Is America on the path to 'permanent war'?

[Grandpa Shooter]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/23/war.afghan/index.html?hpt=Sbin

If this is in the wrong place please move it and leave a link here?  The section underneath is a direct quote from the article I provided the link to.

When the president decided to send more troops to a distant country during an unpopular war, one powerful senator had enough.

He warned that the U.S. military could not create stability in a country "where there is chaos ... democracy where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life."

"It's unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people," said Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 1966 as the Vietnam War escalated.


Oh, how I wish the American public had learned something in the 44 years since then.  It seems to me that it has not, but I know some of you feel differently than I do.  It is a good read no matter which side of the fence you are on.

[MicroBalrog]

And yet democracy had often been established in countries with no tradition of it.

We know today that the US military had partly stabilized Iraq.

Moreover, the United States' conflict in Afghanistan cannot be compared with that in Vietnam in terms of scale. The North Vietnamese had tanks, fighter jets, AA equipment, and murdered over 130,000 of their countrymen, not counting 266,000 ARVN deaths. US casualties consisted of 60,000 men , rounded up. Post-war, the North Vietnamese proceeded to murder 643,000 men.

Further, 1,100,000 Viet Cong and NVA men have been killed in the fighting, as well as up to 270,000 Vietnamese civilians killed by US air strikes, including NV civilians.

This was a conflict on an entirely different SCALE from Afghanistan.

[vaskidmark]

Micro,

Perhaps the best example of what you are trying to describe is post-WWII Japan.

But, like almost every other example you are alluding to, democracy was imposed on the Japanese.  We did not just give a PowerPoint presentation on democracy and leave the room so they could discuss and vote pro or con.  We put a pistol to their heads and said "You will have democracy."  In this case it seems to have worked fairly well.

We're doing the same thing in other parts of the world but lack both the pistol and the megalomaniacal fascination of MacArthur for the Orient and the Oriental.

Comment?

stay safe.

[roo_ster]

Micro,

Perhaps the best example of what you are trying to describe is post-WWII Japan.

But, like almost every other example you are alluding to, democracy was imposed on the Japanese.  We did not just give a PowerPoint presentation on democracy and leave the room so they could discuss and vote pro or con.  We put a pistol to their heads and said "You will have democracy."  In this case it seems to have worked fairly well.

We're doing the same thing in other parts of the world but lack both the pistol and the megalomaniacal fascination of MacArthur for the Orient and the Oriental.

Comment?

stay safe.

Agreed.

Like with many recruits, first you gotta break them in order to rebuild them into something useful.

[MicroBalrog]

Exactly what are you talking about?

Consider Iraq.

Iraq conducts elections on a regular basis. There are - no doubt - irregularities, unfairnesses, etc. No doubt. But I did not see anybody claim that these elections do not represent, roughly, the will of the Iraqi people. True, there are violations. There were also violations and voting fraud in Alabama in the 1960s, yet no man claims seriously that Alabama had no democracy.

If you claim that it constitutes failure that these countries do not have modern American democracy overnight, then of course this is failure. But modern American democracy is not all the democracy there is.

For about 50% of the world's population - everybody living in Iran, Pakistan, China, most of Africa and Latin America -  segregation-era Southern 'democracy' would be an epic, glorious paradise of freedom. The sort of rights a black man had in Alabama in 1954 would be many steps up for many members of the North Korean elite, or for an Afghan woman as of ten years ago.

[longeyes]

"Victory" is apparently an outmoded concept now--in D.C. anyway.  If there's a permanent war going on, it's against the American people and basic individual liberty.  And war is the best welfare system there is, if you have the right stuff and the right connections.

[Tallpine]

Seems to me we've been on that path for a long time.

Since 11-22-1963 

[vaskidmark]

Exactly what are you talking about?

Consider Iraq.
If you claim that it constitutes failure that these countries do not have modern American democracy overnight, then of course this is failure. But modern American democracy is not all the democracy there is.

So, actually, we are in agreement, no?

stay safe.

[longeyes]

Who benefits?  The eternal question.

[230RN]

Somehow, I can't figure out how, this thread reminded me of Orwell's "1984."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Winston Smith's story begins on 4 April 1984: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen";[24] yet the date is dubitable, because it is what he perceives, given the continual historical revisionism; he later concludes it is irrelevant. Winston's memories and his reading of the proscribed book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein, reveal that after the Second World War, the United Kingdom fell to civil war and then was integrated into Oceania. Simultaneously, the USSR's annexation of continental Europe established the second superstate of Eurasia. The third superstate, Eastasia, represents East and Southeast Asian region. The three superstates fight a perpetual war for the remaining unconquered lands of the world; they form and break alliances as convenient.

Winston Smith was the protagonist of that book.

Who benefits?  The controlling elite, that's who.

[longeyes]

+1.  Consider it a rhetorical question.

[MicroBalrog]

So, actually, we are in agreement, no?

stay safe.

No. Because I have never believed that this is our goal. If this was our goal, yes, it was stupid to even contemplate.

[De Selby]

It's only coincidence that the constant warfare over the past 50 years has been in strategically vital zones - it was actually all about democracy, not resources or other US national interests.

Seriously, part of the reason for failure to deliver democracy in these campaigns is that it usually isn't the priority.  If it were, we'd be doing things a lot differently.

[MicroBalrog]

It's only coincidence that the constant warfare over the past 50 years has been in strategically vital zones - it was actually all about democracy, not resources or other US national interests.

Seriously, part of the reason for failure to deliver democracy in these campaigns is that it usually isn't the priority.  If it were, we'd be doing things a lot differently.

1. We've failed to deliver WESTERN democracy.  We've not failed to deliver A democracy.

2. As if US national interests are not worth fighting for.

[De Selby]

1. We've failed to deliver WESTERN democracy.  We've not failed to deliver A democracy.

2. As if US national interests are not worth fighting for.

1. "Western" or not, democracy means government that represents the people - this has, as far as I can tell, never been delivered by the United States through a war.

2.  US national interests are worth fighting for.  But pretending that it's about spreading democracy only makes a farce of democracy.  If that's what we intend to do, it should be the priority and the job should be tailored to it.  Supporting whatever US interest reigns at the moment while talking about all the nice things we want to do just makes everyone roll their eyes whenever the word "democracy" is used.  It literally makes buffoons out of domestic reformers all over the world.  Democracy and liberty would be much better off without the empty rhetoric. 

[MicroBalrog]

1. "Western" or not, democracy means government that represents the people - this has, as far as I can tell, never been delivered by the United States through a war.[/quot]

Japan. Germany.

2.  US national interests are worth fighting for.  But pretending that it's about spreading democracy only makes a farce of democracy.

Time and time again, democracy has been a biproduct.

[De Selby]

Has Japan ever been a democracy!?  That's not at all clear.  Germany doesn't quite count, as it had developed its own fairly strong democratic institutions before the war...indeed, its early successes were due in no small part to the popularity of its leadership.  People were inspired and motivated by it.

Democracy in Iraq is not a byproduct of the war - the Government is infiltrated at every level by Iranian agents.  Its electorate is deeply divided by the ethnic warfare that resulted from 03, and apparently it can't change the government when it wants to - notice that Nouri al Maliki remains in charge due to Iranian-brokered political deals.

[MicroBalrog]

Democracy in Iraq is not a byproduct of the war - the Government is infiltrated at every level by Iranian agents.  Its electorate is deeply divided by the ethnic warfare that resulted from 03, and apparently it can't change the government when it wants to - notice that Nouri al Maliki remains in charge due to Iranian-brokered political deals.

Neither can Israel change its government when it wants to - how many people in Israel do NOT want Shas in the cabinet?

  Germany doesn't quite count, as it had developed its own fairly strong democratic institutions before the war..

How strong were those institutions if they couldn't last more than 25 years? How strong were those institutions if the whole thing was punctuated by war crimes against fellow Germans a decade before Hitler even a figure?

[De Selby]

Israel - there is a serious question about representation there.  But you make a good point; failure to unseat a Government can't be the only test.  On reflection I don't think it's even a decent one.

Your other measure, about Germany visiting evil on its own people, would seem to apply just as well to Iraq.  Maybe the institutions were weak during the war.  But how can you triumphantly post a picture of that Iraqi finger by the same standard?  It's not like the majority bloc have been very good to their fellow Iraqis.  And their situation is complicated by the reality of Iranian ascendance within the state, which is something the Germans did not face.

Iraq fails at democracy by pretty much any measure, western or not. 

[MicroBalrog]

This is a claim you make.

Yet there are elections, and they are relatively fair - compared say to a modern Russian election. You may not LIKE the results, I may not like the results, but 'democracy' doesn't mean the good guys always win.

[longeyes]

Our one and only priority is to preserve essential liberties HERE.  Some other nation's "democracy," which can mean nothing but majority prejudice or outright tribalism, should not be our primary foreign policy concern.  Neutralizing security threats should be.  As for delivering democracy, delivering markets is more accurate.

[AZRedhawk44]

Our one and only priority is to preserve essential liberties HERE.  Some other nation's "democracy," which can mean nothing but majority prejudice or outright tribalism, should not be our primary foreign policy concern. 

+eleventy to this.

Democracy has no meaning to sheep unable to secure it for themselves, no introspective soul that was forged by the sacrifices that gave birth to the democracy...

If they don't know WHY they should have Democracy (or a Theocracy, or a Republic, or a Socialist structure, or whatever THEY choose) then they just don't care.  They have a system of government with no meaning, and no soul to give it a conscience.

Without that collective societal conscience, they have no compass bearing to become a Nation-State with any purpose.

We should stay out of nation-building, IMO.  People wind up with the governments they earn.  We screwed up with Iraq and A-stan because we didn't act like we did in Japan... In Japan, we stomped the $#!+ out of their militant national religion and made its titular head cry Uncle.  We brought the government and its people to their knees.  We decapitated (State) Shinto.  THEN we taught them how to stand.  And we didn't do it "for them."  We did it for us, to have a satellite ally against Communism.

The resulting 20th/21st century Japan is a very pacifist-oriented nation.

Same thing with Germany:  They police themselves of Nazis and similar movements.

We never decapitated militant Islam.  We never brought the followers of militant Islam to their knees.  Iraq and A-stan will not police themselves of militant Islamists.  Yet.  Because we haven't done the job right.

We have no business teaching them to stand back up yet, for our own interests.  They never dirtied their knees.

[longeyes]

And, as you suggest, the reason we haven't brought militant Islam to its knees is precisely because of the internal problems we have here at home.  You said, correctly, that people wind up with the government they earn.  Until we win the war for hearts and minds at home--we can start with the schools--we are not going to win another foreign war anywhere.

[roo_ster]

Seems to me we've been on that path for a long time.

Since 11-22-1963 

Don't get me started on the conspiracy types who beclown themselves, relying on their gullible readers' never actually going to the building, looking out the window and thinking, "Not a difficult shot, really."

[MicroBalrog]

The resulting 20th/21st century Japan is a very pacifist-oriented nation.

I think, from my very limited reading on Japan, they did manage to conserve many elements from their nationalism.

I even think that's a good thing.