This is certainly the experience of the more stable provinces in central Afghanistan, where leaders talk about the need to set off bombs to receive the assistance given to their wealthier but more dangerous neighbors.
In a post titled, The “Safe Haven” Myth, Professor of International Relastions at Harvard Stephen M. Walt suggests that a re-established Taliban government is now less likely to want to offer Al Qaeda a safe haven. It would be like painting a huge target on them. He also points out that 9/11 was not planned in Afghanistan so much as in Hamburg, Germany. So maybe preventing bases in Afghanistan is not quite so important. (An answer to this opinion is available here.)
Greg Mills, a former adviser to NATO’s Afghanistan mission, while not opposing a continued involvement is very skeptical as to how the current mission is being conducted. In particular, he thinks the mission is unclear. About the safe haven danger, he writes:
If the West’s aim is to prevent the Taliban from taking power again in Afghanistan, then that might be achievable by its current actions. If, however, the aim is to prevent Al Qaeda terrorist acts in the West, then Afghanistan is probably the wrong target for three reasons: (1) Most of the terrorists in that region are “brewed” in Pakistan, (2) acts against the Taliban may incite further Muslim violence against the West, and (3) the greatest terrorist threat to most Western nations is from domestic cells.
On the left, Robert Greenwald has a documentary out Rethink Afghanistan that argues against the continuing U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
Our “conventional wisdom” — influenced far too much by intellectually bankrupt right-wing zealots — is strikingly similar to the now-discredited domino theory that motivated an enormous amount of terrible US foreign policy, including the disaster in Vietnam.
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p>Having a large, scary, aggressive, and therefore very dangerous bogeyman to fear makes a population far easier to control. The right wing, through the efforts of Saint Reagan, propped up the “Communist” bogeyman for as long as possible (Reagan’s vigorous anti-soviet posturing kept the Soviet government alive for as long as a decade after it would otherwise have fallen).
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p>The 90s were a period of exuberant renewal — hence the need for a new bogeyman. Osama Bin Laden was happy to oblige.
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p>We have been blinded to the reality that our actions have done far more to enhance the appeal of AQ (and hence the Taliban) than anything OBL or AQ itself has done. The 911 mission succeeded beyond OBL’s wildest expectations.
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p>As the thread-starter points out, the 911 attacks were planned in Germany. The perpetrators were Saudi. The “logic” of attacking Afghanistan makes no sense. Instead, these are simply rationalizations to support a more cynical view.
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p>The truth is that, like the Soviet “empire” of the 80s, AQ is falling apart. Whether conscious or not, the right wing and the military-industrial complex needs the US to have that bogeyman — and AQ is the best we’ve got (until we can spawn another).
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p>The AQ bogeyman was largely invented by the right-wing in order to keep the US population fearful and therefore docile, just as the communist bogeyman was largely invented by the right-wing during the cold war. The Afghanistan-as-haven meme is directly parallel to the domino-theory meme — and equally empty.
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p>Imagine what the world might look like if the US had invested nearly a trillion dollars in combating disease, hunger, and oppression instead of the senseless and failed “War on terror“.
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p>We should leave Afghanistan, now.
It concerns me that you seem to not want to retaliate at all against anybody for September 11th. Taliban-ruled Afghanistan had it coming to them BEFORE that date as far as I’m concerned. We even gave them the chance to hand over bin Laden, and when they didn’t they became his aider and abetter and thus our enemy. If that regime was not a security threat to the United States I don’t know what is. As far as I know (and I’m confident I’m correct) neither Germany nor Saudi Arabia harbored bin Laden or condoned his activities. They just happened to be the planning site and his (and most hijackers’) native country respectively. I don’t understand how you don’t see this as it is so obvious to me.
A crime was committed on 9/11. The perpetrators were mostly killed. The organizer was Osama Bin Laden. His organization was AQ. Those were the principals, those are who (and what) we should pursue.
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p>Not “retaliate”. Your argument that “Taliban-ruled Afghanistan had it coming to them” is no different from their symmetrical argument that “Capitalist America had it (911) coming to them.”
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p>The world is filled with people, organizations, and even nations who hate the US. So what. When we “go after” them, when we “retaliate” against them, we merely strengthen the arguments they use against us — “Imperialist”, “Arrogant”, “Anti-Muslim”, etc.
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p>We’ve had this discussion before. The loss of 3,000 lives, as tragic as it was, did not threaten the existence of the US. It did not threaten the foundations of our culture or freedom. We cannot “preserve our freedoms” by forcibly imposing them on the rest of the world.
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p>The oppressive, reactionary, and dictatorial administration that exploited our fears of 911 have, in fact, threatened the foundations of our culture and freedom. By inflaming organizations around the world who hate us, they have greatly increased the threat against our people.
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p>I suggest you refresh your memory of the New Testament teachings of how to behave towards our “enemy”, specifically as to how they might inform this discussion.
On that we’re not that far from agreement. Al-Qaeda has operating in AFGHANISTAN with the co-operation of that regime. If the Taliban had said to us that those tactics do not represent them and they would do everything in their power to smoke out Al-Qaeda themselves, and preferably hand over bin Laden in the process, then wonderful, but they didn’t. I just feel that any regime that harbors people that would attack us are no better than imperial Japan directly attacking us with a real military at Pearl Harbor. It is not only the government’s right, it is their obligation to strike back hard such that nobody dares pull that stunt again. All of NATO saw this as true, even invoking the critical attack-on-one-is-an-attack-on-all clause in it’s charter. Also, we will never get people elected to accomplish all the other things we want if we play into the hands of those who mock our side for considering 9/11 “only a crime” as you clearly do. For the record, my own opinions of Afghanistan were formed before 9/11; I didn’t need Bush’s help in that regard. As noble as turning the other cheek might be, I fear our weakness of non-retaliation would only be exploited.
I’m curious what you think of Walt’s arguments.
I’m not sure I’m as optomistic that a new Taliban wouldn’t revert to the old ways. Countries, especially under the same regime as previously, have so reverted throughout history. I also believe that if you make the mess you clean it up, and regardless of our previous actions my biggest immediate concern is leaving behind a failed state which will be unstable and cause security grief in the future. I do agree that if we disengaged in the region more generally in the long term we would ultimately be safer and less of a target.
I was referring, instead, to Romans 12:20:
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p>We are battling for hearts and minds. Your approach leads to bombs, missiles, predator strikes and — yes — torture, kidnapping, abuse, and murder. That’s because your approach essentially dehumanizes those you deem “the enemy”, and therefore spreads to all who “sympathize” with the enemy, until you are proposing to bomb most of the people of the world.
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p>You propose to bomb the citizens of Afghanistan into the stone age — whoops, they’re already there — in “retaliation” for your claimed “harboring” of an admittedly-dangerous religious cult that you (and I) find distasteful.
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p>I suggest that the “Marshall Plan” approach is more affordable, more effective, and is proven to work better.
It is definitely time to start “winning the peace” to the extent that we have not already done so, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I would, however, still push back on your characterization of my views as per your first full paragraph above. There is a time for bombs and missles to destroy targets and break the will to fight back, ultimately cutting short the most violent part of war. I absolutely do NOT under any circumstances condone or accept torture or abuse of anyone, combatant or otherwise, and I utterly reject the notion that the former must lead to the latter.
in the ability of “bombs and missles to … break the will to fight back, ultimately cutting short the most violent part of war” is misplaced. When you stomp into somebody else’s country with your explosive boots, it no doubt does cow a lot of ordinary people into submission. Those aren’t the people you’re trying to coerce, though. The ones causing you to want to drop bombs are usually hardened in their resolve by your doing so.
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p>What your bombs and missiles accomplish most effectively is ruining the lives of a lot of innocent people. This does not win us any friends, and is a big reason why so many of them hate our government. If you want to win hearts and minds, a big step would be to quit blowing up other people and their stuff. We are not the world’s policeman. Treating other peoples as though we think they are children incapable of making their own decisions makes them resent us. We are not God’s gift to the world. So long as we keep interfering in the affairs of other people, we do not own the moral high ground, and we should stop pretending we do.
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p>The US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. Are we worried they’re all going to gang up on us? We should spend most of that money on making life better for people instead – starting with our own people.
Bombed the daylights out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus hastening the end of the war. In case you hadn’t noticed they are a thriving democracy and we’ve been strong allies and economic partners ever since.
Your answer ignores the point. Obliterating two Japanese cities certainly did hasten the end of that war. Do you advocate using nuclear weapons on the Taliban? How many innocent civilians are you prepared to kill and maim to remove or prevent a government you don’t like? Why is your opinion of their government sufficient reason for killing any of them?
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p>You continue to trivialize the effects of war and push Kissingeresque realpolitik.
I just used the example to point out that there is a historical example of using extreme force that did not turn out the way you said. The Taliban cannot be allowed to return to power and your saying a “government you don’t like” softens their image too much. We don’t overthrow a government just because we don’t like them; there are others I find distasteful but don’t advocate using force against them. We should overthrow governments that are a security threat, which the Taliban has proven to be, or those that just simply cannot be allowed to stand on humanitarian grounds, like the Third Reich. I object to your accusation that I trivialize war; you think I LIKE mass casualties?!
the nature of war. I think you are unaware of just how widely, deeply, and lastingly it ruins life for ordinary innocent people in places that it happens. I think it’s because you have never seen war firsthand.
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p>Children in Southeast Asia are still losing their legs, their parents, and their lives to mines planted decades ago. Many of those mines were placed as part of a war effort that you seem to approve of. That war involved dropping more tonnage of bombs on one small country than were released in all of WWII. The political result is known – the enemy resisted our persuasion and prevailed. The human result was, and continues to be horrific. Inflicting such horror on innocent people because their government is a “security threat” is perverted. It places our “security” (as defined by politicians) above the lives of all the thousands of ordinary people who will inevitably suffer greatly when the bombs fall.
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p>Here’s a current-events question to apply your World Cop doctrine to: North Korea appears to now have nuclear weapons, and is working on missiles that could reach Alaska and Hawaii. Should we start bombing North Korea now? What about Iran? China?
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p>”those that just simply cannot be allowed to stand on humanitarian grounds” – do you remember South Africa? How is it possible that the government there was overturned without military force?
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p>I believe you are a good person, who wants to do right. Can you not see that inflicting death, dismemberment, and disaster on innocent people, because of their political leadership, is arrogance of a very high order?
I was really baffled by your idea that I approved of landmines, so I followed the link and came up with a comment supporting our involvement in Vietnam. As I recall, I was confused by some of the details, but I think there was some justification for our action. That doesn’t mean I approved every specific tactic and if possible I would have loved for us to keep track of where we planted landmines and then dug them up when the war was over. For what it’s worth I favor the International Landmine Convention that Princess Diana championed WITHOUT exemptions for ourselves.
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p>As for your world cop questions, no, no, and no. Your North Korea example is a little too much like how we got into Iraq this time around, which I opposed. In order to even consider a pre-emptive strike I would need ironclad intelligence they would hit us tomorrow. If they do hit us, however, then no mercy, though I would still start with very targeted strikes. Iran, I’m happy to just let it’s President froth at the mouth. It seems to me politicians across the spectrum make them out to be more of a threat than they are. (I also think we missed a major opportunity while Khatami was President to reach out and grab the other end of the olive branch he extended to us.) I also don’t understand with both Iran and North Korea why they can’t develop weapons. Is there a treaty they signed saying they wouldn’t? Otherwise they are sovereign states and as a nuclear power ourselves I think we’re awfully hypocritical to say certain counties can’t have those weapons. China, I think we kowtow to them too much on economic issues and still which we had more strongly denounced the Tianniman Square incident in 1989. We should definitely put more pressure on them and not worry about them saving face. I also feel that if Taiwan ever wants to formally declare what has long been its de facto independence from the mainland, we should be first in line to support them. All three of these nations are perfect examples of what I mentioned above of governments I find distasteful, but do not advocate using force against.
why you consider the Taliban-led Afghanistan a threat, worthy of inflicting death and destruction on its citizenry. The three countries I mentioned are all far more of a threat to us and our soldiers than Afghanistan is, or ever was. You really have to make a distinction between the Taliban and Al-Quaida; if the 9/11 plot really was hatched in Germany, Afghanistan is just the place AQ happened to be hanging out. When we made that uncomfortable, they went somewhere else. A handful of religious nuts killed 3000 Americans. Why is a military response that causes many more deaths preferable to a targeted law-enforcement action?
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p>I did not say you approved of land mines. I said you seemed to support the war that put them in place. Once you tell the military to attack and win, they will do a lot of things you, personally, wish they hadn’t. Because you wish they hadn’t does not absolve you of responsibility.
Afghanistan IS a world of difference. The Taliban coddled AQ, let them stay, refused to co-operate in going after them, shared a militant ideology which fed their views and justified their tactics. Germany did none of those things. The Taliban had a choice, which Sudan DID make. Sudan ultimately expelled bin Laden and his cronies, and thus they did not become a post 9/11 target of ours. Terrorism very often IS state-sponsored and the states that sponsor it risk getting hit. As far as I’m concerned the Taliban gave AQ enough aid and comfort to be considered a sponsor. If everyone co-operated, then maybe law enforcement would work, but the actual perpetrators all perished themselves on 9/11 and they welcome death, so we need to take it to the next level of networks and support systems, up to and including governments. Of course I’d love to do all this without the slightest harm to innocent civilians, but war is sometimes necessary and definitely not pretty. I never advocated intentional death and destruction on the citizenry of Afghanistan, but I do acknowledge that death and destruction of the Taliban would cause harm to others – that’s unfortunate. I take no responsibility for Vietnam because I wasn’t alive then and really can’t for the others because I’ve not been a policy maker.
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p>To me it comes down to this analogy –
Japan:Pearl Harbor::Afghanistan:9/11
The 911 perpetrators were not flying Afghan colors or under the command of Afghan leadership — civilian or military.
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p>Better analogs to the 911 attack are prior foreign terrorist episodes, such as the 1954 U.S. Capital Shooting Incident, or even Native American raids on western rail lines and settlements.
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p>You seem to be hanging your hat on the “state-sponsored terror” hook. Whether defensible or not, surely you can see that such an argument has nothing to do with Japan and Pearl Harbor.
They might as well have been – distinction without a difference in my opinion. Keep in mind it’s cumulative too: African embassy bombings, the first attempt on the WTC, the USS Cole, all conducted by AQ while being given sanctuary by the Taliban. I just can’t countenance simple law enforcement as if we just had a DA in New York, possibly with FBI assistance treating this like a routine street gang episode.
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p>The other thing that disturbs me is how easily you’re playing into the hands of our domestic opposition. I for one cringed a couple years ago when Karl Rove mocked Democrats for wanting to treat terrorism as a “mere law enforcement issue”. Democratic officials expressed outrage that anyone could accuse of an American of not doing everything in his power to defend the United States and fight back when we are attacked. Even bona fide war heroes that we nominate such as George McGovern and John Kerry can’t shake the “soft on defense” stereotype even though most major 20th century wars were execute by Democratic Presidents (to the extent that GOP VPOTUS nominee Bob Dole in 1976 derisively refered to “Democrat wars”). Given some of these very pacifistic comments, I am realizing to my chagrin, that in the case of some Karl Rove may have had a point.
By advocating war on Afghanistan, you most certainly do advocate visiting death and destruction on ordinary Afghans. It’s an inevitable consequence of war, as you should know.
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p>Do you imagine that the families of civilian noncombatants killed by airstrikes feel any less devastated than relatives of the 9/11 victims? Why do you think that the deaths of more than 4000 innocent Afghanis (just since 2006) are merely “unfortunate,” while the deaths of 3000 Americans require a huge military retaliation? Tell me that you don’t actually believe an American dying is more important than an Afghani dying.
Death and destruction follow from war – thank you!
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p>The kind of bombing we did to Nagasaki and Hiroshima are absolute last resort. Could you PLEASE stop putting words in my mouth?! I’m sorry I’m not communicating better, but I feel Afghanistan falls under “just war” doctrine. The world (certainly involving war) is not perfect, but I advocate enough force to eliminate the regime, but not such gratuitous force as to hit (and certainly not target) innocents. Comparing casualty counts isn’t the point, though we should do everything in our power to prevent loss of innocent life. The point is to make sure both that the supporting nation doesn’t do it again and possibly deter anyone else who might be thinking about doing likewise.
I’m trying to get you to see that the “just wars” you favor will inevitably result in unjust punishment of innocent people. If you want to “do everything in our power to prevent loss of innocent life,” the answer is simple: don’t start any wars. That’s in our power; we don’t have to start any wars. If we start a war, innocent lives will be lost.
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p>I know you think I’m oversimplifying, but this stuff is really obvious to me, and to anyone else who’s seen war or just thought about it carefully. If you are one of those people who think American lives really are worth more than others are, please just say so, and I will save my breath. If you don’t think that, you’ve got to follow the positions you’ve taken to their logical outcomes.
I’ve also continued to think about my previous responses and realize I should have mentioned that if we really have killed that many unarmed non-combatants in this campaign we really haven’t been as careful as we should be. I think it is exactly in the logical conclusion department that we disagree. You insist that if I believe X I have to go as far as Y, whereas I say that I go ONLY as far as X and stop long before I hit Y. The other thing I want to point out is that acknowledged does not mean OK and not OK does not mean avoidable. I’d love to not start wars, but the Taliban one we didn’t start (Iraq, on the other hand, we very much did.), and unfortunately force is the only thing some people understand.
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p>All life is precious and all war is horrible; in fact I’m reminded of a statement Robert E. Lee (I think) once made, “It is well that war is so terrible lest we grow too fond of it.” The attacks of 9/11 from a casuality count standpoint is comparable to (slightly worse than?) Pearl Harbor and should be treated accordingly. We’ve continued to lose more American lives as well, but again, that’s war. In a perfect world we could all go beat our swords into plowshares and live happily ever after, but certainly you realize we’re not there. It’s great to say let’s not have war. Even Bush knew the politic thing to say was war with Iraq was a last resort (though I for one was extremely skeptical of that claim all along).
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p>I would finally point out though that Afghanistan was universally acknowledged among our allies as an aggressor. Article V of the NATO charter which stipulates that an attack on one is considered an attack on all was invoked for the first time ever. Maybe I should clarify too that I am not currently advocating much force in Afghanistan, just that we make sure it’s stable before we leave to quickly.
First, we were in a declared war with Japan. We are not at war with Afghanistan. Second, the Japanese government, with whom we were at war, launched a direct surprise attack against US forces in Hawaii. The attack was by aircraft carrying the Japanese insignia and were under the command of the Japanese government. No such parallel situation exists in Afghanistan.
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p>You seem to attribute the postwar loyalty of Japan (and presumably Germany) to us “bombing the daylights” out of them.
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p>I think most observers instead credit the Marshall Plan (which was, in its day, highly controversial).
I’m not saying that the Germans and Japanese are allies because we bombed them; I’m saying in response to previous comments suggesting such action makes enemies that those two nations are allies despite our bombing them. I do believe that something similar to the Marshall Plan is an appropriate way to win the peace.
…we were in a declared war with Japan because they bombed us at Pearl Harbor. If we had formally declared war on Afghanistan, would that make you feel better? Given your comments on this subject I suspect not.
for a few years—sort of an exchange of sorts. Several thousand Brookline or Newton residents (the more Progressive young folks) might like to reside in some Taliban controlled villages as a cross cultural event.
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p>It’s one of these times where it is put your money where your mouth is.
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p>Another point I find interesting that you seem to think that the loss of life on 9/11 although regrettable is just a product of US foreign policy and we should learn to live with it. You seem to espose the theory that US military intervention is another country is never warranted—-under any condition? And you and others decry those that are killed and maimed by the policies of Barack Obama,
the most enlightened person to hold the office. Others offer that troops should be sent here or there for this reason or that reason yet I would hazard a guess that only one or two folks on this entire board have ever served in the armed forces–and perhaps none, other than myself , which would indeed be a sad set of affairs. It is pretty amazing to hear folks pontificate yet they would not serve their country in the service under any circumstance. Like I said previously, talks cheap—-real cheap.
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p>I don’t think many people understand the gravity of the peril our country faces if our currency collapses, we have an exponentially larger event than 9/11, our economy collapses into deeper recession, runaway national debt reaching the breaking point. USA inches closer each day to the tipping point. Going to get interesting, sooner rather than later.
The domino theory was discredited? Ya—just ask the Hungarians, Czech’s, Poles, Vietnamese, Koreans, Lithuanians, Fins. Need I go on?
The essential question I think.
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p>Here’s a link to a thoughtful discussion in the New York Times Week in Review, accompanied by a powerful picture.
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p>
On the Washington Monthly site, as if in answer, there’s Winning the Good War: Why Afghanistan is not Obama’s Vietnam.
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p>That said, it seems that most liberal commentary seems to favor withdrawal.
Four US servicemembers died yesterday.
in nations where we become massive military presence, our goal is to get as quickly as possible to a national election OF OUR INVOLVEMENT
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p>ie, we seem to get to national elections decently….
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p>but what if we basically put on the ballot a few options
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p>a. We leave
b. We stay with lots of troops for 1 to 2 years, then have another election to ask the same question
c. We train new military but don’t protect population, they’re on their own
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p>Our message is always:
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p>a. We’d like you to rule yourselves as a democracy, we’ll help a bit
b. But ultimately you’ll have to figure it out yourselves
c. We’re okay with you choosing lots of bad forms of gov’t but if you harbor people who attack us we will kill a lot more of you; don’t do that
best for their nation would look an awful lot like treating them like adults. If I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting these questions appear on foreign ballots, right?
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p>The United States, I don’t believe, has ever really been into that voter-as-adult model. We’re heavy-handed, intrusive, and paternalistic. And shouldn’t we be? We’re America, after all, with the biggest ego on the planet! We’re the self-appointed arbiter–when it’s in our self-interest, that is–about what’s proper behavior and what’s not. We’ve been in the habit of not only exploiting (counterproductively, I would add) our own sense of American Exceptionalism in an effort to advantage ourselves, but we’re in the business of marketing American ExceptionalismTM too.
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p>So the questions remains, why on earth would we ask THEM what THEY think?
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p>Our track record in this nation is abysmal. No other nation has muscled its way into other nations, both overtly and covertly, in the past 50 years like the U.S. has since the acme of British Colonialism.
The sole criteria for using the United States military to achieve a policy objective is ‘does this objective enhance the national security interests of the United States?’. If the answer to that simple question is no then it is an objective the United States ought not to endeavor in.
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p>Here is a list of recent conflicts with a clear answer in my opinion
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p>Operation Desert Storm-No
Operation Just Cause (Panama)-No
Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti)-No
Operation Restore Hope/Gothic Serpent (Somalia)-No
NATO/UN operations in Bosnia-No
Operation Allied Force (Servia/Kosovo War)-No
Operation Desert Fox (Iraq 1999)-No
Operation Infinite Reach (Sudan/Afghanistan after embassy bombings)-Yes
Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq War)-No
Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)-?
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p>The United States should never fight to save democracy, never fight for human rights, never fight to promote democracy, never change other people’s regimes or cultures, it should simply fight to save Americans. That is the prime purpose of the military.
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p>Stating that let’s examine the root causes of the war in Afghanistan and the correct response to it.
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p>In response to BrooklineTom the safehaven of Afghanistan was perilously ignored by several Presidential administrations, most blatantly in my view, the Bush administration which ignored the recommendations of Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke to launch a preemptive air strike against AQ training camps to disrupt their planning of a massive large scale attack-aka 9/11. Doing this would likely have disrupted AQ enough that the attack would either have been averted entirely, scaled back, or delayed. Thus it was not an immoral, imperialistic, vengeful response when the US attacked those bases and the Taliban itself after the terrorist attacks. And we have brilliantly disrupted those networks, forced them to go underground, and forced them into the hills of Pakistan.
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p>In its place we have created a somewhat stable albeit not entirely democratic government and it seems unlikely the Taliban will achieve full dominance over the country anytime soon. In that sense Enduring Freedom was a wonderful success.
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p>Unlike a symmetrical foe though, the war on terrorism does not have a permanent victory condition and viewing it through a conventional prism is dangerous both from a policy standpoint and a historical one. Analogies to Japan and Germany and WWII are meaningless since those were full nation-state entities with capabilities such as armies, air forces, and navies that could be destroyed to improve our security and reduce theirs. The same is not true of terrorists.
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p>The best way to fight terrorism is to prevent them from having safehavens and improving your own internal security. We can never be 100% safe on the domestic front without compromising our way of life and civil liberties. But we can do our best to create practical solutions and emergency response mechanisms to ensure that we are domestically safe. Hitting and disrupting those networks abroad is useful with the military to a point initially, but in the phase we are in now special forces and intelligence forces are far more useful in getting into the terrorist networks and finding specific individuals to coerce. The rise of the non-state actor as an entity to be reckoned with is the most perilous development in international politics. But from a military standpoint I think there is little more we can do in Afghanistan.
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p>In response to lightiris and others I would oppose letting other people vote to determine the national security interests of the United States. Germany and Japan clearly did not want us in their country after the war, but it was vital to ensure they did not threaten us again and to protect those countries from Soviet domination.
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p>That said I would argue that they do not want our presence and that our presence is not required for our national security goals. Leaving a small force and a few bases as a footprint needed to go after AQ when necessary is important, destroying the Taliban is not. That might be the nice thing to do, it might be what Afghanistan wants, but it is a waste of US money and lives to fight their civil war for them. Let the country be the hodgepodge of warlords and fiefs it has always been, and let us not make the mistake that Alexander, Rome, the Han, the Huns, the Russians, the British, and the Soviets made in trying to remake the country in our image-it is called the graveyard of empires for a reason.
Frankly I am disappointed in President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and General Jones for buying into the neo-conservative fantasy/fallacy of ‘democratic peace theory’ and the idea that the US has a moral obligation to put democratic systems in countries it occupies and that making those countries democratic will ultimately protect our national security interests. The phrase ‘no two democracies have ever gone to war’ is not only wrong but it has led to countless thousands of deaths of both Americans and foreign civilians in the past four decades and it is time to bury this theory alongside the dead it produced.
Does our open border policy re the southern hemisphere lend itself to an enhancement or our collective well being?
How about dicussing this: Where are we, where are we going, and how will we get there? Are we now employing the wrong model for the future. Do we want something more akin to China, Singapore, Turkey, Saudi? What do you people want?
IMHO
“The United States should never fight to save democracy, never fight for human rights, never fight to promote democracy,…”
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p>I agree we shouldn’t try to change religion or culture, which is why I left that part out of the quoted sentence. However, even if Adolf Hitler never attempted to conquer his neighbors, never rebuilt the German military in violation of Versailles, only executed the horrors of the Holocaust withing German borders, that would still cry out for intervention on humanitarian grounds, though preferably multilateral.
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p>In 1776 we announced to the world that ALL men(sic) (not just Americans) have certain inalienable rights. When a government oppresses it’s people who have no means of defending themselves I don’t want to hear whining about sovereignty or internal affairs. The difference between us and the empires you mention is that they all sought direct rule, whereas we seek to get them back to self-rule.
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p>I tend to be pretty Wilsonian about this. If anything I wish the US were more consistent in it’s defense of freedom and democracy, by not propping up tyrants who tow our line and CERTAINLY not overthrowing a democratically elected government when they don’t play along.
How many atom bombs/irradiated/dead Japanese justifies turning their nation into a democracy by your calculation?
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p>The Allies killed just as many civilians as the Axis powers, just as intentionally, just as casually, and I would say just as callously fighting ‘in the name of democracy’. I think any way you hatch Wilsonianism is a sham used to cloak our own self interested foreign policy under the veils of ‘democracy, ideals, freedom, etc.’. Its a sham the world has finally stopped buying.
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p>Should Britain have intervened to stop our genocide of the Native Americans? Using your moral calculus they should have since they were the great industrial democracy (a la 20th Century America) and we were the genocidal rising power (a la Nazi Germany). Or alternatively should they have fought against us to free the slaves as their Queen wanted them to do?
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p>Listen I want to save the people in Sudan just as much as you do but I see no way to do it that would not make the situation worse, lead to massive American casualties, and not cause more needless civilian deaths and suffering.
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p>The road to perdition is paved with good intentions.
The Chinese and Koreans may not share your benign opinion of the 1939 government and Bushido culture.
… the atom bombs as being a necessary step toward “urning their nation into a democracy”.
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p>Rather, I see it as a necessary step toward avoiding the biggest blood bath of the marine corps history in a pacific D-Day.
Re: MCRD and Mr. lynne
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p>I didn’t say they didn’t start the war and were not war criminals, my girlfriend is Filipino and I understand more than most through my interactions with her family how horrible the Japanese were as overlords of those islands for so many years. I was simply asserting my point that we had to win the war using realistic means such as atomic bombs to ensure a quick victory that benefited our side. It was not a fight for democracy it was a fight for national survival. That is all I was saying.
The atom bombs were not “necessary” to avoid a blood-bath. The Japanese military machine was already destroyed. There was no effective air defense of Japan. Allied aircraft (including the Enola Gay) were able to fly missions essentially unobstructed and at will.
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p>The purpose of the two atom bombs were to demonstrate to the Soviets (and perhaps the Chinese) that we were the first “superpower”. One bomb was not enough (it could be a fluke), and the bombing of two cities demonstrated that we not only had the technology and the ability to deliver it, but that we also had (for better or worse) the willingness to use it.
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p>By August, the outcome of the war was clear. The Axis powers were defeated. The question, answered by Nagasaki and Hiroshima, was how the spoils would be divided among the victorious Allies. The US had grave and completely justified concerns about Joseph Stalin. Japanese civilians would have been killed, in large numbers, no matter what path the US chose.
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p>For better or worse, the demonstration bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had the desired effect on the Soviets.
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p>The learning for today? Who is the intended audience of a present-day demonstration of US might (whether nuclear or conventional), and what lesson would we have them draw?
… the hard way while island hopping in the Pacific was that the Japanese simply didn’t let up even when it was hopeless. The result were many many more US casualties than would have been ‘necessary’ in an analogous operation against, say, Germany or Italy (or just about anyone).
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p>If you commit to landing troops on the Japanese mainland with the intent of subduing the government and the people, the price to pay for such a goal would have been militarily catastrophic without such a demonstration. Also, the anti-troop actions on the ground would hardly have been limited to actions by the Japanese military. Culturally, the people were ready to fight as well, and with just as much ‘we don’t care how hopeless it looks’. Picture trying to finish off the occupation of Germany, but where something like 70% of the civilian population actively fought you. Simply put, to get the Japanese to ‘give up’ on the ground, you had to ratchet up the ‘hopelessness’ of their position.
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p>I make no claims to any wisdom as to how the contexts of then apply practically (or not) to now.
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p>As to the one bomb issue. I think it may have been enough and the 2nd bomb was probably not necessary, but as I recall, after the first bombing and before the 2nd bombing, the Japanese didn’t unconditionally surrender… they had conditions. I’m not sure what they were or if they would have been acceptable. I think one of them was that the current Government and Royal Family stay in power. On balance, given the past actions, those probably were not acceptable terms.
The destruction wrought by the two nuclear weapons was equally available through conventional means, and plans were in place to do so. We were already bombing Japan at will; various incendiary bombs and the means to deliver them were on-hand and effective. We demonstrated, in Dresden, our ability and willingness to accomplish mass destruction through conventional means.
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p>I therefore suggest that we were ratcheting up the hopelessness of the Japanese — with or without the atom bomb. Did it accelerate the process? Probably. Did it save lives? It saved US lives. It isn’t clear that it saved Japanese lives.
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p>I argue, therefore, that as strong as the tactical arguments in favor of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons were, it was the strategic impact on Soviet behavior that ultimately compelled the decision to use them. I think Joseph Stalin was dangerous, and I think our use of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons did avoid a military confrontation driven by the Soviets.
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p>I have always been thankful that I was not alive when all this happened. I imagine that this was among the most difficult executive decisions an American president has ever had to make. I think we do ourselves, our ancestors, and the victims a grave injustice by trivializing the arguments, both for and against. In hindsight, I think I very reluctantly support President Truman’s call.
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p>I think all this is utterly irrelevant to the Afghan situation.
My father was an Army Engineer, serving in the Pacific theater, during the war. He and his unit built the airstrips used for Allied air support during the war. While he recovered from the physical wounds that sent him home late in the war, he never fully recovered from the emotional trauma. Dad was always an enthusiastic supporter of President Truman’s decision — we debated this, pro and con, all of my life until he died in 2003.
… I guess we’ll agree to disagree as to some particulars. In particular I reckon that we did actually save Japanese and US lives and that while there were plans in place for an invasion that would have wrought similar destruction (or even more total destruction but spread over an area more than a couple of orders of magnitude), the cost for such ‘similar plans’ in human lives was probably not worth it in the final reckoning. Indeed this might have created the amount of hopelessness required for the surrender the US was looking for, but over a longer period and at a higher cost overall.
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p>I’ve actually been back and forth on this issue through the years on each side personnel. For me it ultimately resolves to a question of utilitarian measurement. After a review of the way each of the battles of the Pacific campaign went in terms of the tenacity of the Japanese in the face of certain defeat and the corresponding effects this had on casualties (both ours and theirs – fewer surrenders means fewer live to be POWs), I came to the conclusion that the invasion would be far far bloodier than the bombs were and that the higher cost in lives of the alternative justifies the action IMHO.
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p>I don’t like it. But I’m willing to say it was the better of two horrible options.
reluctant approval.
“reluctant approval” applies to me too. Congratulations, you’ve come to just the right words to express my sentiment before I could myself.
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p>(I disagree with your narrow framing of it, but that’s another point).
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p>I am not suggesting/did not suggest that we let others vote on our national security interests.
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p>I agree that your particular misstating of the issue is what does keep us from pursuing what I suggested. It is very easy to misread this, and I should have probably prefaced my remarks:
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p>2. I’m saying that the best way to advance our national security interests is to
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p>a. lock in our threat of deterrence (ie, if we leave, we’ll be back with more bombs and guns the second you are tied to another incident, and we’ll destroy even more than we did this time),
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p>b. and offer more than that.
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p>If they choose “more than that,” and we made the offer (we only make the offer inherently if we think it’s in our security interest), then we have two parties (our nation, their nation) that agree (we b/c we perceive it in our interests to patrol and keep the peace, and they in parallel b/c THEY perceive it in their interests).
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p>If they say “no,” we’ve already decided that our better national security interest is to leave then to stay and try-without-success to keep the peace.
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p>My way is a simple way to maximize our national security interest by accepting there are certain scenarios where we optimize by continuing patrols if sought, leaving if sought, and avoiding worst case (we patrol, they don’t want, we ultimately leave without any mission accomplish).
Re: Christopher
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p>It is my personal belief that the founding fathers were intending to make this country a bastion of freedom and liberty for all people, not just those that were born here. That said the proper course in my opinion, is to follow the Hamiltonian example and in the words of President Clinton at the past Democratic Convention “lead by the power of our example rather than the example of our power”. I think the Wilsonian ideology has ended up breeding dangerous concepts like democratic peace theory, like ideological warfare, eroded national sovereinity, American unilaterlism, American exceptionalism, and ultimately anti-Americanism.
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p>This is because these ideals are incredibly unrealistic to enforce in a real world setting. The real world of international politics follows the Hoobesian rule of ‘war against all’ with no cohesive sovereign to control the world all the nations act in their own self preservation and self interest in an anarchic system. While the UN, the EU, and other multilateral institutions do open a doorway to allowing for some collective security and overcoming that reality, they are also imperfect and ultimately still subject to the Westphalian system where states are not subordinate to international institutions.
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p>There is no way to practice Wilsonian idealism in the real world. Any kind of intervention will lead to needless civilian deaths, supporting democracy of any stripe might lead to ethnic based democracy that goes against other notions of human rights, or lead to communist/leftist/Islamist, or other governments that are explicitly aligned against our true interests and those of our allies and the US either disregards its own national interest or betrays its ideals. Historically we have betrayed our ideals first and acted like a traditional nation state which leads to even more anti-Americanism. Lastly, this course of action forces us to focus on solving international problems abroad and constantly acting as an international policeman which the US cannot afford and which would weaken our own national security.
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p>A way around this problem would be the creation of a truly empowered UN mandate to sponsor an international military police force, where the US is a small component and where the broad majority of the international community agrees to overriding another states independence. But that could also lead to a situation where the US’ own independence could be eroded by a majority vote of the rest of the world.
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p>Wilsonianism fails presicely because there is no ideal way to wage a war based on ideals. Waging and winning war as well as ensuring the peace requires bending, compromising, and otherwise ignoring those very ideals in the first place, as Wilson learned the hard way in Versailles. Wilsonianism saw its time in the 20th and early 21st century and every time it was employed it failed. It is time to give defensive realism another go. But we can still lead in our own freedom and moreover we should have a liberal immigration policy leading to my second reply.
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p>Re: MCRD
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p>I think that since the US cannot go around the world enforcing freedom and democracy within other people’s sovereign borders I do think we have a moral responsibility to let in anyone that seeks to join our political system. While my conception of military based foreign policy sounds neo-isolationist/paleoconservative to some, I disagree with the paleocons of the world who feel that America was meant for ‘real’ Americans. I think an American is not just a citizen who is born here, speaks a common language and shares our common culture, but an American is anyone who is willing to fight and die to defend his own civil liberties. Our current citizenship oath says nothing about language or culture and never has and the founding fathers intentionally refused to ratify an official language so we could be that beacon. Furthermore they foresaw that we would be more successful the more cosmopolitan we were. They wanted a modern day Athens or Rome, a cosmopolitan polity, as opposed to a modern day Sparta, a place where citizenship was not an ethnic based birthright but an ideal to which people freely subscribed.
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p>So no I do not think it is in our national interests to curb immigration, if anything I think the opposite. That said I think protecting our borders is, I want to make sure everyone has a right to come here but I also want to make sure we know who everyone coming in here is to weed out the criminals and terrorists among them. I think in that regard the President’s comprehensive reform combines the humanity of amnesty with the security of the border fence.
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p>Re: Goldstein
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p>In that case I have less of a disagreement with you. If what you are using as your benchmark is the agreement we made in Iraq in which we coordinate with the local government our security responsibilities, timeline, troop levels, etc. than in that case I support that and if it gives added legitimacy to have that ratified by those people than that makes sense as well. But to simply obey their will could contradict our goals. For instance I am sure Pakistan would vote to kick the US out of their country but I oppose that since it is vital we destroy AQ networks in their country and also kill/capture OBL.
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p>Re: Japan analogy
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p>Using my system we still go to war with Germany since Germany a) declared war on us and thus announced itself as a threat to our national interest b) had been attacking our shipping and commercial lanes for quite some time also attacking our vital interests c) was at war with our biggest trading partner and closest ally and threatened to gobble up Europe which would eventually threaten our interests economically.
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p>Basically from an offensive realist point of view war was justified against either Axis power even if they didn’t strike first, even if our oceans protected us, because we wanted our economic sphere of influence to extend into the areas they were restricting us from. We had markets to defend in the Pacific Rim and it was natural for us as a great power to want to dominate it for ourselves, turning the Pacific into an American lake benefitted us ditto the Atlantic. Remember we provoked Japan into firing the first shot with a sanctions which were tantamount to a blockade which was tantamount to a declaration of war. As an American I oppose the attack on Pearl Harbor because it was against my countrymen and my nation’s interests, but morally speaking it was not dastardly but an entirely warranted first strike which the US would have launched had it been in Japan’s shoes.
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p>Once you accept the notion of the Darwinian/Hobbesian nature of world politics morality goes out the window as a consideration.
…but I’m not sure your interpretation of Wilsonian policy is completely sound. The whole “safe for democracy” thing came as a result of World War I. I don’t believe Wilson ever advocated direct intervention for the purpose of replacing a non-democratic government with a democratic one. In fact he ran for re-election in 1916 with the slogan “He kept us out of war!” What he recognized at the conclusion of the war, which is what I have been trying to argue, that lasting peace is more likely to come from having more democratic countries. As such, the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires all were forced to give up their more-or-less absolute monarchies. Also, Wilson believed in peace and collective security as evidenced by his championing of the League of Nations and I see it as one of the great misfortunes of history that the US didn’t join. The one legacy of this I object to is that every ethnic group thinks they need their own nation-state even if the state they currently reside in is democratic.
Patrol—who is going to patrol? You? I don’t want my kids going to that crap hole under any circumstance. This is another Vietnam. Did Vietnam attack CONUS? Time we left there and let the chips fall where they may. Let the Indians worry about it. If they feel that threatened they can atomize the place. It’s people like me who get sent to crapholes like Afghanistan at the behest of people like you.
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p>Read yesterday that the dams that USA built in Afghanistan post Soviet withdrawal are being used to supply water to the poppy fields. The poppys produce the heroin for europe and USA. The cash returns to Afghanistan. The Afghanees buy fertilizer. Hald they use to grow more poppys, the other half they use to make IED’s to kill US and British troops. It’s amazing that it always comes back to the recreational drug culture.
No paternilistic intervention with Europe. Just look how bad it turned out
“Does Obama (and the Dems) have the political will (and luck) to pull out of Afghanistan and then deal with any disastrous results (AQ reforms and bombs US)?” If something like that happened the Dems would be out of power for a long long time.
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p>The recent announcement of investigating the CIA will make intelligence gathering even more difficult so the Perfect Storm II is already brewing. Add North Korea and Iran getting nuclear capabilities and I see this weak administration having significant problems ahead… and many people including Americans getting hurt.
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Though I must admit it’s a little frustrating to see a new comment appear only to find out it’s just symbols.
It’s all symbols, man.
Peeves make lousy pets.
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