Sen. Hagel: "We're losing in Iraq"

According to the Boston Globe, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel tells U.S. News:

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse," said Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. "The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

Whole account, which includes Sen. John McCain saying, "What the American people should have been told and should be told [is that] it's long, it's hard, it's tough," here.

Comments

[Ruthless]

See Patrick Buchanan's column at
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=6368

[kwais]

We're not losing jack in Iraq.

I don't know what the Senator is smoking. At the very worse it is a status quo, and its not that bad.

[joe]

kwais,

Are we winning every battle we fight? Because if we're winning every battle we fight, militarily, then that means everything's going to be ok.

[Adam]

I'd love to know what Hagel's basing his assessment on. Seems like the soundbite is making the rounds without any supporting data.

[SPD]

I don't understand. Didn't we invade to change the status quo?

[kwais]

SPD,
At worst we are maintaining the status quo of the new status quo.

[zach]

i think it's safe to say that whatever new status quo we've created in iraq is the new status quo in iraq, and will remain thus, until changed.

[quasibill]

"We're not losing jack in Iraq."

This statement demonstrates the whole problem we have about discussing this issue.

Does it matter that we "aren't losing?" What ever happened to "winning?" We were never losing in Vietnam, either - until we lost.

My read is that if we were going to win Iraq, we should've already been gone. The longer we stay, the more animosity we build, and the more we appear to be responsible for the inevitable civil war. You see, the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds don't want to be part of the same country. Oh, the politicians talk the talk, but when you get down to details (which they haven't even come close to doing over there yet), what they're okay with is being part of a unified Iraq, as long as their side is in control.

All we're doing now is squandering lives and material and creating resentment.

It's always amazing to me that people who claim to be libertarian think that when it comes to the military, the government really does mean it when it says "we're here to help!"

[JSM]

''Too often we've been told and the American people have been told that we're at a turning point," Senator John McCain...

I am not sure of Hagel's assessment, but McCain's statement seems to be a fair one. I wouldn't say we are losing, but winning doesn't quite say it as well. Can we now call it a Quagmire?

[zach]

i agree with quasibill. i forget where, but i read a month or two ago some of the demands the kurds were making as a requirement for their participation in the government. in short, "give us our own military, borders and parliament".

[kwais]

Joe,
Yeah of course we win every battle, but there are few battles. Rarely are they dumb enough to stand and fight a battle.

But what is going on it the Iraqis are winning their little fights with the insurgents. Civilians are turning more and more against the jihadists. The bad guys are becoming more and more foreigners (non Iraqis). The local police are becoming more capable of defeating a threat, they are more likely to try to enforce a rule, less likely to run.

Iraqi citizens are (very slowly) starting to turn to police on increasingly less rare occasions. And it is increasingly less rare that police are able to do something.

Still there are terrorists that have free reign and complete support in some neighborhoods. Still the night in big cities and on highways is lawless. But little by little it is turning.

It could go sour, things could change. And the change for good is slow. But this whole "we are losing" is crap. What the fuck gave the guy that idea?

[kwais]

"You see, the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds don't want to be part of the same country"

I call bullshit.

[quasibill]

Just as a little extra on the point:

Our involvement just diverts attention from the real source of the problems for the people of the middle east - their own governments. However, as long as we're there, and involved in meddling with their politics, their governments get to push the spotlight onto us as a diversion.

For example, while we're there, any sort of counter insurgency action will be seen as an action by us. So, any collateral damage is our fault (at least perception wise, and in war, perception becomes reality PDQ). If we were gone, the people could start looking to their own government for answers.

BTW, the recent article about the hand-picked (by the Pentagon, you would hope) exemplar of the Iraqi security forces should be required reading for anyone who wants to talk about our success over there. Good quotes from the Iraqis, and some real classics from our low-level officers.

[6Gun]

Are we winning every battle we fight?

Wrong question, as are many like it.

The right question is if we're not accomplishing all goals quickly and efficient, why not?

Like the ANWAR crap and Vietnam trainwreck and a hundred other weak efforts, I suspect it's because we have special interests who would like nothing better than seeing us fail.

The problem isn't therefore in Iraq, it's in godamn Congress. As always. The notion that there's some intrinsic external reason why we can't do what needs doing and THEN leave is backwards.

[kwais]

A kurd (15+% of the population) was elected president.

They have their racial tension, and they have their religios tension, but they all claim to be Iraqi.

Quasibill, I would wager that more Iraqis than not believe that our military is in Iraq to help.

[quasibill]

"The local police are becoming more capable of defeating a threat, they are more likely to try to enforce a rule, less likely to run."

"Iraqi citizens are (very slowly) starting to turn to police on increasingly less rare occasions. And it is increasingly less rare that police are able to do something."

And I call BS right back.

[Adam]

What the fuck gave the guy that idea?

That's the $64,000 question.

More and more Iraqi troops and police are being trained, they came out in force in Operation Lightning which appears to be continuing on a daily basis under a variety of new names and using information obtained during the original Operation, and in most of the country, and building & rebuilding projects are winning broad support. Everybody's focusing on Hagel's so far baseless comments, but McCain was right in pointing out that it would be a long and hard process, but that doesn't mean we're "losing" or "not winning."

[Rich Ard]

It seems to me that as long as we look at this situation as a win or a loss for the U.S., we've got a larger problem.

[joe]

Hey lookie, 6Gun is gearing up for the upcoming "stabbed in the back" accusation.

"We were just about to win, but then those leftists in the government, and those cosmopolitan urban types who don't share our heritage - the ones who control the media - betrayed our brave troops. It's treason, I tell ya!"

Coming soon to every media outlet in America.

[Adam]

(addendum: in the information age, shouldn't the Pentagon and the Administration be doing more to highlight what's going well in Iraq, keeping us up to speed on things like Iraqi police and military development, and giving us fair and honest assessments of what's not going well and what problems we are having?)

[zach]

quasibill -

as much as i want to, i can't make myself believe that the U.S. would be suddenly absolved of responsibility once we leave. it's kind of a lose-lose situation (or are we calling that "status quo" now?). staying there opens us up to a lot of the criticism you mention; leaving leaves us open to accusations of making a mess without cleaning it up, besides the fact that government officials could still be seen as "american puppets", etc. the bottom line is that our detractors in the mideast can make ammunition out of anything we do or say... so we more or less need to ignore them.

[Ken Shultz]

I've argued for the three min-state solution in the past myself. It isn't clear to me why the Kurds would want to cede their sovereignty to some central authority. It isn't clear to me why al-Sistani and al-Sadr would want to negotiate with anyone. It isn't clear to me why the Sunnis would want to subject themselves to a democracy in which they're hopelessly outnumbered by their enemies.

...That being said, I'm interested as to why kwais called bullshit.

P.S. I suspect the window of opportunity for any American led solution--three state or otherwise--is closing, and, I suspect, it isn't just the Iraqis whose patience is wearing thin.

[quasibill]

"A kurd (15+% of the population) was elected president."

And if you think that that means that all is swell in sectarian Iraq, you have a tremendously naive view of politics.

Did you even pay attention last summer when the Shia boycotted the provisional constitution as long as it contained a guarantee that the government would operate under federalist principles (a VERY key Kurd demand)? So, we removed it, and appeased the Kurds by promising all sorts of sweet nothings. Meanwhile, the Kurds are keeping the Peshmergas intact and ready, so that when the Shia attempt to institute a theocracy, they can just secede.

And none of this addresses the Sunni opposition, which, despite the pandering political chatterers, has stated that no government created under occupation will be acceptable.

Have you read about the "re-Kurdification" of cities in the north?

All you need to do is look at the EU to see how difficult it is to draft a Constitution and get it ratified. And the Europeans haven't even been killing each other en masse for the last 20 (or more) years.

Somehow, people think that in Iraq it's going to be easier than in Europe. Pie in the sky idealism at its finest.

[6Gun]

All we're doing now is squandering lives and material and creating resentment.

Now I call bullshit.

The idea that democracy isn't attractive over there is as nuts as our walking on eggs to successfully placate sociopaths. For the first time in history.

Even if all they wanted was to buy 747's to turn into bombs, they'd take capitalism and wealth over being gassed and run through industrial shredders.

[6Gun]

Ah, joe; confirmation is such a bitch, eh?

[Brian]

It's going to be really annoying to hear the barking and moaning over the next 30 years how we could have won in Iraq if only the treasonous Democrats and the fifth columnists in the media hadn't stabbed the troops in the back. If only the liberals would have let us invade Syria, use nukes, line civillians up and machine gun them like a real empire would do, etc.

I think the long range plan is to stick this turdburger on the Democrats, and I'd give it better than even odds on working too, amazingly.

Guerilla warfare 101: the insurgents can lose every single battle and win the war. It's not like a war between states. It's a test of wills. If the american people can't think of a good reason for us to be there, we'll get out, eventually.

[zach]

not necessarily brian, because remember, our leaders don't read the polls.

[quasibill]

aforementioned article about the 'crack' Iraqi security forces and the US soldiers working with them:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060902245.html

[6Gun]

If only the liberals would have let us invade Syria, use nukes, line civillians up and machine gun them like a real empire would do, etc.

Well, that's two non starters. Anybody else?

Meanwhile polls (and media) indicate waning resolve for Iraq. Great. Mistake that it may have been, the best thing we can do is pack up and drive back down to the sea by Thursday, right? Then we can deal with 30 years of barking and moaning from the other side of the aisle.

Connecting logical logical dots is a bear when you have an axe to grind.

[quasibill]

"as much as i want to, i can't make myself believe that the U.S. would be suddenly absolved of responsibility once we leave"

True. But we will no longer be adding fuel to the fires.

"the bottom line is that our detractors in the mideast can make ammunition out of anything we do or say... so we more or less need to ignore them."

If only we had, if only we had. (ignored them, that is, instead of ginning up some excuse that they were part of our national security...)

[zach]

6gun,

i don't think "attractive" is really the issue. dictatorship can be attractive. think about it... iraqis are being asked to create a single government, in a completely unfamiliar style, and share it with people they hate. basically, they need to set aside decades of fears and prejudices in order to do this. that's going to create some huge obstacles, regardless of how attractive liberty and prosperity may be.

[kwais]

Yeah there is a re-Kurdification going on in some of the northern cities. It is a little power play by the Kurds. But it is mostly Kurds returning to cities that they were kicked out of by Saddam.

Even in these cities with re-Kurdification going on, the local police are comprised of kurds and Arabs, and they work together nicely. Specially in Kurkuk, a mixed unit will go to a fight, and they will lose a fight, but they won't run. They will protect the regional US embassy in Kirkuk, like they were defending their own family.

In Baghdad, where some of the Kurds are trained with Arabs, and Shia are trained with Sunni, there are occational fights for religious or ethnic reasons. And you might overhear an Arab say something like "chemical Ali, should have done his job right". But no more than a fight between platoons of different units.

Iraq is one country. The Kurds in the north keep the Peshmerga, but they are in a country at war. The Peshmerga is a tested fighting unit that largely keeps the problems of the rest of the country out of Kurdistan.

When the of spoken error an American trainer make of asking who is Iraqi and who is Kurd in a group, a Kurd will as likely answer as an Arab that they are all Iraqi, and then they will say who is Arab and who is Kurd.

[quasibill]

"Now I call bullshit.

The idea that democracy isn't attractive over there is as nuts as our walking on eggs to successfully placate sociopaths. For the first time in history. "

Well, then I hope you weren't responding to my post, because your response was completely non-responsive. I never said anything about democracy not being attractive over there. What I said was that a Shia dominated government, whether it is democratic or not, will not be attractive to Kurds or Sunnis, for a multitude of reasons.

Much like a democrat dominated federal government is not attractive to republicans and vice versa. But worse.

[Ken Shultz]

I didn't see kwais' comment before I posted.

...I agree, the parliament apparently chose Talibani specifically to project an inclusive image. But I would also point out that the position of President, as I understand, is largely ceremonial. The Prime Minister is Shia. I would also point out that it was the horse traders in parliament that elected Talibani rather than the people of Iraq. ...but I would have more confidence in a single state solution if a majority of Iraqis had voted for a Kurd, no question.

Negotiating 101: if you want people to trade away what they have--be it power, real estate, whatever--you have to offer them something better than what they already have.

...How is the position of Kurdish leaders improved by subjecting themselves to a Shia dominated central authority? In what way does compromising with Kurdish and Sunni leaders benefit the Shia leadership? Doesn't the Shia leadership, for the first time in a long time, already have authority and legitimacy? What does a new central government do for them?

Would legitimate Sunni leaders fare better in a coalition dominated by their enemies or in a body of their own?

[Steven J. Kelso Sr.]

Sen. Hagel's an idoit. Who the heck gives a crap what he has to say.

[joe]

"Ah, joe; confirmation is such a bitch, eh?"

My family threw a nice party after mine, as I recall. But those extra CCD sessions were a bit of a pain.

What this has to do with you taking up the worldview of the Freikorps, I'm not really sure.

[joe]

Quick poll: does invoking the Freikorps get me a Godwin?

[kwais]

Quasibill,
I guess you can call bullshit back, all I really have is anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is worthless.

Adam mentioned the Operation Lightning type stuff, that seems to be going on well. There are also operations that are entirely conucted by Iraqis, that are monitored by US personnel. There are also incidents where the Iraqi police operate alone within their jurisdiction.

But for all the success stories that I know, you can point to an article that shows only the negative.

For every operation that I know of that is succesful, I know of one that isn't.

[6Gun]

Now, if we were crusading for capitalism ...

Probably more so than democracy, and definitely more so than a engineered republic, regardless of how we've ruined ours.

Capitalism, democracy, constitutional republic. Don't know about you, but any would serve my ("Freikorps") definition of something preferable to a murdering dictatorship. Or is, for example, Africa grooving on it's way of rampant death as a way of life? See, if that's how we'll view the planet, I bow out of this debate.

But I doubt that's the point, nor is it about whether or not starting the whole thing makes sense today. The point is what to do about it all now and why.

[R C Dean]

Sen. Hagel's an idoit. Who the heck gives a crap what he has to say.

This strikes me as the only uncontrovertible statement in the entire thread.

[gaius marius]

At worst we are maintaining the status quo of the new status quo

as was said by toynbee in a different context but very relevantly, mr kwais, if civilization is at a static frontier with its external proletariat, it is losing over time.

if we are seen to be no stronger than the forces we oppose, we are proven too weak to do what we set out to do. we don't have the advantage of being indigenous, either -- as a foreign invader, the clock ticks on everything we do.

as mr brian said

Guerilla warfare 101: the insurgents can lose every single battle and win the war. It's not like a war between states. It's a test of wills.

i hear men like mccain talk about how its going to be a long, tough road -- but i think the truth is that, if we tread water like this for any significant length of time (and we already have), all real prospect for retaining any measure of popular support will have been lost. no one backs a weakling, least of all a foreign weakling. and the insurgency -- which, to whatever extent it's homegrown, is a hell of a lot more homegrown than us -- is proving its staying power with every car bomb.

[zach]

kwais, you're right, anecdotal evidence is worthless. that's precisely why we need broad, loosely defined but concise statements, such as "we're losing the war in iraq", or "at the very least we're maintaining the status quo".

[trainwreck]

You guys are all too wrapped up in Sunni, Shia, Kurd as identities. Iraq is first and foremost a tribal society. Most large tribes have members of all ethnic and religious groups. Only the purists are so consumed with ethnic/religious labels. Yeah they might be the ones willing to fight, but ultimately Iraqis as a whole are much more tolerant and less dogmatic than you make them out to be.

I think Phillip Carter is right. The military has a sense of self preservation. It is clear that the armed forces cannot sustain this level of activity in Iraq beyond 2006. There will be a face-saving means for the USA to exit Iraq, but the goals of the neocons, namely Syria and Iran, have been thwarted. Oh well, the best laid plans....

[Ken Shultz]

"Sen. Hagel's an idoit. Who the heck gives a crap what he has to say."

I know next to nothing about Sen. Hagel, but, sometimes, even an idiotic politician can tell which way the wind is blowing.

...If Hagel said what he said because of what he's reading in the tea leaves comin' out of Nebraska, then we should all give a crap about why he said what he said.

[zach]

i want to see gaius maximus post without using the word "proletariat". 😉

[Rick Barton]

Hagel was one of the few senators to question the neocon's lies for war before the war started. The government foisted this war on us as being necessary for our security, which it was not. I think that the important question now is: What *likely* result can possibly justify anymore American deaths?

Also, recall that the neocons used 9/11 as a pretext for the propaganda campaign for the attack on Iraq and regime change, which they had long advocated as something beneficial for the Israeli state. But now our government is planting the seeds of another 9/11 in it's financial support of the murderous and savage regime of Uzbekistan's Karimov and his genocide against Muslims of Uzbekistan. Our tax money is being given to this monster in the name of "fighting terrorism" while he commits terrorism against his own people!

Our government's hyper-interventionist foreign policy is what motivated the attacks of 9/11 in the first place, especially it's support of the Israeli government's brutal and thieving occupation of Palestinian land. Note that the findings of the 9/11 commission reveal:

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel, said the final report of the Sept. 11 commission."

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9222612.htm

How will Americans suffer for our government's outrageous support of the savage regime in Uzbekistan? When will the government stop making the same mistakes?

Our limited government open society including our capitalism (when the government doesn't get in the way) has acted in the past as an ambassador of good will. But the government has demonstrated that it can destroy it all with its unprincipled foreign entanglements. Lastly, how do we claim the ethical high ground when our government is sending prisonors to foreign nations to be tortured?

[zach]

sorry.... marius.

[kwais]

The difference between Sunni and Shia is like the difference between Catholic and Protestant. It is still the same religion.

[Ken Shultz]

"You guys are all too wrapped up in Sunni, Shia, Kurd as identities. Iraq is first and foremost a tribal society."

Perhaps. I hope it isn't all academic now.

"Oh well, the best laid plans...."

...kill lots and lots of people. ...Americans too!

[gaius marius]

agreed, mr barton. hagel is one of the few democrat conservatives left in the senate, and is a wonderfully sensible fellow in comparison to just about everyone else up there.

oh -- and, proletariat. 🙂

[zach]

The difference between Sunni and Shia is like the difference between Catholic and Protestant. It is still the same religion.

well that's a relief, because we all know how well catholics and protestants have gotten along over the years.

[6Gun]

You guys are all too wrapped up in Sunni, Shia, Kurd as identities.

Indeed; a kind of elitist one-upmanship that places more importance it's own sidebar theories than in what's going on on the ground.

There will be a face-saving means for the USA to exit Iraq,

When the inevitable cut and run occurs, it'll be in homage as much to intellectual posturing as anything. We'd freeze in the dark before we denied PC.

[Rick Barton]

gaius,

Hagel is a Republican. But with your eschewing of caps, your meaning is unclear 🙂

[joe]

kwais,

"For every operation that I know of that is succesful, I know of one that isn't."

Why are we to believe that the success of operations is somehow relevant? We won every battle we fought in Vietnam, too. And the actual invasion and blitz to Baghdad succeeded beyond the dreams of the most optimistic war planners.

But but but...look at the body counts. And the classrooms. I've been hearing that crap for two years now. Corners to turn. Light in tunnels. The increasing lethality of the insurgents' attacks just goes to show that we're winning!

Nobody's buying it anymore.

[gaius marius]

The difference between Sunni and Shia is like the difference between Catholic and Protestant. It is still the same religion.

lol -- anyone remember the wars of religion?

i agree to some degree, mr kwais. but, like northern ireland, the divisions of faith are often faultlines upon which other more palpable divisions are found. shi'a are persians, sunni are arabic -- and that is a major difference, as anyone familiar with iranian nationalism can tell you. tribal and clan differences also fall along these sectarian lines.

the problem with iraq, much like the problem of 19th c germany, is that it is a nation without a collective history to bind it despite these faultlines. franks and gauls were bound in france only by hundreds of years of forging under dynastic monarchism, facing common external threats of other continental monarchies. germany (like iraq) never experienced that forging, and so developed nationhood in an aberrant manner, making it prone to fractiousness and dictatorship.

ironically, one of the experiences that may forge a future iraq is the american invasion now. if people come together to force us out through attrition, it will be a massive collective historical experience for an iraqi nation.

[kwais]

I want to see gaius marius post without quoting some dude that I have never heard of, without using words that I have never heard of, and without posting in a manner that I have to read his post three times to figure out what the hell his is talking about.

[joe]

"Indeed; a kind of elitist one-upmanship that places more importance it's own sidebar theories than in what's going on on the ground."

You mean like, "the increasing death toll from car bombs just shows that we're winning?"

[Jennifer]

The difference between Sunni and Shia is like the difference between Catholic and Protestant. It is still the same religion.

Didn't prevent them from spending centuries murdering each other over in Europe.

[Rick Barton]

Hagel earns a B+ for holding down federal spending.

http://www.ntu.org/misc_items/rating/VS_2004.pdf

Check to see how your congressperson and senators rate.

[Ken Shultz]

"The difference between Sunni and Shia is like the difference between Catholic and Protestant. It is still the same religion."

...and yet it was an important enough distinction for the "framers", for want of a better term, to make the distinction. It was an important enough distinction for Saddam Hussein to treat people diffently too. The differences between Hutu and Tutsi weren't so obvious either. ...and both Croats and Serbs were Christians too.

...Honestly, I feel downright guilty every time I express my pessemism, but I'm afraid the Bush Administration didn't put much more thought into building a functioning democracy than they did in figuring out how to secure the country.

[gaius marius]

whoop -- thanks for the correction, mr barton.

[kwais]

Gaius (I will capitalize your name for you)

The Shias in Iraq are Arabs, not persians.

Also, if we really do leave Iraq to their own devices, the running theory is that the Kurds will take the country by force and be every bit if not more bloodthirsty than Saddam. On the upside the Sunni Arab insurgency will be made short work of.

Joe,
What for you would be a measure of success?

[Uncle Joe]

You're all such dreamers! Human beings have been killing each other in wars since the dawn of time. A little healthy realism is in order. Limiting government won't alter the genes. Yoou'll just have private armies doing the killing. What the fuck do you think Al-qaeda is anyway The most you can hope to do is stay out of the crossfire. Unless, of course, you enjoy the ruch of war, which would be very human.

[zach]

i claim firsties on the "comparing them to protestants and catholics is not a good thing", um, thing.

[thoreau]

kwais-

Whether you agree or disagree with gaius is largely coincidental. His basic stance on any issue is that we are all doomed. That's it.

On the main topic of this thread, I will just observe this: I think most people on this forum can agree that we went to Iraq to achieve an objective that's bigger than just the defeat of a specific hostile government. We went to Iraq to build a better Iraq.

Whether you think that goal is eminently achievable or hopelessly doomed, the fact is that we didn't just go there to achieve a concrete military objective. We went there to achieve a social and political objective.

Everybody knows that I opposed going there in the first place, but now that we're there we need to win. I'm just not sure if it's possible.

I hope that events prove me wrong.

[joe]

kwais,

Fewer and less effective terror attacks and ambushes, with the trend continuing for a number of months. Secure travel along major highways. A reduction in casualties that continues for a significant period of time.

[kwais]

BTW,
I wrote the post about the difference between Shia and Sunni thinking about the difference in the US, then I thought about northern Ireland, and intended to cancel the post, but hit the 'post' button by accident.

I think I agree more with the poster who said it is more about tribal than Shia and Sunni. Though the difference is obviously not non-existent. They have the same language and the same race. The difference with the Kurds is a little sharper, as the Kurds are a different race and have a different language.

[Ken Shultz]

I would add fewer executions of Iraqi recruits to joe's list. ...and continued formation of an Iraqi stand alone force.

[Stretch]

I don't think for a second that the violence will stop if we suddenly leave (it would probably escalate), therefore the question isn't whether we're winning or losing, it's whether we're helping the new Iraqi government to secure their country or hindering them. I think you can make an honest argument on both sides, but for the moment I think we're necessary to any hope of long term stability.

[Rick Barton]

thoreau PhD,

What will winning look like? How likely is your vision of winning actually coming to fruition that is can justify more American casualties? Best question: Since our government supports corrupt and brutal regimes in the Mid-east, why do you think that they will work for a fair regime in Iraq?

[Uncle Joe]

Thoreau:

We went into Iraq for the same reason Bill Gates started Microsoft--power. Who gets power? The smart and strong. Who whines about power and how awful its is? The dumb and weak. The mistake you whiners make is thinking lofty principles have anything to do with anything except making whiners feel better. Oh, oh, it's so terrible that we're torturing people! If only we get rid of big, bad government, it will stop. What a simpleton's fairy tale. Give me a time in history when the pwerful didn't torure the weak. Think genes.

[gaius marius]

The Shias in Iraq are Arabs, not persians.

there's a much deeper history there, mr kwais -- indeed, iraqi shi'a were repressed under saddam for being a potential persian ally. it may be prejudicial, but sunnis see shi'a as persian in roughly the same way as protestants see catholics as roman.

Also, if we really do leave Iraq to their own devices, the running theory is that the Kurds will take the country by force and be every bit if not more bloodthirsty than Saddam. On the upside the Sunni Arab insurgency will be made short work of.

you assume civil war is avoidable in any context now. i think you're probably wrong about that; the best we can do is delay it, i suspect, on something like a ten-year time horizon.

[gaius marius]

Whether you agree or disagree with gaius is largely coincidental. His basic stance on any issue is that we are all doomed. That's it.

don't like bad news, mr thoreau? 🙂

[kwais]

Thoreau,
It is possible to win. And we are winning. Lots of things could be done better, but it's the government we are talking about. Also, the culture issue is huge, it would be no small task even if our government was perfect. That said over all, I think we are doing many small things wrong, but many big things right.

Joe,
The terrorist attacs on the whole are less effective. But when you hide amongst the population waiting for a chance to blow yourself up when you get close enough to hurt others, then the odds are really on your side.
The terrorists attacks are not going to stop anytime soon, as non of Iraq's neighbors (except Jordan) is interested in a peacefull productive unified, democratic Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Turkey, all pushing money and people into destabilizing forces.

It'll take a while. But the winning will show itself in my mind. When the Iraqis are doing most of the fighting on their own. And we are there in our strategic bases (yep, in my estimation we are in Iraq to stay, from the stuctures that we are building on the bases) The fighting will probably continue for a while even when the Iraqis are succesfully fighting on their own for a while.

[6Gun]

You mean like, "the increasing death toll from car bombs just shows that we're winning?"

Ah, no, joe. Rising to your bait, I mean like we'd better figure out what we're made of and what we'll do when Q2 05 gives us a temporarily increased death toll from car bombs.

As far as "winning", when you can prioritize the issue's parameters in a fairly meaningful way, then I propose we work to define what that means...

[kwais]

Gaius,
yes civil war is avoidable. And no we are not going to hell in a handbasket.

Alright, I gotta go to bed it is midnight here. I'll tell you more about why you are all wrong tommorrow inshallah.

[trainwreck]

"The idea that democracy isn't attractive over there is as nuts as our walking on eggs to successfully placate sociopaths."

Family, religion, the opportunity to make an honest living, all of these too are very attractive to most people. These things can be obtained through means other than the concept of "democracy" you worship so feverently.

[Creg]

I think President Bush knows what he's doing. Iraq was a threat to the whole region. By drawing all the terrorists into Iraq, we don't have them killing Americans here. Our brave soldiers are risking and giving their lives to keep us safe and alive. It may take a long time for the Iraqis to learn the way of democracy and become a free people. We should all have patience. Saddam is gone and that's a good thing. He was paying terrorists to kill innocent people in Israel and might have funded Al-Qaeda to kill innocent Americans. What are we supposed to do? President Bush is right and we should support him.

[thoreau]

The mistake you whiners make is thinking lofty principles have anything to do with anything except making whiners feel better.

Uncle Joe-

What have I whined about in this thread? I said that it doesn't matter if I didn't like something, because now that we're there we have to succeed. I expressed skepticism about our ability to succeed, but I didn't dwell on it like a whiner. Instead, I said that I hope I'm proven wrong by events. Is that whining?

As to why we went to Iraq, I have been told on this forum that there were 2 main reasons:

1) WMD: Even the possibility of WMD in the hands of Hussein was deemed unacceptable. And while no WMD have been found (or at least not that the administration is talking about), the risk was so unacceptable that we had to go to be sure.

Fair enough.

2) To spread freedom by building a democratic society and hope that this would inspire other Muslims and combat the illiberal attitudes that lead to terrorism.

Now, whether or not I think those notions constitute acceptable objectives for war, that's what I was told we went there for. I might not agree with those motives, but as a non-whiner I accept that we're there and we have to succeed.

Now you want to complicate things and say we went there for power, plain and simple?

OK, fine, but why did we choose to exercise power in that way? Was it to achieve one or both of the objectives above? Was it just to send a message? Was it for fun? Just help me out here and explain it. I'm not a whiner, but I can be pretty dense at times.

I can accept that there were multiple reasons for going. I can accept that even if I disagreed, well, we're there and we need to handle this in a way that doesn't leave behind a huge stinking mess. But I just want to know what the objectives are. Is that too much to ask for?

[joe]

The winning already shows itself in your mind, kwais. It just doesn't show it anywhere else. Certainly not in the squares of Iraq's major cities, which keep getting littered with body parts.

6Gun,

I have to prioritize in a meaningful way? Don't you think that, I don't know, the asshats who threw away 1700 American lives should have a list of priorities drawn up already? If you're going to put 150,000 Americans in harms way, you should have a "To Do" list to check off, no?

As the smartest man on Capitol Hill said recently, it's hard to come up with a good reason to stop doing something, when you didn't have a good reason to start doing it in the first place.

You want a definition of success - Iraq ruled by a government that can't threaten us with Weapons of Mass Destruction. We had that before you flag wavers sent a bunch of other people off to die.

[zach]

that's a sophisticated political philosophy if i ever heard one, uncle joe. "it's genes, it will never change, just go with it". all the good things that humanity has ever done were clearly pure coincidence.

Since our government supports corrupt and brutal regimes in the Mid-east, why do you think that they will work for a fair regime in Iraq?

most optimistic answer: because the establishment of a fair regime in iraq, with whom to trade oil, will take away the necessity of supporting less-than-savory folk (audisay arabiay).

most honest answer: that's a good question.

[BLG]

Forget winning or losing the war in Iraq. Has anyone noticed that, more and more, Bush seems to be LOSING his own party? It appears to me that Republicans are breaking ranks in increasing numbers, and not just over Iraq, but over quite a few topics ... stem cells, UN stuff ...

At any rate, that's what I find the most interesting about this post.

[trainwreck]

"By drawing all the terrorists into Iraq, we don't have them killing Americans here."

I have a theory: smart terrorists are sending the dumb terrorists in to Iraq. And once they find a really dumb one, they give him a suicide mission. This leaves the smart guys in place to learn from the experience.

[Uncle Joe]

Thoreau:

The deeper reason we went into Iraq is our love of war. As a species, human beings like to kill each other periodocally. Idiots like Creg are just a tad more clueless than idiots like you.

[zach]

when's the last time you killed someone periodically, uncle joe?

[thoreau]

Uncle Joe-

So, as I understand it then, we went in simply because we wanted to (or at least because enough people wanted to, including people with power). And we wanted to because, well, our species is violent.

And anybody who thinks there's a deeper reason is an idiot, whether that idiot is a hawk (who think this is all brilliant!) or a dove (who's looking for a reason that would justify it, not realizing that there's never a justification).

So, I'll accept that you're clearly a smarter being, smart enough to realize that it's all about bloodlust and anything else (WMD, democracy, oil, whatever) is just propaganda.

Now, given that you saw through the propaganda, maybe you can answer me this: Did you support the war or oppose it?

If you supported wanton bloodshed for its own sake, then I conclude that you are a monster. A smart and strong monster, but a monster. OTOH, if you opposed it but never bought into any pretense that it was about anything other than war for its own sake, then I conclude that you are a reasonable man and much wiser than this mere mortal.

[Creg]

What happened to patriotism and loyalty? We shouldn't be so negative about our government in a time of war.

[BLG]

I think President Bush knows what he's doing. Iraq was a threat to the whole region. By drawing all the terrorists into Iraq, we don't have them killing Americans here. Our brave soldiers are risking and giving their lives to keep us safe and alive. It may take a long time for the Iraqis to learn the way of democracy and become a free people. We should all have patience. Saddam is gone and that's a good thing. He was paying terrorists to kill innocent people in Israel and might have funded Al-Qaeda to kill innocent Americans. What are we supposed to do? President Bush is right and we should support him.

You know, I just don't know where to begin disagreeing with this.

[trainwreck]

Uncle Joe:

Wow, what a deep insight! did you and your roomate figure that one out after a few bong hits in your dorm room?

[zach]

right... we should only be "negative" about our government when things are going great. when things are bad, that's the time to offer our unquestioning loyalty.

[gaius marius]

These things can be obtained through means other than the concept of "democracy" you worship so feverently.

amen, mr trainwreck. indeed, "democracy" can easily be seen as the quickest way to lose the things you cite.

[gaius marius]

We shouldn't be so negative about our government in a time of war.

wow, are YOU in the wrong place, mr creg! 🙂

[gaius marius]

I just don't know where to begin disagreeing with this.

it's almost cut-and-pasted from the bush administration propaganda, isn't it, mr blg? lol....

[joe]

"What happened to patriotism and loyalty? We shouldn't be so negative about our government in a time of war."

I want my country to be stronger and safer, and this war is making us weaker and more vulnerable. I love it too much to stand idly by while some politicians drive it off a cliff.

[metalgrid]

You mean like, "the increasing death toll from car bombs just shows that we're winning?"

Well joe, they are bound to run out of cars sooner or later.

[Uncle Joe]

Thoreau:

No, genius, love of war is the deeper reason. Did I support the war? No, but I didn't oppose it either because I'm clever enough to know that if it isn't this war, it'll just be another war. I like to listen to the blues and drink scotch so I try to stay away from military action myself, but I recognize it as a distinctly human endeavor, so I don't get my knickers in a knot about it.

[thoreau]

We shouldn't be so negative about our government in a time of war.

And since we have always been at war with Eurasia, and always will be, that means we should never be negative about our government. I mean, the President is just looking out for us. The way an older brother would.

Four legs are good but two legs are better!

[joe]

Back in the real world, again, the number of wars, the number of people dying in wars, and the amount of money spent on munitions have all been declining for the past 15 years.

War is politics by other means, Uncle Joe, and the political situation is the primary determinant of how warlike humanity will be.

[Dave]

Are we winning?

Well yes and no...

Since forth generation warfare (4GW) means that the insurgency just has to have more political will than we do we are at a disadvantage.

Whats Bad:

Our volunteer forces are having trouble recruiting people for the Army. Promotion to SGT (E-5) in the Army is now automatic. CMDR's are being forced keep soldiers they don't want. My guess is that the NCO corps are going to Fall apart in the Army in around 2007/2008 if we keep the same troop levels in Iraq that we have now.

The DOD refuses to adapt to the type of wars we are fighting. We waste incredible amounts of money on advanced weapons systems that are designed to conventional enemies. For example the F "A" 22 Raptor, missile defense, and many other advanced systems designed to fight a "near peer." If anybody wants to debate on China being a threat I will take you up on it.

We have already lost similar conflicts to this in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. All that has to happen for us to lose this one is for the cost of being over there to be greater than what we get out of a free and democratic Iraq. The insurgents aren't going anywhere they will wait decades if they have to. As long as they have some political will left they are not defeated.

The DOD is too intrenched in its way of doing things to make the changes to allow us to make the changes to our military structure which will allow us to win wars such as OIF and OEF. The American people aren't going to let our us sacrifice American lives and dollars if they don't think the return is worth the investment.

[thoreau]

Fair enough, Uncle Joe.

Me, I'm still naive enough to think that there's something to be gained from striving for a better situation.

[Lowdog]

Uncle Joe is a fatalist, just like gaius!

But gaius' posts are much more interesting to read. Uncle Joe is way more abrasive, and much less thoughtful (as in, having many thoughts in his posts, as opposed to none).

I opposed the war going in, still think it's a bad idea, but what the fuck, we've gone this far, so why not stay a little while longer and see what happens? Shit, I still think about joining the reserves. If we stay long enough, maybe I can go over there and kill some people.

Afterall, that's whay us humans do, right?

Oh, and we're doomed.

🙂

[zach]

uncle joe,

to be honest i didn't get my knickers in a knot, either, and i still don't. that doesn't mean i'm not allowed to have an opinion slightly more enlightened than "it's human nature, let it be". if everyone thought like you, scotch and the blues would be the last things on your mind.

[David]

What happened to patriotism and loyalty? We shouldn't be so negative about our government in a time of war.

If not then, when?

[raymond]

Corrupt, patchily trained and equipped, often abysmally led and devoid of confidence, most army units cannot operate above platoon-size. Between Iraqis and Americans there is deep mistrust: Iraqi units billeted onAmerican bases are fenced off from their hosts as a security measure.

For every vaunted ISF success, examples of cowardice and incompetence abound. Even when stiffened by American forces, the ISF often flee when under attack. Iraqi marksmen have a habit of closing their eyes and spraying bullets in "death-blossoms", in GI slang. Some of the better units, including the 12-battalion, mostly Shia, police commandos, are accused of torture and sectarian violence. (Whole Economist article here.)

We went to Iraq to build a better Iraq.

"Mission accomplished."

[Simple Sally]

Not only that, Creg, but we should never ever criticize our government either. Even in peace time. Because criticizing the government only confuses and demoralizes the public when they need to trust our government and especially our President to do what's right for us. What if you allowed children to criticize their parents? That would be bad. That's why I think George W. Bush should be able to spank Michael Moore.

[Rick Barton]

If our government's troops left, there would most likely be less violence since our government and the recipients of its support seem to be the flash point for the violence. We don't find massacres occurring in Sunni villages in the Shia south nor in Shia enclaves in the Sunni north. This isn't a general civil war. Our government's presence is to blame here.

Also, is our government supplying the insurgency in order to justify staying in Iraq after they had to lie to us to prosecute the war in the first place?

"U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA."

"Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance."

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050603-021838-6491r.htm

(scroll down)

If the government would have told us they were going to Iraq to "stabilize" it, they would not have persuaded too many of us that it was a good thing to do. So, instead they lied. Why do some of you accept the idea that a "stabilized" Iraq is worth more casualties and more American causalities and money?

[Dave]

Raymond shame on you a need a subscription to read that. Tsk Tsk...

[6Gun]

Don't you think that, I don't know, the asshats who threw away 1700 American lives should have a list of priorities drawn up already?

Again, besides the point, except in a coulda shoulda woulda universe. Were we to do the wisest thing possible today -- an option that seems at least implied by the good Senator -- it'd have great benefit, regardless our craven imperialist motives for sending a small line of tanks up the (v)alley toward Baghdad.

As the smartest man on Capitol Hill said recently, it's hard to come up with a good reason to stop doing something, when you didn't have a good reason to start doing it in the first place.

That's an illogical revision of not being able to reason somebody out of something he wasn't reasoned into. No parallel there, joe. This isn't about basing best choice in 2005 either on perceived bad reasoning in 2002 or it's political opposite. What the hell kind of policy would that be?

If that's the Hill's best reasoning, we are in trouble. Does not taking your neighbor to IC makes sense just because it was your 30' ladder that beaned the poor bastard?

You want a definition of success - Iraq ruled by a government that can't threaten us with Weapons of Mass Destruction. We had that before you flag wavers sent a bunch of other people off to die.

I suppose that conclusion would make sense to a person so determined to confuse the facts. How us flag-waving mud-eating Rambo's could have magically guaranteed security from WMD four years ago has nothing to do with solving the Senator's problem today.

[zach]

a little simplistic, rick barton. iraqi troops are getting killed at a higher rate than americans. even if we leave, they'll continue to be seen as the puppets of the puppets of the U.S., existing for the sake of promoting corrupt western ideals.

and, believe it or not, not only the CIA and mossad are capable of supplying guns w/o serial numbers. iraq shares borders with syria and iran.

[raymond]

I figure all grounded libertarians subscribe to The Economist.

Reason is for flights of fancy and bouts of outrage. The Economist is for reality. (Except for their support of Bush's war, which I bet they're beginning to regret.)

[gaius marius]

I like to listen to the blues and drink scotch so I try to stay away from military action myself, but I recognize it as a distinctly human endeavor, so I don't get my knickers in a knot about it.

as mr lowdog pointed out, i don't totally disagree with this. but -- as mr thoreau was criticizing me incorrectly for this, imo -- an ascertaining of certain probabilities is not determinism. i think, for example, that western civ is shot, done in by the insidious progress of german idealism and the cult of the individual among other things.

does that mean all is irretrievably lost? no. i think other smaller probabilities for the future of our civilization besides metastatis and collapse do exist -- such as fossilization -- its just that we don't have much right to expect them if history is any guide.

the chaotic probability factory that is human civility leaves philosophical room for free will and reversals of trends -- and people are right, imo, to fight the dying of the light, to appropriate dylan thomas. but expectations should be tempered, imo, by modesty and history (both of which are in short supply these days, it seems).

[zach]

that's like 4 posts already without "proletariat". impressive.

[Rick Barton]

zach,

Let's give it a try and bring the troops home.

U.S. intelligence officers speculated that the guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA.
Check the Wash. Times story.

[gaius marius]

to even the odds -- proletariat. and individualism, for good measure.

[joe]

6 Gun, you've moved the goalposts. Whereas before you were talking about winning, now you're talking about the wisest thing for us to do. They are two quite different concepts.

The smart thing for us to do is to get the hell out. No more torture of prisoners. No more humiliating gunpoint patdowns of people's grandfathers in the noonday sun. No more flattened cities. No more destroying the village to save it.

BTW, you rambos could have guaranteed exactly the same security from WMDs that we would have under the best possible outcome in Iraq, simply by doing nothing through 2002 and 2003.

[Rick Barton]

The Economist is for reality.

The Economist is often quite statist, regardless of a situation's reality.

[zach]

no rick, analysts speculate. which analysts, we don't get to know. check the article. regardless, it's clear that we're talking about speculation. and the last sentence - "Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance." - is hardly subtle about the directions in which it wants to take this speculation.

[Dave]

When the enemy advances we withdraw
When the enemy rests we harass
When the enemy tires we attack
When the enemy withdraws we pursue*

*Mao Tse-Tung's guidance on being an insurgent.

Any idea how to beat them? When and if we do withdraw from Iraq the insurgents will remember their differences and civil war will result. No matter who wins that civil war they will remember that is our fault for ruining their country and they will attack us again.

[Rick Barton]

zach, read the article. It says:

"Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA."

"Agent provocateurs" means parties not actually interested in the side they are providing weapons to winning but rather, in the fighting continuing.

[zach]

um... yeah. "analysts speculate", not CIA agents speculate, and regardless, the operative word is "speculate".

and i'm supposed to make no connection between the statements that

1. these guns are maybe being supplied by the CIA and mossad, and
2. these weapons are maybe being supplied for the purpose of having the fighting continue?

[6Gun]

Come on, joe. I happen to believe that "winning" (whatever you mean by that) is not only possible but essential. (I will, however, note your meandering goalposts, somewhere between winning an unwinnable, unprinciped Bushite hobby-war, and running away, running away.)

OTOH, I also believe a little common sense could yet percolate down thru the pacifist left's politically opportunistic rhetoric to cause them to actually consider that there is much to be gained from causing success to occur (as opposed to "winning", which is a schoolyard-level fantasy and therefore rhetorical athema to self-respecting peacemakers of all stripes.)

Where this miracle to occur, and were it to displace intellectual armchair spitballs from those with an obvious axe to grind, then they may just belly up to a "unilateral solution", the opiate of our political times.

See, this way we can all come together and create solutions, even if I happen to privately think "winning" is indeed possible and you happen to come down wherever it seems most opportune.

[thoreau]

The Economist is often quite statist, regardless of a situation's reality.

The Economist is often quite awesome, and if our government heeded its advice then overall it would be smaller and less intrusive. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be pretty damn good.

[zach]

or "U.S. intelligence officers speculated", which is what you erroneously had the article stating.

[6Gun]

you rambos could have guaranteed exactly the same security from WMDs that we would have under the best possible outcome in Iraq, simply by doing nothing through 2002 and 2003.

In other words, you've siesmographed the entire mideast -- from Israel's border thru Iran; Turkey through Saudi Arabia -- and have concluded that WMD's simply never existed.

An interesting claim, given the trillions floating around, the Arab' street's expressed hostility, and their overall technical competence.

[zach]

joe i agree with you for the most part except that the rambos couldn't have "guaranteed" anything, any more than the doves could. hindsight is 20/20.

[6Gun]

oops, "anathema".

[Rick Barton]

zach,

I did misstate that, you're right. My bad.

Also, I thought that you were denying the speculation that "these weapons are maybe being supplied for the purpose of having the fighting continue?" This speculation seems plausible. The government used duplicity to get there, why not more to stay?

[trainwreck]

6gun, in order for your play to sell out on Broadway, you must get the audience to believe, because your script appears to revolve around a key scene in which "a miracle happens here."

[6Gun]

I suppose it does to some, trainwreck.

Why is that? I asked the same in my original post...

[Rick Barton]

thoreau PhD

It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be pretty damn good.

I'll go with "If the government heeded its advice then overall it would be smaller and less intrusive." And that's an improvement for sure, but on a low bar. But not "pretty damn good". The economist is too often for Biz subsidies and they weren't Euro-skeptic enough.

[matty]

6gun wrote:

OTOH, I also believe a little common sense could yet percolate down thru the pacifist left's politically opportunistic rhetoric to cause them to actually consider that there is much to be gained from causing success to occur (as opposed to "winning", which is a schoolyard-level fantasy and therefore rhetorical athema to self-respecting peacemakers of all stripes.)

If winning the war is somehow dependent on the very weak "pacifist left" doing something we're in deep shit. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. What is it exactly they should do to cause success to occur? Please ignore the question if the answer is going to be in riddle form.

[zach]

rick,

there's really nothing to deny, because it's admittedly only speculation, and because we don't even know whose speculation it is. assuming i consider myself an expert on aliens, i could say on my web page "some experts speculate that all iraqis are actually martians". needless to say it wouldn't merit much of a response (although given the nature of the web it might get one).

i guess i'm just not sure why the washington times felt the need to pack that much speculation into a single paragraph, especially given the fact that some people will read right through the most important word in the article.

[zach]

to further clarify, my point is that the validity of an assertion isn't judged by its plausibility, but by the facts upon which it was based.

[al]

"it's long, it's hard, it's tough"

hehe, someone should tell dick durbin that; sullivan apparently wants to receive his meat...

[thoreau]

Rick-

I haven't noticed much sympathy for business subsidies in the Economist of late. They denounced the EU Constitution and urged France and Holland to reject it. They still support the notion of an EU that maximizes the free flow of people, products, and ideas.

Really, the war in Iraq is the only issue that I can think of where I've had a significant disagreement with them. Maybe it's because they tend to deviate from ideological purity on the same issues where I tend to deviate from ideological purity.

There's also the fact that they take stances on a number of financial and monetary issues that I admit to knowing little about and hence I don't have strong stands on those issues. Those who care deeply about those issues could no doubt explain to me that the editors of the Economist are a bunch of statist thugs. But overall they seem pretty good, at least on the issues that I pay attention to.

And besides, they give a better coverage of the situation outside the US than most of the mainstream press. They haven't said a word about the pretty white woman who disappeared in Aruba, but they have a lot to say about economic development in South Asia, human rights in eastern Europe and the Caucasus, immigration in western Europe, AIDS in Africa, the nuclear situation in North-East Asia, and lots of other significant issues beyond our borders. Things that matter more than some pretty white girl vanishing in Aruba.

I think the Economist rocks.

[trainwreck]

Well 6gun, you start out with the premise that special interests are trying to make us fail. It's a flawed premise, and a poor analysis of historical events like Vietnam, which you referred to. 58,000 dead young men and women in Vietnam were not a special interest group.

Sorry I gotta run now, later ya'll.

[Rick Barton]

zach,

The validity of the speculation seems ro depend on:

"Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing."

And of course:

"Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA."

I just emailed the Wash. Times and asked who the analysts are.

[Uncle Joe]

Oh, my God, the government lied! Jesus, what cabbage truck did you fall off of, Ricky boy? Can you come up with a human institution that doesn't lie? The church? Just kidding. Business? Don't make me laugh. So if we could just get rid of the government, every thing woould be okay, you say. Let me let you in on a little secret. Human beings are a murderous, power-loving species and that's why humans lie and go to war. Human beings also have a habit of organizing things. So, you see, Ricky, you can get rid of the government, but you can't get rid of human nature, so however us humans organize things, lying and war are here to stay.

[Rick Barton]

thoreau PhD:

...they give a better coverage of the situation outside the US than most of the mainstream press.

That's for sure.

[gaius marius]

to actually consider that there is much to be gained from causing success to occur

i don't know if anyone doesn't want "success" in iraq by some definition, mr 6gun. but you seem to believe that, if we just apply ourselves, this whole thing can turn out right for all sides.

i think it may well be that woeful level of delusion about the complex and chaotic reality of what has been done in iraq which is well devoid of "common sense". i'm no leftist, but people in the war party have to come to grips with the fact that this kind of invasion/occupation deal only very rarely works historically, and is usually a disaster of epic proportions. and it has little or nothing to do with the brainpower attached to the effort -- i for one doubt on some level that the abysmal level of planning that went into this whole affair really affected the course of the aftermath as much as people think.

when destabilizing actions like the invasion of iraq are undertaken, the course of events is unpredictable, chaotic and overwhelming. you cannot cause success to occur because you frequently have no idea what is actually occuring -- and about the time you figure it out, an unforseen event crashes in and shifts the paradigm all over again. some level of planning can improve your odds -- i would not dispute this. but the odds of this working out favorably were never more than a long shot.

as such, this is not a puzzle to be solved. indeed, it isn't solvable in that sense -- rather like a cloud's next shape cannot be predicted. what we can do to improve the odds of something like success which we are willing as a nation to do, i think we've already done (and quite a bit more). unless you can propose something we should and realistically could try that we haven't, i don't see the point in staying to try to maintain a brutal status quo which deteriorates a bit every day.

[Ron Hardin]

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse," said Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

``Across the wires the gloomy message came : / He is not better ; he is much the same.'' -- unknown university poet On the Recovery of the Prince of Wales, cited in _The Stuffed Owl_ an anthology of bad poetry.

[Rick Barton]

Uncle Joe,

It's the legal monopoly of force which allows the government to be the bringer of war. Mass murder isn't a longing of most individuals' nature. What wars were prosecuted with out government?

[Rick Barton]

thorea PhD,

The Economist has gotten more Euro-skeptic of late.

[drf]

Thoreau, Raymond, Rick:

As a transplanted american who lived in Europe during most of the big referenda (and speak the respective languages of the countries where i lived well enough not to get english spoken back), I HATE the economist as a pro big government PRO EU bullshit rag. Sure, it covers international events well, but it butchers US coverage, denies the statist, big government nature of the EU, fucks up interventionalist foreign policy that the brits don't pay for, and talked up Senator Feingold.

McNeil Lehrer does as good a job with the international stuff, but doesn't pander to the "desire to be world power" brits.

Rick: spot on, as usual 🙂
Thoreau : you're still one of my "top ten most admired list"
Raymond: the EU can be achieved without its current agenda. the SEA in Britian and Denmark was reprehensible. The referenda were nondemoncratic (in Euro=speak) in Denmark. The Austrians were fucked for democratically electing an anti EU gov't. That's what the EU is about. But I love your posts exposing US cruelty and barbarianism in Gitmo and in iraq. So please keep those up 🙂

cheerio,
drf

[6Gun]

What is it exactly should [the left] do to cause success to occur?

Get out of the way.

[Dave]

What wars were prosecuted with out government?

al Qaeda is a terrorist network not a government and they have been at war with us since the early 1990's. Why are they at war with us? Because Bin Laden was upset at the Saudi government for allowing US forces to be stationed in Saudi Arabia, the land of the two most holy sites in all of Islam, during the first Gulf War. Can only imagine how many enemies we are currently making...

[6Gun]

58,000 dead young men and women in Vietnam were not a special interest group.

Leaving aside any disagreement with that assertion, even if oppostion to the war in Iraq was exactly proportional to that against the Vietnam war, the same question stays strangely unanswered: Why did the US "lose"? And why should it do so again?

Because the premise was flawed? Because all war is equivalently morally wrong? Because we can't?

Or, owing to these false assumptions, simply because we shan't?

[fredo]

I see that Uncle Joe's supply of medicinal marijuana has not been cut off yet.

[Rick Barton]

Dave,

Our government's Troops too close to Mecca was one of the reasons Bin Laden stated. The others were the Iraq embargo and our governments support of the Israeli occupation. According to the 9/11 commission. that was the most important reason:

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel, said the final report of the Sept. 11 commission."

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9222612.htm

al Qaeda is not a government, but they were responding to the activity of our government. Also, al Qaeda's aggression is the exception to the vast majority of government prosecuted wars.

[David Woycechowsky]

The question of whether there should be one or two or three or more states within the borders of Iraq is important enough to be put to a referendum. I suggest a direct vote so that we know what the Iraqi people really want. Plus its democratic to do that, so good object lesson.

[Dave]

Also, al Qaeda's aggression is the exception to the vast majority of government prosecuted wars.

Rick by this you mean that most people we get involved with simply roll over and die. I think you are incorrect. We have faired well in recent history when participating in conflicts that involve conventional war; Panama, Grenada, Gulf War I, the begining of the Afghanistan war.

Where the United States falls short is when enemies use forth generation techniques. Vietnam, Somalia, and Lebanon did not strike our mainland like al Qaeda did, but they did well enough to by killing our troops and manipulating our people and decision makers to get us out of those conflicts. It is only a matter of time before our interaction in Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, the Horn of Africa and our with us or against us foreign policy brings aggression from other non-government groups. With our unmatched conventional strength the only form that a group can take when engaging the United States is to be a non-government network. Unless we change our habits and figure out how to defeat enemies that use this strategy will be unable to continue our ambitious foriegn policy agenda.

[6Gun]

I'd dearly like to see a discussion of the relativities between the historic anti-US hatred we imply we want to avoid by our own behavior, and the purely sociopathic peoples peppered here and there on this globe.

It's been pointed out that it doesn't take but one freak with a car bomb to make a point. How then would we deal, in this intercontinental nuclear age, with an entire nation of them.

This is a literal question as much as a rhetorical one: We already know that would do just about anything to appease the unappeasable. And we know, deep inside, that even if we had strong borders, that wouldn't be enough to ensure national security to the highest level.

And we know war is hell. And we know that a certain number of sociopaths have vowed to kill us, not because of our own behavior in their neck of the woods, but because of who we are. That point seems to get lost quite a bit.

[Dave]

Also Rick the troops too close to Mecca is the reason that al Qaeda has no government ties. After the first Gulf War Bin Laden cut ties with Saudi Arabia because he was so upset about them letting the United States base operations out of there.

The PLO is another non-government entity which has managed to wage a prolonged war against a stronger conventional foe. During the orginal Palestinian Intifada which began in 1988 the PLO was successful in using the media and other techniques (Having kids throw rocks instead of using weapons, to gain sympathy) which resulted in the Oslo accourds in 1993. Unfortunately for the Palestinians got greedy and under poor leadership have said their intentions are nothing less than the destruction of Israel faced with an enemy who wants, and could completely destroy them the Israelis have a lot to fight for... Little off subject there....

[Rick Barton]

Dave,

When I said that: "al Qaeda's aggression is the exception to the vast majority of government prosecuted wars," I was talking about all wars and countering the point that Uncle Joe made, that wars would happen sans government.

Dave:

Unless we change our habits and figure out how to defeat enemies that use this strategy will be unable to continue our ambitious foriegn policy agenda.

I think it's way past time for our government to end its meddling. Especially since it needlessly makes us enemies.

[Steve]

OK, joe, I give up: who's your mythical "smartest man on Capitol Hill"? Christ, there's a low bar for you.

[Dave]

Sorry for getting off subject my point Rick was that the 9/11 commission is incorrect. Had we not been in Saudi in during Gulf War I Bin Laden would still be tied to the Saudi govenment and would not have attacked us.

Israel and the exceptional media manipulation that the PLO used in the late 1980's and early 1990's will be used as an excuse for why people hate us for a long time.

[Dave]

Alright sorry for the confusion Rick...

[Eddy]

That's why I think George W. Bush should be able to spank Michael Moore.

A few tweaks, some wet noodles and a bit of jello and this is one of the best PPV events ever, second only to the Hillary / Coulter cage match.

[6Gun]

I think it's way past time for our government to end its meddling. Especially since it needlessly makes us enemies.

Agreed. Dan Rather is the perfect guy to come clean on how the Pentagon wrote the Koran.

al Qaeda is not a government, but they were responding to the activity of our government.

Dan needs to wrap up with a statement that "infidels" was most unfortunate choice of words.

Koran II will use the term "unenlightened but probably not beyond hope".

[CK]

However this war turns out for us, we shouldn't forget the positive aspects of war. Aside from killing our enemy before he kills us, war provides many benefits. How would we ever test new weapnry? War is a tremendous impetus for technoligical innovation. The internet was originally a military project.
Every nation on earth is the result of military conquest. When we conquered the Indians and took their land, they hadn't even invented the wheel. I think it's safe to say that we've done more with the land than they ever would have done. We ought to be thankful that we elected the Bush/Cheney team and not that simpering traitor Kerry. A society that has lost its stomach for war is a society in decline.

[Uncle Joe]

My scotch is running low.
I think Rick Barton is suffering from from some sort of fetal syndrome. How about the war lords in Afghanistan? Do they count as a government? Doesn't there have to be some organizing principle for any society with more than two people? Even then, if one of them has a gun.... Sonehow getting rid of government seems like a kind long-term solution. It's also risky. How do you know everything will be better when there's no government?
CK's on to something. When we're faced with the inevitable, we should be positive about it. On the other hand, I don't think I'd like to have a drink with CK. Speaking of a drink...

[bill]

Joe, have another drink and then do what humans do; go attack your neighbor and take over his property. Its only natural, and inevitable.

[Uncle Joe]

Bill:

The police would arrest me. That's government for you.

[Ken Shultz]

"A society that has lost its stomach for war is a society in decline."

When you post a comment that's that funny, you're supposed to tag a smiley face on the end of it like this, ; )

[Uncle Joe]

Ken:

I wasn't trying to be funny, but only a real hayseed needs you to say "ha, ha" after a joke.
Maybe one of you peacenick flower children could come up with a time in history--go back maybe to the Neanderthals--when there was no war. Face the truth about your species, guys.

[thoreau]

Uncle Joe-

Would you have us all get down with the sickness?
Cuz, like, madness is the gift that has been given to us?

Oh, no, the world's a scary place!

[Ken Shultz]

Wow, you've gotta really good point there Uncle Joe. Don't keep it to yourself. Tell everyone that'll listen. ...and some that won't too!

...and please be sure to tell them that you support the Bush Administration specifically.

[Ken Shultz]

What, did something in this thread trigger some kind of Neo-Libertarian distress call?

[Uncle Joe]

Thoreau:

Oh, I'm so sorry to have upset you. Forget the insights into the dark side of human nature from all the world religions and go with your simplistic "If we could just get this government thing right all would be well."

Listen to Rick. If only we had behaved, Al-Qaeda wouldn't have attacked us. We have to be good boys and girls,get rid of government (whatever that means), and then the scary terrorists will go away. The scary terrorist is in all of us. Human beings are terrorists. Ask the Indians.

[Eddy]

I'm starting to think Uncle Joe is channelling Uncle Noam in a bizarro world kind of way.

[bill]

So Uncle Joe, are we all evil? or is there some of us who are good?

[Uncle Joe]

I can't believe it. You guys really think the notion that we human beings are a violent species that will inevitably make war is a really weird theory. Look at the evidence! Really weird theories tend to be short on evidence. I'd say your idea that war will disappear when we do whatever it is you think we should do about organizing or not organizing society is the theory that is short on evidence. Maybe you're not saying that. What are you saying again?

[Les]

Maybe one of you peacenick (sic) flower children could come up with a time in history--go back maybe to the Neanderthals--when there was no war. Face the truth about your species, guys.

I'm not a peacenic or a flower child (are there ANY on this board?), but I would remind you that slavery has also always existed throughout history. And jealousy inspired homocide, among other things. Should our society have not lost our stomach for such things merely because of their longevity?

[thoreau]

"If we could just get this government thing right all would be well."

I think just the opposite. I think there's no way to get the government thing exactly right, so we should keep it small.

And I know war is inevitably going to happen. But there have been periods of history with more war and periods with less war. I'd kind of prefer to live in the second type of era. Is that so unrealistic?

At best, you seem to be saying that our species wants to fight so why not give the savages their war and let the hawks invade Iraq.

[Ken Shultz]

"However this war turns out for us, we shouldn't forget the positive aspects of war."

That's the power of positive thinking! I mean, it's a war! ...So it can't be all bad.

"Aside from killing our enemy before he kills us, war provides many benefits. How would we ever test new weapnry?"

Supervisor Jim: "So Bob, how's that new ICBM comin' along?"

Labcoat Bob: "Hell if I know, Jim. ...We haven't nuked anybody since Japan!"

Supervisor Jim: "...Well, let's see what we can do about that."

"War is a tremendous impetus for technoligical innovation."

...Not to mention, it's an impetus for new, civilian survival techniques!

"The internet was originally a military project."

...and so was the spork.

"Every nation on earth is the result of military conquest."

Are we only countin' the ones that came into existence after 1800? ...Are we countin' ones that don't exist anymore?

"When we conquered the Indians and took their land, they hadn't even invented the wheel."

...and when we sold Africans as slaves, they hadn't yet invented a Constitution. So what?

"I think it's safe to say that we've done more with the land than they ever would have done."

I see. So mass slaughter, forcible detention and death marches are like a big eminent domain issue?

"We ought to be thankful that we elected the Bush/Cheney team and not that simpering traitor Kerry."

Kerry would have been worse!

"A society that has lost its stomach for war is a society in decline."

You've made me lose my appetite.

[Uncle Joe]

Thoreau:

Making government small is just another attempt to get it right. Until we accept the obvious truth that ours in a violent, murderous species, I'm afraid we can't think rationally about war and will continue spin fairytales into ideologies that will at best delude us. Is the truth something we accept only when we like it?

[Uncle Joe]

Thoreau:

By the way, the hawks have already invaded Iraq, so how could I be saying we should let them?

[6Gun]

You guys really think the notion that we human beings are a violent species that will inevitably make war is a really weird theory.

I think it's just elitism. It's fine to hope for the evolution of species away from war but at this point in time, condemning all military action is just arrogant...and occasionally lethal.

slavery has also always existed throughout history. And jealousy inspired homocide, among other things. Should our society have not lost our stomach for such things

Our society as in the US? Unless there's proof invading Iraq was an illegal act, I guess we are making all military action morally equivalent because otherwise there's obviously no connect between slavery and murder on the one hand and legitimate military action on the other.

At best, you seem to be saying that our species wants to fight so why not give the savages their war and let the hawks invade Iraq.

I think that's actually: Let the savages invade New York City and give the hawks their war.

[Uncle Joe]

Maybe you will all admit libertarianism, like many ideologies, is based on a very optimitistic view of human nature. Istead of tickling each other's ears, you could consider that your view of human nature is a little too optimistic and explore the implications. Of course, that would require some thought that goes beyond mouthing ideological platitudes.
I've enjoyed the discussion, but now I'm out of scotch. Buona notte.

[Les]

Our society as in the US? Unless there's proof invading Iraq was an illegal act, I guess we are making all military action morally equivalent because otherwise there's obviously no connect between slavery and murder on the one hand and legitimate military action on the other.

Uncle Joe implied that since war has always existed, that we shouldn't lose our stomach for war. I just reminded him that slavery has also always existed, but it's not a reason to accept it. He didn't respond.

[Rick Barton]

Uncle Joe:

Listen to Rick. If only we had behaved, Al-Qaeda wouldn't have attacked us.

In your mockery, you're coming closer to the truth. The evidence is that if our government hadn't misbehaved, mainly by giving the Israeli government our money to prosecute their occupation, and also the two other items that I listed @ 6:56 PM, we likely would not have been Al-Qaeda's targets.

Also, the mass murder of war is a government phenomena. We just don't see many wars sans government.(force) Note how much more peaceful Somalia has become since the dissolution of their central government. Uncle Joe, ponder this and it may alleviate your confusion: War is violence but violence is not war.

Uncle Joe:

The scary terrorist is in all of us. Human beings are terrorists.

CK:

A society that has lost its stomach for war is a society in decline.

Uncle Joe:

CK's on to something.

No surprise there.

Also, often a society whose government initiates war is a society that is in decline as a result of their government's excessive control.

[Dave]

War sucks, no reason to do it unless it is required for a nation's survival. Iraq is not...

[joe]

When people like 6Gun want to "come together for solutions," it means they got the truck stuck in the mud again and need you to help pull it out. I was all about coming together for solutions when the question was verifying the destruction of Iraq's WMDs. You asshats kept threatening me with mushroom clouds. And now God knows how many tens of thousands of people are dead. Maybe everyone who spent the winter of 2003/2004 insulting other people's patriotism and predicting a terrorist/Baathist Armageddon should shut the hell up for a decade.

The closest thing to success that can be salvaged from this fiasco is a reasonably stable, decent Iraq that poses no more threat to us than pre-Gulf War II. And that isn't going to happen as long as we're levelling their cities, shooting at their uncles' cars at checkpoints, and playing Cap'n Slappy in our prison camps.

[Gilles de Rais]

A society that has lost its stomach for public floggings and drawings-and-quarterings is a society on the decline.

Oh by the way, all you lily-livered libertarian pansies are invited round to my place Saturday night for some good old-fashioned vivisection (c'mon, we've been doing it for eons now). No anesthetics allowed. And bring your own rubber aprons.

[joe]

zach, "joe i agree with you for the most part except that the rambos couldn't have "guaranteed" anything, any more than the doves could. hindsight is 20/20."

Yes, it is. In 2003, I could only speculate that the government was lying to us, that there was no threat from Iraqi WMDs, and that their combination of arrogance and incompetance would turn any invasion into a catastrophic fiasco.

Now, with 20/20 hindsight, I can know for certain that I was right on about the first, lowballed the second, and nailed the third.

I didn't oppose the war because Saddam's mustache gives me a chubby. I opposed the war because I have some degree of ability to grasp reality. I do not understand how otherwise intelligent people couldn't see what was going on.

[joe]

Oh, and the smartest man on Capitol Hill is Barney Frank.

[Rick Barton]

No joe, it's Ron Paul. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if Paul was genius. 😉

[fyodor]

Uncle Joe,

you could consider that your view of human nature is a little too optimistic

No, it is your view of the State that is too optimistic. Shit will always happen. It's just that when the State is used to solve problems rather than just give shit back to the (proven) shitmakers, it generally creates a lot more shit than it cleans up.

Yuk.

[Rick Barton]

What fyodor said. And also, often the shitmakers use the State to create the shit in the first place.

[thoreau]

Rick-

I have no clue who the smartest guy in Congress is, but I wouldn't assume that it's Paul simply because I agree with him on a lot of stuff. Incredibly smart people can be wrong on politics (go visit a physics department to see what I mean), and it doesn't necessarily take a genius to get things right. Paul is obviously a smart guy (he's a physician, after all) but smartest? I have no way of knowing.

[Rick Barton]

thoreau PhD,

I was being kind of tongue and cheek as it were. But he does seem to have an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge. His questions for Greenspan, when Greenspan has to take questions from that House committee, are always a treat. How would we decide who the smartest is anyway? IQ? Wait! I know. Of course, scores on the Physics GRE! Right? 😉

BTW, as in WAY off topic. I don't think that I've ever written the phrase, "as it were" before. Anyway, it just occurred to me that it really doesn't make sense, at least it's not congruent. I mean, "it" is singular and "were" is plural. But that's sort of the essence of what the phrase is trying to communicate: Not entirely serious... (Unlike Uncle Joe, I just had this goofy thought with out drinking.)

[thoreau]

Rick-

Fair enough. I took you too literally.

[Stevo Darkly]

Rick, "were" can also be used as a singular subjunctive verb: "If I were king ..." "If he were to read Nietzche..."

Subjunctive: "Of, relating to, or being a mood of a verb used in some languages for contingent or hypothetical action, action viewed subjectively, or grammatically subordinate statements."

In this case, I guess it's subjunctive in the sense of, "My tongue isn't literally in my cheek, although it could be, but anyway you know what I meant to say." (My understanding of grammar at this is more intuitive than articulately rational.)

[Rick Barton]

Stevo,

Oh yeah. But why shouldn't it be "If I was king ..." "If he was to read Nietzche..."? Why can't the "was" communicate the subjunctive, contingent sense? Also what does "...a verb used in some *languages*..." mean? Aren't we just talking English here. Or am I missing something? (the likely case)

[Uncle Joe]

Rick:

Societies that make war seem to do pretty well for themselves. Of course, there are losers and winners, but can you give me an example of a society that has declined because it won a war? Rome didn't decline until it started losing wars. Some of the societies against which Rome launched wars disapeared altogether. Carthage springs to mind.
Violence itself may not be war, but war is the achievement of a violent species. No other species I know of makes war. What makes you so sure war has something to do with this or that form of organizing society and doesn't just arise from our nature? I'm afraid maybe you haven't thought this through. Thinking is fun. You should try it.

[Rick Barton]

...but even though it's grammatically correct (as you point out), the "as it were" still seems to fit with the essence of the phrase because the usage is atypical.

[Les]

Uncle Joe,

Can we at least agree that some wars are good and some are bad? Can we agree that sometimes wars have been waged out of necessity and sometimes out of mere opportunism? And that wars are filled with acts both heroic and barbaric? I'm hoping we can.

[raymond]

My posts are being blocked.

[raymond]

[The Economist] ... talked up Senator Feingold.

Russ Feingold was one of 23 senators to vote against going to war in Iraq.

The threshold for starting a war through unilateral military action should be very high. It should require the presence of an imminent threat, or a solid connection to al Qaeda. Secretary Powell asserted that there is such a solid connection today. But classified briefings here in the Senate have cast real doubts on this assertion. I am troubled by this inconsistency. (Feb 5 2003)

This resolution is quite simple. It requires the President to report to Congress on the potential costs and consequences of military action in Iraq before ordering the United States Armed Forces to war in Iraq. This is a resolution that simply requires that this country know what it is we are getting into before, not after, war breaks out.

Of course, it is my hope, and I very much believe the President when he asserts that it is his hope, that there will be no war. But judging from the administration's statements and Iraq's behavior, with each passing day it becomes more and more likely that the United States will engage in a major military operation in Iraq. It is entirely possible that we will undertake this operation without a great deal of international support. And while I have no doubt in my mind that our admirable men and women in uniform will be successful in any military engagement, I do have doubts about whether or not the American people truly understand the magnitude of the task the country is setting for itself--not only with regard to the military engagement itself, but with regard to occupation and reconstruction.

I do not believe that Americans have been told much about what the future holds beyond the most optimistic of scenarios, and frankly I do not believe that Congress has heard much about the full range of potential scenarios either. March 20 2003

[Uncle Joe]

When an if clause contains a statement that's contrary to reality, use the subjunctive: If Rick were educated (clearly he's not), he would understand this.

When an if clause contains a statement that could be true, use the indicative: If Rick was there (in school), I didn't see him.

[raymond]

[The Economist] ... talked up Senator Feingold.

Russ Feingold one of 1 (one) senator to vote against the Patriot Act.

The bill has been whipped through the two chambers at a blistering pace, with some members biting their tongues for fear of appearing unpatriotic. The Republican leadership made the House vote on a 175-page bill that had been written only the night before and that few (if any) members had had time to read properly. Only one senator, Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, asked any really hard questions. (The Economist, Oct 18 2001

And those awkward civil-liberties issues? They may disgust Europeans, the press and the denizens of academia, but Mr Ashcroft has most ordinary Americans on his side. Opinion polls show even fewer worries about locking up terrorists than about bombing Afghans. For all the griping, only one senator, Russell Feingold, voted against Mr Ashcroft's anti-terrorist legislation. (The Economist, Nov 22 2001

The bill was more than 300 pages long, and few members of Congress had read it before they voted for in overwhelming numbers. How could anyone vote against? It was called the USA Patriot Act. Profiles in courage were few: only one senator, Russ Feingold, a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin, voted no. (The Economist, Sep 5 2002

[Les]

As long as we're obsessing on grammar, I think I screwed up that next to last sentence. It should have read, "And that wars are filled with acts that are heroic and acts that are barbaric?" Shouldn't I have? Yeah, I think that's right. Doesn't really make it a good sentence, though, does it? Hmmm...fuck it, I'm sleepy.

[raymond]

[The Economist] ... talked up Senator Feingold.

He opposed the confirmation of Gonzales, criticised China and (subtly) administration policy...

Why is it that we are seeing so many egregious violations of basic human rights in China in such a short span of time? Could it be that the senior leadership in Beijing knows that the world's attention is currently focused elsewhere? Could it be they think U.S. criticism of their actions will be muted, since the administration needs their support, or at least their acquiescence, on Iraq and North Korea?

and is working to abolish capital punishment.

imho, Wisconsinites can be proud of having Russ Feingold as their senator. He's probably the closest thing to a libertarian you'll find in the Senate.

I'm not a peacenic or a flower child (are there ANY on this board?),

TaDAAAAAAA!

Oh and ps. The Economist's writing is top notch.

pps - gotta keep them short, apparently.

[Uncle Joe]

Les:

Sure we can. We can agree that defensive wars suit our liberal sensibilities, for example. Can we also agree that war is a distinctly human activity that isn't likely to disappear not matter how we organize society? I hope so.

[raymond]

Can we also agree that war is a distinctly human activity that isn't likely to disappear not matter how we organize society?

Rape is another distinctly human activity that isn't likely to disappear no matter how we organize society. Doesn't mean we should lie back and enjoy it.

Boy George sang it best: War is stupid.

[Rick Barton]

raymond,

That's a great song! And Culture Club was a wonderful band.

[Uncle Joe]

Rick:

Even you can do better than that. Both Germany and Japan lost. Had they won, we'd have museums to the victims of Dresden everywhere. Germany was flourishing until it started losing.Both democracies and authoritarian regimes and everything in between have started wars.
What you really need is a reasonable period of time when government was small and there weren't any wars. You seem to think that saying soemthing over and over counts as evidence. Where did you go to school, by the way?

[Uncle Joe]

Raymond:

Most societies that have a definition of rape treat it as a crime. Most societies treat war as a necessity for themselves and as a crime only for other societies, folk songs that condemn it notwithstanding. How do you punish a society for launching a war? You go to war against it.

[Rick Barton]

Uncle Joe,

I bet that you're resorting to insult because you've been losing this argument for hours now. The fact that Both Germany and Japan ultimately lost doesn't refute what I said at 02:49 AM

[Rick Barton]

Uncle Stalin 😉

How do you punish a society for launching a war? You go to war against it.

But what if it's your own government? You toss them out.

[Uncle Joe]

Rick:

Well my original question was as follows: Can you give me an example of a society that declined because it WON a war? Unless I'm missing something, Germany and Japan don't quite do the trick here. I'll admit that it's hard to refute an incoherent argument, but,then, would it matter? If you don't understand your own argument, how will you understand the refutation?

[Uncle Joe]

Well, you might toss the war-mongering government out, but Bush won re-election, didn't he? We Americans, being human, seem to have a taste for war. At least until we're losing. But don't worry. There will always be another war. Eventually, we'll lose big and decline.

[raymond]

Uncle Joe -

You said "not matter how we organize society". You can't go changing the rules in mid-whatever.

You're right, of course, about war and humans. (The South Park episode "When Bebe got boobs" explores this subject brilliantly.) War is what "we" want to do. It's part of our nature. We enjoy sacrificing other humans. And we enjoy using the silliness of the young to assuage our desires:

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause..."

But the world-view you are espousing (or rather provoking us with) is only one of many. And it is one which poses a direct threat to me and to those whose well-being I have incorporated into my own.

And, though this violence may be "in our genes", I do think that our enlightened-self-interest gene can trump it.

[Uncle Joe]

Raymond:

I don't think observing that making war is a distinctly human behavior clasifies as a worldview, but even if it did, it doesn't pose a threat to you. Unrealistic, childish nonsense that assures everybody that if we just do this or that, war will be no more threatens us with serious disapointment if nothing else. Also, it's an offense to intelligence, another human trait.

[Rick Barton]

Uncle Joe,

Gibbon observes that the costs of conquest and of administering those conquests sapped the Roman Empire and the early ones were integral to the very transition from republic to empire.

I'll admit that it's hard to refute an incoherent argument, but,then, would it matter?

Ok Uncle Joe. Your being illogical here so I'm cutting you off for the night. I think you need a nap. You seem to be getting fussy anyway.

[Uncle Joe]

Rick:

Reading Gibbon and understanding him are obviously two different things. Decline from trying to maintain an unsustainable empire is not the same as decline from simply winning a war. The barbarians prevailed over Rome by means of war, not by making their governments small. I don't take naps at this hour. I drink scotch and listen to the blues. Don't try it. You need the brain cells.

[raymond]

you can't get rid of human nature, so however us humans organize things, lying and war are here to stay.

That's the world view I'm afraid of.

The one I like is the one that states that all men have certain inalienable rights. That one seems a lot (a LOT) less dangerous to me.

I am lucky in this: Where I live, everyone seems to share that world view.

[Stevo Darkly]

If anybody cares: The subjunctive case is used in several languages (Spanish is the one I know for sure). It seems to be dying out in English. Technically, it is most correct to say, "If I were king ..." But most people nowadays just say, "If I was king ..." correct or not. It has got to the point where the correct subjunctive case "sounds funny" and unnatural to a lot of American English speakers.

I'm going to bed.

[CAT_Violations]

Uncle Joe-

I don't have time to dig through all your posts, so I'll just throw out a couple objections that have come to mind:

- Governments and their policies/philosophies can change the likelihood of being involved in a war. From what I can tell Switzerland has not been involved in a war for quite some time. Yes, it has benefited from its geography and largely homogenous population, and it is a democracy rather than a republic, but it exists as an example nonetheless. I'm not saying that strict neutrality should be the goal of the US, but a largely hands-off military policy with exceptions for genocides, treaty obligations, etc. would seem to cost less in money and lives and be less likely to get us into quagmires.

- Libertarianism can be a better way to arrange things. Think of "Uncle Joe World" under libertarianism. (Gross simplification, of course.) The government is only funded for basic, essential services: basically to send the police out when Uncle Joe has too much scotch and tries to take his neighbor's property, or to send an ambulance out when Uncle Joe has too much scotch and passes out in his neighbor's yard.(And yes, even some soldiers in case zee germans invade to take Uncle Joe's scotch.) Since taxes are lower the economy is booming, more jobs are created, and Uncle Joe has more money to spend on scotch and blues CDs. And because the government is only funded enough to perform basic services, it is less likely to stifle and ruin the economy, opress minorities or various stripes, trample human/Constitutional/property rights, meddle in private affairs, waste large amounts of money, etc, etc, etc.... How is that "not better" than things are now?

- Societies that "win" wars often suffer for it. It's practically a cliche in history: "The X war had nearly bankrupted the Y regime, oppressive taxes, inflation, debts, recession, famine, etc. resulted in a ____________" (Fill in the blank with either a coup, assassination, takeover, popular uprising, losing the next election, barbarian sacking, drop in neighborhood home values, civil war, retalitory war, etc.)

[Mr. F. Le Mur]

Am I guaranteed lots of attention by merely stating the obvious in a pretentious and insulting manner, or do I need to spice it up with some false dichotomies?

[CAT_Violations]

Mr. F. Le Mur-

Remember that, as Uncle Joe says, merely stating the obvious over and over again does not constitute evidence. (Then he'll ask you what school you went to.) Of course you have to be facing an opponent that presents their charges and evidence in the open, not by spreading lies, smears, fraud, and innuendo in secret.

PS: Watch out for those Fossa. And lighten up on the booze, Mr. Burns seems to view the Le Murs as ne'r-do-wells for some reason.

[Crushinator]

This thread has frayed and strayed from Hagel's statement that "we are losing the war in Iraq".

I think the Bushies define victory as the accomplishment of three main goals: 1) Iraq producing 6-8 million barrels per day of oil for the insatiable US market, 2) The imposition of an Iraqi government that pretends to have no strings, but is our vassal in every respect, 3) The establishment of at least four large permanent Army/Air Force bases in Iraq that will protect the puppet government and serve as forward bases for ventures into Iran and Syria.

My personal definition of "winning" is much simpler. I do not want to have my sons forced to shoot at other people in a war that was completely unjustified.

[CAT_Violations]

Mr. F. Le Mur-

Also, watch out for those finns, zee germans, assorted other scandinavians, their genetic relatives, and various "others" - surely you know that they fit into a "different" dichotomy. Time for the new new eugenics, right?

[Uncle Joe]

Switzerland! Of course. Well you've convinced me. No government--no war. Who ever heard of anybody raising a private army?

[David]

On the one hand, I agree with you, Uncle Joe. All wars are directly caused by humans and human nature. For all the arguments blaming religious fanaticism, fascism, communism, nationalism, capitalism, and a host of other isms, there is one commonality. People can always find an excuse to justify killing one another.

On the other hand, without the stats to prove it, I would guess that far more people have died of natural causes(aging,disease, accidents) than at the hands of other humans. I think that says something about our nature, too.

Rome didn't decline until it started losing wars.

gaius could better illustrate this point, but Rome's military power declined as result of winning too many wars, conquering more terrority than it could defend, thereby overextending its forces. Sounds vaguely familiar.

[Uncle Joe]

Oh, just one little point. I know you've thought of this, and it might seem silly. Once we've abolished government and are as peacible as Switzerland, how will we defend ourselves against a traditional state with a large army and weapons of mass destruction?

[raymond]

how will we defend ourselves against a traditional state with a large army and weapons of mass destruction?

You mean the US?

[Uncle Joe]

No, Lower Slabovia. Of course, I mean the US. Have I accidently happened onto an Australian libertarian site?

[raymond]

You mean if the US attacks Switzerland, what should we do?

Well, my first suggestion is to refuse to obey.

[fyodor]

Do the people arguing with Uncle Joe really advocate abolishing government? I haven't read every post, but libertarianism is based on limiting government to its necessary and proper roles, not abolishing it. I don't foresee wars going away, either, and that's why self-defense is as proper for governments as it is for individuals. But when there is no evidence of a threat, making war is not self-defense. And just as an individual initiating violence is reprehinsible, so is a government initiating violence. The ability to win wars is good; the inclination to initiate war is not. To justify the initiation of war on the grounds that war will never go away is nihilism disguised as realism.

[Uncle Joe]

Raymond, you're not reading the posts. One knowledgeable poster pointed out to me that Switzerland is a state that has stayed out of war. I've conceded the point (I'll also concede that winning wars sometimes leads to disaster, but that rather seems to bolster my original argument that war arises from human nature since we make war even if it doesn't pay). So, now I'm on board and want to get rid of government for the sake of peace. Then it struck me--if we create a peaceful libertarian society with no inclination toward war--here in the US, I mean--how will we defend ourselves against China, for example?

[Uncle Joe]

Fyodor:

I stand corrected. I really did think we were talking about abolishing government. So we're talking about merely limiting government. But we would still have a military establishment then,right? Okay, who would set policy for the military establishment? I hate to keep harping on human nature, but if humans in general like to make war, those who become military professionals positively adore it sometimes. How do we make sure our libertarian army doesn't initiate military adventures? Also, how do we fund the military?

[raymond]

Oh, I did read the posts. But since I live in Switzerland, I thought we were talking about Switzerland. "We" as I use it, then, would mean "we who live in Switzerland".

fyodor - I for one do not advocate doing away with government. People can set up their lives any way they see fit (so long as the system does not violate the rights of others). (The Swiss form is pretty good.)

Nor do I deny the right to self-defense. However, I myself prefer non-violence.

[Rick Barton]

If it was some innate predisposition that was the dominant factor responsible for war, we wouldn't see the huge variances of the occurrence of war based on the actions and nature of governments. To make a physical science analogy, war is more like an emergent phenomena that requires the force of the state to occur. If violence is part of our nature via a killer ape heritage, it doesn't follow that war is as well. Again, war is violence but violence is not war.

[Uncle Joe]

Rick:

But war is violence writ large and seems to result from techological innovation--improved weaponry. But getting back to limiting government. Is it true that one part of the current government aparatus we would have to hang onto is the military? If that's the case, I would think we would be even more inclined to be initiating wars because there would be few restraints on the military. Maybe I'm wrong. What restraints would we put on the military and how? Presumably we would also have to finance it through some sort of taxation. The China threat, among others, would mandate it. Standing armies and weapons of mass destruction are costly.

[fyodor]

How do we make sure our libertarian army doesn't initiate military adventures?

Uncle Joe, did you study sophistry? You're sure good at it! How do we "make sure" of anything? We can't, in any absolute sense. Well, I can "make sure" someone doesn't get up by holding him down, but even that's not perfect, as he might overpower me and get up. We do our best. The US Constitution is one form. Electing politicians who seem less likely to initiate war than those who seem more likely might work. But then, it might not. Plus, since politicians prey on the fears of the masses, showing that one is not too "weak" to make war often gets politicians elected. What to do? Well, we get on internet blogs and bitch about how things should be different. Will it do any good? Who the hell knows? But again, just saying "that's the way it is" is just nihilism pretending to be realism. The world's ills will never entirely go away. To say that that's why I shouldn't bother to identify something bad and advocate a different course of action does not logically follow.

[Uncle Joe]

Fyodor:

But what you describe is how it is now. I'm trying to understand how it will be different in a libertarian, limited-government society. War seems to be pretty much a constant in human society. You're saying that we can diminish it through libertarianism. How?

[gaius marius]

The barbarians prevailed over Rome by means of war, not by making their governments small. I don't take naps at this hour. I drink scotch and listen to the blues. Don't try it. You need the brain cells.

by god, mr uncle, you've just proved that there's an immense gap between reading gibbon and understanding him, if that's what you took away from "decline and fall". i think you'd do best to go back to the peak of hellenic civilization and find out what make helleism great. it wasn't war.

to the point -- mr ck perpetrated one of the most ridiculous interpretations of history i've yet read on this board (which is saying something).

However this war turns out for us, we shouldn't forget the positive aspects of war. Aside from killing our enemy before he kills us, war provides many benefits. How would we ever test new weapnry? War is a tremendous impetus for technoligical innovation. The internet was originally a military project.
Every nation on earth is the result of military conquest. When we conquered the Indians and took their land, they hadn't even invented the wheel. I think it's safe to say that we've done more with the land than they ever would have done. We ought to be thankful that we elected the Bush/Cheney team and not that simpering traitor Kerry. A society that has lost its stomach for war is a society in decline.

1) the pace of advances in technique -- technology, in the postmodern parlance -- grows inverse to the condition of civilization. the massive challenges that civilizations face which force rapid advances in technique as a means of coping are precisely the challenges which the civilization eventually succumbs to -- further aggravated by the destabilisation incipient with rapid and radical changes in technique, which debase the very strengths the civilization in the past drew upon to meet challenges.

2) militarism -- a society with a stomach for war -- is symptomatic of disintegrating civilizations responding to late-stage decay, as the society begins to understand their civilization is in danger. desperate, reactionary, draining and ultimately counterproductive and futile measures ensue. look at every universal state of conquest in history. all came very late in the civilization's life, and after its best and most productive years were gone, and served to aggravate the problems of the society. there is no replacement for cultural charisma and creativity in conquest.

3) war itself is a negative-sum game -- always. fighting wars never yields a gain; it is not productive. it is only a matter of whether a society can survive the attrition and destabilisation involved to attain an end; frequently, even if a war is survived victorious, the winner is permanently stunted and remains either arrested or hurtles into decline. as for the advances in technique inherent to war, see 1).

[fyodor]

What restraints would we put on the military and how?

The only restraints we have are the ballot box, social influence and the threat of insurrection. This is the case regardless of whether the government is limited in other areas or not. And before you scoff at social influence, many feel that's the primary reason we have a democratic republic that respects most people's rights. Humans are remarkably senstive to what others think of them. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

Er...what restraints to YOU advocate? Or do you advocate giving free reign to military adventure? Or merely shrugging our shoulders when the government does thinks of which we don't approve? Do you have a position on such?

[fyodor]

Uncle Joe,

Speaking strictly for myself, I do not see libertarianism as a form of government per se but rather as a philosophy of how to govern. A dictator could be just as libertarian as a constitutionally enumerated government based on direct participation or consensus. Most of us actually like "what we have now" in terms of the form of government. What I would advocate is a different philosophy, one based on not initiating force. Whether anyone listens to me is another matter.

[gaius marius]

War seems to be pretty much a constant in human society

this is mythology, mr uncle, though if gibbon is your only historical reference i can imagine you could get that impression. it is constant in dying civilizations.

in growing, charismatic and creative civilizations, adherents are won not by conquest but by magnetism. western civilization began with the conversion of europe to catholicism not by force but by charisma in the 8th-11th centuries. hellenic civilization took root in city-states around the peloponnese and aegean in the 8th and 7th c bc by attractiveness of hellenic culture and institutions, not conquest.

by the time warfare becomes central to a civilization's existence, it is dying -- a desperate reaction to internal ossification and external exploitation (and its consequences).

[gaius marius]

gaius could better illustrate this point, but Rome's military power declined as result of winning too many wars, conquering more terrority than it could defend, thereby overextending its forces. Sounds vaguely familiar.

exactly, mr david -- rather, rome saw fit to fight too many wars because it was responding to the disintegration of the hellenic world in the only manner in which its particularly barbaric outlook allowed it to. it succeeded where alexander had failed -- but in success found that it hadn't addressed the core issues of hellenic decline and sealed its fate in turbulence, rebellion, sadism, militarism, bankruptcy and chaos over the succeeding centuries.

[Rick Barton]

You're saying that we can diminish (war) through libertarianism. How?

Uncle Joe, libertarianism is the limiting of government to protecting against force and fraud. That would rule out elective wars, such as Iraq. Also, it would rule out the kind of intervention that motivated the 9/11 attacks.

[Les]

Can we also agree that war is a distinctly human activity that isn't likely to disappear not matter how we organize society?

Sure, we can. Can we agree that wars (especially ours) should be orchestrated by honest, competent individuals?

[Ken Shultz]

I've tried to make sense of Uncle Joes' rant, and I just don't get it.

...Pointing out that war has always been with us is a useful observation in what way? Rape has always been with us. ...So has theft, fraud, murder, etc. Should we stop worrying about those things too?

Sometimes killing someone is justifiable and sometimes it isn't. Yes, people have always killed each other, and, sometimes, good things come from that. ...But the suggestion that, because of this, we should stop criticizing people who unjustly kill others is patently ridiculous.

...The suggestion that only hippies and the uneducated should worry about whether or not our war is justified is also ridiculous. ...As well as a critic who bemoans the supposed ignorance of libertarian commenters and, apparently, hasn't even bothered to look up libertarianism on wikipedia.

[fyodor]

Perhaps Uncle Joe is Uncle Troll?

[drf]

Raymond:

Feingold is close to being libertarian?????

the National Taxpayers Union gives him a D. ("big spender")
Rated 25% free trade by CATO
Highly rated for pro public education
RATED ZERO BY CHRISTIAN COALITION (that's awesome!!!)
voted yes on enlarging NATO (ugh)
pro public health voting record, too.
whatever the group SANE is, they gave him 100% pro peace voting record. (sounds like a mixed bag)
AFL-CIO rates him 100% pro labor
rated 90% by the ARA. pro elderly.

he is too much of an activist to be a "libertarian", IMO.

while he certainly is on the correct side of the fence with the "war on terror", his assult on the first ammendment with the campaign spending is enough to cause worries.

and, i don't like the economist. i feel its coverage of US issues are off, i don't like its pro EU stance, especially on the obviously bullshit ground that it's somehow a Liberal institution. That is a joke. to me it reads like the NY Times. I prefer REASON or TIMBRO, grin. but then again, they were pro kenneth clarke, while i liked portillo...

Crushinator: great name! loved that show!

[smacky]

I've enjoyed the discussion, but now I'm out of scotch. Buona notte.

I don't take naps at this hour. I drink scotch and listen to the blues.

I'll admit that it's hard to refute an incoherent argument, but,then, would it matter? If you don't understand your own argument, how will you understand the refutation? - Uncle Joe

I've tried to make sense of Uncle Joes' rant, and I just don't get it. - Ken Shultz

Lessee here: scotch+rants+consecutive posts+belligerency+insults = Gary Gunnels? Uncle Joe, is your last name Bart by any chance? 🙂 (Hey, It's possible that he trained himself to stop chuckling and leaving those leery grins, and to type with capital letters...just an observation.)

The subjunctive is a common verb form in many languages, esp. Romance languages, namely: English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Spanish, German, Italian (to name a few).

Also, I know a fellow who repeatedly and incorrectly overuses the phrase "as it were" (on broadcast media, no less.)

[Uncle Joe]

Limiting government to the police and the military seems like a recipe for disaster to me. Who keeps the power of the police and the military in check?

[drf]

Smacky:

agreed. was wondering if Uncle Joe were RST and GG.

And German and English and ancient Greek aren't Romance languages.

Indo European yes, Romantic, no.

English and German are GERMANIC languages.

and Danish marks the subjunctive in similar ways to english.

Uncle Joe: the talk show hosts, of course. then we could have tradable permits for talk show CO2 credits... and... oh. wrong thread.

[ChrisO]

gaius, I somewhat defer to your knowledge of the Greco-Roman world, however I have studied it extensively myself, and I differ from you on some basic points:

--one must distinguish between all warfare and that conducted for conquest/colonization. A crucial factor in the northward spread of Western Civ was the Roman conquest of Gaul, Britain, and Iberia, combined with the implantation of Romans into those territories as colonists, who eventually subsumed the native civilizations. Without that warfare and conquest, western civ as we know it might not exist today--perhaps Islam would be in its place.

--there is no one single cause for the decline of the SPQR in the western territories. And remember, this decline was a very slow one--Rome reached its territorial zenith in the 1st Cen. AD and it took another 350 years or so until Romulus Augustulus was dethroned. In fact, I would argue that there were two bigger (and related) factors than exhaustion from warfare (for which Rome was able to find and fund a zillion mercenaries): the decline of traditional Roman martial civic virtues with the spread of Christianity, and the increased prosperity and leisure of the upper castes in Roman society. Both of these features led Rome from an urban outward-looking society to an introverted, quasi-feudal rural society long before the final conquest of the Western Roman state. Put plainly, elite Romans no longer had the stomach to defend themselves against new and more determined foes.

--The issue of the transition from "Republic" to "Empire" is a different issue, and one I believe is overstated when looking at the long view of Roman history. The Roman form of republic was more akin to a mafia organization than to the modern form of government for which we use that name. Such a government was patently incapable of administering far-flung territories, or even the Italian peninsula for that matter. But the Principate which followed actually did an amazing job of administering conquered territories (and Romanizing them), given the technological limitations of the time.

In short, conquest and colonization can often prove quite profitable and sustainable for the conquering civilation. Our modern objection to them is moral, not rational. The USA is undoubtedly a more prosperous and powerful nation for having taken the Indians' land--and while it may have been immoral, it was hardly the 'seeds of our destruction'. On the other hand, offensive warfare for any purpose other than conquest/colonization has no rational basis. A rational, if immoral, policy in the Middle East would be to conquer/colonize the oil-producing regions and ethnically cleanse the natives. We would (1) have cheap oil, and (2) defund the Islamists. But obviously we won't do that, and no, I'm not arguing that we should.

[Uncle Joe]

ChrisO,

A realist with actual evidence! Sensible remarks.
A lot of moralists think they're being rational.

[fyodor]

Who keeps the power of the police and the military in check?

Well, who the fuck does so now?

[Uncle Joe]

Well, now there are at least some checks. Sometimes Congress works. How would you like it if just Halliburton called the shots? Oops.

[ChrisO]

Uncle Joe, here's another way of looking at it from the libertarian perspective:

Humans, at heart, are a curious mixture of pacifist and warmonger, but we are ALL acquisitive by nature.

The libertarian believes that the best way to acquire more stuff is to unleash the inherent creativity of the individual human mind by freeing it from regulatory and collectivist bondage, which drives up productivity and allows us all to acquire more stuff.

However, the very notion of 'productivity growth' is a recent phenomenon. Prior to the 18th Century or so, productivity growth, even if had such a concept existed, would have been too small to be measured within a single human lifespan.

As such, the only way for a society to acquire more stuff was to take its neighbor's stuff--and possibly its neighbors as slaves, that being the primary ancient form of 'productivity growth'... 🙂

The best argument against my conquest/colonization thesis is the experience of European colonialism in Africa and Asia. The prevailing (and largely correct) view is that the colonial experiment bankrupted the European powers and was a large factor in their demise to current EU girlyman status. What this view ignores is that the Euro powers didn't truly colonize, except for what became the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (and South Africa to a more limited extent). That is, the Euro states simply chose to exercise dominion over large areas, but did not attempt to resettle their own people, or truly convert the natives into Spaniards, Frenchmen, etc. They were concerned about converting the natives to Christianity and extracting cheap labor from them, but the idea of creating new Europeans out of them and making them into 'equal partners' wasn't thought of, even by the culturally chauvinist French. The cost of maintaining order over large, unassimilated populations greatly exceeded the profits made from the conquered territories, mostly in the form of raw materials.

In terms of acquisitiveness, the Europeans gobbled up raw materials from the territories, but they paid a huge price for it by refusing true colonization. And in the end European imperialism had more to do with social darwinist one-uppmanship than it did with rational economic policy.

By contrast, the Romans ultimately made new Romans everywhere they conquered (though with much enslavement and slaughter in the process). The Roman Empire was an amazingly unified culture for having been cobbled together out of dozens of wars of conquest. Rome bled territories dry to support its leisure class, but those territories ultimately supported their own leisure classes that had not existed before, as well as adopted more a sophisticated culture that ultimately created the modern world.

What the fuck any of this has to do with our current adventures in Mesopotamia is another matter... 🙂

P.S.: at least Halliburton has a bottom line--they'd probably make more rational decisions in Iraq than Congress and the Prez combined. 😉

[fyodor]

Uncle Joe, you're funny. In case you're really trying to be serious, libertarianism does not advocate the dissolution of Congress, and there would be the same checks (and balances, BTW) under libertarianism as there are now. As I said before, libertarianism is NOT a form of government, but rather a philosophy regarding how best to govern. Ie, it's about what laws Congress should or should not pass, not whether there should be a Congress. Wanna learn more?

[Uncle Joe]

ChrisO:

Very interesting and worth thinking about. I suspect you underestimate the role of irrationality and the desire for power. I can imagine some form of libertarianism being established. I can't imagine it lasting. Morally, it's as appealing as any utopian scheme.

[thoreau]

Originally I was patient with Uncle Joe because I wanted to figure him out.

Now that I've figured him out I've lost interest.

[Ken Shultz]

He seems to suggest that there are no valid, moral arguments against war.

"Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."

----Matthew 7:6

[Uncle Joe]

Ken:

Of course there are valid moral arguments against war. You've completely missed my point. I maintain that there are no rational arguments against war. In my view, it's absurd to think that once we organize society the "right" way, war won't be a problem. That's a rational argument, but I think it ignores a mountain of evidence about the human propensity to make war for all sorts of rational and irrational reasons. Many pacifists base their position on Christian faith, and that's fine. But mainstream Christianity views human nature as hopelessly corrupt, which is closer to my view, so I'm not sure why you're quoting scripture to me.

[Rich Ard]

Joe, I don't see that anyone here has suggested that war will cease to be a problem any more that slavery or pop music; libertarianism offers a method, however, for cutting down on needless violence by fostering the ideal that one's right to make decisions ends when those decisions infringe upon the liberties of another.

Will that stop war? Probably not, but it helps put the lie to proactive conflicts like those we've been involved in of late.

[Rich Ard]

Should be Uncle Joe, excuse me.

[raymond]

But mainstream Christianity views human nature as hopelessly corrupt

Of course that's not true.

[Uncle Joe]

Raymond:

Admitedly, I grew up in an hispanic evangelical family that put a lot of emphasis on the corruptedness of human nature, but the whoile doctrine of original sin--accepted by all orthodox Christians-- states that we are hopelessly corrupt and unable to work out salvation on our own. Only through the salvific act the crucified Christ can we be saved. You should brush up on your theology. Or just ask the President.

[CAT_Violations]

Uncle Joe-

Again I'll address what points I can remember from your various and sundry posts.

- Switzerland does have a government and it does have a military. From what I remember, and this could be very wrong because it has changed or I could be mixing it up with some other country, was that they have a large mandatory reserve force - most military aged men are trained and armed. In fact, if I remember correctly it has been used as an argument against gun control in some cases, since a large percentage of the population has a fully automatic military assault weapon in their homes but there are relatively few problems. (Again, I could be remembering this wrong, someone feel free to jump in and correct me.)

- As far as your concern for national defense goes - I'm not saying that we completely gut the military, but there is a lot of extra capacity their, especially in expensive, high tech, overkill weapons systems. A large ready reserve force like Switzerland's might not be a bad idea either. After all, we have some good geography as well - oceans to the east/west and relatively benevolent neighbors to the north/south. Few would have the capacity to invade us, and those that did could probably not maintain or survive any kind of viable occupation.

- There are numerous rational arguments against war. It's costly. It's risky. It's a wasteful use of productive resources. I could go on but most are variations on those themes. They date back thousands of years to Sun Tzu: "To win without fighting is best."

[Mr. F. Le Mur]

CAT_Violations -

"Also, watch out for those finns, zee germans,
assorted other scandinavians, their genetic
relatives, and various "others" - surely you
know that they fit into a "different" dichotomy.
Time for the new new eugenics, right?"

Indeed. But we think biger than that, and we're
secretly sterilizing all bald-eared life-forms:
http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/iju/vol2n1/sperm.xml

FWIW, my first comment referred to "Uncle
Joe," not you.

Mr. F.