Precient Wartime Assessment

[Hap]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/02/the_roots_of_to.html

Don't know the fellow, but he speaks truth.  

What to do is another matter.  The solutions, if there be any, usually follow after we admit the scope of a problem.

Rpm, Midnight, oboe, and apologies to all the rest whose names I can't summon up at this moment, what do you think?

Sincerely,

hap

[x0847Marine]

"In Washington, Republicans and Democrats alike are lost in history, clinging to an outmoded, if comfortable, view of the world as we wish it to be, rather than as it is."

Hes got that right. These fat rich fundraising drunks either lived sheltered lives before they got into office, or started living high on the hog afterwards. Because they are party robots, busy pushing the party agenda, they dont have time to bother themselves with the worlds "reality".. they get all they need to know spoon fed to them by their lackey handlers.

And if "reality", no matter how obvious, doesnt fit into the party agenda, well then... it's just an opinion.

[Xargos]

Very good read.

Thank you Hap.

[GtoRA2]

Interesting read.


It has in my mind why we will lose.

We are not willing to be brutal enough to win. They are.

Our two major political parties may have different views on Iraq, but what's deeply worrisome is their shared view of the world as amenable to the last century's solutions: Negotiations first and foremost, with limited war when negotiations fail. But our enemies are only interested in negotiations when they need to buy time, while our limited approach to warfare only limits our chance of success.

The bad news here is that, while throughout history most insurgencies failed, they had to be put down with substantial bloodletting. Across three millennia, I can find no major religion-driven insurgency that was suppressed without significant slaughter.

[tedrbr]

Seems to be hinting in the right direction.

Trying to address the Middle East by Western Standards is always doomed to failure.  Two very different worlds with very different rules.

Democracy?  Bah!  It's become a power struggle on many levels over who will influence the Middle East in the future.  Shia-Sunni.  Syria-Iran.  Secular-Extremist.  Peace-Blood.  

It has also opened the door to settle age old scores between families, tribes, clans, villages.


The last group that successfully operated in that part of the world was probably led by men such as Temüjin, and those that followed him and his example such as Hulegu Khan and successors of the Ilkhanate.  

Pax Mongolia.... even if that be the Peace of the Grave.  Any resistance resulting in total annihilation.

[lazs2]

I have heard that the iraqi government is near getting together a law that will share the wealth of the oil in some equitable way between the factions.  

This seems to recognize that the whole state is just 3 seperate states that can only be held together loosely at best and only when mutual benifiet is obvious.

Once they get fat and lazy they won't fight.

lazs

[john9001]

Originally posted by tedrbr
Democracy?  Bah!  It's become a power struggle on many levels over who will influence the Middle East in the future.  
 

your talking about the US govt right, republicans and democrats?

[tedrbr]

Originally posted by john9001
your talking about the US govt right, republicans and democrats?

No, I was referring to the attempt at imposing Democratic rule in Iraq, or all places.

U.S. government is an Oligarchy: a republic form of government hijacked by special interest and big money.  Republicans and Democrats are a combination of puppets, figureheads, dupes, and worker drones.

[Hawco]

As with so much concerning the war, events on the surface don't reflect reality. The conspiracy buffs are certain that this war is about the oil companies gaining control of Iraq's energy resources. The fact that Exxon Mobil posted a record $14 billion profit last year boosts the contention that the war is good for oil. But to my mind Congress's failure to put even the mildest brake on the Iraq disaster has to do with the war system itself. Bush's proposed budget allocates 20% of all federal spending to defense. It increases rather than decreases war spending. It pours immense resources into the very sector of the economy that is failing. Moreover, money spent on the military is notoriously inefficient. If you give a dollar to education, a student may get a better job that leads to him paying taxes in the future. Your dollar investment thus comes back to you tenfold, or more. If you spend a dollar on a bomb, it blows up. The net result is zero. It could wind up being negative if you wind up rebuilding the thing the bomb destroyed.

Iraq is obviously a negative investment. The war makers promised in 2003 that the price tag would be no more than $50 billion total. In other words, a petty war would cost a rich country very little. This year Bush wants over $140 billion for the war, and he will predictably come to Congress at year's end wanting even more in the form of supplemental funds. A serious war is costing a rich society dearly.

Why does a free market, favor such a huge negative investment? It doesn't. The market is heavily manipulated in favor of the war system, which is totally subsidized without the slightest proof that it is efficient, necessary, profitable, or even voluntary. The military-industrial complex runs the business of America in a tangled mesh of connections that includes big oil, university research, weapons development, aerospace, federal scholarship programs, and hundreds of other inter-related enterprises. There are only a few degrees of separation between a satellite beaming down Desperate Housewives and one devoted to missile defense, between a kid's video games and computerized bomb guidance systems. Every member of Congress has a permanent stake in keeping the system going, as do hundreds of lobbyists.

[Hap]

I'd love to say "it's not that bad and concantenated."  

It just might be that.  In this regard, I like Ike.

All the Best,

hap

p.s.  Maybe we can turn the Noveau NRA guys loose on 'em.  They're busy bunkering down to overthrow our gov't &/or be the last man standing during the next American Revolution.

Too much TV, talk radio, and white bread.

[oboe]

I don't trust this writer's judgement.   He says it's not a war about "ideas", but a war about about religion and ethinicity.    But in fact, religion IS an idea.

He calls the period from the French Revolution in 1789 to the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the "Age of Ideology",

when hundreds of millions — if not billions — of people accepted the notion that intellectuals and other charlatans could design better systems of social and political organization than had arisen naturally.

Why would he purposefully leave out the American Revolution?   Certainly, our founding fathers DID design a better system of social and political organization, but it doesn't fit his premise for "The Age of Ideology" so he draws a line at 1789 and lops off the most important contribution to systems of government in history.

I think GtoRA2 did a great job of pulling out two salient quotes, and it leads me to believe the writer wants the military to ratchet up the brutality so we can defeat the insurgency.    

Personally, I don't think that is a proper expectation for conduct of U.S. soldiers.   I'd rather not see them engage in the brutalizing tactics he seems to be suggesting.   These are our men and women after all, and when this is over they have to re-integrate back into our society.     I think the Iraqis themselves should deal with their own insurgency.

The examples he gives as successful handlings of insurgencies ended without success, by his own admission:

Even the insurgencies of the Age of Ideology failed more often than not: French savagery won the Battle of Algiers, but the victory came too late because the French people had already given up on the struggle (a foretaste of Iraq?). The British destroyed the Mau Mau movement in Kenya with hanging courts, concentration camps and resolute military action — then left because they had no interest in remaining.

He just comes across to me as a Bill Kristol-style bloodthirsty warmonger.  I do agree with his final summation

There were many things we failed to understand about Iraq, but our comprehensive mistake has been failing to understand our place in history.

But unless I've misread his intent, I think he and I have quite different views as to what our place in history should be.    

[Yeager]

just another opinion.......unfortunately its the people holding weapons that get to choose which opinion gets used.  Always been that way, most likely always will.  Thats all the time needed to contribute, bye

[Viking]

Originally posted by oboe
Why would he purposefully leave out the American Revolution?   Certainly, our founding fathers DID design a better system of social and political organization, but it doesn't fit his premise for "The Age of Ideology" so he draws a line at 1789 and lops off the most important contribution to systems of government in history.

Perhaps because unlike you he doesn’t overestimate the American ”contribution”. Democracy and the Republic are not sociopolitical systems ‘made in USA’.

[oboe]

You are right Viking; I'm sorry I overstated that.   I should have phrased it "one of the most important contributions to systems of government in history."

And not to take credit for the ideas of democracy or republic, but only for our implementation of them, which has been fairly stable and successful for quite of number of years now.

[Viking]

Sure, that is true … though I seem to remember something about a civil war.

The fact remains that while America is often heralded as the cradle of democracy that is nothing more than understandable, but misplaced national pride. The USA is perhaps the third oldest continuous democracy after the Isle of Man and Iceland. Iceland having been a democracy for 1100 years without interruption.