The Geek was neither surprised nor disappointed in former SecState Colin Powell's support of Senator Obama. Given the way in which Powell was manipulated, lied to, humiliated and ultimately rejected by the war-loving neocon ninnies of the Cheney camp, his disenchantment with the Republican Party is fully justifiable. Given the effort General Powell has given in recent years to the cause of black youth in America, there is nothing shocking about his view of Obama as a "transformational figure."
It is simply unfortunate that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and very able Secretary of State is now so tragically wrong. Worse, the tragedy is not so much personal as it is national.
Colin Powell is wrong in his view that the McCain campaign is somehow transgressing the rules of civilized politics by correctly pointing out the strong personal and ideological linkage between Obama and the unrepentant co-founder of the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers. Back when the Weathermen were up and running, Powell was insulated within the military from the winds of deep and abiding hatred for the United States and its government which blew through the minds of many young or youngish Americans.
Powell was still insulated from the realities of the ongoing actions of the direct descendants of the Weather Underground in the early 1980s. His position in the inner circle of the national security community would have been too lofty to be at all aware that the legacy of the Sixties was still alive and well in New York City.
To put it bluntly, Colin Powell is and was ignorant about Ayers and his ongoing hatred of the US. He is also ignorant of the potential, the very real and high order of probability potential of ideological affinity between Ayers and Senator Obama.
Ignorance may be blissful but it is not helpful in political decision making.
The former Secretary also indicates dismay with McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as Veep. The Geek agrees with Powell that the Alaska governor is inexperienced and would not be up to the task of being president should McCain turn toes up in the first year or two after taking office. While it is improbable in the extreme that John McCain will emulate William Henry Harrison in short tenure of office, anxiety over Palin's readiness is justifiable, but scarcely critical.
In any event the Geek would expect that former Secretary Powell would be more suspicious of a very experienced person in the Vice Presidency. After all it was Dick Cheney, a vastly experienced and viciously effective knife fighter in bureaucratic rivalries who was Powell's bete noir. Frankly the nation is better off with an inexperienced person serving as VP if the Cheney paradigm is any indication.
In so far as Colin Powell's perception that the McCain campaign's tactic of late is somehow divisive or underhanded, all that is necessary to recall is that Powell acknowledged in his memoirs that his presidential thoughts were aborted by the potential down-in-the-gutter nature of much political campaigning.
Apparently Powell's view was that war is preferable to presidential politics. War, at least, has some semblance of rules, of means to lessen the barbarism. Politics doesn't. Cheney proved that Powell was right.
Parsing the former Secretary's endorsement one is struck by the absence of any real reason for the statement of support. It appears that beyond being "transformational" and having some mystical power to be "inclusive," the junior Senator from Illinois meets some undefined minimal standard of suitability for the highest political office in this country.
Unless Colin Powell is actually some sort of closet Western European Democratic Socialist, one can only conclude that he has been blinded to reality by the Senator's beguiling smile or, less flatteringly, some other aspect of the Senator's physiognomy.
Or, perhaps, Powell is like many who watched the Supreme Court's decision as to the outcome of the Florida vote with trepidation barely moderated by clinging to the hope that the grinning shrub from Texas would be surrounded by a dependable coterie of adult supervisors who would make up for his obvious deficiencies.
We hoped back then. Nearly eight years ago. We hoped. We got Cheney and his neocon ninnies.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Politics Screws Foreign Policy Every Time
Way back when, in the Pleistocene, well, actually during the Cold War, there was a disgustingly hypocritical cliche in common use. "Politics stop at the water's edge."
This crock was always accompanied by pious blathering from the politicos of both parties about something they liked to call "bi-partisan foreign policy." Other times the sanctimonious Wallahs in Congress bloviated about "not making war into a political issue."
When he was young and listened to this tripe, the Geek would roll his eyes. Now he engages in projectile vomit.
Get a grip on this. Foreign policy has rarely, very rarely been bi-partisan. War has always been a political issue.
Even World War II, the so-called "Good War," the war which started for us when the American Eagle's perch in Pearl Harbor was broken and the eagle found himself beak down in the dreck on the bottom of the cage, was a political football. Senator Truman rode to prominence running investigations of defense contractor waste, fraud, and abuse. Governor Dewey was all fired up to use the very secret information about how the US had broken the enemy's codes and ciphers when the perfectly apolitical, country-first Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall prevailed upon the governor not to.
Less popular wars, and supposed foreign policy failures, became the centrality of political life after World War II. The Republicans barked and snapped successfully at the Democrats by alleging that FDR had "sold out" Poland and other Eastern European countries occupied by the Red Army because Democrats were "soft on communism."
The Republicans yowled all the louder when Mao's forces won in China. With an utter irresponsibility and a completely cavalier disregard for historical facts, one Republican red meat eater after another accused the Democrats generally and Harry Truman and FDR in particular of having "lost China."
Nor did the Korean War stop the high powered hype. After the dramatic turnaround of military fortune following the Inchon landings in September 1950, the demands that the US go all the way to total victory escalated on the political right. The US commander in the theater, Gen Douglas MacArthur, stoked the political fires of the right and his own presidential ambitions by totally off-the-wall statements to the press and supporters including the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars about invading China, turning the forces of Chaing lose from their Formosan cage, and alleging that there was "no substitute for victory."
In his campaign, Dwight Eisenhower invoked not only his military hero status but stated, "if elected, I will go to Korea," as if this meant he had a plan for ending the war. He went to Korea before his inauguration, but the war didn't end until Joe Stalin had the good grace to die and Ike made some carefully calculated comments regarding our supposed willingness to "use whatever weapons might be required."
Flash forward to the end of the Eisenhower years and the beginnings of the Camelot ascendancy of John Kennedy. The President and his brother, Attorney General Robert, not only went ahead with the tactical and strategic loonie tune plan to oust the communists from Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, but, after the invasion was readily defeated by Castro's forces, both plotted revenge against the successful bearded dictator.
In addition to pure personal spite, the Kennedy brothers had sound political reasons for seeking the death or overthrow of the Cuban communist regime. The Democrats had been burned, badly burned, by the "who lost China" blathering of the Republicans a decade earlier. Now, not only had the commies established a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere only ninety miles from Key West, the Reds had built the Berlin Wall, and, we thought, started pro-communist insurgencies in Africa, Latin America, and, most scarily, Southeast Asia. Looking ahead to the 1964 presidential cycle, both could hear, "Who lost Cuba? Who lost the Congo? Who lost South Vietnam? Laos? Who let the Berlin Wall be built?"
Domestic politics combined with personal anger to power bad policy regarding Cuba. With respect to South Vietnam the same political considerations applied.
The War in Vietnam was political from the giddy-up. LBJ was pleased to brand his opponent, Barry Goldwater, as a warmonger, too unstable to be trusted near the nuclear button. LBJ piously promised not to have "American boys die for Asian boys in an Asian war," while already planning the sustained bombing campaign dubbed ROLLING THUNDER and contemplating a major uptick in the number of US ground combat forces in country.
The 1968 presidential campaign was all about the War in Vietnam. LBJ tried to maneuver the North Vietnamese and the boys in Saigon to the peace table in Paris in time to help the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey. At the same time, the Republican, Richard Nixon, was sending "secret" emissaries to the South Vietnamese government, urging them to stall on the talks because Saigon would get a better deal from the Republicans.
Nixon's underhanded (and probably illegal) ploy payed off better than LBJ's underhanded but legal gambit. Nixon won the White House and the war wound on, and on, and on.
In the endgame of the Vietnam War, both parties played the war as pure politics. Nixon went for the gold with air bombardments which worked. The North was willing to go along with the appearance of "peace with honor."
The Democrats in Congress played their game as well, seeming to bow to the desires of public opinion. From their perspective it appeared that We the People were so tired of the war that peace was all that mattered. To hell with the honor portion of it.
Congress passed its "date-certain" resolutions. Congress cut off funding. The troops came home. The POWs were released. Finally push came to shove in South Vietnam. In a final irony of an already irony laden war, the South Vietnamese Army fought well. They were fighting the type of supply heavy, munitions heavy, air power heavy war which we had taught them and showed them.
As Northern forces attacked, the South relied on the promises made years earlier that Uncle Sam would provide the supplies, the ammunition, the air power which would allow the South Vietnamese Army to resist. Hiding behind the will of We the People, the Wallahs in Congress refused the supplies, refused the munitions, refused the air power.
When the South fell, the same Wallahs had the unmitigated audacity to say, "See, we knew they wouldn't/couldn't fight. We did the right thing."
Now both parties are hard at it, using the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for political gain. The Democrats (and some Republicans) hope they are reading the tea leaves of public sourness on the war correctly. They apparently believe that by establishing "dates certain," time tables for withdrawal, or cutting funding, they will both end the war and gain votes.
Once again, in an uncanny analogy with the Vietnam War, Wallahs in Congress and Presidential Wannabes seek to truckle effectively, gain votes, write off our dead as a bad investment and sacrifice the notion that wars are fought to gain a better state of peace.
In the Vietnam War there were no long term losses to the US from the shortsighted political games playing. The Vietnam War, as the Geek has noted so often before, was the war that we could afford to lose.
In the current wars as in the long ago Korean War, the US is fighting a war it cannot, in its own better long term interests. afford to lose.
To truckle to the whims of opinion this time around is to trifle with our collective future. In this war, a determination not to lose may not be a crowd pleaser. Too bad.
A question for politicians: does it make sense to win an election while losing a future?
This crock was always accompanied by pious blathering from the politicos of both parties about something they liked to call "bi-partisan foreign policy." Other times the sanctimonious Wallahs in Congress bloviated about "not making war into a political issue."
When he was young and listened to this tripe, the Geek would roll his eyes. Now he engages in projectile vomit.
Get a grip on this. Foreign policy has rarely, very rarely been bi-partisan. War has always been a political issue.
Even World War II, the so-called "Good War," the war which started for us when the American Eagle's perch in Pearl Harbor was broken and the eagle found himself beak down in the dreck on the bottom of the cage, was a political football. Senator Truman rode to prominence running investigations of defense contractor waste, fraud, and abuse. Governor Dewey was all fired up to use the very secret information about how the US had broken the enemy's codes and ciphers when the perfectly apolitical, country-first Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall prevailed upon the governor not to.
Less popular wars, and supposed foreign policy failures, became the centrality of political life after World War II. The Republicans barked and snapped successfully at the Democrats by alleging that FDR had "sold out" Poland and other Eastern European countries occupied by the Red Army because Democrats were "soft on communism."
The Republicans yowled all the louder when Mao's forces won in China. With an utter irresponsibility and a completely cavalier disregard for historical facts, one Republican red meat eater after another accused the Democrats generally and Harry Truman and FDR in particular of having "lost China."
Nor did the Korean War stop the high powered hype. After the dramatic turnaround of military fortune following the Inchon landings in September 1950, the demands that the US go all the way to total victory escalated on the political right. The US commander in the theater, Gen Douglas MacArthur, stoked the political fires of the right and his own presidential ambitions by totally off-the-wall statements to the press and supporters including the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars about invading China, turning the forces of Chaing lose from their Formosan cage, and alleging that there was "no substitute for victory."
In his campaign, Dwight Eisenhower invoked not only his military hero status but stated, "if elected, I will go to Korea," as if this meant he had a plan for ending the war. He went to Korea before his inauguration, but the war didn't end until Joe Stalin had the good grace to die and Ike made some carefully calculated comments regarding our supposed willingness to "use whatever weapons might be required."
Flash forward to the end of the Eisenhower years and the beginnings of the Camelot ascendancy of John Kennedy. The President and his brother, Attorney General Robert, not only went ahead with the tactical and strategic loonie tune plan to oust the communists from Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, but, after the invasion was readily defeated by Castro's forces, both plotted revenge against the successful bearded dictator.
In addition to pure personal spite, the Kennedy brothers had sound political reasons for seeking the death or overthrow of the Cuban communist regime. The Democrats had been burned, badly burned, by the "who lost China" blathering of the Republicans a decade earlier. Now, not only had the commies established a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere only ninety miles from Key West, the Reds had built the Berlin Wall, and, we thought, started pro-communist insurgencies in Africa, Latin America, and, most scarily, Southeast Asia. Looking ahead to the 1964 presidential cycle, both could hear, "Who lost Cuba? Who lost the Congo? Who lost South Vietnam? Laos? Who let the Berlin Wall be built?"
Domestic politics combined with personal anger to power bad policy regarding Cuba. With respect to South Vietnam the same political considerations applied.
The War in Vietnam was political from the giddy-up. LBJ was pleased to brand his opponent, Barry Goldwater, as a warmonger, too unstable to be trusted near the nuclear button. LBJ piously promised not to have "American boys die for Asian boys in an Asian war," while already planning the sustained bombing campaign dubbed ROLLING THUNDER and contemplating a major uptick in the number of US ground combat forces in country.
The 1968 presidential campaign was all about the War in Vietnam. LBJ tried to maneuver the North Vietnamese and the boys in Saigon to the peace table in Paris in time to help the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey. At the same time, the Republican, Richard Nixon, was sending "secret" emissaries to the South Vietnamese government, urging them to stall on the talks because Saigon would get a better deal from the Republicans.
Nixon's underhanded (and probably illegal) ploy payed off better than LBJ's underhanded but legal gambit. Nixon won the White House and the war wound on, and on, and on.
In the endgame of the Vietnam War, both parties played the war as pure politics. Nixon went for the gold with air bombardments which worked. The North was willing to go along with the appearance of "peace with honor."
The Democrats in Congress played their game as well, seeming to bow to the desires of public opinion. From their perspective it appeared that We the People were so tired of the war that peace was all that mattered. To hell with the honor portion of it.
Congress passed its "date-certain" resolutions. Congress cut off funding. The troops came home. The POWs were released. Finally push came to shove in South Vietnam. In a final irony of an already irony laden war, the South Vietnamese Army fought well. They were fighting the type of supply heavy, munitions heavy, air power heavy war which we had taught them and showed them.
As Northern forces attacked, the South relied on the promises made years earlier that Uncle Sam would provide the supplies, the ammunition, the air power which would allow the South Vietnamese Army to resist. Hiding behind the will of We the People, the Wallahs in Congress refused the supplies, refused the munitions, refused the air power.
When the South fell, the same Wallahs had the unmitigated audacity to say, "See, we knew they wouldn't/couldn't fight. We did the right thing."
Now both parties are hard at it, using the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for political gain. The Democrats (and some Republicans) hope they are reading the tea leaves of public sourness on the war correctly. They apparently believe that by establishing "dates certain," time tables for withdrawal, or cutting funding, they will both end the war and gain votes.
Once again, in an uncanny analogy with the Vietnam War, Wallahs in Congress and Presidential Wannabes seek to truckle effectively, gain votes, write off our dead as a bad investment and sacrifice the notion that wars are fought to gain a better state of peace.
In the Vietnam War there were no long term losses to the US from the shortsighted political games playing. The Vietnam War, as the Geek has noted so often before, was the war that we could afford to lose.
In the current wars as in the long ago Korean War, the US is fighting a war it cannot, in its own better long term interests. afford to lose.
To truckle to the whims of opinion this time around is to trifle with our collective future. In this war, a determination not to lose may not be a crowd pleaser. Too bad.
A question for politicians: does it make sense to win an election while losing a future?
Thursday, May 24, 2007
John Edwards Is Out To Lunch--Or Worse!
Originally, I was going to take a look at how the US could still succeed in the Iraq adventure, but John Edwards, former Senator from North Carolina and current Democratic presidential wannabe, got in the way of my plan. I swear that he is either the most gripless politician in the US today or he is lost in the zone. Either the Twilight Zone or O-zone, I'm not sure.
In either event, he's become my bete noir. Worse, Edwards' latest lunacy has driven me to the desperate position of having to agree with a White House staffer. Specifically, Peter Wehner a deputy assistant to the president and director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives who wrote a ditty on Edwards' idiocy in Real Clear Politics http//www.realclearpolitics.com/article/2007/05/edwards_view_is_wrong_and_dang.html.
In his speech two days ago to the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the ex-senator and nearly perpetual candidate showed that he didn't have a grip on several important realities. What's at stake in Iraq for the US. What's been happening in Iraq. What alternatives are available beside de facto defeat for the US in Iraq. And, finally, logic.
In case you missed the numerous reports of the speech in the MSM, here are the highlights. Withdraw 40 or 50 thousand troops immediately. Withdraw the rest some time in the next year. However, the US should station enough forces in the region to "prevent genocide," to assure that the "civil war" doesn't "spill over" and to make certain that Iraq doesn't "become a safe haven for al-Qaeda."
He also termed the war on terrorism not so much a policy as a "bumper sticker."
Leaving aside the gratuitous insult which I presume is meant to be some sort of crowd pleaser, but which actually demonstrates his awesome ability to conflate two separate albeit mutually reinforcing considerations, the main points of his proposal deserves a response.
First, I have to put some blue sky between myself and Wehner. He obviously believes that our invasion of Iraq was a good idea, a very good idea. I don't. It was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
Now back to Edwards and getting a grip on reality.
Wars are much easier to start than to end. The easiest way to end a war is to quit. To give up. It's a hell of a lot harder to end a war by bringing into existence that elusive critter--a better state of peace.
We never should have started the war. There was no basis for it. The intelligence used to support the decision to invade was polluted at best, fabricated at worst.
The most knowledgeable observers and analysts understood that there was no community of interest whatsoever between al-Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime. There never was. There never could be given the Islamist base of "the Base." Nor were there any weapons of mass destruction. In short, as everyone but the most gripless members of the red meat eating far right must understand perfectly: There was no reason to invade.
That having been said, several central realities remain. We invaded. We have occupied. We have removed Saddam. We have installed a government. A constitution, no matter how incomplete and imperfect has gone into operation with our approval and support. We have killed beaucoup Iraqis. We have seen nearly 3,500 of our uniformed citizens killed.
We started the war. We have to finish it. Finish it by bringing about a better state of peace, not by quitting as Edwards would have us.
Why?
Set aside for the moment the fact that quitting consigns our dead to the trash heap of casual, meaningless losses. Forget if you can, that these Americans were killed in our collective service, whether or not we approve of the war.
Look at the realities. Get a grip on the realpolitik of the war.
Realpolitik factor number one: If we lose, the Iranians win. At the least, Tehran and the mullahs who run it will become the regional hegemonic power.
Realpolitik factor number two: If we split out, the affiliates of al-Qaeda will be emboldened and empowered. The events of 9/11 might well pale in comparison to what will happen then. But, there's more. Much more.
Realpolitik factor number three: If we leave, there is a good to excellent chance that Iraq will become the latest failed state. It will be like Somalia on steroids. No small time sideshow like Sierra Leone. No bloody little affair like Rwanda.
No. It will be a major, major main attraction. Compared to the hurricane which will certainly occur when Iraq collapses, the decade of interventionary wars, genocide and diplomatic posturing over the corpse of Yugoslavia will be a belch. Iran's forces both open and covert will cross the border to "protect" the Shia majority. Turkey will have "no option" except to occupy the Kurdish region to "guard" it's interests, to "defend" against a widening of its own Kurdish insurgency. The Sunni minority will appeal to Saudi Arabia or Syria or both for "assistance" against the "oppressor."
Get the picture?
Oh, consider this. Not all Shi'ites by a long shot approve of the mullahs in Tehran. After all, Shia Iraqis are Arabs. Shia Iranians are not. Another add-on: There are other groups in Iraq, not just Shia and Sunni Arabs, not just Kurds. There are other groups as well. Recall that Iraq is not an organic nation-state, but an artificial creation of western diplomats at the end of World War I and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.
Looks great doesn't it? Blood enough to satisfy the most eager viewer of slasher flicks and car chase movies.
Is that sort of mess really in the American best interests, Mr Edwards? (If you have any doubts have one of your staff go check the latest gasoline prices.'
Also, Mr Edwards, since you proposed that we leave enough troops somewhere unspecified in the region to prevent genocide and civil war spill-over, how many men will it take to go back to Iraq after its collapse and impose order? Did you think that one through before you shot off your mouth in New York?
Second guess doesn't count.
Neither did you think about the options open to the US now other than defeat. That's obvious. Wehner has some. I don't agree with all of them.
I have some others that the smart guys at the White House haven't come up with yet. Mine are drawn from history, not from the combination of political considerations and strategic desperation which I see as the sub-text for Wehner's concepts.
Mine will have to wait for a later post. The nest post, I hope. It depends on whether or not Edwards or some other vacuum head hacks me off.
In either event, he's become my bete noir. Worse, Edwards' latest lunacy has driven me to the desperate position of having to agree with a White House staffer. Specifically, Peter Wehner a deputy assistant to the president and director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives who wrote a ditty on Edwards' idiocy in Real Clear Politics http//www.realclearpolitics.com/article/2007/05/edwards_view_is_wrong_and_dang.html.
In his speech two days ago to the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the ex-senator and nearly perpetual candidate showed that he didn't have a grip on several important realities. What's at stake in Iraq for the US. What's been happening in Iraq. What alternatives are available beside de facto defeat for the US in Iraq. And, finally, logic.
In case you missed the numerous reports of the speech in the MSM, here are the highlights. Withdraw 40 or 50 thousand troops immediately. Withdraw the rest some time in the next year. However, the US should station enough forces in the region to "prevent genocide," to assure that the "civil war" doesn't "spill over" and to make certain that Iraq doesn't "become a safe haven for al-Qaeda."
He also termed the war on terrorism not so much a policy as a "bumper sticker."
Leaving aside the gratuitous insult which I presume is meant to be some sort of crowd pleaser, but which actually demonstrates his awesome ability to conflate two separate albeit mutually reinforcing considerations, the main points of his proposal deserves a response.
First, I have to put some blue sky between myself and Wehner. He obviously believes that our invasion of Iraq was a good idea, a very good idea. I don't. It was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
Now back to Edwards and getting a grip on reality.
Wars are much easier to start than to end. The easiest way to end a war is to quit. To give up. It's a hell of a lot harder to end a war by bringing into existence that elusive critter--a better state of peace.
We never should have started the war. There was no basis for it. The intelligence used to support the decision to invade was polluted at best, fabricated at worst.
The most knowledgeable observers and analysts understood that there was no community of interest whatsoever between al-Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime. There never was. There never could be given the Islamist base of "the Base." Nor were there any weapons of mass destruction. In short, as everyone but the most gripless members of the red meat eating far right must understand perfectly: There was no reason to invade.
That having been said, several central realities remain. We invaded. We have occupied. We have removed Saddam. We have installed a government. A constitution, no matter how incomplete and imperfect has gone into operation with our approval and support. We have killed beaucoup Iraqis. We have seen nearly 3,500 of our uniformed citizens killed.
We started the war. We have to finish it. Finish it by bringing about a better state of peace, not by quitting as Edwards would have us.
Why?
Set aside for the moment the fact that quitting consigns our dead to the trash heap of casual, meaningless losses. Forget if you can, that these Americans were killed in our collective service, whether or not we approve of the war.
Look at the realities. Get a grip on the realpolitik of the war.
Realpolitik factor number one: If we lose, the Iranians win. At the least, Tehran and the mullahs who run it will become the regional hegemonic power.
Realpolitik factor number two: If we split out, the affiliates of al-Qaeda will be emboldened and empowered. The events of 9/11 might well pale in comparison to what will happen then. But, there's more. Much more.
Realpolitik factor number three: If we leave, there is a good to excellent chance that Iraq will become the latest failed state. It will be like Somalia on steroids. No small time sideshow like Sierra Leone. No bloody little affair like Rwanda.
No. It will be a major, major main attraction. Compared to the hurricane which will certainly occur when Iraq collapses, the decade of interventionary wars, genocide and diplomatic posturing over the corpse of Yugoslavia will be a belch. Iran's forces both open and covert will cross the border to "protect" the Shia majority. Turkey will have "no option" except to occupy the Kurdish region to "guard" it's interests, to "defend" against a widening of its own Kurdish insurgency. The Sunni minority will appeal to Saudi Arabia or Syria or both for "assistance" against the "oppressor."
Get the picture?
Oh, consider this. Not all Shi'ites by a long shot approve of the mullahs in Tehran. After all, Shia Iraqis are Arabs. Shia Iranians are not. Another add-on: There are other groups in Iraq, not just Shia and Sunni Arabs, not just Kurds. There are other groups as well. Recall that Iraq is not an organic nation-state, but an artificial creation of western diplomats at the end of World War I and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.
Looks great doesn't it? Blood enough to satisfy the most eager viewer of slasher flicks and car chase movies.
Is that sort of mess really in the American best interests, Mr Edwards? (If you have any doubts have one of your staff go check the latest gasoline prices.'
Also, Mr Edwards, since you proposed that we leave enough troops somewhere unspecified in the region to prevent genocide and civil war spill-over, how many men will it take to go back to Iraq after its collapse and impose order? Did you think that one through before you shot off your mouth in New York?
Second guess doesn't count.
Neither did you think about the options open to the US now other than defeat. That's obvious. Wehner has some. I don't agree with all of them.
I have some others that the smart guys at the White House haven't come up with yet. Mine are drawn from history, not from the combination of political considerations and strategic desperation which I see as the sub-text for Wehner's concepts.
Mine will have to wait for a later post. The nest post, I hope. It depends on whether or not Edwards or some other vacuum head hacks me off.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Senator Edwards, The Iraq War and Memorial Day
Either former North Carolina Senator and Democratic Party presidential wannabe is truly desperate, or he is terminally out to lunch. It has been widely reported that he called upon his supporters to use Memorial Day to protest the war in Iraq. The most recent report of his remarks is in the Nashua, NH "Telegraph" . While there are no doubt many who agree with Mr Edwards, there are some who don't, such as the American Legion.
I hate to climb in the same bed as an organization I wouldn't join if you held a gun to my head. But I have no choice.
John Edwards! Get a grip!
You are as wrong as soup sandwich on two counts. First: Memorial Day is more than a three day weekend. It is more than the unofficial start of summer. It should be more than a time to protest a war.
It should be a time to think. To think about those Americans who have been killed in our various wars. Particularly to think about the reasons for which they were killed. To think about what--if anything--the butchers' bill of which each person was a small entry actually bought.
The primary reason a war, any war, is fought is to bring about a better state of peace. For some of our wars, most notably World War II, the outpouring of blood did buy a better state of peace. The Americans who died between the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the final day of the war--VJ Day--did not die without purpose. Other Americans, most recently the over sixty thousand who were killed in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War died for absolutely nothing.
Think about that for a moment. Consider sixty thousand men, young men with hopes, dreams, plans for the future transformed from living, loving, fearing, hoping human beings into mere sanitation problems. Without an outcome which might justify the loss of one's life.
Mr Edwards would have made a far better statement about himself and his country had he called upon his supporters to ask themselves, "What do we want the three and a half thousand Americans who have already been killed in Iraq to have died for?"
He might have reminded his supporters--and all of us--that all people in the military have signed a Covenant With Death whether they realized or not when each raised a right hand and swore an oath of service. Like all covenants this particular one has two parts. Two parts in a statement of reciprocity.
The individual acknowledges that death is a real possibility of service to our nation.
The nation, for its part, promises that death will not be without purpose or meaning.
Meaning and purpose go beyond, far beyond, flag draped coffins, statutes or monuments or well meaning words. Meaning and purpose come from one final reality only. The death, the individual's small entry in the final butcher's bill of history will have accomplished something. The something is simply: A better state of peace.
The Nation did not honor its portion of the Covenant in the Vietnam War. We the People simply got fed up. We the People washed our hands with an indifference that even Pilate did not feel. We the People said, "Screw them! Screw their lives. Screw their deaths."
John Edwards wants us to do the same now.
He needs to get a grip. A grip on several realities.
The first reality is one I agree with completely. Invading Iraq was wrong. Absolutely, unalterably, completely wrong. It was as General Omar Bradley famously said regarding a war with China in 1951, "The wrong war against the wrong enemy at the wrong time."
The second reality, one that apparently eludes Edwards, is that it is far easier to stage an invasion and defeat an inferior conventional force than it is to bring about a better state of peace. The only way open to us now to both redeem the policy from the failure it otherwise so richly deserves is to uphold our Nation's part of the covenant and press on to bring about a better state of peace.
Pressing on will require more Americans to die. A reality remains.
The reality?
An abject withdrawal, no matter how cloaked and covered by Congressional action, or "will of the people" rhetoric means We the People break our covenant with those who have been killed on our service. But, it means more than that.
It means that Iran will expand its sway in the region. Take a firm grip on that. Looking at Iran simply as a nation-state pursuing its own, subjectively defined national interests, leaving Islam out of the equation except as a tool of state, Iran has definite ambitions. Ambitions that run directly against our interests both in the region and the world.
Nothing would suit Iran's desire for regional dominance, and potential Great Power status more than seeing the US quit Iraq, withdraw to its side of the Atlantic and, as we did after the Vietnam cut-and-run, turn timid and introspective. Doubt me?
Check out a recent This is London or the admittedly anti-Mullah Iranian National Resistance Council . Consider Iran's regional aspirations in connection with its nuclear program and ask yourself, "Is it really, really in our best long-term interests to get out of Iraq without leaving behind a reasonably stable, reasonably competent government and a reasonably integrated nation?"
Even without considering how an American withdrawal might encourage Islamist terrorists, is Mr Edwards pursuing the best course of action for our nation over the long haul when he counsels getting out of Iraq?
But, he might protest, as might many other Americans, "If we stay there, how can we be sure that more lives won't be lost without reaching the better state of peace?"
Fair question. I'll take my shot at answering it in my next post.
I hate to climb in the same bed as an organization I wouldn't join if you held a gun to my head. But I have no choice.
John Edwards! Get a grip!
You are as wrong as soup sandwich on two counts. First: Memorial Day is more than a three day weekend. It is more than the unofficial start of summer. It should be more than a time to protest a war.
It should be a time to think. To think about those Americans who have been killed in our various wars. Particularly to think about the reasons for which they were killed. To think about what--if anything--the butchers' bill of which each person was a small entry actually bought.
The primary reason a war, any war, is fought is to bring about a better state of peace. For some of our wars, most notably World War II, the outpouring of blood did buy a better state of peace. The Americans who died between the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the final day of the war--VJ Day--did not die without purpose. Other Americans, most recently the over sixty thousand who were killed in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War died for absolutely nothing.
Think about that for a moment. Consider sixty thousand men, young men with hopes, dreams, plans for the future transformed from living, loving, fearing, hoping human beings into mere sanitation problems. Without an outcome which might justify the loss of one's life.
Mr Edwards would have made a far better statement about himself and his country had he called upon his supporters to ask themselves, "What do we want the three and a half thousand Americans who have already been killed in Iraq to have died for?"
He might have reminded his supporters--and all of us--that all people in the military have signed a Covenant With Death whether they realized or not when each raised a right hand and swore an oath of service. Like all covenants this particular one has two parts. Two parts in a statement of reciprocity.
The individual acknowledges that death is a real possibility of service to our nation.
The nation, for its part, promises that death will not be without purpose or meaning.
Meaning and purpose go beyond, far beyond, flag draped coffins, statutes or monuments or well meaning words. Meaning and purpose come from one final reality only. The death, the individual's small entry in the final butcher's bill of history will have accomplished something. The something is simply: A better state of peace.
The Nation did not honor its portion of the Covenant in the Vietnam War. We the People simply got fed up. We the People washed our hands with an indifference that even Pilate did not feel. We the People said, "Screw them! Screw their lives. Screw their deaths."
John Edwards wants us to do the same now.
He needs to get a grip. A grip on several realities.
The first reality is one I agree with completely. Invading Iraq was wrong. Absolutely, unalterably, completely wrong. It was as General Omar Bradley famously said regarding a war with China in 1951, "The wrong war against the wrong enemy at the wrong time."
The second reality, one that apparently eludes Edwards, is that it is far easier to stage an invasion and defeat an inferior conventional force than it is to bring about a better state of peace. The only way open to us now to both redeem the policy from the failure it otherwise so richly deserves is to uphold our Nation's part of the covenant and press on to bring about a better state of peace.
Pressing on will require more Americans to die. A reality remains.
The reality?
An abject withdrawal, no matter how cloaked and covered by Congressional action, or "will of the people" rhetoric means We the People break our covenant with those who have been killed on our service. But, it means more than that.
It means that Iran will expand its sway in the region. Take a firm grip on that. Looking at Iran simply as a nation-state pursuing its own, subjectively defined national interests, leaving Islam out of the equation except as a tool of state, Iran has definite ambitions. Ambitions that run directly against our interests both in the region and the world.
Nothing would suit Iran's desire for regional dominance, and potential Great Power status more than seeing the US quit Iraq, withdraw to its side of the Atlantic and, as we did after the Vietnam cut-and-run, turn timid and introspective. Doubt me?
Check out a recent This is London or the admittedly anti-Mullah Iranian National Resistance Council . Consider Iran's regional aspirations in connection with its nuclear program and ask yourself, "Is it really, really in our best long-term interests to get out of Iraq without leaving behind a reasonably stable, reasonably competent government and a reasonably integrated nation?"
Even without considering how an American withdrawal might encourage Islamist terrorists, is Mr Edwards pursuing the best course of action for our nation over the long haul when he counsels getting out of Iraq?
But, he might protest, as might many other Americans, "If we stay there, how can we be sure that more lives won't be lost without reaching the better state of peace?"
Fair question. I'll take my shot at answering it in my next post.
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