The End of The Neo-cons (political)

[rgraham666]

An interesting article in my paper today, by a business columnist I much respect.

This quote made me shudder. "Every 10 years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small, crappy, little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business," said neo-con Michael Ledeen in an American Enterprise Institute forum.

Christ.

 

[neonlyte]

Very good and clear article Rob. Thanks for posting that.

 

[Pure]

hi rg,

the rebuke to neo cons is necessary, and they are fighting each other (see perle).

Olive said, quoted by rg,For the purposes of this essay, neo-conservatism refers not to domestic policy; nor is it a global concept. Strictly speaking, "neo-conservatism" is a distinctly U.S. phenomenon calling for the projection of U.S. values worldwide, premised in an American belief in its moral authority that reaches back to the Founding Fathers. In the words of pamphleteer Thomas Paine, arguably the first neo-con: "The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind."

P:As the author notes a couple times (but only in passing), the vision of American power insuring American values in the world is an old one. Arguably a hundred years old, at least. And the claim of American moral superiority, the 'city on the hill', iirc, goes back to America's founders, like Paine, as quoted.

The difference is the degree of caution and circumspection. Also some *Talked* a great line, but in practice did little, like Dulles or Reagan. Some variations of American exceptionalism urge the US to teach by example, not by gunboat. The MISadventures come where some Pres is too ready to 'send in the boys' to directly 'teach a lesson, ' to attempt, with military force, to insure hegemony (McKinley, Johnson, GWB),

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Here is some more "end of the necons" from another angle:

Diversity's Oppressions
Why Iraq has proven to be so hard to pacify.

BY THOMAS SOWELL
October 30, 2006

Iraq is not the first war with ugly surprises and bloody setbacks. Even World War II, idealized in retrospect as it never was at the time--the war of "the greatest generation"--had a long series of disasters for Americans before victory was finally achieved.

The war began for Americans with the disaster at Pearl Harbor, followed by the tragic horror of the Bataan death march, the debacle at the Kasserine Pass and, even on the eve of victory, being caught completely by surprise by a devastating German counterattack that almost succeeded at the Battle of the Bulge.

Other wars--our own and other nations'--have likewise been full of nasty surprises and mistakes that led to bloodbaths. Nevertheless, the Iraq war has some special lessons for our time, lessons that both the left and the right need to acknowledge, whether or not they will.

What is it that has made Iraq so hard to pacify, even after a swift and decisive military victory? In one word: diversity.
That word has become a sacred mantra, endlessly repeated for years on end, without a speck of evidence being asked for or given to verify the wonderful benefits it is assumed to produce.

Worse yet, Iraq is only the latest in a long series of catastrophes growing out of diversity. These include "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans, genocide in Rwanda and the Sudan, the million lives destroyed in intercommunal violence when India became independent in 1947 and the even larger number of Armenians slaughtered by Turks during World War I.

Despite much gushing about how we should "celebrate diversity," America's great achievement has not been in having diversity but in taming its dangers that have run amok in many other countries. Americans have by no means escaped diversity's oppressions and violence, but we have reined them in.

Another concept whose bitter falsity has been painfully revealed in Iraq is "nation-building." People are not building blocks, however much some may flatter themselves that they can arrange their fellow human beings' lives the way you can arrange pieces on a chess board.

The biggest and most fatuous example of nation-building occurred right after World War I, when the allied victors dismembered the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Woodrow Wilson assigned a young Walter Lippman to sit down with maps and population statistics and start drawing lines that would define new nations.

Iraq is one of those new nations. Like other artificial creations in the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere, it has never had the cohesion of nations that evolved over the centuries out of the experiences of peoples who worked out their own modi vivendi in one way or another.

Tito's dictatorship held Yugoslavia together, as other dictatorships held together other peoples forced into becoming a nation by the decisions of outsiders who drew their boundaries on maps and in some cases--Nigeria, for example--even gave them their national name.

Even before 9/11, there were some neoconservatives who talked about our achieving "national greatness" by creating democratic nations in various parts of the world.

How much influence their ideas have had on the actual course of events is probably something that will not be known in our generation. But we can at least hope that the Iraq tragedy will chasten the hubris behind notions of "nation-building" and chasten also the pious dogmatism of those who hype "diversity" at every turn, in utter disregard of its actual consequences at home or abroad. Free societies have prerequisites, and history has not given all peoples those prerequisites, which took centuries to evolve in the West.

However we got into Iraq, we cannot undo history--even recent history--by simply pulling out and leaving events to take their course in that strife-torn country. Whether or not we "stay the course," terrorists are certainly going to stay the course in Iraq and around the world.

Political spin may say that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, but the terrorists themselves quite obviously believe otherwise, as they converge on that country with lethal and suicidal resolve.

Whether we want to or not, we cannot unilaterally end the war with international terrorists. Giving the terrorists an epoch-making victory in Iraq would only shift the location where we must face them or succumb to them.

Abandoning Iraqi allies to their fate would ensure that other nations would think twice before becoming or remaining our allies. With a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, we are going to need all the allies we can get.

Mr. Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" (Encounter Books, 2005).

 

[Pure]

from the Asia Times, op piece by toni momiroski

[...]
According to Natan Sharansky, a Soviet emigre who is a top political official in Israel, the theoretical framework I speak of here is best expressed by the view that Jews have long held that they were chosen to play a special role in history, to be what their prophets called "a light unto nations". Similarly, the United States has long regarded itself as entrusted with a mission to be what John Winthrop in the 17th century called "a city on a hill" and Ronald Reagan in the 20th century parsed as a "shining city on a hill".

What follows is that there exists a particular belief system in the world that some nations by their historic position (Israel) and others by their pragmatic deeds (the US) deserve special consideration in world affairs.

Israel and the US are not alone, however, in seeking special concession from others in their dealing with the world at large. England too expressed this position in Australia not so long ago by declaring the law of terra nullius (no man's land).

The doctrine of terra nullius applied to "uncultivated or desert lands". In such lands, the common law of England applied from the moment of colonization. Behind this act was also the belief that the English too, like America and Israel after them, were the light on the hill and all others were relegated to uncultivated savages.

Israel and the US consistently disregard local laws and proprieties as England did before them. To all of them we must say, enough about lights and righteousness and missions and destiny. We must draw a line in the sand beyond which we won't be pushed again on issues of false manifestos.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Political spin may say that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, but the terrorists themselves quite obviously believe otherwise, as they converge on that country with lethal and suicidal resolve.

I've got no quarrel with this guy's argument until he gets to this point. The war has certainly attracted terrorists and has, in fact, created more than it's destroyed, but the fact is that what's going o there now is something like 90% Iraqi killing Iraqi, not US vs International Terrorists. Only 7% of the violence involves US troops, and for all the talk about fighting them "there rather than here", Al Qaida In Iraq is estimated to have accounted for only about 4% of the total casualities.

What we've got over there now is social anarchy with at least 40 different groups fighting it out, and most of them are home grown or indigenous. In this confusion, the US is just one more army among others.

Whether we want to or not, we cannot unilaterally end the war with international terrorists. Giving the terrorists an epoch-making victory in Iraq would only shift the location where we must face them or succumb to them.

Once again, as much as we'd like to believe that we're fighting International Terrorism over there, we're not, and this guy should know it. We're caught in a massive crossfire over there, and here's some of the gangs fighting it out. Source is Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency

Major Iraqi guerrilla groups include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Mujahideen Shura Council
* Mahdi Army (Jaish-i-Mahdi)
* Badr Organization
* Fedayeen Saddam
* Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Tantheem Al-Qaeda fi BiladirRafidain)
* Jaish Ansar al-Sunna
* Mohammad's Army (Jaish Mohammed)
* Islamic Army in Iraq (Al-Jaish Al-Islami fil-Iraq)
* Iraqi National Islamic Resistance (Moqawama al-Islamiya al-Wataniya, "1920 Revolution Brigades")
* Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat Al-Moqawama Al-Islamiya)
* Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (al-Jabha al-Islamiya lil-Moqawama al-Iraqiya - JAMI)
* Jaish al-Mujahideen
* Jaish al-Rashideen
* Asaeb Ahl el-Iraq (Factions of the People of Iraq)
* Black Banner Organization (ar-Rayat as-Sawda)
* The Return (al-Awda)
* Nasserites
* Wakefulness and Holy War
* Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq
* Liberating Iraq's Army
* Abu Theeb's group
* Jaish Abi Baker's group
* Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions (Kataab Ashbal Al Islam Al Salafi)

Most of these groups are as willing to fight each other as they are to fight us, and they're almost all indigenous, not "international terrorists".

Abandoning Iraqi allies to their fate would ensure that other nations would think twice before becoming or remaining our allies. With a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, we are going to need all the allies we can get.

One way or the other, we will have to eventually abandon these people to their "fate". He's right about our being stuck there, but the rest of his statement is fatuous. The invasion of Iraq has already done so much to destroy the image and credibility of the USA among the nations and people of the middle east that it's hard to imagine anything we could do to make it worse.

The outcome of the war and the US exit strategy is already becoming pretty clear. We'll stay until some "benchmark" is reached, whereupn we'll declare victory and either retire to our fortified bases there or just pick up and leave, and then look the other way as the Iraqis continue their bloody civil war until
someone comes out on top, probably doing what we can to keep the Iranians from overrunning the country.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I've got no quarrel with this guy's argument until he gets to this point. The war has certainly attracted terrorists and has, in fact, created more than it's destroyed, but the fact is that what's going o there now is something like 90% Iraqi killing Iraqi, not US vs International Terrorists. Only 7% of the violence involves US troops. Al Qaida In Iraq is estimated to have accounted for about 4% of the total casualities.

What we've got over there now is social anarchy with at least 40 different groups fighting it out, and most of them are home grown or indigenous. In this confusion, the US is just one more army among others.

Once again, as much as we'd like to believe that we're fighting International Terrorism over there, we're not, and this guy should know it. We're caught in a massive crossfire over there, and here's some of the gangs fighting it out. Source is Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency

Major Iraqi guerrilla groups include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Mujahideen Shura Council
* Mahdi Army (Jaish-i-Mahdi)
* Badr Organization
* Fedayeen Saddam
* Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Tantheem Al-Qaeda fi BiladirRafidain)
* Jaish Ansar al-Sunna
* Mohammad's Army (Jaish Mohammed)
* Islamic Army in Iraq (Al-Jaish Al-Islami fil-Iraq)
* Iraqi National Islamic Resistance (Moqawama al-Islamiya al-Wataniya, "1920 Revolution Brigades")
* Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat Al-Moqawama Al-Islamiya)
* Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (al-Jabha al-Islamiya lil-Moqawama al-Iraqiya - JAMI)
* Jaish al-Mujahideen
* Jaish al-Rashideen
* Asaeb Ahl el-Iraq (Factions of the People of Iraq)
* Black Banner Organization (ar-Rayat as-Sawda)
* The Return (al-Awda)
* Nasserites
* Wakefulness and Holy War
* Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq
* Liberating Iraq's Army
* Abu Theeb's group
* Jaish Abi Baker's group
* Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions (Kataab Ashbal Al Islam Al Salafi)

These are almost all indigenous groups, not "international terrorists".

He's right about our being stuck there, but the rest of his statement is fatuous. The invasion of Iraq has already done more to destroy the image and credibility of the USA among the nations and people of the middle east that it's hard to imagine anything we could do to make it worse.

The outcome of the war and the US exit strategy is already becoming pretty clear. We'll stay until some "benchmark" is reached, whereupn we'll declare victory and either retire to our fortified bases there or just pick up and leave, and then look the other way as the Iraqis continue their bloody civil war until
someone comes out on top, probably doing what we can to keep the Iranians from overrunning the country.

Dr. M, you raise legit points, but so does Sowell. He is very worthy of respect, and his thoughts on this should not be dismissed casually, even the ones you disagree with. He is trying very hard to not oversimplify, and to address the deeper and long term issues with the full seriousness they deserve, and without the polluting influence of politics. I'm not saying you're not sincere in all you say, but I do fear that politics does interfere somewhat with acheiving a dispassionate appraisal. Thomas Sowell is anything but fatuous, and that remark is what puts me on edge about your analysis.

 

[R. Richard]

Those who reads the article carefully may have noticed the passing reference to "aside from the Vietnamese boat people." Pehaps it might give some perspective to note that there were some TWO MILLION Vietnamese boat people over some 20 years. Many of the boat people left in leaky boats with little or no water and food. However, it was really not a big deal unless, of course, you were one of the two million boat people.

I was also glad to see the reference to throwing a little country up against the wall. Of course that well describes the US military action in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait. I forget which of those countries we are still occupying.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Dr. M, you raise legit points, but so does Sowell. He is very worthy of respect, and his thoughts on this should not be dismissed casually, even the ones you disagree with. He is trying very hard to not oversimplify, and to address the deeper and long term issues with the full seriousness they deserve, and without the polluting influence of politics. I'm not saying you're not sincere in all you say, but I do fear that politics does interfere somewhat with acheiving a dispassionate appraisal. Thomas Sowell is anything but fatuous, and that remark is what puts me on edge about your analysis.

Well I don't mean to be political about this, because it's all of our problem now, and I believe the war would have been a fiasco whether it had been started by Bill Clinton or George Bush. But it honestly frightens me to hear credentialed people - people who supposedly have some influence in the debate - repeating these bromides about how we're "fighting them there so we won't have to fight them here" and who persist in seeing what's going on in Iraq today as a Manichaean struggle betwen the Forces of Democracy and the organized forces of International Terrorism, because that's simply not the case. Furthermore, once you realize that all his subsequent arguments proceed from this erroneous assumption, how can you take anthging he says seriously?


But more to the point in stoking my ire was this statement, which I swear is taken right out of the 1963 John Birch Society's handbook entitled, "Why Are We in Viet Nam?" It too assured us that faiurre to save South Viet Nam would convice the world that the old USA was just a a paper tiger.

Abandoning Iraqi allies to their fate would ensure that other nations would think twice before becoming or remaining our allies. With a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, we are going to need all the allies we can get.

I just can't imagine what he's thinking here. What other nations would think twice" or even "once" about becoming our allies? Seeing as we've turned Iraq into an anarchy of armed factions, I just can't see how anyone in their right minds would look at the US and say, "Yeah, that's who I want for my ally! Someone who can just invade the snot out of my country whenever they get the urge!" Just what countries might he be talking about? Syria? Jordan? Lebanon? UAE & Sauidi Arabia? Pakistan?

I've got to think he's thinking about Turkey, who has fo be shitting bricks now with the very real possibilitie of a Kurdhish nation on their boirder.

 

[SweetPrettyAss]

Those who reads the article carefully may have noticed the passing reference to "aside from the Vietnamese boat people." Pehaps it might give some perspective to note that there were some TWO MILLION Vietnamese boat people over some 20 years. Many of the boat people left in leaky boats with little or no water and food. However, it was really not a big deal unless, of course, you were one of the two million boat people.

I was also glad to see the reference to throwing a little country up against the wall. Of course that well describes the US military action in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait. I forget which of those countries we are still occupying.

Cubans, acting in their role as surrogates for the Soviet Union, invaded Grenada and overthrew the elected government. US forces responded by attacking the occupiers and restoring the elected government.

Panama was ruled by Noriega, who was also a big time drug dealer. The US invaded in order to arrest him. This was pretty high handed but there was no lasting effect, except for Noriega being convicted and being in prison now.

Kuwait was conquered by Iraq. Fearful that the Arabian Peninsula was Saddam's next target, the US, the UK and many others, including some Muslim countries invaded and defeated the occupying Iraqis. There are still American forces there but they are mostly in support of the troops in Iraq.

 

[Pure]

it is certainly true, sweet p., that the US has occasionally attained its objectives in an intervention (same for the Brits); usually when the opponent is very weak and the intervention is circumscribed, quick, and dirty. to which one must add that the objective has usually nothing remotely to do with democracy, but rather national interest.
Example, the US to rid of Mossadeq, and elected leader of Iran, and Pinochet [correction: Allende; P led the coup against Allende], an elected leader in Chile. Both became fascist states.


for all the talk of civilizing the world, it's the little 'kick ass' things that work, rally the right, etc. --e.g., Thatcher in the Falklands. Dulles and Reagan knew this, Rummy and Wolfie did not.

It's worth noting that several neo cons are ex liberals. Arguably it's liberal hubris that is responsible for some of the biggest debacles, e.g., Vietnam.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

. . . bromides about how we're "fighting them there so we won't have to fight them here" and who persist in seeing what's going on in Iraq today as a Manichaean struggle betwen the Forces of Democracy and the organized forces of International Terrorism, because that's simply not the case. Furthermore, once you realize that all his subsequent arguments proceed from this erroneous assumption . . .

They are not "bromides," but very serious positions for which an argument can be made. The "politics" I referred to in my post enters when someone just asserts "bromide - not true!" without making an argument.

The point you made about hearing similar rationales as those in Viet Nam is worth talking about, and seriously considering. Just because it was applied to VN doesn't mean it's false here, though. It might be, but fighting the last war is no less an error for the war opponents as it is for the generals. You have to make a case for these points, not just holler, "Like VN! Like VN!" And if you seriously engage the issues, separate out the politics, not "fight the last war," and look beyond the short term, you will see that there answers to these issue are not no-brainers. Facile assertions blurted out with full confidence and no qualifications or uneasy second thoughts indicate the process described in the preceding sentence has not been followed.

 

[Pure]

dear mab,

you mustn't 'dis' rightwing 'thinkers.' they have a lot to offer. like, well.... hmmm.... well, you mustn't dis them, it's rude.

it's worth noting Sowell injects one of his hobby horses:

chasten also the pious dogmatism of those who hype "diversity" at every turn, in utter disregard of its actual consequences at home or abroad

reading between the lines: it's WRONG to have racial targets at the Law Schools, Medical Schools etc. and by the way, letting in all those wetbacks who don't learn English is destroying 'our' (whites' and privileged Blacks') country.

you start with affirmative action, you end up like Iraq! (Sowell).

i dare you to call THAT a bromide!

 

[TheOlderGuy]

They are not "bromides," but very serious positions for which an argument can be made. The "politics" I referred to in my post enters when someone just asserts "bromide - not true!" without making an argument.

.

Bush's entire playbook has been about bromides, a slogan for every crooked thing he does, and you can count on each one -- whether it be about foreign policy or domestic programs -- you can count on it meaning exactly the opposite of what it sounds like:

No Child Left Behind was his answer to gutting the funding from education.

Clear Skies did the same thing for environmental funding.

Freedom and Democracy in Iraq had nothing to do with the needs of the Iraqi people, or the future of freedom and democracy in the world. Bush and Co. don't even begin to understand the Iraqi people. It was about "the economy, stupid", the economic well being of the military/industrial complex that Ike warned us about fifty years ago.

The Patriot Act -- don't even get me started on the diablocal consequences of this misnomer.

Help America Vote Act -- holy shit, Batman, we can put voting in the hands of our computer geeks, and nobody can even follow the hocus pocus of changing any election we want to.

you can go through every one of Bush and Co.'s bromides and figure out what the real meaning is. all you have to do is follow the money.

 

[SweetPrettyAss]

it is certainly true, sweet p., that the US has occasionally attained its objectives in an intervention (same for the Brits); usually when the opponent is very weak and the intervention is circumscribed, quick, and dirty. to which one must add that the objective has usually nothing remotely to do with democracy, but rather national interest.
Example, the US to rid of Mossadeq, and elected leader of Iran, and Pinochet, an elected leader in Chile. Both became fascist states.


for all the talk of civilizing the world, it's the little 'kick ass' things that work, rally the right, etc. --e.g., Thatcher in the Falklands. Dulles and Reagan knew this, Rummy and Wolfie did not.

It's worth noting that several neo cons are ex liberals. Arguably it's liberal hubris that is responsible for some of the biggest debacles, e.g., Vietnam.

Grenada is basically a democratic nation and the American intervention was for the purpose of restoring that state.

I think you meant Allende in Chile. Pinochet was the fascist dictator who took over but the nation eventually evolved into a democracy which probably would not have happened under Allende. No US forces were overtly involved there or in Iran.

Following WW2, the primary Anglo American foreign policy was containing Soviet expansion. Their expansion was done mainly through surrogates and the allies were successful in Berlin, Korea, Iran, Chile and some other places that don't come to mind just now. It was unsuccessful in Cuba and Indo-China. Although some battles were lost, the war was won, and the Soviet empire collapsed. In other words, the foreign policy was successful.

This was in the national interest but in the world interest as well. You can look at the places where the allies were not successful to see what I mean. Cuba should be a prosperous nation but under the Soviet system, they can't even feed themselves, and a large part of the population wants to leave. Cambodia became a charnel house. You mentioned two million Vietnamese boat people, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. How many more wanted to escape but either had no boat or were unable to avoid the watchful eyes of the secret police?

The Anglo American motives were not altruistic but they did improve the world in general or, at least, kept the Russian bear from swallowing up as much as it wanted.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

They are not "bromides," but very serious positions for which an argument can be made. The "politics" I referred to in my post enters when someone just asserts "bromide - not true!" without making an argument.

The point you made about hearing similar rationales as those in Viet Nam is worth talking about, and seriously considering. Just because it was applied to VN doesn't mean it's false here, though. It might be, but fighting the last war is no less an error for the war opponents as it is for the generals. You have to make a case for these points, not just holler, "Like VN! Like VN!" And if you seriously engage the issues, separate out the politics, not "fight the last war," and look beyond the short term, you will see that there answers to these issue are not no-brainers. Facile assertions blurted out with full confidence and no qualifications or uneasy second thoughts indicate the process described in the preceding sentence has not been followed.

Mea Culpa on the Viet Nam thing. I mention it entirely too much, anmd while I think there are some very very alarming parallels, I really don't think Iraq is a carbon copy of that war by any means.

But Viet Nam was my war, the one my generation grew up with, and the one that taught me lessons I'll never forget - one of the most memorable being that my government can be shockingly ignorant and arrogant and downright stupid, and that we have leaders who, regardless of party or political leaning, have no qualms about sending soldiers to die for nothing more than their own vanity, stubbornness, or pigheadedness.

If I believed (as I assume you do) that we're actually fighting international terrorists over there, and that by so doing we're eliminating them and making the world a better and safer place, then I'd support this guy too. In fact, I'd be asking why we're not doing more - sending more troops and material, calling up the draft, getting the damned job done.

But I don't believe that, and I haven't seen any evidence that supports that contention. (In the early days of the war they were saying things like that; telling us they estimated there were like 5000 foreign insurgents causing all the trouble and that once they had them cleaned up... You don't hear anyone talking like that anymore.) Everything I see points to an entirely different interpretation of what's going on - a home grown insurgency.

If you have any evidence that supports the idea that the insurgency is led by foreigners or international terrorists, I'd be glad to see it. But everything I see refutes this.

But there could be another reason that this administration (or any administration in the same boat) would want to believe it's fighting a bunch of external troublemakers rather than a popular uprising, and that's something IO was just made aware of a couple of weeks ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the historical record shows, going back to at least Napoleon's occupation of Spain, no foreign power has ever won a war against indigenous insurgents.

 

[rgraham666]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the historical record shows, going back to at least Napoleon's occupation of Spain, no foreign power has ever won a war against indigenous insurgents.

Nope.

It's a simple question of will. There comes a point where it's too much trouble to fight a war in a foreign country. The effort taken to win requires far more than the foreign country is willing to spend. And because there is an exit strategy. The occupiers can leave and go home.

The insurgents on the other hand have no exit strategy. They're already home. And they have a lot more to win.

Ultimately the foreigners are fighting to enrich themselves and the locals are fighting for their freedom.

One of the main reasons for 9/11, although many people don't know this, was that Al Qaeda wanted to change the tenor of their conflict with the West. By striking at America they hoped to goad America into invading a Muslim country thereby setting up a conflict similar to Afghanistan against the Soviets. Al Qaeda was sure such a war would be won by the Islamic country thus strengthening the Islamist cause and weakening America.

It worked, too.

 

[Pure]

hi mab, note to SweetP.

there are a couple, commonly cited examples of successful counterinsurgency,

beginning of 20th century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines-American_War

post WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

there are arguably a number of other examples. China in Tibet. 1960s and after. looking further back, i think are are several rebellions or insurgencies put down, often simply by killing or exiling lots of (or most, or all) people. the romans did this to Israel in the late first century. the Brits against the Boers (often said to be the first modern guerrillas; first 'concentration camps').

i think the point is that the length of time required, and the degree of killing and ruthlessness needed is a bit much for late 20th century nations.

mab but I believe that the historical record shows, going back to at least Napoleon's occupation of Spain, no foreign power has ever won a war against indigenous insurgents.

====

SweetPthe primary Anglo American foreign policy was containing Soviet expansion. Their expansion was done mainly through surrogates[,] and the allies were successful in Berlin, Korea, Iran, Chile

P: the theory of 'surrogates' is an old codger; Mossadegh would, of course, be styled a Soviet 'surrogate'; the Bushies are keeping the theory alive and well. it got a little fuzzy in the Vietnam period: the N. Vietnamese would, or course, be 'surrogates' for ... hmm the Soviets? the Chinese? in Iraq, now, the insurgents NOT ostensibly al qaeda are 'surrogates' for al queda, which is, of course, a 'surrogate' of Iran. which is, of course, a surrogate for China.

questions of 'evidence' become irrelevant to ideological claims.

 

[oggbashan]

Some of the USSR's internal problems can be seen as successful counter-insurgency.

What is needed is a ruthlessness that no modern democratic country can show. The insurgency in Iraq would be solved if every person who is not in Iraqi Police or Army uniform who is seen with a firearm is shot on sight, and all members of any family with firearms concealed in their house is executed on the spot. Tens of thousands would die or else the insurgents would have to stand and fight to be defeated by overwhelming firepower.

The politicians wouldn't stand for the outcry from the media and the graphic pictures on the TV news.

Og

 

[neonlyte]

What the fucks a 'bromide" - or do I have to wade through the treacle to find out.

 

[TheOlderGuy]

What the fucks a 'bromide" - or do I have to wade through the treacle to find out.

a commonplace remark, a platitude

 

[neonlyte]

a commonplace remark, a platitude

Merci beaucoup

 

[TheOlderGuy]

Merci beaucoup

de nada

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The insurgency in Iraq would be solved if every person who is not in Iraqi Police or Army uniform who is seen with a firearm is shot on sight, and all members of any family with firearms concealed in their house is executed on the spot.
Og

One of the more bizarre statistics I heard about Iraq lately is that something like 68% of either the Iraqi police or the Iraqi army (I've forgotten which) are also involved in one of the illegal insurgent armies. In other words, they're serving 2 masters, and often use the Iraqi police &/or army to carry on their civil war. The police are part of the problem. That's why we can't get a decent Iraqi army together, because their first loyalty is to their clan, not their nation.

Iraqi's don't have the kind of built-in national loyalty we take for granted. Iraqi society is organized along clans and tribes and villages, and your first responsibility is to your clan or village, then your religion, and finally - maybe - your government. Remember how Saddam only surrounded himself with people from his home town of Tikrit? That's why.

Nepotism isn't corruption there. It's one of the foundations of society. It's how things work.

 

[TheOlderGuy]

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What is needed is a ruthlessness that no modern democratic country can show. The insurgency in Iraq would be solved if every person who is not in Iraqi Police or Army uniform who is seen with a firearm is shot on sight, and all members of any family with firearms concealed in their house is executed on the spot. Tens of thousands would die or else the insurgents would have to stand and fight to be defeated by overwhelming firepower.

Og

we already tried that tactic, right after the invasion. they all just went underground and waited until the U.S. thought they could move on from that posture. it's their country -- they can wait us out.

look at it this way. if your country was being occupied by a foreign army that had already killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, how many of your neighbors would be wanting to give up their guns?