^ The only pro-Bush, pro-war commentator who told the naked truth about our foreign policy in the Middle East was Christopher Hitchens. He basically said, "It's about oil and who controls it. What's wrong that?"

i'm not a big ramsey clark fan, myself. i think he's a bit of a reactionary, his reasoning is simplistic -- he dislikes u.s. government policy, therefore the targets of u.s. foreign policy must be put-upon victims. it's actually a lot like the reasoning of the people he purports to hate -- 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' his rhetoric defending hussein is pretty silly. at the same time, saddam hussein should be competently defended. that's the justice system -- even the people you don't like get a credible defense. it's not fun but it's how the system has to work.

the problem's not with the term "enemy" but with the fact that the selection of enemies isn't morally based -- hussein was an ally before he was an enemy of the u.s., but he wasn't any different when he was an ally. ditto the mujahedin in afghanistan. the northern alliance was an american ally in the war in afghanistan and they violate human rights in any number of different ways -- from engaging in systematic rape to cooking their POWs to death by locking them naked in coffin-sized metal boxes until they die of exposure. if the u.s. government picked its friends and enemies based on a moral and ethical framework rather than cynical realpolitik folks around the world would have a much harder time finding nutbags willing to fly jumbojets into buildings.


"if the u.s. government picked its friends and enemies based on a moral and ethical framework..."

I knew that was coming. You keep hoping for that simple world where we --the U.S. or any country for that matter-- can pick and choose our "friends" based on that. We can try, but we'll never ever reach the point that'll make *some* people happy.

Please explain that loser on the far left...
http://www.phschool.com/atschool/ss_web_codes/images/stalin_roosevelt_churchill.jpg


"...cynical realpolitik folks around the world would have a much harder time finding nutbags willing to fly jumbojets into buildings."

I know. It all comes back to us. It's really all our fault. Right? -- Wrong. They are irrational. They'd hate us regardless of what we did or didn't do.

"if the u.s. government picked its friends and enemies based on a moral and ethical framework..."

I knew that was coming. You keep hoping for that simple world where we --the U.S. or any country for that matter-- can pick and choose our "friends" based on that. We can try, but we'll never ever reach the point that'll make *some* people happy.

Please explain that loser on the far left...
http://www.phschool.com/atschool/ss_web_codes/images/stalin_roosevelt_churchill.jpg


"...cynical realpolitik folks around the world would have a much harder time finding nutbags willing to fly jumbojets into buildings."

I know. It all comes back to us. It's really all our fault. Right? -- Wrong. They are irrational. They'd hate us regardless of what we did or didn't do.

well, these two statements flatly contradict each other. you state that we have to act unethically because it's naive to think we can use a moral framework in dealing with other nations -- the world's just too complicated to do the right thing, apparently -- and yet state that people would hate us no matter what we do. if we act unethically it's perfectly plain why people would hate us, which is a separate question from whether we're FORCED to act unethically. so which is it? do they hate us because we act selfishly, as your first statement concedes? or do they hate us because they're irrational? it's one or the other but it doesn't much make sense to say it's both -- that we take advantage of other nations but they're irrational to hate us for it.

Well luckily the days of people like Jane Fonda,Ramsey Clark and others having a encouraging influence over our enemies in a foreign land is long since past -- at least that's what I've been hearing lately. Ramsey Clark? When's the last time anyone's heard of him?
:)


Actually people like Ms. Fonda had very little imnpact on our enemies.  BUt then again, they were never intended on having an impact on the enemy: they were purely a propaganda tool for use against our own people.

And I am so glad that Ms. Fonda's little good will tour was so beneficial for the POW's.  I read a book by one of them a few years ago, and he stated that he got fed better during that week that he ever was during his entire captivity.  Of course, the day after she left the beatings and starvation started again.

I am actually rather surprised that there is nobody famous on the other side doing the sort of "goodwill tour" that Jane did.  Then again, considering the enemy we are fighting, they would probably just as happily lop off their heads as that of a Soldier.

this concept of encouraging "enemies" seems a bit facile. the folks we're being told are our enemies were our friends ten or twenty years ago, when they were the enemies of the enemies that we now call our friends. it's a bit of a political shell game that's unfortunately wrapped in a dense veneer of false nobility to keep people from questioning it.


Actually, that is not quite true.

When we were providing support to the fighters in Afganistan, we gave most of our support to the group that would become the Northern Alliance.  This was a group that was mostly made up of Afgan fighters, who were fighting to remove a foreign invader from their country.

The other groups in the conflict would eventually group together and form the Taliban.  These were groups that were often largely made up of foreigners.  They were not fighting for a free afganistan, as much as fighting a holy war to remove infidel invaders.  These groups welcomed anybody who wanted to fight, as long as they were Muslims.  These groups attracted a large number of recruits from Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Jordan, and Iran.

And those groups were often suspicious of the groups that became the Northern Alliance.  One of the reasons is that a large amount of their monitary and material support came from the United States, an "infidel" nation itself.  Both groups fought for freedom, but for different forms of freedom.

It is not unusual to have several different groups fighting for the same basic goal.  And quite often those groups will come into conflict with themselves as often as with their "sworn enemy".  Look at how many times the various PLO splinter groups spent more time killing each other then attacking Israel.  And how the various groups in Russia fell against each other after the 1918 revolution.  And yes, the US gave support to some of those groups in Russia.

While we had many "friends" in Afganistan, they were not among the groups that formed the Taliban government.  Most of those we supported became the Northern Alliance, which we are still supporting today.

We lost in Vietnam because we were wrong more than anything.  We didn't have a right to be sticking our nose into another country's civil war, PLUS we sided with the government of South Vietnam which had rejected the results of a democratic election. 

I heard this from my uncle, a Vietnam(and Cambodia) vet.  He was also a D.I., and he understands wars and the military pretty damn well.  Hes got soldier in him through and through.  And he says when you're just flat out wrong, that will hinder your efforts more than anything.

If I recall correctly, North Vietnam's main strategy was to win a war of attrition on the public opinion front.

When they annihilated the french back in the '50s, numerically they did not kill that many French soldiers.  But they knew that the French populace was not going to support a war in an old colony that was of little interest to them.

Likewise when the USA got involved, the North Vietnamese took the same approach.  They knew that they could not win "head to head" and that all they had to do was to inflict enough casualties over a long enough period of time and pulic support in the USA would wither.  Adter a while, they typical South Vietnamese person in the countryside did not really care who won, they just wanted the war to stop, so the idea of "winning their hearts and minds" really was not very useful.  They were weary and did not care any more.

It is the same strategy that was used in Afghanistan against the Russkies.  (Of course those Stinger missiles that the USA supplied certainly helped to speed things up a bit).

In Iraq it is time to end this cycle.  I say we stay if we have to kill every last insurgent or self-made-violence-inciting "Imam" who harbors insurgents.

^ Better put 'em back in your shorts, LB. You cannot "win" a war of occupation no matter how many civilians you murder. Vietnam lasted three times longer than our involvement in WWII, and we dropped more bombs on Cambodia alone (illegally, I might add) then in all of the Second World War. We still didn't "win." You're a man's man, you'd fight to the death if an invading force occupied your state, and you should expect a Vietnamese or an Iraqi to do no differently.
If old Douglas MacArthur came back to life, the first thing he would do is beat the living sh*t out of Don Rumsfeld. MacArthur said never to get involved in a land war in Asia. That means when you are up against guerilla tactics and insurgencies from the civilian population there can be no victory. MacArthur might suggesting nuking Iraq into oblivion, but not keeping our soldiers there to get picked off by snipers year in year out.
We have zero moral high ground in Iraq. It is an imperial war for oil, nothing more.
So the propagandists of Vietnam and Iraq both sent dispatches to war opponents. So what? Do you think if it were not for some dispatches from Baghdad or Hanoi the wars would have been fine and dandy with all and we would have beat 'em just like we beat the Huns? Maybe the protestors objected to these wars because the really were stupid and wrong. It's just falling for a retarded Agnew-Coulter axis to blame people exercising their First Amendment rights for the failure of ill-conceived military strategies. But you know what? It's quick and easy. The birds in the bushes say "cheap, cheap, cheap"!
If medical technology had not advanced so far in the past thirty-five years, deaths of U.S. soldiers would be in the tens of thousands. Instead we have tens of thousands maimed and disabled for life, yet somehow they don't count. America is bankrupt and tapped-out from fighting this war of corporate greed, and you want to stay there? They have raised the recruitment age limit to 42, forty-two f*cking year old!. If we stay another six months, they'll raise it again. Maybe YOU will get the chance to suit-up and kill some towelheads! Would'ja go? Would'ja like to kill yourself some Islamo-fascists over there in the desert, huh?
How many people do you think we should kill? What's the upper limit? A million, three million, five million?
For chrissakes, this is idiotic. Dumbest foreign policy I've ever seen in my life. We're gonna have to get out and that's all there is to it!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/08/quickdraw.gif

hear hear. the US military killed 2 million people by just about any estimate in vietnam cambodia and laos during the vietnam war. so it's a little hard to stomach the argument that if it hadn't been for those damn barefoot hippies tying our hands in vietnam, we woulda won! i mean, how tied were your hands if you killed 2 million people? how many more people would you have had to kill to attain victory? and what would be the spoils? liberty and democracy for a glassed-over, depopulated wasteland?

please.

Adter a while, they typical South Vietnamese person in the countryside did not really care who won, they just wanted the war to stop, so the idea of "winning their hearts and minds" really was not very useful.  They were weary and did not care any more.



Actually, according to my uncle(a Vietnam vet), they didn't care anyway.  A typical Vietnamese person lived in the village he was born in his whole life, never travelled more than about 30 miles or so from it, and ate rice several times a day.  The basics of their life was gonna stay the same whether or not the Capitalists or the Communists were in charge.  Ironically, we cared more about who ran Vietnam than the Vietnamese did.

[quote author=

Actually people like Ms. Fonda had very little imnpact on our enemies.  BUt then again, they were never intended on having an impact on the enemy: they were purely a propaganda tool for use against our own people.

And I am so glad that Ms. Fonda's little good will tour was so beneficial for the POW's.  I read a book by one of them a few years ago, and he stated that he got fed better during that week that he ever was during his entire captivity.  Of course, the day after she left the beatings and starvation started again.

I am actually rather surprised that there is nobody famous on the other side doing the sort of "goodwill tour" that Jane did.  Then again, considering the enemy we are fighting, they would probably just as happily lop off their heads as that of a Soldier.

Indeed, indeed, that's why I'm glad we had champions of human rights fighting on our side, such as Lt. William Calley!

Mushroom your argument is weak.  You used invalid historical comparisons.  Shape up.

And I'm not talking about elections in North Vietnam, LEARN YOUR HISTORY.  I'm talking about the NATIONAL election(north and south) that was agreed upon in the mid 1950s, in which Ho Chi Minh recieved a majority of the vote and South Vietnam than rejected.

[quote author=

Wow I didn't know all of that, thanks for the info.

Truman truely was a screwup, eh? :D

He never should have been President.  It was a total fluke.  He only got to the U.S. Senate in the first place because of his buddy "Boss" Tom Pendergast.

Of course, England had no right to interfere when Germany took over Poland either, did it?  wwii was a fully justified war on the part of the allies. it's really too bad that ever since then the right has flagrantly exploited it, over and over, to justify one military folly after another.

i forget who it was who said hitler's worst crime was to make the rest of the industrialized world just like him.