... and the USA got its ass kicked. Or so sez William S. Lind:

Quote :

"The fact that Washington is seriously considering sending more American troops to Iraq illustrates a common phenomenon in war. As the certainty of defeat looms ever more clearly, the scrabbling about for a miracle cure, a deus ex machina, becomes ever more desperate - and more silly. Cavalry charges, Zeppelins, V-2 missiles, kamikazes, the list is endless. In the end, someone finally has to face facts and admit defeat. The sooner someone in Washington is willing to do that, the sooner the troops we already have in Iraq will come home--alive."

http://counterpunch.com/lind11302006.html

Bring 'em on!

12/4/2006 9:51:52 AM

it's over man, wormer dropped the big one.

OVER? DID SOMEBODY SAY OVER? WAS IT OVER WHEN THE GERMANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? HELL NO. AND IT AIN'T OVER NOW.

12/4/2006 9:53:07 AM

that doesnt say we lost so much as it says "we're really afraid of casualties"

that being said, im not disillusioned enough to think that the war is going well, or that we shouldnt pull out, but that guy doesnt really make the point

12/4/2006 9:54:54 AM

Yeah seriously. You'd have to be a stoner named after a dead frontman to a hippy band to think that "Considering sending more troops in" means the war is over. By that logic, D-day was like the turning point in FAVOR of the Germans or something.

12/4/2006 9:57:29 AM

^ Wow, talk about not considering context.

Did you ignore this part

Quote :

"As the certainty of defeat looms ever more clearly, the scrabbling about for a miracle cure, a deus ex machina, becomes ever more desperate - and more silly"

so you could compare it to dday?

12/4/2006 10:10:03 AM

I don't think the scrambling for more troops is a last-ditch-effort tactic (although it might be a last-ditch-effort).

The military has been calling for more troops since the beginning, the pentagon and congress just didn't want to listen. Now they've realized they shot themselves in the foot, and are trying to redo things the right way. There's no reason we should lose this war. It would be pretty pathetic, considering the ridiculous amounts of money spent on the military.

12/4/2006 10:33:53 AM

I wouldn't call it a deus ex machina, more like something that they should've done from the very beginning, but now it might be a touch too late...

12/4/2006 10:45:43 AM

Blind Hate, you're right in that the comparison isn't fully accurate. Granted.

But the point is that in order for sending more troops into Iraq to fit this guy's mold, he has to prove his assertion that "the certainty of defeat looms ever more clearly"

12/4/2006 10:57:50 AM

Quote :

""the certainty of defeat looms ever more clearly""

Why are we now 1 month after a referendum vote and the president is still sticking to the same old rhetoric he has used from the beginning? Why doesn't anyone from either side of the aisle have a grand strategy other than "send more troops"? Why can't anyone definitively say "more troops will win this war"? It's because it is too late. If there were really a good plan to get us out, someone would have thought of it. Instead, you have a collection of people afraid to man up and call a spade a spade.

Folks would rather spend more energy debating about whether it is ok to call it a civil war or not, and stick to this blind "stay the course" speech than just having some balls and saying "we fucked up".

[Edited on December 4, 2006 at 12:03 PM. Reason : a]

12/4/2006 12:02:26 PM

Deus ex machina? Hell yeah. We'll send the fucking Shrike in. That'll show those terrorist pigs.

[Edited on December 4, 2006 at 12:10 PM. Reason : damn]

12/4/2006 12:10:23 PM

Quote :

"definitively say "more troops will win this war"

Oh I know! Because in real life you aren't certain of all outcomes?

12/4/2006 12:22:50 PM

From a purely realist, pragmatic point of view, we've long since won the war. If Iraq ends up as our puppet, yay. If it ends up as a failed state, it has no military or political apparatus and is no longer a competitor in any field.

Mind you, I don't buy into realism to quite that extreme, but you get the idea.

Quote :

"Cavalry charges, Zeppelins, V-2 missiles, kamikazes, the list is endless."

Putting all of your hope into a single new untested strategy or weapon =/= thinking that there might be some merit to a philosophy of "strength in numbers" that is as old as time

The man makes some good points, but comparaing a troop scale-up to V-2 missiles is, as he puts it, "silly."

12/4/2006 12:36:21 PM

Quote :

"From a purely realist, pragmatic point of view, we've long since won the war. If Iraq ends up as our puppet, yay. If it ends up as a failed state, it has no military or political apparatus and is no longer a competitor in any field. Mind you, I don't buy into realism to quite that extreme, but you get the idea. "

If it ends up as a failed state though, then we've miserably lost this war, because that would just generate a new breeding ground for terrorists, to add to the other breeding grounds in the mid-east.

It's a shame though that we couldn't secure the cradle of civilization. There's probably a lot of neat archaeological and historical stuff there.

12/4/2006 12:43:24 PM

~cut 'n run~

12/4/2006 12:53:31 PM

~wipe 'n flush~

12/4/2006 1:19:59 PM

OMGARR AMERICA

12/4/2006 4:45:42 PM

Quote :

"If it ends up as a failed state though, then we've miserably lost this war, because that would just generate a new breeding ground for terrorists"

Like I said, from a purely realist position. An international realist would invariably consider a bunch of disorganized, ill-equipped extremists to effectively be a non-threat, certainly in comparison to an actual nation.

12/4/2006 6:34:51 PM

So this is Christmas....

12/4/2006 9:05:06 PM

^^I disagree.

The disorganized, ill-equipped terrorist is the wave of the future. And he's scary.

12/6/2006 10:37:10 AM

^You think more scary than the organized, well equipped terrorist?

12/6/2006 10:38:44 AM

^Yes, most definitely scarier. Think about it.

12/6/2006 11:02:00 AM

I'm thinking...

Shitty weapons vs. nukes...

I can see the "disorganized" being scarier in the sense that there is no central command to attack, but ill-equipped is less scary than well-equipped in every scenario.

12/6/2006 11:13:30 AM

Quote :

"The disorganized, ill-equipped terrorist is the wave of the future."

He is also limited to acting within his own area and cannot project his threat elsewhere with any degree of consistent effectiveness. I don't care if every other country on the planet is full of the little buggers, they are inherently less dangerous than state actors.

12/6/2006 12:39:18 PM

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: He is also limited to acting within his own area and cannot project his threat elsewhere with any degree of consistent effectiveness."

He doesn't need to be consistent. Terror generally isn't consistent.

Potential terrorists are everywhere...there's no need for them to project a threat.

Unorganized, random, irrational attacks are the cornerstone of pure terror.

When a movie theater in Lansing, Michigan is attacked during a showing of Happy Feet 9, you'll see what I mean when I say I find disorganized, ill-equipped terrorists more frightening.

Quote :

"bgmims: Shitty weapons vs. nukes... I can see the "disorganized" being scarier in the sense that there is no central command to attack, but ill-equipped is less scary than well-equipped in every scenario."

Shitty weapons can still kill tens of people at a time.

I'm not concerned about nukes.

[Edited on December 6, 2006 at 1:41 PM. Reason : sss]

12/6/2006 1:41:11 PM

Its still ridiculous to be MORE afraid of ill-equipped terrorists because they are sometimes capable of killing thousands at one time as opposed to well-equipped terrorists that are always capable of it.

Its just irrational.

12/6/2006 2:22:08 PM

won't somebody think of the children?

12/7/2006 8:28:02 AM

Bridget, read everything I said again -- I was offering a realist view. Your view is not realist. Realists aren't so concerned with how afraid you or anybody else within the state is, they're concerned with how powerful (and thus secure) the state is. Blowing up a movie theater accomplishes just about nothing towards harming a nation of 300 million people.

Because Iraq has been thrown into chaos and thus has no potential to develop or employ anything significantly harmful to the state, the war has, at least from a realist perspective, been successful already.

12/7/2006 12:10:23 PM

I'm confused. Are we talking about terrorism here? Cause, yeah, how afraid we are has a lot to do with terrorism.

Right?

Quote :

"Blowing up a movie theater accomplishes just about nothing towards harming a nation of 300 million people."

I disagree.

It would critically fuck with our nation's psyche. That's harm. That's real harm.

12/8/2006 8:32:53 PM

The simple fact is fear doesn't cripple a nation. Israel isn't crippled, you know? Bombing a theater doesn't hamper our ability to interact with other countries to our advantage, and this is what a realist is concerned with.

12/8/2006 8:54:07 PM

^People in Israel have also given up personal liberties that we value here. They openly profile people by race, and it's just understood that that is what they have to do.

I now get that you were speaking from a specific perspective, but I still disagree.

Quote :

"An international realist would invariably consider a bunch of disorganized, ill-equipped extremists to effectively be a non-threat, certainly in comparison to an actual nation."

They're considered to effectively be a non-threat, certainly in comparison to an actual nation.

You're not a politician. Grow some balls and say something that actually has meaning. Something real.

Quote :

"Because Iraq has been thrown into chaos and thus has no potential to develop or employ anything significantly harmful to the state, the war has, at least from a realist perspective, been successful already."

I don't think it's that simple. Even from a realist perspective.

I mean, it can't be that simple, can it?

[Edited on December 8, 2006 at 9:52 PM. Reason : sss]

12/8/2006 9:49:51 PM

Quote :

"I don't think it's that simple. Even from a realist perspective. I mean, it can't be that simple, can it?"

To an international realist, yes, yes it is. They pretty much completely ignore all the internal workings of the state, including people and how scared they are, or what civil liberties they have, or anything else. To them, it's national survival.

Now, I agree with realism as priority one -- at any given time we should be more than secure in our position of power. After that, I'm willing to foray into what we might call more "touchy-feely" things, like humanitarian aide and stopping genocide and so forth. That's why I only see Iraq as a partial failure. At the very least, we've knocked them back on their ass before they became a real threat, at which point we would have had to go in against a stronger enemy.

Quote :

"They're considered to effectively be a non-threat, certainly in comparison to an actual nation."

Considered, because it's what a hardcore realist would say, not what I'd say.

Effectively, because while they can still hurt us, obviously, they can't hurt us in a way that is relevant.

In comparison to an actual nation, because, well, that's what realists are concerned with, not individual human actors.

12/9/2006 3:58:14 AM

You win. I can't argue with some ridiculous perspective of the world without using another ridiculous perspective.

Iraq wasn't a threat. But we destroyed it anyway. And that's "national survival."

That's bullshit, and you know it's bullshit. But as long as you get to say outrageous things and hide behind the "from a realist perspective" preface, I'm sure you won't admit it's bullshit. After all, you probably spent a whopping whole class period learning about the international realist; it'd be a shame to let that learning go to waste.

12/9/2006 10:03:40 PM

Quote :

"At the very least, we've knocked them back on their ass before they became a real threat, at which point we would have had to go in against a stronger enemy."

Oh please. It's a huge assumption to believe Iraq was ever going to be a threat to us.

Besides, the war wasn't free. It has cost the country a great deal so far, and not just in dollars. You have to look at both costs and benefits.

12/9/2006 10:16:26 PM

Quote :

"After all, you probably spent a whopping whole class period learning about the international realist; it'd be a shame to let that learning go to waste."

Realism has taken up a big chunk of the semester in several of my courses, because it's an important way of looking of things that is still widely held today in some capacity or another.

Now, you could have played up the, "Well, since Iraq wasn't a great power and didn't really pose a tangible thread" and maybe "Iraq was never going to pose a threat," with the result that "a realist might say we wasted resources on them tha could have been used to attack someone else/build up our defenses." But no, you ran with "Terrorists are scarier!"

Quote :

"Oh please. It's a huge assumption to believe Iraq was ever going to be a threat to us."

Again, not to a realist -- and in this respect I kind of agree with them -- who say that you automatically assume every nation's a competitor and thus a potential threat. So for this line, you get zero points.

Quote :

"Besides, the war wasn't free. It has cost the country a great deal so far, and not just in dollars. You have to look at both costs and benefits."

This, however, gets full marks. It would be entirely possible to say that even if we "won," we did so at unacceptably high a cost in terms of relative power.

12/10/2006 12:26:56 PM

Quote :

"Again, not to a realist -- and in this respect I kind of agree with them -- who say that you automatically assume every nation's a competitor and thus a potential threat. So for this line, you get zero points."

Okay, pwnt.

But realists are smart enough to distinguish between competiters. (I hope.)

Quote :

"This, however, gets full marks. It would be entirely possible to say that even if we "won," we did so at unacceptably high a cost in terms of relative power."

US influence in the world, especially in Latin America, certainly seems to be decreasing. Our army is tied up and can't smash any other potential competitors.

12/10/2006 3:48:08 PM

What exactly are you basing US influence on Latin America decreasing on?

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 5:36 PM. Reason : .]

12/10/2006 5:25:55 PM

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: Now, you could have played up the, "Well, since Iraq wasn't a great power and didn't really pose a tangible thread" and maybe "Iraq was never going to pose a threat," with the result that "a realist might say we wasted resources on them tha could have been used to attack someone else/build up our defenses." But no, you ran with "Terrorists are scarier!""

No, I couldn't have ran with that because Iraq being a threat was a given. You would have said this:

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: Again, not to a realist -- and in this respect I kind of agree with them -- who say that you automatically assume every nation's a competitor and thus a potential threat. So for this line, you get zero points."

Like I said, you get to say whatever you want and hide behind the realist perspective, which is why I don't understand why you'd give "full marks" to this obvious point:

Quote :

"GoldenViper: Besides, the war wasn't free. It has cost the country a great deal so far, and not just in dollars. You have to look at both costs and benefits."

Surely there is some very simple realist argument against that point. Or are you admitting that the war hasn't necesarily been a success, even in the eyes of an international realist?


If it isn't completely apparent, I initially didn't realize I was jumping into an argument framed by an ism. I did a little reading about this international realist so I could keep up somewhat. I'm not enamored, disgusted, disturbed, interested, or fascinated enough to continue reading.

12/10/2006 5:32:57 PM

Quote :

"What exactly are you basing US influence on Latin America decreasing on?"

The election of so many leftist and anti-American leaders, mainly. Chavez is a good example. Look at what just happened in Nicaragua, for example. Despite US complaints, Daniel Ortega, a former Sandinista, is now president. Oliver North even went down there to try to scare folks away from Ortega, but it didn't matter.

12/10/2006 6:51:23 PM

Free Trade Agreements, folks.

Also known is Latin America as Trato de Libre Comercio.

Lots of people know about NAFTA. There is also CAFTA...Central American Free Trade Agreement. There also exists one for the Andean countries (Ecuador, Peru, Columbia, Bolivia).

In countries with 80% of the people below the poverty line like Ecuador, it is of no surprise when people see American companies coming in, gobbling up local industries and having free trade areas where the companies can effectively make their own rules, that people vote in such leaders as Chavez, Ortega, Morales and Correa.

TLC also allows companies to come in and make water and electricity private. How can a poor person pay for those things?

In Venezuela, if American companies take the oil without returning the profit to the country and polluting areas, of course someone like Chavez will be elected. The same occurs in Ecuador, also with oil. OXY--Occidental Petroleum, has caused a lot of problems in the country such as those mentioned above. Indigenuous tribes and fundations are always fighting against the oil companies´ intrusion into their homeland. Correa hopes to make sure more of the economic return from oil gets back to the people.

Symbolism as well...in Ecuador they use American currency. How would you feel if we had to start using Canadian currency with Canadian leaders? And to top that, it made your family a lot poorer?


Just an educated guess.

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 7:59 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 8:00 PM. Reason : ..]

12/10/2006 7:58:18 PM

The Iraq War certainly isn't helping. Look at the way Chavez goes on and on about it. Also, they know the war makes it harder for us to intervene militarily in Latin America as we have in the past.

Of course, I think less US influence in Latin America is probably a good thing, so I'm not really complaining.

12/10/2006 8:20:11 PM

By contrast, keep in mind that Peru chose to elect Garcia (the same guy who was president during a period when they had a 2.5 million percent inflation rate) over a Chavez-aligned candidate. Not to mention, take a look El Salvador, which is currently rotating out a brigade of troops in Iraq.

Quote :

" Symbolism as well...in Ecuador they use American currency. How would you feel if we had to start using Canadian currency with Canadian leaders? And to top that, it made your family a lot poorer?"

El Salvador does the same now, too.

Quote :

"Also, they know the war makes it harder for us to intervene militarily in Latin America as we have in the past. "

The end of the Cold War also kind of nixed that. The US pulling out all of its bases in Panama a couple of years ago as per agreement made in the 70s also adds to that.

Not to mention, not many people even care about Latin America anymore. Take a look at the Nicaraguan moonshine incident this past summer that killed 40 people and poisoned about 400. Had that happened in other places in the world, it would be front-page news, but Paris Hilton's latest DUI trumped that from the news.

And the economic and cultural impact of the US is definitely still fairly powerful down South.

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 10:15 PM. Reason : .]

12/10/2006 10:00:48 PM

Garcia is still a leftist, though, even if he is considerably friendlier than Chavez.

Quote :

"The end of the Cold War also kind of nixed that."

Not really. The Cold War was pretty much over by the time we invaded Panama. And it was completey over when we go involved in Haiti in the 90s and in 2004.

Quote :

"Not to mention, not many people even care about Latin America anymore."

Our government still cares a little bit. They still speak out against leaders they don't like, such as Ortega and Morales. It just doesn't matter.

12/10/2006 10:17:34 PM

Quote :

"Not really. The Cold War was pretty much over by the time we invaded Panama. And it was completey over when we go involved in Haiti in the 90s and in 2004."

But those were largely unrelated to the Cold War. Unlike the 80s when we still thought that every little blue and red brick counted, these days, there simply isn't the fear or concern of having El Salvador (like in the 80s) or Nicaragua and Venezuela beginning a domino effect. Save for Haiti, there really hasn't been a large-scale offensive mission down in that direction in the past fifteen years, save for disaster relief and counter-narcotics, but nothing on the scale as you saw during the 80s.

Quote :

"Garcia is still a leftist, though, even if he is considerably friendlier than Chavez."

Leftist, yes, but I would take it as an indication that they're trying to distance themselves from Chavez. A good portion of Latin America is turned off by Chavez, if looking at the results of the latest UN security council elections are any indication.

And if you think economic and/or cultural interest is waning, I dare you to go a mile along a one-lane "highway" in Central America and not see a Coke or Pepsi sign adorning a plywood shack on the side of the road.

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 10:59 PM. Reason : .]

12/10/2006 10:49:40 PM

Quote :

"But those were largely unrelated to the Cold War."

Yeah. I thought that was the point. I was trying to say interventions can still happen without the Cold War in the picture. Having all our troops in Iraq, though, makes it less of a threat to Latin American countries.

Quote :

"Save for Haiti, there really hasn't been a large-scale offensive mission down in that direction in the past fifteen years, save for disaster relief and counter-narcotics, but nothing on the scale as you saw during the 80s."

Yeah, it's certainly not as big a deal as it once was. But we're still giving a fair amount of military aid to Colombia.

Quote :

"Leftist, yes, but I would take it as an indication that they're trying to distance themselves from Chavez. A good portion of Latin America is turned off by Chavez, if looking at the results of the latest UN security council elections are any indication."

That's certainly true, though Chavez does have some support outside of Venezuela.

[Edited on December 11, 2006 at 12:12 AM. Reason : meow]

12/11/2006 12:11:31 AM

Quote :

"No, I couldn't have ran with that because Iraq being a threat was a given. You would have said this:"

Maybe, but at least then you'd be talking about things that were even remotely relevant to the discussion at hand.

Quote :

"Like I said, you get to say whatever you want and hide behind the realist perspective"

It's not like I'm trying to put out ideas I secretly have behind the cover of explaining realism, I'm just explaining realism. There is a point of view from which the war was an unqualified victory, and it's not a silly, "At least we got rid of a bunch of A-rabs!" point of view, either.

Quote :

"Or are you admitting that the war hasn't necesarily been a success, even in the eyes of an international realist? "

Well obviously there are degrees to which people subscribe to this way of thinking -- some are going to be more hardcore about it than others. What they would agree on is that we won the war in Iraq. What they might differ on was whether or not that victory was necessary or worth the cost.

12/11/2006 3:32:58 PM

Hey, at least we got rid of a bunch of arabs

12/11/2006 3:58:05 PM

Quote :

"From a purely realist, pragmatic point of view, we've long since won the war."

but that's like bragging about banging a drunk chick when she pushed you off her shortly after insertion.

12/11/2006 4:00:36 PM

do you hate me yet?

12/11/2006 4:01:56 PM

Kyle, I hated you at pretty much the exact second that the word "anime" came out of your mouth. Just kidding. Or am I? We'll never know.

Look, I've said all along that I don't agree with this point of view entirely. I'm not willing to write off Iraq as a failure, because I'm pretty sure we'd have been forced to go into it sooner or later for some reason, only against a stronger enemy, and that the postwar scene would be pretty much identical to what it is now. So, to me, it was inevitable that we invade, and inevitable that the country go all to shit as a result. I say better now than later.

12/11/2006 4:41:50 PM

I don't buy that the war couldn't have been avoided. I certainly don't buy that the war as we waged it couldn't have been avoided. But I also don't buy that, now that we're there, we can write it off as a failure.

We need a solution from someone a lot smarter than me. Because all I can come up with is going ahead and telling Iraq that it can be 3 different countries and we'll drop bombs on the first one of the three that doesn't play nice.

12/11/2006 4:44:52 PM