country that was carved out between the British and the French and would have remained together had the regime been overthrown — since the militarized police state was all that was holding it together. Had it broken up, or “balkanized”, the Islamic Republic of Iran would have secured and most likely annexed Iraq's shi'ite region which contains most of the major oil fields — and Saudi would have invaded to protect the Sunnis, and Turkey would have done who knows what to the Kurds to prevent them establishing a state that would be flush with oil and empower their own oppressed and persecuted Kurdish population..

That would not have served the interests of the United States, or our Arab allies in the region: to say the least. That is why the American armed forces were forced to watch and were ordered not to cross the cease fire line or violate Iraq's airspace to intervene while Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard units murdered tens-of-thousands of Iraqis. The United States administration only decided to intervene and establish No-Fly Zones when it became a publish relations issue: i.e. when enough of the American people took notice and objected to make the option of doing nothing an obvious political liability.

Which brings us to the issue of why would we oppose a different administration by the same name 12 years later that finally decided to do what his father should have done when he was president. When an American president finally did what we were morally obligated to do it incited the world's largest mass-mobilizations of people in human history throughout the world — especially in Europe and some even in America. Bush's decision motivated millions and millions of people who, apparently, opposed military invention and regime change a whole lot more than they did the imperialist sanctions that preceded it.

And btw: with regards to America supporting the resistance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act


And also, what is this about “imposing our economic demands” ? I believe Iraq is a fully sovereign nation now — a very wealthy petrol producing democratic nation — their elected government are free to pursue whatever economic policies they think best serve their peoples interests. Why insinuate these things without some fact checking so you can cite some evidence to support this predictable cliche about America's “imperialist” agenda?

[discuss]

"I don't believe the point you made is one in your favor, rather I believe it is representative of a fundament misunderstanding or disconnect between much of the populist left-wing and political theory regarding the principle reason that nation-states engage other nations in trade or cooperative treaties — and especially when and where they choose to intervene in conflicts within or between other nations. The reason America allowed Saddam Hussein to crush the uprisings that threatened his regime is that Iraq is sectarian country that was carved out between the British and the French and would have remained together had the regime been overthrown —"

Can you please clarify this point?

"since the militarized police state was all that was holding it together. Had it broken up, or “balkanized”, the Islamic Republic of Iran would have secured and most likely annexed Iraq's shi'ite region which contains most of the major oil fields — and Saudi would have invaded to protect the Sunnis, and Turkey would have done who knows what to the Kurds to prevent them establishing a state that would be flush with oil and empower their own oppressed and persecuted Kurdish population.. "

Are you in effect saying that an uprising would have divided the country, leaving it open to incursion from neighboring states?

"That would not have served the interests of the United States, or our Arab allies in the region: to say the least. That is why the American armed forces were forced to watch and were ordered not to cross the cease fire line or violate Iraq's airspace to intervene while Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard units murdered tens-of-thousands of Iraqis. The United States administration only decided to intervene and establish No-Fly Zones when it became a publish relations issue: i.e. when enough of the American people took notice and objected to make the option of doing nothing an obvious political liability."

But the scenario you describe regarding the actions of other nations is purely speculative. Isn't it also a way to justify American non-involvement, i.e. American non-help in that situation?


"Which brings us to the issue of why would we oppose a different administration by the same name 12 years later that finally decided to do what his father should have done when he was president. When an American president finally did what we were morally obligated to do it incited the world's largest mass-mobilizations of people in human history throughout the world — especially in Europe and some even in America. Bush's decision motivated millions and millions of people who, apparently, opposed military invention and regime change a whole lot more than they did the imperialist sanctions that preceded it."

The reason so many opposed the Bush administrations moves was because they were claimed to be motivated by the WMD argument as well as the suggestion that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda. The reason the sanctions were not protested against was probably because that sort of action has a different impact on the views of the public, due to it's less spectacular quality.

"And btw: with regards to America supporting the resistance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act"

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.


"And also, what is this about “imposing our economic demands” ? I believe Iraq is a fully sovereign nation now — a very wealthy petrol producing democratic nation — their elected government are free to pursue whatever economic policies they think best serve their peoples interests. Why insinuate these things without some fact checking so you can cite some evidence to support this predictable cliche about America's “imperialist” agenda?[/QUOTE]"

Nothing cliche about the statement, maybe about the action itself though. You are assuming that the U.S. and it's corporations don't have a hand in Iraq now that it's been "liberated". This is an absurd assumption and grossly naive. Nothing needs to be insinuated. As Dave Fagan has stated, the U.S. is interested in oil. Do I really need to cite all the American and other companies who rushed in there and set up business? The facts are there for you to check yourself.

[Dewey]

"I don't believe the point you made is one in your favor, rather I believe it is representative of a fundament misunderstanding or disconnect between much of the populist left-wing and political theory regarding the principle reason that nation-states engage other nations in trade or cooperative treaties — and especially when and where they choose to intervene in conflicts within or between other nations. The reason America allowed Saddam Hussein to crush the uprisings that threatened his regime is that Iraq is sectarian country that was carved out between the British and the French and would have remained together had the regime been overthrown —"


Can you please clarify this point?




Just that whenever a majority overthrows a dictatorship that favors and protects members from a minority groups from other sects that represent the majority of population: the result is a power vacuum—followed by a power struggle for who will fill it—and reprisals and ethnic cleansing: especially when the dictatorship has a committed acts of ethnic cleansing to ‘remove’ and relocate people from other groups to make room for its own ethnic group.

In other words: without a neutral foreign power in place to fill the power vacuum when the dictatorship lost control — by divisions from within or forcibly from a popular uprising against it — Iraq would have become just like another multiethnic confederation that's held together by divide and rule favoritism and fear tactics — like Yugoslavia or Lebanon....and could not have conceivably transitioned to a pluralist federal constitutional government that remains together by serving the collective interests of each group.







"since the militarized police state was all that was holding it together. Had it broken up, or “balkanized”, the Islamic Republic of Iran would have secured and most likely annexed Iraq's shi'ite region which contains most of the major oil fields — and Saudi would have invaded to protect the Sunnis, and Turkey would have done who knows what to the Kurds to prevent them establishing a state that would be flush with oil and empower their own oppressed and persecuted Kurdish population.. "


Are you in effect saying that an uprising would have divided the country, leaving it open to incursion from neighboring states?




Yes. Absolutely. But it would be divided by force — between the two adversarial powers in the region over who controlled which part.

btw. Do you think that is ‘speculative’ or can you imagine circumstances that would have avoided such an outcome?







"That would not have served the interests of the United States, or our Arab allies in the region: to say the least. That is why the American armed forces were forced to watch and were ordered not to cross the cease fire line or violate Iraq's airspace to intervene while Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard units murdered tens-of-thousands of Iraqis. The United States administration only decided to intervene and establish No-Fly Zones when it became a publish relations issue: i.e. when enough of the American people took notice and objected to make the option of doing nothing an obvious political liability."


But the scenario you describe regarding the actions of other nations is purely speculative.



No, that part really happened. And what would have happened to the Kurds had the No-fly zones been abandoned is not ‘purely speculative’ either; the US and British control of Iraq's airspace was all that protected the Kurds from another Anfal campaign in '88 and the reprisals following the first Gulf War that created the largest mass exodus of people in history a few years later and the offensives in 70's that attempted to solve the “Kurdish problem” in 1975 — after they were used by Henry Kissinger and betrayed like expendables.




Anfal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDRS6mycJu8

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/08/14/genocide-iraq-anfal-campaign-against-kurds


Kissinger's ‘solution’ that reconciled Saddam with the Shah of Iran: http://kurdistancommentary.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/kissinger-and-the-kurds/







Isn't it also a way to justify American non-involvement, i.e. American non-help in that situation?



Wat? No! no.....The air campaign during Desert Storm preceding the ground invasion targeted Iraq's ground forces also “degraded” Iraq's civil infrastructure — bridges, factories, power plants, etc. — for several weeks. It went from an industrialized country to a battered Third World country — followed an oil embargo and comprehensive sanctions on a petroleum producing country. What do you think I'm Genghis Khan or something? What kind of ‘justification’ would that be for the United States not intervening to topple the regime initially and placing them under sanctions for twelve years? No, had the United States acted unilaterally to begin with and finished job — and occupied and secured and helped rebuild their country and held elections. Had that been the plan from the beginning rather than the political preoccupations of “keeping the coalition together” and providing an ‘exit strategy’ there would have been hundreds fewer mass graves scattered throughout the two halves of the country and thousands of children would have been spared by having access to vaccines and food instead of dying from malnutrition and poverty and preventable things that most Third World countries can provide for — so they could be used for propaganda: propaganda, which, clearly does convey some unsettling truths about America. How can the “progressive” minded people in the most prosperous country on earth — that collectively consumed 1/4 of the world's oil-output and 2/3rds of the oil exported through the UN “Oil-for-Food” scam be a willing accessory to that. That dictator relied on americans to remain oblivious to their part in financing his huge police-state and every american paid for the privilege of stealing their oil from their dictator who confiscated the bodies of children from their parents and froze them so he could parade them through the streets to protest the embargo that Americans imposed on them.


Albright on 60 Minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo










The reason so many opposed the Bush administrations moves was because they were claimed to be motivated by the WMD argument as well as the suggestion that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda. The reason the sanctions were not protested against was probably because that sort of action has a different impact on the views of the public, due to it's less spectacular quality.




Yeah. I know. Lots of children dying and mass graves in that country.....but no WMDs.






"And also, what is this about “imposing our economic demands” ? I believe Iraq is a fully sovereign nation now — a very wealthy petrol producing democratic nation — their elected government are free to pursue whatever economic policies they think best serve their peoples interests. Why insinuate these things without some fact checking so you can cite some evidence to support this predictable cliche about America's “imperialist” agenda?"

Nothing cliche about the statement, maybe about the action itself though. You are assuming that the U.S. and it's corporations don't have a hand in Iraq now that it's been "liberated". This is an absurd assumption and grossly naive. Nothing needs to be insinuated. As Dave Fagan has stated, the U.S. is interested in oil. Do I really need to cite all the American and other companies who rushed in there and set up business? The facts are there for you to check yourself.


Iraq awarded its first major oil contracts to a consortium of Chinese Nat'l Petroleum Company and BP who secured the drilling rights their largest field in the southern half of the country for £2 a barrel: the rest gets divided among Iraqis — who also got the consortium to agree to improve the roads and build up the surrounding communities. The price per barrel as of today is about $90 — so those Iraqis get to keep almost $87 for every barrel of their oil that was extracted from the Rumaila oil field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumaila_oil_field) today. When the Shah of Iran came to power after Mossadeq was overthrown with the help of the CIA, SIS after being lobbied by BP—then the ‘Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’—the best his government could negotiate was a 50-50 arrangement — according to the British ‘honor system’ — meaning their records were for British eyes-only.


So I think that such an unprecedented arrangement requires fair minded lefties to take the side of the multinationals for once: they are getting EXPLOITED by our ravenous appetite for oil and the freemarket capitalist system that require them to underbid their competition — the American and Dutch owned oil companies that must have had tons of cash to spare to have bid the other two down to four per cent per barrel.

That's price gouging. That's taking advantage of our oil dependency — there are several BILLIONS in ‘the West’ and industrialized Asian countries who need that oil to live and export and consume frivolous stuff for cheap. :rolleyes:

[Dewey]

Okay, lets clarify then, shall we? Your main argument (as far as any I can clearly understand given all the things you've thrown into the mix) seems to be that we should go into other countries and "stabilize" them so they don't fall to dictators. Furthermore you say we should do it for moral reasons when it's called for. You are claiming that our current military involvement is justified. What I am asking is why don't you consider the fact that the people in these other countries have their own needs and we have no business dictating to them what they should be doing? If we are to get involved from a humanitarian standpoint to stop atrocities from occurring we should be supporting native movements, not oppressing countries as imperialists.

Rather than trying to take apart terms or throw in various historical events or randomly attack important voices of conscience like Chomsky with unsubstantiated claims, just address the question.


btw ‘imperialism’ is when political, economic or cultural hegemony is imposed on the peoples of a nation by a monarch or by foreign power or by a colonial regime that enforces their will directly or through their vassals.


To my knowledge no imperialist power ever agreed to the demands of the country they occupied in their Status Of Forces Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_Forces_Agreement) that gave them right to arrest its own citizens serving in their armed forces and try them in their courts under their country's legal code before.

And allowing free elections to choose a committees to write new constitutions and ratify them and elect a parliament inclusive of every religious, secular, communist, nationalist, republican etc. party that chooses to participate have never been a part of any ‘imperialist’ program I know of.

The only party that was excluded was the Fascist Ba'th party of the previous era back when Iraq was a one-party state that was governed by the only head-of-state in human history to receive a mandate of 100 percent of the vote with 100 percent turnout (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2331951.stm)—who served just five months before he was removed by the ‘imperialists’—was excluded and so was “alQaeda in Iraq” which was disqualified forever for strapping explosives to a child with Down Syndrome and using them to blow up polling stations in Iraq's first parliamentary elections.

[dave fagan]

This would be the same blanket organization that kidnapped and exiled the democratically elected leader (Aristides) of Haiti in 2004. Another terrific example of democracy building. The same organization that does not allow this Aristide to return to Haiti while allowing a previous despot "Baby Doc" Duvaillier to return. I'm not confused but my facts need adjustment (spin?). Another chapter in the history of helping the impoverished. Let's talk Zelaya in Honduras. He's the recent loser of the CIA inspired Labor/Management dispute in Honduras. Democracy work is confusing at best, perhaps an oxymoron in the current context.

[Dewey]

This would be the same blanket organization that kidnapped and exiled the democratically elected leader (Aristides) of Haiti in 2004. Another terrific example of democracy building. The same organization that does not allow this Aristide to return to Haiti while allowing a previous despot "Baby Doc" Duvaillier to return. I'm not confused but my facts need adjustment (spin?). Another chapter in the history of helping the impoverished.


What “organization” is that? Duvalier flew to back Haiti from Paris, did he not? Presumably he ran out of money living it up on the French Riviera. We don't need to explain everything with CIA conspiracies. America doesn't need to spend its time propping up dictators to keep communists from securing a foothold in Haiti. That was two decades ago. All the US government really cares about now is keeping Haiti from sinking or succumbing to some calamity that causes destruction of thermonuclear proportions that would scatter millions of boat people every which way and flood Florida with refugees.






[...]


1. The Cold War is over. (we won)

The U.S. is no longer an “imperial superpower” that needs to contest the every nation that the Soviet imperialist superpower courted or intervened in. America does not need to depose democratically elected populist regimes and replace them with military juntas and right-wing dictators and arm ruthless warlords and militias to fight against revolutionary communist regimes.

The U.S. is still a superpower, however, and can create big problems for countries when our politicians act out of arrogance and/or unbelievable incompetence: i.e. what happened in with Aristide: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/americas/29haiti.html


2. The UN approved US enforced sanctions regime that was in place for twelve years preceding the intervention was the imperialist policy: the intervention following it however, was not, in any way, “imperialist”: it was the antithesis of imperialism — exactly the opposite of it. Democracy = self-determination.

The UN embargo and the police-state dictatorship that Americans paid to prop up at the pump = imperialism: Naked imperialism — that went on for twelve years — and killed many more lives than Bush's “invasion” — and received a miniscule fraction of the objections and outrage as did the intervention that ended them.

[discuss]

I apologize, but I don't know how to separate out your quotes in those yellow boxes.

"btw. Do you think that is ‘speculative’ or can you imagine circumstances that would have avoided such an outcome?"

As I stated, I don't disagree with intervention. I disagree with the way in which we intervened and how we are operating in Afghanistan and Iraq now. Avoiding the outcome you describe would be through supporting a democratic movement within each country.















"Wat? No! no.....The air campaign during Desert Storm preceding the ground invasion targeted Iraq's ground forces also “degraded” Iraq's civil infrastructure — bridges, factories, power plants, etc. — for several weeks. It went from an industrialized country to a battered Third World country — followed an oil embargo and comprehensive sanctions on a petroleum producing country. What do you think I'm Genghis Khan or something? What kind of ‘justification’ would that be for the United States not intervening to topple the regime initially and placing them under sanctions for twelve years? No, had the United States acted unilaterally to begin with and finished job — and occupied and secured and helped rebuild their country and held elections. Had that been the plan from the beginning rather than the political preoccupations of “keeping the coalition together” and providing an ‘exit strategy’ there would have been hundreds fewer mass graves scattered throughout the two halves of the country and thousands of children would have been spared by having access to vaccines and food instead of dying from malnutrition and poverty and preventable things that most Third World countries can provide for — so they could be used for propaganda: propaganda, which, clearly does convey some unsettling truths about America. How can the “progressive” minded people in the most prosperous country on earth — that collectively consumed 1/4 of the world's oil-output and 2/3rds of the oil exported through the UN “Oil-for-Food” scam be a willing accessory to that. That dictator relied on americans to remain oblivious to their part in financing his huge police-state and every american paid for the privilege of stealing their oil from their dictator who confiscated the bodies of children from their parents and froze them so he could parade them through the streets to protest the embargo that Americans imposed on them."

I'm not sure but we may not have a disagreement here, at least in the first half of what you are saying. Can you clarify your point?











"Yeah. I know. Lots of children dying and mass graves in that country.....but no WMDs."

What do you mean?




"Iraq awarded its first major oil contracts to a consortium of Chinese Nat'l Petroleum Company and BP who secured the drilling rights their largest field in the southern half of the country for £2 a barrel: the rest gets divided among Iraqis — who also got the consortium to agree to improve the roads and build up the surrounding communities. The price per barrel as of today is about $90 — so those Iraqis get to keep almost $87 for every barrel of their oil that was extracted from the Rumaila oil field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumaila_oil_field) today. When the Shah of Iran came to power after Mossadeq was overthrown with the help of the CIA, SIS after being lobbied by BP—then the ‘Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’—the best his government could negotiate was a 50-50 arrangement — according to the British ‘honor system’ — meaning their records were for British eyes-only."

Does any of what you just stated disprove the fact that the U.S. is in the oil business out there?


"So I think that such an unprecedented arrangement requires fair minded lefties to take the side of the multinationals for once: they are getting EXPLOITED by our ravenous appetite for oil and the freemarket capitalist system that require them to underbid their competition — the American and Dutch owned oil companies that must have had tons of cash to spare to have bid the other two down to four per cent per barrel."

"That's price gouging. That's taking advantage of our oil dependency — there are several BILLIONS in ‘the West’ and industrialized Asian countries who need that oil to live and export and consume frivolous stuff for cheap. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]"

Too much thrown out in your statements here. How does it relate to my point?

And by the way, I just heard another statistic, that we pay over 50 cents on the dollar of our budget on the military. I have yet to hear a justification for this. The only reason it's happening is because legislators who have powerful defense contractors in their constituencies are supporting more spending and everyone else in Congress is afraid to look soft on defense. It's unbelievable that defense is not even on the table for cuts right now.

[discuss]

"[QUOTE=Dewey;2132]btw ‘imperialism’ is when political, economic or cultural hegemony is imposed on the peoples of a nation by a monarch or by foreign power or by a colonial regime that enforces their will directly or through their vassals."

That's correct. And?


"To my knowledge no imperialist power ever agreed to the demands of the country they occupied in their Status Of Forces Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_Forces_Agreement) that gave them right to arrest its own citizens serving in their armed forces and try them in their courts under their country's legal code before."

Please clarify your point.

"And allowing free elections to choose a committees to write new constitutions and ratify them and elect a parliament inclusive of every religious, secular, communist, nationalist, republican etc. party that chooses to participate have never been a part of any ‘imperialist’ program I know of."

Are you saying that the U.S. has done that and is therefore not acting in an imperialist fashion? So how do you explain the corruption of the Afghani government? Do you actually believe the U.S. involvement can't be attributed to that? And does setting up what looks like a representative government mean that the U.S. is not benefitting economically?

[discuss]

Did Dewey throw in the towel?