(HT: The Largest Minority) Keith Olbermann is right on the money regarding the capitulation of Democrats on the war:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich:
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I couldn’t disagree more. Whether you agree with the war or not, the prospect of withdrawing without winning is appalling and unspeakable. Great nations win wars NO MATTER WHAT. Other nations in much worse situations than we are in kept on fighting until they won. I didn’t agree with Bill Clinton’s wars, but to withdraw without winning was wrong.
So the United States wasn’t still a great nation after we pulled out of Vietnam?
napoleon, what you say here is illogical. Bosnia and Kosovo were handled correctly, as was the first Gulf War. You take down the target, stay long enough for an authority that is recognized by the people to take charge, and then you leave.
If your motivation for going to war was REALLY about the people over there and not being able to steal the oil underneath them, then that is what you do. The talk radio chatter that produces a statement like, “great nations win wars NO MATTER WHAT” is dishonest!
VIETNAM – – – The same people providing quotes like that, were saying the SAME EXACT THING ABOUT VIETNAM! And they were wrong. It was hype.
Our standing in the world has nothing to do with being able to say we won this war or that war…it has to do with our markets. Foreign corporations do not decide to launch their IPO on the NYSE because of a war! The entire thought process is flawed, and while people who choose not to go and fight themselves make it about something in fantasy land, there are actual people who have no choice but to stay over there and die.
The betrayal in all this is of them, not the collective ego that makes up silly nonexistent rules for the sake of tricking people into thinking that the outcome of all this is either going to be positive or relevant to our people in the grand scheme. Nobody today gives a shit about anything going on in Saigon…there could be a massacre like Virginia Tech and it wouldn’t even show up on the evening news.
And in advance let me appologize for coming off like a dick here, but I’m in a bad place right now regarding all of this. The construct you use to gauge whether we’re a “great nation” or not is bogus, or else our failure in Vietnam would have bumped us down a notch…and it didn’t.
Actually, the failure in Vietnam did weaken us. I once saw an analysis by some military officers comparing Vietnam for the US with Afghanistan for the USSR. Basically, Vietnam weakened America, but failed to bring it down, whereas Afghanistan played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. I don’t remember the name of the book; it might have been Compound Warfare. I’ll see if I can find it again. If you look at America’s position during the 1970s, you will see that that was America’s lowest ebb of the Cold War. By the 1980s, the Soviet Union was arguably the world’s greatest military power, with not only a larger military but also more and better weapons than NATO. Furthermore, Osama bin Laden has cited the retreat from Somalia as an example of America being a paper tiger.
We would never have won in Vietnam. It was a jungle with people strapping bombs to children. The real shame was dragging it out. You would have had to kill every single person and for what? to stop the onslaught of Communism? Frankly, let them have Viet Nam. What are you going to do with it?
Innocent young men are dying in Iraq for no good reason. This needs to stop!
@napoleon15
Win? What does that even mean? We’re not at war with terrorists in Iraq as much as we are occupying it for the resources. How do you “win” an occupation without committing anything less than genocide?
It’s not unprecendented for a conventional force to defeat guerillas. One thing that is required when dealing with any enemy is to cut off his resources. Since the terrorists are receiving supplies from Iran and SYria, the logical thing to do would be to patrol the borders more effectively, but unfortunately that isn’t being done. Another important method is to infiltrate the guerilla forces, but that doesn’t seem to have been done very well either. It is also important to win over the local populace; we seem to be making some progress in that regard (or at least al-Qaida is turning them off), but not enough yet.
The authority on battling insurgencies is that Army Field Manual written by Gen. Patraeus, which I linked to a couple weeks ago in something.
I’ve been conducting research on my own back 150 years until today, and in the examples I’ve been reading about (France in Algeria for the past two weeks when I’ve had time), there is a crucial element that cannot be overlooked without guaranteeing failure:
The population must be able to provide intelligence information to the occupying force without fear of being killed for doing so. If the insurgency is so deeply woven into the social fabric that it is impossible for this to take place, that means the enemy will always have the upper hand, as unless the occupiers are willing to resort to a more terrifying level of brutality against the locals than the insurgents, the fear that is present will ensure their loyalties remain with your enemy.
You cannot even use bribes to effectively circumvent this basic truth.
Strategically, it is true that to cut off an enemy’s resources is vital to breaking them down, but without the intelligence (which is essential to doing such a thing) it is impossible to accomplish this.
Saudi mosques and wealthy donors are supplying the cash to Sunni factions, and how do you deal with that?
I don’t think you can find data anywhere that supports your allegation that “we seem to be making some progress in that regard (getting the populace on our side)”.
I’m reading items from here in the next week
I definitely agree that the local populace must be willing to supply the occupying force with intelligence; I mentioned above that they must be won over. As for the progress we have made in doing that so far, we obviously haven’t made enough. Some of the Sunnis seem to be repudiating al-Qaida, though; it was Sunni tribesmen a few weeks ago who were claiming to have killed al-Masri, though that claim was false.
napoleon, how can they be won over at this point? Iraqis have been polling for three years now at above 50% that it is acceptable to attack US forces. That number was around 70% when John Murtha first spoke out against our policy, and today it is closer to 80%.
The trend is impossible to turn back in the opposite direction at this point, and if 3/4 Iraqis think it’s alright to kill our troops…how is it wise to expect that to change?
I think the situation is very difficult, and our options are limited because our troops operate within the guidelines of the Iraqi government. Also, our only allies appear to be the Kurds. Bush and the others, like L. Paul Bremer, have already done a good job of screwing it up. Still, most things are not impossible. If it becomes clear to the Iraqis that the Iraqi government will be of more benfit to them than the terrorists or their militias, they will support the government. In addition, people around the world respect those who command respect. Unfortunately, the United States gives the impression of being weak. If we can take some the steps that I mentioned earlier, then perhaps the Iraqis will learn to respect us. Even if the majority of Iraqis are against us, we can still find some Iraqis who will infiltrate the militias and terrorist groups for us.
What makes the Kurds our allies? I don’t assume that at all.
naponeon – imagine a Chinese army occupying your hometown. Would you ever “learn to respect them”?
the kurds are our allies because they need the United States in order to survive, one of the embed bloggers had a great interview with one of the kurd leaders up there, went into the kurds whole history and their unique relationship with the US. One of the past kurd leaders stated that they would volunteer to the United States 51st state (he wasnt being serious but the comment was symbolic).
also, if you want to read a great book on needing to fight a war today using 21st century technology and 19th century tactics, then read Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan. Petraeus has it dead on. I agree with Napolean that very few things are impossible.
I would be interested to hear what would constatute victory in the mind of a war supporter. The closest thing I have heard to an objective from Bush was when he said that he wanted Iraq to get to an “acceptable level of violence”
The other aspect of this situation is conservative ideology is very bad at creating infrastructure, in fact the whole point of conservatism is that government should not try to create infrastructure i.e. police protection, fire protection or market protection. Copnservatives seem to think that these things magicaly appear and the hand of the market. In the end it is not possible for conservatives to create a safe Iraq as they don’t believe in governing and ultimately that is what Iraq needs. It is better to accept the limitaions of our ruling conservative party, and give up on the nation building experiment that is Iraq as the modern conservative is not up to the task.
If you are really worried about how the “loss” in Iraq will effect the status of the US abroad, it wasn’t America that lost the war it was Bush/Cheney and the Republican party and thier inept ideology that lost the war, not the American milatary. After all the milatary had no problem securing control of Iraq, that control was lost the minute Bush declared victory and took over, because once that happened Bush and Cheney had to actually govern and that is not something that conservative ideolgy allows them to do.
Ultimatly America did not lose the Iraq war Bush and Cheney did.
When was the last time you heard a conservative speak against police protection or fire protection? I’ve never heard one speak against those things, except maybe the nuts over at the Mises Institute (who claim that Winston Churchill was just as evil as Adolf Hitler).
As for victory, I think this definition is pretty good, “Final and complete supremacy or superiority in battle or war.” That’s from Webster’s New World College Dictionary. When neither the terrorists nor the militias possess the power to overthrow the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people are committed to the well-being of their nation, then we will have won the war in Iraq. The occupations of Japan and Germany have been complete successes, and their people were much more hostile to us than the Iraqi people are.
By the way, I would never classify George Bush as a conservative. His domestic policy has been to increase the size and power of government at a faster rate than even Bill Clinton did. He may be anti-abortion, but so are some PETA activists. Issues like that do not necessarily define one as conservative or liberal.
Napoloeon:
Bush and Cheney are not conservative? Why did the Republican controlled house and senate let Bush get away with runaway spending and government intrusion, maybe the republican congressman and senators were not true conservative either. What 2000 – 2006 showed was that social conservatives are almost always going to favor more government intrusion, and generally the majority of people who vote for conservatives are primarily concerned with gay flag burners who want abortions. All of these issues require more government control over what have traditionally been considered private decsions
As for you definition of victory in Iraq, milatary superiority was demonstrated in the first few weeks of the war. Now in order to succeed the US needs to figure out some way to stop a civil war and at the same time keep either side from winning. A sunni victory in the civil war is not particarly good for US interests and a Shia victory effectively gives control of the area to Iran.
If the biggest problem in Iraq had been gay flag burners who had abortions maybe the conservatives like Bush and Cheney and all the morons they sent to help rebiuld Iraq would kow what to do. In the case of Iraq conservatives don’t have the tools to understand the situation. It is good to know that the US did not lose the war just Bush/Cheney and the republican party lost the war.
I got this from Jesus’ general I think it expresses the modern republican/conservative party very well:
Although far too many so-called liberals and progressives did betray the basic principles they should have been upholding, far more conservatives did so — even to the point where conservatism and the Republican Party in general have become far more authoritarian than it seems to have been before. Strains of authoritarianism have always been prominent, but I do think they have taken on a stronger, more defining role in the past few years, and it’s something which non-authoritarian conservatives are going to have to confront. Can they? Is is possible for them reduce the scope of authoritarian thinking among their colleagues?
I’m loving this thread! Had a family gathering yesterday and the new semester is on, so I’m short on time now (hence the lack of comments), but this discussion on conservatism is something that always attracts me, because it really boils down to the science of politics and how it relates to the science of sociology and how the human brain functions.
Andrew Sullivan is the conservative I read most often, besides Nat’l Review and sometimes the Weekly Standard, and he’s always got a running dialog on this topic.
Jesus General is right on the money with his focus on authoritarianism!
The tendancy among conservatives is to elect a “conservative” and when they don’t work out to claim they were not conservative. Bush has pursued a very conservative agenda, he has cut taxes, spent billions on the milatary and done everything possible to see that those pesky government regulations are not enforced. The result are record deficits, and unsafe food supply and an incredibly corrupt milatary industrial complex(look at Duke Cunningham) Oh yeah Bush did successfully make the supreme court more conservative as well.
Conservatism does not work, you cannot win a war with it(Look at Iraq) you cannot govern a nation with it about the only thing conservatism might succeed at is banning abortion.
Interestingly enough the loudest anti-abortion voice in Colorado is a guy named, Brian Rohrbaugh, his kid died at Columbine, he is also the loudest anti-gun voice in the region as well. He also likes to talk about how teaching evolution in the schools led to his sons shooting, at one point he also tried to claim that his son was shot by the police who responded to Columbine. I think if anyone shows the modern social conservative it is Brian Rohrbaugh an angry man who wants desperately to believe that something other than bad luck led to his sons death. sorry for getting so off topic here but when trying to understand identity politics sometimes you have to look at the poeple who identify themselves as conservatives.
I think you’re definitely on to something karl. I’ve been thinking more and more often (since Katrina especially), how much better the rest of the world is than us at delivering on core governmental responsibilities…our infant mortality rate is very high, and our world ranking in terms of health care is abysmal. Take the fact that we cannot ensure there is adequate infrastructure and up to date engineering put into things like leavies and bridges, it’s a joke for anyone to claim that the USA is #1.
I get so agrivated by this whenever the summer starts, as there are a number of “pat self on back” days built in, and in the last two years especially, I felt that we didn’t deserve them. Two years ago (I’ll dig up the post), it’s July 4th and Heather is VERY pregnant w/ the boys, but we head down to the lake for the fireworks anyway. I’m reading that week that we’re not providing body armor to soldiers in Iraq…yet here we are being entertained by a quarter million dollars worth of exploding colors, a half hour show.
What the hell is wrong with us?
Today though, a new veterans monument was being christened in front of the elementary school in Agawam, and we were there. Unlike other ceremonies of this kind that I’ve been to, it was done right. War wasn’t glorified. It was only a label to signify what time of our history a certain veteran served during. The PEOPLE were honored, NOT WAR.
I think this is an important distinction, and until noticing it first hand as I did today, it was tough to put my finger on.
karl, I got off track there…knowing I’ve got to get back upstairs and hang out w/ my family…stop pecking away at the keyboard, I guess it’s an extension of this general tendency to eat their own (conservatives)…toss whoever overboard in order to keep the entire enterprise from looking bad.
Check out the new video I post right now. I had this for a couple weeks, and it goes well with this theme being discussed here in this thread. I’ll title it, ‘The Great Debate’…
The deficit has nothing to do with the tax cuts (especially since tax revenue has increased since then), it has to do with runaway spending. Bush’s agenda is one of opening the borders; granting amnesty to illegal aliens; increasing federal sepnding in general; increasing spending on, of all things, the National Endowment for the Arts; waging war the way Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Harry Truman did; pursuing a program of “renewable energy,” including ethanol, which pollutes worse than gasoline does; and generally cooperating with Democrats and liberal Republicans like Arlin Specter and Chuck Hagel. Those policies are not conservative. By the way, his tax cuts were not only small, but temporary.
No, I’m not trying to throw Bush overboard to make the conservative movement look better. The truth is, Bush never was a conservative. He claimed to be a “compassionate conservative,” which is really a liberal. As for his claim to be a conservative, he can call himself anything he pleases. I could claim to be a Communist, but that wouldn’t make it true. George Bush is no Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater.
I try not to attack individuals, only policies, but Bush infuriates me sometimes. He’s a linguine-spined, limp-wristed wuss who doesn’t have the nerve to be a man. He defends his political foes like Lincoln Chaffee, and throws his friends overboard to save his own skin. He wants amnesty for illegal aliens, but doesn’t have the nerve to call it amnesty. Love him or hate him, at least Ronald Reagan was a man and stood up for what he believed.
Pardon my ranting.
Napoleon:
Deficits are caused when their are not enough revenues to cover expenses, The conservative method of fiscal management is to keep spending while lowering taxes, in this way they avoid making hard choices and leave a problem for the next administration to solve. Clinton had to fix the problems of the Reagan/Bush deficits by raising taxes and cutting spending.
As far as Reagan being a true conservative one of the most intrusive programs in US history has been the war on drugs, I don’t know if that was thought up during the Reagan years or he and his crew just expanded it but the end result is the worlds largest prison population.
Conservatism is an excuse to give tax breaks to people who don’t need them and take services away from people who need them.
Nixon got the ball rolling, but Reagan made sure that the crack epidemic created an explosion in the black prison population. Mandatory minimums haven’t worked to affect violence or the general drug economy in the least bit. The approach has only caused more all around aggression and very little “correction” along the way.
To say that the tax cuts have nothing to do with the deficit is like me going into bankruptcy after getting fired and taking a job that paid half as much as I made before, and then insisting that it had nothing to do with my inability to then pay my bills. It makes absolutely no sense to assume that a cut in upper earnings bracket taxes, dividend taxes and capital gains taxes isn’t having a direct effect on the budget deficit.
Starting at this point, with an assumption as illogical as this, ensures that whatever comes afterward is over or underdone. Removing the impact of these tax cuts means that the elements that are left suddenly have more of a negative impact than they really do.
The selective reality dynamic at play here is a staple of talk radio and right-wing punditry in general.
Hey Al:
The other thing the Reagan gave us was the “conservative shall not speak ill of other conservatives” what this has done is created a party that is unable to look at itself and examine what works and what doesn’t, or even call out party members like Mark Foley and Ted Haggar. You can go the conservative web sites like Polipundit and look at some of the defenses they offered for Foley and Haggar and see pretty clearly that if someone claims to be conservative all other transgressions are forgiven.
In some ways I admire the evil genius that is Karl Rove, he not only managed to screw the working class but convinced them that they are noble for getting screwed, I see why even during the attorney general scandal everyone is falling on their sword to protect Rove.
Al, as far as tax cuts, try reading milton friedman, he makes the same argument, it allows people to use money as their own instead of the govt spending it for them, which stimulates the private economy
my summary wasnt exactly right of his views; but you can read his exact thoughts on Bush’s tax cuts here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002933
Bmilli:
Tax cuts wind up being a wash as an economic stimulus. Unless of course you don’t cut spending when you cut taxes. For example lets say after my tax rate is cut I have $100 more to spend I will probably go spend it at Starbucks or on I-tunes and if enough people behave in the same way way, Starbucks or I-tunes will probably hire more people and the money I saved on my taxes will go back into the economy. The same thing happens if my taxxes are not cut. The government has an extra $100 that it pays to a food inspector or perhaps an extra $100 goes to buy Fema trailers. In the end the economy has the same net benefit, although I might miss out on a latte.
The conservative spend and borrow method completely skews the economic effect and might cause short term economic stimulus but in the end someone has to pay for all those lattes, and usually it is a Democrat who has to be the adult and put the country on a budget.
Again the conservative method for dealing with the economy, i.e. tax cuts are always good is somewhat flawed and as practiced by Bush, Cheney and Reagan is a complete failure.
karl, then you just proved milton’s point, do you want to spend your money or do you want the government. your generalizations are borderline moronic when it comes to actual facts and straying from your talking points. Reagan’s supply-side economics has helped bring inflation to single digits and spur economic growth in which I believe we have only had 5 negative GDP quarters since 1980 or something to that effect. spending is rampant in BOTH parties, if you weren’t such a partisan hack you would see that. Al, I have enjoyed our conversations in that in ways we can come to agreements on things but please, neither side is perfect, each has its talking points, but im sick of that and high flying fiery political rhetoric just turns me off.
Bmili;
Of course I would rather spend my own money but I recognize that by paying taxxes I am able to to enjoy certain government services for far less than if I had to purchase them on my own. For example police protection, if I had to maintain my own police force it would cost far more than I pay in taxxes. Even things like trash removal. The city of denver takes care of all trash removal, when I recentely moved the burbs I was paying $20 a month for trash removal and it seemed like my property taxes were still higher in the burbs.
Even things like public parks and libraries are something that most of us could not afford on our own but by paying a small amount in taxxes we are able to enjoy them. In my mind it is worth giving up a few lattes to have police and fire protection and good roads as well as a park system and system of bike paths and a national park system and all the othr things that a well functioning government can provide for far less than the private sector.
Karl, do you really have any idea how much you pay in taxes, or how many different ways the government taxes you? Are you also aware of what inflation is? How about debt? All of those things affect how much you pay for government services.
I challenge you to look up how many different taxes there are. There are incomes taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, social security taxes, Medicare taxes, and gasoline taxes, to name a mere handful.
Also, inflation is not high prices, like many people assume. On the contrary, high prices are a symptom of inflation. Inflation is actually an increase in the supply of money, caused by the Federal Reserve printing more money. Basically, it’s legalized counterfeiting. The government uses the “new money” to pay costs that taxes won’t cover. Since inflation devalues the currency and leads to higher prices, it’s really just another form of government robbery, or taxation if you prefer.
What it can’t pay for through taxation and printing more money, the government pays for by borrowing more money. Hence the large national debt.
The government is able to offer its services at lower rates than private companies because it doesn’t worry about earning more money than it spends. Its services are not necessarily better, though. In Canada, which has socialized medicince, you have to go on a waiting list for several MONTHS if you need a medical operation. I heard of one woman once who was on a waiting list to have a bullet removed from her leg. Also, do you remember the government phone service monoply through AT&T? For decades, AT&T was the only company that provided phone service, and there was no major advance in technology during that time. Since AT&T was broken up, technology has sprung forward dramatically because there was competition.
AT&T was broken up by the US government when they still monitored the private sector and applied the anti-trust authority to breaking up businesses that were able to rig the market to their advantage at the expense of customers. AT&T was a public company when it was split up into the “baby bells”…it wasn’t state owned.
So while you’re laying it out to karl as if he doesn’t understand this or that, maybe we’re all short in that department. I know I am.
bmili – I’m on board with the sustainable GDP and lower inflation, but there are two things (one about inflation and the other) about the Reagan/BushSr/BushJr years compared with the Clinton years that I don’t get:
1. Energy and food consumption are not factored into the core inflation statistic released by the FED. I read in Barrons this week (or it could be last week’s) that once you do factor in those two (could we call food or energy not “core” expenditures in every one’s budget?!?!), the numbers go from 2.5% or .2% a quarter (winging it here) to 10% from 4 years ago.
I wonder when that became the formula used for the inflation…much like the unemployment statistic and how it doesn’t count people who are still out of a job but not collecting.
2. The federal debt skyrocketed during Reagan’s years, Bush Sr’s and OFF THE CHART during Bush Jr’s reign.
During Clinton’s 8 years in office, the deficit went down, the budget was balanced AND the S&P 500 was up twice year to year as it is now WITH twice the job creation of the years we’re currently experiencing now.
I’m not a big fan of Reubenomics btw, just trying to make a point.
With economics it is easy to cherrypick statistics to back up ones position. Job creation and interest paid monthly on our nation’s debt aren’t brought up by anyone in the GOP. Good reason for that, as not only are we not getting the bang for our buck in terms of government services (consult a veteran at Walter Reed on that score), but too much out of every dollar is going towards interest payments to foreign governments that should really be borrowing from us and not the other way around!
I get that both sides have talking points, but I’m really (REALLY) opinionated on issues that I feel passionately about…Iraq and our tax dollars going wasted are two of those issues. For some perspective on this – I really have no interest in anything political that I cannot somehow separate into ‘Justice’ or ‘Injustice’. If the issue pertains to the interests of one versus the interests of another, unless one of those two parties is getting the shaft unjustly, then my mind loses interest.
The “social issues” that tend to eat up a sizeable chunk of our nation’s political discourse, for the most part they don’t get me fired up or interested…I think it’s my analytical nature, and where arbitrary or abstract assertions are made that cannot be proven, my mind honestly goes blank in terms of what’s what. My foundation on these matters is the Constitution and my idea of what ‘Liberty’ and ‘Freedom’ (abstract concepts, but documented) really are, and whether one side denies either party one or both of those.
I’m a jailhouse lawyer at heart.
Napoleon:
I agree that their are quite a few different kinds of taxes and in each of those cases I am still getting more benefit than the cost. For example I moved into a suburb southwest of Denver, this area brags about its low sales tax, becuase it is in an unincorporated area you do not pay city sales tax, that saves about 3% on most purchases. One thing I noticed immediatetly was that in denver no sales tax is charged on grocery purchases, in southwest jeffco where I was living 4.1% was charged on grocery purchases. Because the area was unincorporated they did not have their own police department, something that can be very inconvinient if your car is broken into, as I learned first hand. In Denver I could have called a police officer and their was a substation a few blocks from my house. In the burbs I had to call the sherrifs department that was almost 15 miles away and could not get an officer to come out for at least 8 hours. their was a possible tax savings in the lower sales tax rate but their was a cost in less police protection.
I am very aware of the taxes I pay and for me it is worth paying my fair share of taxes in order to live in an area with certain services. If you look at areas that have high real estate values they are also areas with higher local taxes and better local amenities. In other words you get your taxes back when you sell your home or just by getting to live in a better area.
In terms of the currency devaluing I think the dollar is at an all time low compared to the euro and the pound so maybe all the debt caused by the borrowings of Reagan and Bush is having an effect on the dollar.
As for health care I think Canadiens as a whole are healthier than Americans so they must be doing something right.