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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (30766)	11/1/2006 3:50:10 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541759

It might be nice if you had a situation where we were somewhat more reluctant to go to war, but also more determined to see it through once a war starts. The later within limits, I'm not saying you deploy 1,000,000 soldiers, fight for 30 years or accept hundreds of thousands of KIA in most situations even after you do decide to start a war. At some point even if you do give up, you have shown your commitment through the time, effort, money, and lives you have devoted to the cause. Also at some point the loss of credibility isn't worth the the other losses. Of course in the end domestic politics will determine the lifetime of American commitments. Arguing that we should stick to our commitments to maintain our credibility is an argument in domestic politics. (Obviously meaning political decisions made within our country, not in this case politics about issues that are solely or mostly internal to our country.) Maybe we should declare war before we send a massive force in to battle. It would tend to make the commitments of force slower and somewhat less likely, while at the same time it might make a commitment to see the conflict through stronger.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (30766)	11/7/2006 1:20:31 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541759

More on the credibility issue. Do we want people to think this guy is right? - "When I talk about an [American] failure, I’m not saying that the Americans’ plan for the region has collapsed, and that they are packing up their things and leaving, like what happened in the final days in Vietnam. But I would like to tell you clearly... I am one of those people who see a very clear picture. In our childhood... When we were young boys... I cannot forget the sight of the American forces leaving Vietnam in helicopters, which carried their officers and soldiers. Some Vietnamese, who had fought alongside the Americans, tried to climb into these helicopters, but the [Americans] threw them to the ground, abandoned them, and left. This is the sight I anticipate in our region, but I am not saying it will happen in months. It will take years. The Americans will gather their belongings and leave this region - the entire region. They have no future whatsoever in our region. They will leave the Middle East, and the Arab and Islamic worlds, like they left Vietnam. I advise all those who place their trust in the Americans to learn the lesson of Vietnam, and to learn the lesson of the South Lebanese Army with the Israelis, and to know that when the Americans lose this war – and lose it they will, Allah willing - they will abandon them to their fate, just like they did to all those who placed their trust in them throughout history." - Hassan Nasrallah Also see - "...Democracy -- the Other Hope Wherever Islamicism has been tried, the result has been identical to Communism's miserable track record. The people are oppressed; the worst sort of vigilantes and thugs terrorize the population; the new power elite, regardless of their supposed piety and dedication to a holy cause, is quickly corrupted and comes to love the wealth and privileges of power. When there is no hope of deliverance, the people have no choice but to bow under the tyrant's lash, pretending to be true believers while yearning for relief. In Russia it came ... after more than seventy years. China and Cuba are still waiting -- but then, they started later. So it would be in the Muslim world -- if Islamicism were ever able to come to seem inevitable and irresistible. You know: If America withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan and exposed everyone who had cooperated with us to reprisals. As happened in South Vietnam. The negotiated peace was more or less holding after American withdrawal. But then a Democratic Congress refused to authorize any further support for the South Vietnamese government. No more armaments. No more budget. In other words, we forcibly disarmed our allies, while their enemies continued to be supplied by the great Communist powers. The message was clear: Those who rely on America are fools. We didn't even have the decency to arrange for the evacuation of the people who had trusted us and risked the most in supporting what they thought was our mutual cause. We did it again, this time in the Muslim world, in 1991, when Bush Senior encouraged a revolt against Saddam. He meant for the senior military officers to get rid of him in a coup; instead, the common people in the Shiite south rose up against Saddam. Bush Senior did nothing as Saddam moved in and slaughtered them. The tragedy is that all it would have taken is a show of force on our part in support of the rebels, and Saddam's officers would have toppled him. Only when it became clear that we would do nothing did it become impossible for any high-ranking officials to take action. For the price of the relatively easy military action that would have made Saddam turn his troops around and leave the Shiite south, we could have gotten rid of him then -- and had grateful friends, perhaps, in the Shiite south. That is part of our track record: Two times we persuaded people to commit themselves to action against oppressive enemies, only to abandon them. Do you think that would-be rebels in Iran and Syria and North Korea don't remember those lessons? Fortunately, there are other lessons as well: West Germany and Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, where liberated nations were protected. In the first two, we took on the task of nation building and transformed both political cultures into democracies. In the latter two, we tolerated strongman dictatorships for many years, but eventually we made it clear that it was time for democracy, and under our protective umbrella, the governments were transformed and oppression ended. So ... which America is operating now in the Muslim world?... ornery.org