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Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns | 28 comments (28 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

religion (none / 0)

With all respect, you get that criticism everytime becaue not eveyone believes in the efficacy & potential of military might. It really does come down to a matter of belief -- i.e. akin to arguing religion.

Citing a "lack of will" implies that one should accept the assertions of that belief. Yhus the argument.

We lost Vietnam, not because it was unwinnable, but because the cost of victory was morally unacceptable to us as a people. That is not a criticism.

No, it's just bullshit that believes the world & human spirit can be reduced to & ruled by military might.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 03:38:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

you can call it bullshit if you want, but there are many rulers in the world that ARE willing to resort to a level of repression and violence that brings stability, that we are not willing to (directly) embrace.

Examples would be the Soviet Empire, China's control of Tibet, North Korea, the Saudi monarchy, General Musharref, President Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, Tito...

Ultimately, Iraq is not a stable nation-state. It cannot function as an open democratic pluralistic state that respects human rights. Therefore, they are doomed to be ruled with violence and repression.

I know that might not be a popular view among pie-eyed neo-cons, or idealistic liberals. But I have seen nothing to disabuse me of this opinion.

Violence and repression create stability in not a few places on Earth. And for the inhabitants of those places, it is certainly a mixed bag. The people of Saudi Arabia, for example, certainly detest their royal family. But as they look north to Iraq, they must wonder whether it is worth the cost to oust them and suffer a civil war for control of all that oil and gas.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:01:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

that we are not willing to (directly) embrace

That's it in a nutshell. It's ethical bullshit to distinguish just we prefer to use cut-outs.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:32:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

you seem to be having a different discussion than what what my article is about.

We have used cut-outs to get around the moral scruples of the people. That's true.

But what does that have to do with Iraq?

Let me lay it out for you.

Is Iraq capable of being stable? The answer is yes. It was stable from 1979 to 2003, with only brief periods of instability, despite being at war and/or an international pariah for the entire time. It can be stable again. We are fully capable of making it stable. But to do so would require a commitment of troops and resources that exceeds what the political climate will permit, and also would involve MOST IMPORTANTLY using our troops (not cut-outs) to engage in extreme human rights abuses.

You and others have argued that we are incapable of doing this. I totally disagree. The Soviets controlled not only their SSR's but Eastern Europe for half a century. They had the same ethnic and linguistic and cultural challenges that we face in Iraq. It can be done, but we refuse to do it. And that is, once again, a very good thing.

You, however, are making a different argument, which seems to be that Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton....not a whiff of a moral difference between them. I don't care to even debate that type of rhetoric. But, in any case, it is a strawman when applied to this article.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:44:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

But what does that have to do with Iraq?

You believe that there is a military solution possible for an occupier in Iraq & assert it as a fact. It's disputable, rhetorical ideology, not fact. Neither you nor I can "prove" it. I go to another Church.

As I said above, if there were a military solution, no matter how horrific, that would allow us to declare Victory & that the terrorists were gone, I have little doubt the American public would accept it.

I've never asserted that there is no moral difference between Hussein & Clinton. (Straw man? I haven't accused you of approving of the violence involved in a military solution. Please, show some respect.)

However, it's morally hypocritical to pretend to an ethical high road -- that others are evil, while we arewell-intentioned. That belief is one of the most destabilizing dangerous beliefs in the world today. More so than what's being called "Islamofascism." As Blum, Chomsky, & others have pointed out, by the West's own standards, objectively applied, the US qualifies as a Rogue State.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 05:47:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

I'm not sure how this addresses anything I've said. Honestly.

If we want stability in Iraq we can have it. It would require a total mobilization of the country, a draft, flooding the country with soldiers, and using utter ruthlessness. The Mongols did it. The Arabs did it. Saddam did it.

I think what you are not getting is that I am saying that we are not prepared to act like Saddam or Ghenghis Khan...we are not even prepared to put in more than 150,000 troops. We haven't made any serious effort to subdue the country. And that makes what we ARE doing utterly insane.

We cannot win precisely because we will not resort to the types of heavy handed tactics that would end resistance. Nor are we prepared to stand there and watch some faction, such as the Shiites, do the types of things that are required to create stability there.

We have to go. And then those things will happen as a matter of course and we will be blamed for them.

It is a total disaster. But staying will not do anything but delay the inevitable and increase our complicity in human rights abuses.

Nothing I've said has anything to do with whether or not we are morally superior to anyone else. What we are, is morally developed enough not to do what is required to 'win'.

Saddam had no such scruples. Bush and Cheney seem to have less scruples than anyone of could have imagined. But there is a limit to what the American people will tolerate. And that puts a limit on what our leaders can order to be done.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 07:33:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

You can stomp your feet & keep repeating your beliefs as unassailable fact over & over, claiming I'm not getting what you're saying -- I get it, & reject its premises. Arguing religion, Boo ...

You believe military power can work, & it is our moral scruples (or "lack of guts" as you put it below -- more apt to the schoolyard thinking it is) that prevent us. That's sheer nonsense.

Dangerous nonsense that continues to leave innocent people dead & maimed all over the world -- in the name of whatever one cares to brand it: imperialism, neo-liberalism, globalization -- & there is no evidence to date that there is any limit to what the American people will tolerate, esp. when there is a slight veneer of plausible deniablity to hind behind.

It's the avoidance of that culpability that's fueling my disagreement with the "moral scruples" notion.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 08:22:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

Obviously military power can work. How do you think almost all of the Arabs became Muslims? How do you think America and Australis became a countries of European settlers? How did a town called Persepolis wind up in Iran?

I don't understand the grounds of your argument. Is it metaphysical? Is anything that fails to last forever considered unworkable?

There are ways to act like an Empire and to successfully conquer other peoples. We are not prepared to do those things so we keep surprising ourselves by losing little wars of choice.

What exactly are you disagreeing with?

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 08:30:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

fantasies (none / 0)

It's a fantasy that military power can be used to win a counter-insurgency war in today's world. It's also a fantasy that the American public restrains our miltary due to moral qualms. Some fantasies are extremely dangerous.

We ignore those fantasies at our peril.

Snagged from a comment on Greenwald's site:

It is left to the leftist denizens of the radical nuthouse to point out that U.S. foreign policy has long used (state-) terrorist methods to slaughter masses of innocent people in places like Vietnam (where American forces killed more than two million people between 1962 and 1975) and Iraq, where more than a million died from US-imposed economic sanctions during the 1990s. The current US-led invasion of Iraq has killed more than 100,000 civilians.
Do the savage U.S. torture camps and brutal state-terrorist “interrogation” techniques maintained and conducted in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force base, among other locations help the U.S. qualify as a fitting candidate for punitive attack by “the civilized world?”
How about the role that John Negroponte, current U.S. Director of National Intelligence, played as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s? Negroponte ran interference for the Honduran security forces in the U.S. Congress, making sure that U.S. military assistance kept flowing to Honduras while those forces conducted a brutal campaign of torture and massacre against that nation's civilian populace. Negroponte’s main job in Honduras, however, was to oversee the terrorist contra camps in Honduras, from which a C.I.A.-equipped mercenary force launched repeated murderous attacks that killed masses of Nicaraguan civilians (see Chomsky, Failed States, p. 151

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 09:53:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

Boo, you honest to god believe that it's "moral scruples" that keep us from "victory" in Iraq? Stunning. Iraq is unwinnable because the age of old imperialism is over. The US would have to occupy that turf for a century to achieve even a poor semblance of stability. Such a generations-long occupation would drain our population and our treasury far beyond even the current disaster. US-occupied Iraq would become the target of guerilla fighters and nations without cease.

You're absolutely right, IMO, that Iraq was not capable of morphing into a free liberal democracy. It is hobbled with feudal theocracy and tribal struggle. That's why it accepted Saddam in the first place: he was willing and able to enforce a kind of peace -- the markets were open, business proceeded, as in any totalitarian state. No dictator rules by force or repression alone. Without the backing of a sizable portion of the population, s/he is finished. The US will never have such backing.

Seems to me you kinda scammed us comparing Saddam and Clinton. That would be a hard argument. OTOH I believe there is no moral difference between Saddam and Bush. I mean that literally, no rhetoric involved. I think the people of this planet see it the same way. Which is another reason flat-out open long-term occupation could not work. Not moral scruples. A nation that did what the US did in Vietnam has not the slightest claim to moral scruples.

I hope you rethink this "will" stuff. Maybe you like sports too much or something -- Will is mother's milk to blabbermouth coaches and motivational speakers. And Leni Reifenstal. If you start telling us how work makes you free I'm going to start seriously worrying about your reading list.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

by DaveW on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 06:47:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

perhaps we are arguing over distinctions that make little difference.

The project in Iraq was doomed from the moment we decided to stay and try to create a parliament.

It hardly matters whether is was doomed because we can't afford it or because we don't have the guts to impose our will.

The world has seen many empires, but never an empire that allowed it itself to be deterred by human rights considerations. It is the imcompatibility of conquest with scruples that dooms latter-day imperialism. And I consider that a most fortunate development. I hope Richard Perle absorbs the lesson.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 07:14:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

It's quite a fiction to believe that it's "the imcompatibility of conquest with scruples that dooms latter-day imperialism." If only there were evidence for such optimism.

What matters is that we learn to recognize our own actions & culpabilities for what they are. Not pointing the finger to someone else when the spotlight is on us. Thjat would take some guts! Failing it, we're doomed to keep repeating them.

There's much in our history that shows moral scruples are no preventive to our committing & sponsoring atrocities. American casualties are the much greater deterrent, along with other political considerations.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 08:08:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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