first, it's our, not their actions. and i'm lamenting its (humanitarianism's) absence, not rewriting history. if you'd been paying attention these past three years, you'd know i'm an idealist. a big stick idealist, but an idealist quand meme. i think we should have troops in darfur. i didn't used to think you were willfully obtuse, but my bad- you've turned positively batmanian in that regard.
Then if you're an idealist why do you think the realists in charge at the time, who sanctioned tons of killers and several genocides of their own, such as in East Timor (200,000 or so, dead with a wink and a nod from Kissinger in 1975) wouldn't gladly have made a deal with the Khmer rouge, or would somehow stablize a region with napalm and bullets that history showed us for years was incapable of being stablized in that fashion. Talk about obtuse.
Intervening in Cambodia was illegal, and it couldn't have been done on a huge scale. That is why there was limited engagement there to begin with. The people that the U.S. was fighting against not for are the ones that ended up stopping the Khmer Rouge. So let's suppose that the U.S. had left sooner as opposed to later, it seems likely that the Vietnamese would have had the resources, and focus to move in sooner than they did. The U.S. leaving sooner would have been more helpful to stopping the slaughter in Cambodia than the U.S. staying and "winning"(assuming for the sake of argument that winning was realistic).
Most idealists I know don't support the loss of civil rights, the approval of torture, the labeling of people with dissenting opinions as traitors, and supporting the enemy. I don't disagree with you regarding Darfur, but your idealism is selective to say the best.
Well you're right about one thing basso. Cheney certainly is a big dick -- Cheney Won't Take Back Pelosi Comment WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney refused Friday to take back his charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition to President Bush's Iraq war buildup is playing into the hands of the al-Qaida terrorist network. "If you're going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don't get to just do the fun part of that, that says, 'We'll, we're going to get out,' and appeal to your constituents on that basis," Cheney said. The vice president had voiced the same criticism of Pelosi earlier this week during a visit to Japan, and the California Democrat accused the vice president of questioning her patriotism, saying she was going to call President Bush directly with her complaint. "I hope the president will repudiate and distance himself from the vice president's remarks," Pelosi said. She ended up talking with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten instead of Bush. During Friday's interview in Sydney with ABC News, Cheney said, "I'm not sure what part of it is that Nancy disagreed with. She accused me of questioning her patriotism. I didn't question her patriotism. I questioned her judgment." "You also have to be accountable for the results. What are the consequences of that? What happens if we withdraw from Iraq?," he said. "And the point I made and I'll make it again is that al-Qaida functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy, that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home. And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al-Qaida. I said it and I meant it." Asked if he was willing to take back his criticism of Pelosi, Cheney replied, "I'm not backing down." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070223/cheney-iraq
And we are trying to set up Iraq to have a *gasp* democratic government that often will not agree much with the US. That would be if they had won their wars of expasion, where I was talking about desperately holding on to their own territory until the US finally decided to pull up stakes. If Japan, having been pushed back to the home islands and twice nuked had not surrendered, had then faced continued bombing and invasion, and then fought a long and bloody guerilla war, would they really be as well off as they are now? I think it is unlikely. If Germany had continued to resist the Allied advance until all of the Allies lost the will to fight, what condition would they be in today? Probably not very good, even with their industrialized nature (most of which probably would have been destroyed. Even if we don't want to examine historical examples (because really, no two situations are exactly the same) we could just use common sense to know that Iraq would be better off if they were not fighting a war right now, but instead were being reconstructed with donations from the outside, establishing their own self rule, getting their economy up and running, etc. I don't know how people can argue that Iraq is better off for the insurgency. What does Iraq gain if the insurgency wins, a free pass back to the dark ages?
Josh once again makes a great point -- So Vice President Cheney is keeping up his criticism of Speaker Pelosi, saying the Democrats' preferred policy would "validate the al-Qaeda strategy." I don't know how many times this needs to be said: stop complaining that he's questioning anybody's patriotism. Or Pelosi's judgment. Or any of it. I know it's a dicey phrase, especially when it's being employed against a woman. But I think explanatory value outweighs other sensitivities. This is a perfect example of the GOP's b**** slap theory of electoral politics. Cheney criticize; Dems, Pelosi, whoever says it's unfair. The point of the whole exercise is not the underlying issue of Pelosi but what the exchange is supposed to demonstrate about both players -- that Cheney is strong (he hits) and Pelosi is weak (she complains when attacked.) Why complain about anything Dick Cheney says? The man is simply too big a fool to hold any job of responsibility in the national government. Think of his history of failure, terrible judgment, reckless endangerment of the country. It's hard to imagine that there's anyone in this country not under active federal surveillance who has done more to advance the al Qaeda agenda than Dick Cheney. I know that seems like hyperbole or a throwaway line. But it's actually very true. Is America stronger now than it was before the Cheney era? Does al Qaeda have more fertile ground for proselytizing or less? Are we in a stronger or weaker position vis a vis Iran? Just one factoid you may have missed of late. A recent poll shows that since 2002 the percentage of Arabs who say their primary identity is as Muslims rather than as Arabs or members of their specific nationality has almost doubled -- now it's at 45%. That's in just four years. It's true. So say it. Don't whine. Don't complain. The idea that Dick Cheney is telling anyone what helps or harms al Qaeda is comic. Bleak comedy, but comic nonetheless. Say so. -- Josh Marshall
The only point of the Stalingrad reference is to make the point that sometimes retreat is the correct tactical move which enables you to keep fighting. I am not comparing escalation to the escalation in Vietnam, rather the fact that the war was fundamentally un-winnable without, as George LeMay said, bombing them back to the stone age. If we really wanted to win in Vietnam we would have required a much larger escalation. The surge doesn't particularly strike me as relevant outside of Baghdad which means it will not be sustainable. In 1965 we should have been able to rationally assess the situation, understand our limitations, and make a tactical decision to stop proping up the South Vietnamese. Instead, in spite of general unease by even the people in charge, we continued on with half hearted attempts to make progress. I think we can win in Iraq if we significantly increase the size of the US Army, and with it the size of the force available to be in Iraq. I'm not sure if you've seen but they've reset the clocks for uptime/downtime in combat. Even if you could convince the American public to support a WWII style deployment in Iraq, we don't have enough rested soldiers to continue at present levels, much less increase with a real, effectual, significant "surge". The point is that giving him a try results in more losses. If he fails, do we give the next guy a chance to fix in, and then the next? When have we given them enough chances to fix it? From my perspective they had a chance for 3+ years, between the point the looting happened in Baghdad and now, to try and "fix it" and they haven't done it. From my understanding, and from what I see, the surge is a local and acute anesthetic. It won't heal the patient. So tell me exactly how long you give Petraeus? Four years? Then just to be fair we give his successor a shot for another four years? Then, at that point after having banged the American Army against the anvil of Iraq for twelve years, more than the final 10 years in Vietnam, you come out and say what is obvious to most at this point?
Sam made the point earlier that the US was fine with allowing genocides to occur as long as the groups doing it supported the US. Its also questionable if the US would've intervened in the Killing Fields considering the US did nothing about the madness of the Cultural Revolution where millions were dying also. At the time the PRC wasn't a nuclear power. I will agree with you that we do owe an obligation to the Iraqis the problem is though is how much our presence there is exacerbating the situation. By the President's own logic we've made Iraq the central battlefield in the war on terror. Prior to 2003 Al Qaeda had virtually no presence in Iraq and what presence they did have was in the US controlled no-flyzone. Our presence there has made Iraq the battlefield and one that the Iraqis never asked for from us or Al Qaeda. At the same time as we are fighting Sunni insurgents we are now fighting Shiite insurgents who don't like us because they feel we are keeping them from dominating the country. Far from helping the Iraqis we are contributing to the chaos there because we aren't peacekeepers but active combatants. So yes I agree with you that there likely will be a bloodbath if we leave. The problem is that there is a bloodbath with us there and its not likely to end as long as we are there.
who said anything about anther four years, or eight?? first, i think we'll have some idea if the new tactics are working by summer, although the surge won't even be fully in place until june. by the end of the year we should know whether we're on the right track. i expect US troops will be needed in iraq for sometime after that, but nothing like what you've outlined.
And we can see how well that is working out. Obviously Iraq would be better off without a war but consider this who are the insurgents fighting? They are fighting us. Our own presence is contributing to the fact that the war is ongoing and things are going bad for the Iraqis. The problem that you and Basso see is thinking this can be won militarily. It can't but as long as we continue to see the military option, ie the surge, as the primary option things won't get better.
