To: kingbee

one major difference between pre-wwi europe--or any other place and era for that matter--and the us 1975-2003(4?...5?...6?) is plan b and its long-term consequences. if you're not familiar with the term or the policy, approach it with a lotta skepticism. it stands up well. this'll getcha started.

I found the linked article interesting, especially in its depiction of the unreliability of force assessments - but I'm not sure as to what 'difference' you're pointing to. 'Team B' were involved in fallacious assessments of the Soviet threat and its future development - which they wildly overestimated. It's not at all clear to me how this relates to pre-WW1 Europe; or America's present either, other than in the fact the the level of threat posed to America by Saddam Hussein was supposed to be far higher than it actually was while the the threat posed by Al-Qaeda was supposed to be far less than it was.

unlike the russians and brits, we have an obligation to rebuild afghanistan. we walked away from it when the soviets left and again in 2003. unfortunately we're now similarly obligated in iraq. fortunately we don't have to do it all ourselves. unfortunately, we will stupidly continue the way we have for 2 more years.

I couldn't disagree more; it seems to me a great peculiarity of American military action, and of its foreign policy, that you should invade, conquer, and crush - as you did in Germany and Japan - and then not pillage, sack, loot and properly exploit conquered resources, but rebuild what you spent blood and treasure to take in the first place.

What's up with that?

No other nation on Earth (so far as I know) has ever felt itself to be under such an obligation. It puts a serious crimp in your style as world superpower since no one is going to take your threats seriously. It's worth getting your society trashed by America because the idiots will rebuild it for you and pay for it themselves.

On the subject of a realistic deal with Tehran...

i'd love to believe it's not already too late for that. i'd also love to be sultan of brunei.

Iranians are Persian; traders and hagglers par excellence and first and foremost businessmen. You can always do a deal if you make your offer tempting enough - and who wouldn't to be top dog in the 'hood while enjoying the patranoge of the USA? The Israelis have made a national occupation out of being our 'best buddy' and have profited enormously from so doing. A deal could be done, if there were enough political savvy on the American side, and enough will, to strike one. And why not? We crawled into bed with the Shah, with Osama, with Saddam, when it suited our purpose. Why shouldn't the Iranians get a turn?

Personally, I'd prefer to work with Persians than with the rabid desert zealots of either Israel or Hamas/Hezbollah. The Persians have always been civilized, sophisticated and politicaly adept. Better to deal with the people who created Babylon the Great than with the pygmy nation of Israel, whose only political creation is the wretched misery of Gaza and the West Bank.

However, once you sit down and treat with people over bargains and deals you can't portray them as being fundamentally unlike yourself. And no American wants to see in what ways they might resemble the people who are opposed to their Jewish pets and their criminal ways, and go so far as to fight back.

So I think you're probably right - there will be no dialog, no real political discussion, and the simplest, most direct means by which we could advance our interests in the region will be lost.

You know what I think the real problem is? Americans are too squeamish for realpolitik and to be able to do as Princes (in Machiavelli's sense of the word) ought to do.

You so badly want to be nice about all of this: to do the right thing and be seen to be doing the right thing.

Newsflash... there is no 'right' thing in these matters. There's expediency, interest, ambition, power, and profit. You're far more likely to get what you want and need if you stop pretending it's necessary to wear a White Hat all the time, and get down to the serious business of protecting the futures of your children and grand-children.

Where do you want America to be, fifty years from now? Still the baddest motherf*cker around - or a client of China and India? And perhaps of Russia too: it has energy resources that already mean it has an 'energy-lock' on the neck of the rest of Europe. Why not? The world of fifty years away will belong heart and soul to those who control energy resources and know how to use them, diplomatically, politically, and economically.

If America doesn't become the ruthless bitch and predator she is already portrayed as being, then the lives of your grand-children are going to far harder and less prosperous than your own.

What's needed is not a 'new American century'; it's a new vision of America in the minds and spirits of Americans - one which includes a healthy disrespect for White Hats and unselfish hearts.

Patrick Buchanann (not sure of spelling ... too lazy to look it up) said it best
"war is the death of empires"

But no one ever learns ... so history repeats itself ... another war front will bankcrupt us and a
new world power will rise

before us Britain was a world power ... where is she now? (her leaders are our poodles)
soon we will fall the same way as Britain ...

its only a matter of time if we keep this crap up.
if only people knew how weak our economy is, how LITTLE we produce and how much we owe others.
it sends me to bed in TEARS each night

I found the linked article interesting, especially in its depiction of the unreliability of force assessments - but I'm not sure as to what 'difference' you're pointing to. 'Team B' were involved in fallacious assessments of the Soviet threat and its future development - which they wildly overestimated. It's not at all clear to me how this relates to pre-WW1 Europe; or America's present either, other than in the fact the the level of threat posed to America by Saddam Hussein was supposed to be far higher than it actually was while the the threat posed by Al-Qaeda was supposed to be far less than it was.

perhaps i took this too literally?:

Once more, as it was in Europe during the 1914-1918 war, it's a case of Lions being led by Donkeys.

while rampant national chauvinism significantly interfered with pre-wwi european governments ability to properly view their own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their perceived allies/ potential adversaries, to the best of my knowledge not even the most delusional intentionally established an autonomous internal unit authorized to arbitrarily reject, distort, re-evaluate and otherwise manipulate real world intelligence--acquired and vetted by agents of their own government--whenever it failed to correspond with the unit's preferred version of reality.

for 22 of the past 30 years, team b's been openly running amok while running the show. i dunno how the lions feel about it, but i'd prefer donkeys to the hyenas that have taken their places.

I couldn't disagree more; it seems to me a great peculiarity of American military action, and of its foreign policy, that you should invade, conquer, and crush - as you did in Germany and Japan - and then not pillage, sack, loot and properly exploit conquered resources, but rebuild what you spent blood and treasure to take in the first place.

we're obligated to afghanistan not as a consequence of our invasion but because the place was so badly damaged in the proxy war we conducted there during the 80s. however backward afghanistan may have been, it seemed to work okay for the afghanis. it hasn't worked at all since they finally drove the ussr out and down. considering how much money we happily poured into the place during the conflict, we really should be ashamed of how quickly and easily left them and their homeland to rot.

To: kingbee

we're obligated to afghanistan not as a consequence of our invasion but because the place was so badly damaged in the proxy war we conducted there during the 80s.

I always thought the purpose of invasion was conquest, followed by subsequent expoitation and control - not to establish an obligation to the conquered on the part of the conquerors. But even if it were so, we haven't conquered the Afghanis (neither did the Russians or the British) and so, even on the basis of your own (rather confused) theory, owe them no obligation at all.

It must be part of White Hat Syndrome - this compulsion to be nice to people by saying 'Sorry we invaded you. Let's put this shit back together for you. And once you get to know us you'll really, really, like us. After all, we are the men in White Hats'.

To: kingbee

The Lions in question were the soldiers in the trenches, the Donkeys the Liberal Party under Lloyd George. I thought there was something of greater substance to your comment, other than that national chauvinism was at work in WWS 1 & 2, just as it has been, along with national pride, intransigence and a domestic political agenda to satisfy in Iraq 1 & 2. Which is why I was a little confused, because try as I might I could see nothing in the comment beyond that.

Team Bs machinations are no worse, or of greater significance, than what was done by Chancelleries and Ministries of War in earlier days. They fed their Executives a vision of their world tailored to meet private political ends, fulfil private agendas (always dressed up as the 'national interest') just as Team B has done.

always thought the purpose of invasion was conquest, followed by subsequent expoitation and control - not to establish an obligation to the conquered on the part of the conquerors. But even if it were so, we haven't conquered the Afghanis (neither did the Russians or the British) and so, even on the basis of your own (rather confused) theory, owe them no obligation at al

if you read my previous response #23 and are still under the misapprension i'm even vaguely hinting that obligation i first mentioned in reply #6 has anything to do with conquest, i'm certainly confused because i thought your native language was english.

here's what i've said so far:

(reply #6) we have an obligation to rebuild afghanistan. we walked away from it when the soviets left and again in 2003

(reply #23) we're obligated to afghanistan not as a consequence of our invasion but because the place was so badly damaged in the proxy war we conducted there during the 80s

i've never claimed we conquered afghanistan.

had we done the right thing--not because it was the right thing but the smart thing to have helped afghanistan rebuild and stabilize itself after the soviets withdrew--we might still have been attacked by al quaeda. walking away guaranteed it.

who's responsible for that decision?

without an immediate and substantial leap in life-prolonging technology, we'll never know. once in office, our current president wasted no time issuing an executive order defining records of all former presidents private property (for the first time in us history) while requiring a waiver of executive privilege by both the former and seated president.

the same team b idiots responsible for lying to themselves and the country about iraq were at the wheel then as now.

The Lions in question were the soldiers in the trenches, the Donkeys the Liberal Party under Lloyd George.

the lions reference was obvious. i didn't realize you were restricting donkeyhood solely to the brits or, even more exclusively, to lloyd george's party only, considering the makeup of his war cabinet as well as his inclusion of/support from conservatives.

Team Bs machinations are no worse, or of greater significance, than what was done by Chancelleries and Ministries of War in earlier days. They fed their Executives a vision of their world tailored to meet private political ends, fulfil private agendas (always dressed up as the 'national interest') just as Team B has done.

i'd agree team b has done nothing new, worse or of greater significance if we were discussing any government but ours.
it's the kinda thing we've come to expect from monarchies, autocracies, military juntas, totalitarian states, etc.

rereading that it occurs to me the answer to the riddle of which came first: the chicken or the egg? could easily be either or both.

To: kingbee

if you read my previous response #23 and are still under the misapprension i'm even vaguely hinting that obligation i first mentioned in reply #6 has anything to do with conquest, i'm certainly confused because i thought your native language was english

Pay attention - what I said was "even if it were so", meaning that some condition applies even if a given condition were actually so, even though it's not. I wouldn't mind the criticism of my level of comprehesion of English - if it didn't apply even more directly to you.

had we done the right thing--not because it was the right thing but the smart thing to have helped afghanistan rebuild and stabilize itself after the soviets withdrew--we might still have been attacked by al quaeda.

'Might have been'? Osama's opposition to the West predates his involvement in Afghanistan - and I doubt that any amount of 'hearts and minds' work there would have won the majority of the population over, because of his role in the defeat of the USSR. You confuse political sentiment with political reality. You feel America owes Afghanistan something - but just because you feel it doesn't make it so. The Marshall Plan exemplifies America's political and commercial peculiarities best: destroy your enemies - then recreate them in a ways that make them as nearly as possible like you, in the interest of a hoped for commercial conquest later on.

I suppose it can even be said that it's worked to a degree - but it's undeniably a peculiar attitude and not one that's likely to be helpful in Iraq.

i'd agree team b has done nothing new, worse or of greater significance if we were discussing any government but ours.it's the kinda thing we've come to expect from monarchies, autocracies, military juntas, totalitarian states, etc.

You've summed up the attitude I'm referring to quite nicely - real politics happens somewhere else, somewhere bad. In America there's only good politics, nice politics. Other people do politics: America does what's right. Wonderful pablum for the masses - when the masses can be stopped from asking questions and using the Freedom of Information Act; not so wonderful in a society of free, and questioning, individuals - which is what we largely still have.

I'm not saying this attitude is a ploy on the part of the government - though I'm certain it's worked to the advantage of government in times past - less easy to maintain now, and in any case indicative of a mind-set appropriate to time when it was easy to seperate out 'us' from 'them'. One of 'them' could be any one of 'us', now. It's a cultural attitude, a sense of righteousness. But righteousness is not necessarily a politically expedient attitude - especially not when confronting an enemy whose own sense of righteousness is rather more flexible than ours - including the freedom to lie to and deceive their enemies at every turn.

America needs to be more ruthless than she is, and more honest with herself.

Osama's opposition to the West predates his involvement in Afghanistan - and I doubt that any amount of 'hearts and minds' work there would have won the majority of the population over, because of his role in the defeat of the USSR. You confuse political sentiment with political reality.

Do you think this does not apply equally here?

Do a realistic deal over Tehran's nuclear ambitions; supply them with all the technology they need for a civil nuclear infrastructure, engage in trade and diplomacy; work with the youth of Iran who want peace, modernisation and their own definition of liberty; encourage and sustain a new generation of political realists who will have both regional clout enough, and economic and political reason enough, to restrain the worst excesses of their client terror-networks

Will pulling an about-face and supporting Iran change sentiments toward the US there and/or in the Middle East as a whole? Is there a fundamental hatred of the United States, or is it just perceived so because we do not support them enough?

The Marshall Plan exemplifies America's political and commercial peculiarities best: destroy your enemies - then recreate them in a ways that make them as nearly as possible like you, in the interest of a hoped for commercial conquest later on.

lemme try this another way.

following the soviet withdrawal from afghanistan we should have, at very least, continued to give them an amount equal to that we'd spent arming the jihadis to cover the cost of repairing their infrastructure and clear mines.

not because we did the damage. this has nothing at all to do with the marshall plan. their country was severely damaged as a consequence of fighting our mutual enemy for us by proxy. how much was it worth to us to bring down the ussr?

Osama's opposition to the West predates his involvement in Afghanistan - and I doubt that any amount of 'hearts and minds' work there would have won the majority of the population over

it's got nothing to do with winning hearts and minds and everything to do with returning the country to working order to prevent it from being infested by someone like bin laden. he wound up in afghanistan after being bounced outta other countries only a step or two up the ladder government-wise.

To kingbee

lemme try this another way

What other way might that be? You keep insisting that there is some moral obligation to the USA is subject, as in -

their country was severely damaged as a consequence of fighting our mutual enemy for us by proxy. how much was it worth to us to bring down the ussr?

and I insist that there is not. The fact that the Afghanis suffered as a consequence of involvement in a proxy war against the USSR means both that America suffered no such consequences, and profited thereby.

it's got nothing to do with winning hearts and minds and everything to do with returning the country to working order to prevent it from being infested by someone like bin laden.

Afghanistan has never worked in the way of Western liberal democracy or Western capitalism - except for the growth of poppies and the sale of heroin. There was no reason why it should have done so in the past, and no reason why it should do so in the present.

If you're suffering the pangs of conscience do as Jay-lo did; adopt an Afghani. Adopt two, they're small.