Opposition to Vietnam war was a Fad?

[scott_harpell]

However unpopular your assertions, they are correct. The same holds true for the Russia/Chechnya situation as well. This is NOT the Crusades no matter how badly you want to make it. We have a way of dealing with transgressions and murdering and slaughtering innocent 6 year olds in front of their mothers by the hundreds is not it. Cowardice and Evil in the most extreme.

[Greg_W]

Mark,

 

Since you're fairly new, I'll tell you that when I sign my name to a post I've put thought into it. I don't spew nonsense when in a debate; these are my opinions.

 

What do you do with an enemy, Mark? Ignore him? Be more sensitive? Try and understand his plight? We are talking about an enemy who has sworn to do his best to destroy OUR way of life and institute HIS way of life. Sure, naysayers go on saying, "oh, that won't happen, blah, blah, blah". However, our enemy seems pretty determined to give it the old college try. So, what should we do? Sit by and wait until he figures out that it's useless? Muslims have been fighting for CENTURIES to establish their way of life and they haven't really showed any signs of retiring to suburban Damascus to relax.

 

The analyses that I've read of these people is that they respect strength and violence, not diplomacy and sensitivity; they are tribal. When the Israelis were doing their darnedest to keep a toehold on their newly formed country, they didn't fall back on diplomacy and niceness. They understood that the only thing that would be understood by their Arab enemies was force, violence, and strength. I say take a page from their book. Sure, the rejoinder is that bombings and such are still taking place. This is true, but Isreal won the war and I'm guessing the bloodshed is much less now than it was. I say, hit 'em. Hit 'em hard. If they peep out of their holes, hit 'em again. I'm no military strategist, but that's my armchair assessment.

 

Avoidance didn't work too well for the French, now did it? And they suck up to the Arab nations big time.

 

Greg_W

[scott_harpell]

Avoidance didn't work too well for the French, now did it? And they suck up to the Arab nations big time.

 

...and French journalists are currently in a hostage situation with Arab captors.

[Greg_W]

That was my point, Scott, but thanks for driving it home. But it does show that France's history of avoidance hasn't gotten them much but occupation and destruction of their lands. Once a world power, they are reduced to a foppish joke. No wonder why they're so rude.

[Peter_Puget]

link

[markinore]

So would you call what Israel has a "victory"? I would not. I have been there a few times over the last 20 years, and I think things are demonstrably worse. I don't mean just the cycle of bombings, retaliations, more bombings, more retaliations. I refer to the state of siege mentality that people have, the sense of fear, the devotion of resources to military uses rather than other things to improve people's lives, the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, the imposition of conservative religious laws that limit ordinary activities. I don't want that for this country, and I don't think most people do.

 

I think we would all like to see bin Laden and the rest of Al Qaeda captured or killed. The issue, however, is not what should be our short term tactics but our longer term strategy. You apparently believe that America can kill its way out its problem in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

 

And we now come full circle to the start of this thread, because the idea of killing 'em all is eerily reminiscent of Vietnam. Anybody remember body counts? That was how we kept score back in the '60s. Military commanders were forced by the politicians to produce tangible evidence of progress, so some genius came up with the idea of body counts. Inevitably, that led to manipulation of the numbers and overreliance on a ridiculous statistic that really meant nothing.

 

Want to go back to that? How many Muslims should we kill today to show progress? How many deaths will make a victory? And in the end, how much killing will make us secure?

[mattp]

All the rhetoric aside, Greg, who are you going to hit with all those bombs?

 

In Afghanistan, we blew up lots of stuff, but the big guy got away and I seem to recall that recent reports have indicated that, outside of Afghanistan at least, Al Queda is now as strong as they ever were. We have staked out a perimeter around the capitol, but the rest of the country is run by the same warlords as before.

 

In Iraq, we blew up lots of stuff and we can use our weapons to guard facilities or impose martial law, but there are terrorists all over the place where formerly there were none. It looks as if we are not going to be able to (as you put it) root them out of their holes any time soon.

 

In Saudia Arabia, where it seems that much of the funding for terrorists comes from, we do nothing because they are our friends. Bush's friends anyway - not mine.

 

Look ahead. Now that we're "secure" in Iraq, they are talking about Syria and Iran. Faced with our threats, are they going to turn in all their second and third cousins from Morocco to Indonesia, just on the off chance that these guys they've never met might be "terrorists?" Of course not. That won't change the situation for their benefit in any way. And then, when we go in there, are we going to be able to identify who is and who is not a terrorist? I don't think so.

 

We hear over and over again how all these people respect is strength and resolve. That may be so, but in fighting a war on terrorism rather than a war on an indentifiable clan or country, Bush and his buddies are right: this is a different kind of war. It WILL take both sensitivity and diplomacy to get the Muslim world working with us instead of against us. Strength and resolve? That too.

[Peter_Puget]

An American?

 

I wonder how Putin will respond?

 

Do you think the US has waged even the beginings of a serious war? Should we is another question.

 

Isnt there an appropriate Churchill quote?

Edited September 3, 2004 by Peter_Puget

[Greg_W]

You apparently believe that America can kill its way out its problem in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

 

In the short-term, I think we should eradicate as many of these soulless fuckers that we can find. In the long-term? No, that won't work. I'm no strategist, for sure.

 

I'll quote one piece of advice and one observation:

 

The advice: My father told me not to keep running from a bully who bugged me every day. Stand up for yourself, he said, the kid will back down. It worked.

 

The observation: To quote Howard Stern, "See what happened to the Japanese? We nuked their ass and now they bow to us all the time."

 

Greg_W

[scott_harpell]

It WILL take both sensitivity and diplomacy to get the Muslim world working with us instead of against us. Strength and resolve? That too.

 

Good point Matt, but if propaganda and hate speech is created by the enemy, you have no chance of winning their hearts with a candy bar... The radicals are a cancer and must be cut out.

[mattp]

The bad guys don't have a monopoly on hate speech and propoganda. There's plenty of propoganda, hate speech, and just plain stupid stuff coming from the U.S. government.

 

This "we're going to take the fight over there before we have to fight it over here" garbage for example. The Iraq war was not about terrorism and everybody in the world knows it. Saddam did not allow al queda or similar groups to operate in Iraq because they posed a threat to HIM. As to that organization or any scattered unaffiliated terrorist cells throughout the world, we know and they know that we aren't going to get at them through any kind of military action and our intelligence is not good enough to make much progress through covert killings.

 

Sure, we should blow their training camp if we find it, and I don't have a problem with "decisive" action that will in some cases include commando raids and killings that, as you guys say, are the only thing those b*&^%rds respect. But our own government and FOX news agree that

Al Qaeda still has a functioning leadership, over 18,000 potential terrorists in its global network and a swelling membership thanks to the war in Iraq. web page

 

"Taking the war to them" is more like inviting them to bring it over here. Our borders are no more secure than they were pre-911, and our government is telling us every day that it is only a matter of time before they strike within the U.S. again - maybe next weeek. Saying "we're taking the fight to them before they can bring it to us" is pure propaganda aimed at justifying a war with quite different objectives.

 

And repeatedly saying how "the terrorists are cold hearted killers" and "all the Arab peoples know is violence and revenge" -- when we're pointing at a map of the Middle East and hinting about how we should invade Iran next, and maybe pick up Syria on the way? That's hate speech and propaganda. Sraight up. There is some historical basis for the assertions, so they "ring true," but the goal is not to clarify anything or express any truth, but to get the listener riled up and ready for war--against who? We don't even know which country yet.

 

Rattling the sabers and promoting a sense that the entire Muslim world is against us is good for domestic politics but it is a losing strategy in today's world unless coupled with, yes, diplomacy and sensitivity. Saying we are on a "crusade," repeating ad nauseam that we don't intend to cooperate with anybody else in the world, arguing that we should not follow the Geneva Conventions or participate in any world court because we are the "chosen" power.... These things are not going to reduce the recruitment pool for Al queda and similar groups. Even if you believe that stuff, to proclaim it from the Presidential podium is just plain stupidity -- unless, of course, your goal is to increase the sense of us vs them in this world.

 

We cand and should rally around the flag and take steps to protect ourselves -- without resorting to such scare and intimidation tactics. It turns the world against us and the bad guys are certainly not intimidated by any of this -- it is only a call to action for them.

 

As GeorgeW said this week: we cannot win the war on terror. Err, I mean ....

[gotterdamerung]

The bad guys are not intimidated by YOU to be more exact. When they realize this is the attitude of a certain % of people in the US it only encourages them. Good work.

[astrov]

yes, you're absolutely right. They attend all our peacenik bake sales.

[pope]

The bad guys don't have a monopoly on hate speech and propoganda. There's plenty of propoganda, hate speech, and just plain stupid stuff coming from the U.S. government.

 

This "we're going to take the fight over there before we have to fight it over here" garbage for example. The Iraq war was not about terrorism and everybody in the world knows it. Saddam did not allow al queda or similar groups to operate in Iraq because they posed a threat to HIM. As to that organization or any scattered unaffiliated terrorist cells throughout the world, we know and they know that we aren't going to get at them through any kind of military action and our intelligence is not good enough to make much progress through covert killings.

 

Sure, we should blow their training camp if we find it, and I don't have a problem with "decisive" action that will in some cases include commando raids and killings that, as you guys say, are the only thing those b*&^%rds respect. But our own government and FOX news agree that

Al Qaeda still has a functioning leadership, over 18,000 potential terrorists in its global network and a swelling membership thanks to the war in Iraq. web page

 

"Taking the war to them" is more like inviting them to bring it over here. Our borders are no more secure than they were pre-911, and our government is telling us every day that it is only a matter of time before they strike within the U.S. again - maybe next weeek. Saying "we're taking the fight to them before they can bring it to us" is pure propaganda aimed at justifying a war with quite different objectives.

 

And repeatedly saying how "the terrorists are cold hearted killers" and "all the Arab peoples know is violence and revenge" -- when we're pointing at a map of the Middle East and hinting about how we should invade Iran next, and maybe pick up Syria on the way? That's hate speech and propaganda. Sraight up. There is some historical basis for the assertions, so they "ring true," but the goal is not to clarify anything or express any truth, but to get the listener riled up and ready for war--against who? We don't even know which country yet.

 

Rattling the sabers and promoting a sense that the entire Muslim world is against us is good for domestic politics but it is a losing strategy in today's world unless coupled with, yes, diplomacy and sensitivity. Saying we are on a "crusade," repeating ad nauseam that we don't intend to cooperate with anybody else in the world, arguing that we should not follow the Geneva Conventions or participate in any world court because we are the "chosen" power.... These things are not going to reduce the recruitment pool for Al queda and similar groups. Even if you believe that stuff, to proclaim it from the Presidential podium is just plain stupidity -- unless, of course, your goal is to increase the sense of us vs them in this world.

 

We cand and should rally around the flag and take steps to protect ourselves -- without resorting to such scare and intimidation tactics. It turns the world against us and the bad guys are certainly not intimidated by any of this -- it is only a call to action for them.

 

As GeorgeW said this week: we cannot win the war on terror. Err, I mean ....

 

Perkins, that was "spot on". I think Kerry needs your writing talents and perspective on his team.

[gotterdamerung]

yes, you're absolutely right. They attend all our peacenik bake sales.

 

I attend their war seminars. Let's see...the last one was "Car bomb the ministry of health".