Chinese Students Laugh at Geithner
BY: NCViking
So much for Obama’s World Reconciliation Tour. North Korea is launching, Taliban is marching, Chavez is mocking, Europe is balking, now China is laughing.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was taking questions from students after a speech at Peking University and got laughed at for an answer regarding the security of Chinese assets in America.
From Reuters:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong U.S. currency.
A major goal of Geithner’s maiden visit to China as Treasury chief is to allay concerns that Washington’s bulging budget deficit and ultra-loose monetary policy will fan inflation, undermining both the dollar and U.S. bonds.
China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. data shows that it held $768 billion in Treasuries as of March, but some analysts believe China’s total U.S. dollar-denominated investments could be twice as high.
“Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech ahttp://www.thegreatilluminator.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=5017t Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.
His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting skepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.
So the Administration’s fiscal policy and programs are not only a joke to Conservatives here, but even students at a university in Communist China get a chuckle out of them. Wait, they’re not supposed to laugh! I thought since Evil was purged from the White House all would be right again with the world? As it stands, America is being ignored, ridiculed and mocked around the globe, which doesn’t bode well for the Administration’s popular kid makeover of America. No Bush to blame for this anymore. So what now, blame it on the rain? Why not? The administration is turning out to be ‘all show’ and ‘no substance’ anyway.
Another Tea Party anyone?
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What kind of post is this – self pity?
NK was launching before Obama, and now. EU was balking before Obama, and now. CV was mocking before Obama, and now. The Taliban was on the attack throughout the 90’s, forced Pakistan to sign a peace treaty while Bush was in office, and it is still fighting. Oh, and budget busters started way back before Obama came to office. Of course the Stimulus bill helped a bit, but it was a small addon to the already large deficit.
So you present no news. There are too little bits that can be gathered as your points:
(1) You read Obama’s views as everything was going to come up roses because we were going to be nice. Only fools believed that.
(2) A bit of self pity that boo hoo they called Bush (torture?) evil.
The world is a very dangerous place. There are only three ways to control the world: (a) be able to manipulate their money, (b) be able and willing to take them over, and/or (c) trade enough to make the status quo more important than ideology.
In the last 10 years, the US has lost the top position in (a), demonstrated that it can’t barely manage (b) in small places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and (c) it has enough -c- with China to bind it in a mutual fate.
Now, what is your news? I read it as no-news and crying over something like your-guy-was-called-Evil and so what
First: Why is the blog continually mistaken for news? I am a small business owner, not a journalist and it is a site containing opinions of the Conservative authors who are true common folk.
Second: Your comment reiterated the opinion of the post, so I think you got it … except for the tid-bits and self-pity thing, I don’t understand that.
The post is commentary about world opinion. I agree, the world is a dangerous and complex place and as the Taliban demonstrated breaking a treaty with Pakistan in the North Waziristan region, making nice and capitulation doesn’t work with nuts and ideologues. Obama’s hand-extension campaign and asking for forgiveness of supposed Bush sins has proven ineffective and its fiscal policies are being laughed at. Nowhere am I excusing Bush’s fiscal obominations or mentioning torture.
I think it is curious that students from a Communist country know Mr. Geithner has no grasp on reality and lies to their faces about the stabilty of the US Dollar. Communists are used to hearing BS coming from their government officials.
We (Americans) should take stock of their opinions and see our government officials as they are – full of it.
So Obama has been in office 4 1/2 months and in your opinion post you are either (a) complaining that his words hasn’t made the world safe, or (b) complaining that Bush was called evil.
Which is it?
Being conservative is one thing; jumping all over Obama cause he hasn’t accomplished world peace in 4 1/2 months is quite another. Jumping on Obama over this foreign policy matter is certainly not being true to conservative principles. It isn’t even smart politics. Keep crying wolf and will we hear you when something newsworthy comes along?
Chinese students laughing at our treasury secretary when he called their over 700 B of holdings ’safe’ is a newsworthy event to comment on, especially when it fires up my Conservative principle of fiscal responsibility. Not that it matters, as you may notice newsworthiness is not always a prerequisite to subjects discussed here.
The post in full is ultimately a commentary about world opinion. Most in the media and some liberals and Democrats believed America-bashing and hate was about Bush. You rightly point out that it is not. So do I in the post and provide examples and a tongue-in-cheek reference to Milly Vanilly as commentary. Nobody is expecting Obama to achieve world peace in 4 1/2 months, that is ridiculous.
Actually no, it was about Bush all along.
The Bush administration was very belligerent, almost to the comical. It argued with the French, but not the Chinese. It was overly reliant on the military, projecting its military over its values. In fact I would say that it subjegated the values of law. It lifted habeas corpus and imprisoned at least some innocents people at Guantanamo (for example, the Chinese Uighers.
They call them the worst-of-the-worst, although clearly many aren’t and thus their argument is vacant. The only one on trial thus far is Bin Laden’s driver, a man who is hardly very high up, and more likely took the job to have a job.
Given their record, next they would want to arrest Kenji Fujimoto, I was Kim Jong-Il’s Cook. The mighty shall make the world safer.
Bush’s belligerence joined rather than separated radical elements with more mainstream elements in Muslim communities. Bush’s message was that it was war on them. It made it difficult to build a sustainable democracy or to sway any country.
Obama’s approach, one which I think you may be able to concur and embrace, is to re-instate American values as its goals. It’s law instead of guns, patience instead of bravado, its building structure instead of fiasco. (Fiasco, as in see below).
Obama’s message is we are not at war with mainstream Muslims. We are an inclusive society where Christians and Muslims live and work together. Our inclusivity has built a great, prosperous, and democratic society.
The world was a dangerous place way before Bush took office, and it remains just as dangerous after he left. The fact that he increased the war rattling rhetoric but accomplished little does not release him from the evil charge. He encouraged it, he earned it.
Fiasco – see Iraq, or Afghanistan. We need to clean up Afghanistan, contain Iran, fix failed states like Yemen and Somalia – places so desperately poor that a few bucks will but you the next plane hijackers.
Correction: places so desperately poor that a few bucks will buy you the next plane hijackers.
We can debate and question the policies/methods of the Bush Administration but saying he is evil is just buying into rhetoric, which is ridiculous. He did not murder innocents for pleasure or gas people over a deranged psychosis. He kept America safe from another attack after 9/11, a devastation which was unprecedented in American history. A majority of Congress supported and even advocated for all decisions including Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, Patriot Act, etc. If Bush is evil, then America is evil. And he never stated or implied that we were at war with Muslims. On the contrary, he reiterated time and time again that this was not the case. For every coddled Frenchman who despised him for being an ugly American cowboy, there was a struggling Ukrainian that praised him and wished America was this bold in the face of tyranny in the days of Stalin. I know this personally from spending a month in Ukraine a few years ago.
I do not agree with everything that he did or how it was done, but the world is certainly not more dangerous because of Bush. I’ll take a Saddam-less world where al Qaeda nuts are pinned in the mountains of Afghanistan instead of roaming our airports any day. Obama is taking this opportunity to finish the job with a kinder, gentler approach. I believe this can only work if he pulls out the below ideal as the foundation for his actions:
I would add from one of my posts on the subject:
By his speech in Cairo (sans the apologizing), he just may get it.
Your reply above is very close to the point of view expressed by the right. By trying to associate Bush’s actions with great moments in history, the right hopes to elevate their actions to a righteous cause. The analogies fail on so many levels.
Saddam is not Stalin and the Iraq war is not WWII. Bush’s rhetoric is against an ally, but it is silent against China. Against NKDR and Iran, it is just rhetoric.
So much for great-moments-in-history. FDR had to liberate all of Western Europe, liberate North Africa, liberate all of the Pacific, prevent Australia from being overtaken, and prevent the fall of Britain.
Bush had to defeat the Taliban. He managed to get them to Pakistan (nice going). Worse, much worse, the Taliban is hardly “pinned in the mountains of Afghanistan.” Witness the bombings in Morocco, Britain, and Spain. If they attack sometime between now and September on 2009, will you post it’s all Obama’s fault or is it Bush’s ~ cause the right has been vocal about how Clinton did nothing to stop it.
If the right feels that Bush pinned the Taliban, they are smoking dope. They may have pushed the Taliban to nuclear armed Pakistan. Bush, enamored with the Bible, God-spoke-to-me, and right-v-evil, may just get us to Armageddon.
I am very surprised that the right, you included in this case, is willing to fall (HLS, see definition below) for the Orwellian trick of naming your friends as enemies and rallying against them. Just calling the French coddled is Orwellian.
In an Orwellian world, the government manipulates its people by creating enemies and rallying against them. It also happens to be the definition of a demagoguing. Enemies are made from former friends who happen to disagree with out politically. In the anti-French tear, they did not want war against Saddam.
You rally against them because past generations couldn’t defend themselves, and rally against them because they have a different medical insurance system. They have solved their medical insurance program, and job stability, and have a higher per capita real GDP (yes, coddled and produce more). How about rally against them because their currency is stable and they have much lower inflation that the US’s 2.8%. Why don’t you just rally against them because they get 4 weeks vacation (slackers).
Why are we eliminating Saddam but not Ahmadinejad, or Ibrahim Abboud (Sudan), or Ali Allah Saleh al-Hashidi (Yemen). All of these countries are many times more likely to host (if they aren’t already) terrorists.
Bush’s rhetoric is clear. He may have had cohorts, he may have had support from other not-so-smart people on both sides of the aisles, but the results are clear: the rhetoric of war and smoke-them-out, essentially bravado in America’s military might, did not nuance separating the radical elements from the mainstream of Muslim thought.
To me, Bush is rhetoric, failed, bravado, demagoguing, and it has hurt more than helped.
HLS, hook line and sinker.
9/11 was hardly a great moment, it was an unprecedented attack. Not even in WWII did something like this happen on American soil.
My example was an actual reference given to me by Ukranians as well as Russian occupation in general. Saddam was a monster, period. You already know my position on the unfinished Iraq War.
These had nothing to do with the Taliban and terrorists certainly didn’t commit these acts because they hate Bush. They did it because they hate. It was rampant before Bush, it is rampant now, and will be rampant in the future. Hamas is already burning the Obama flags in effigy, despite his ‘change’.
Chamberlain-like naivety is what almost got us Armageddon last century. Pussy-footing around in Pakistan, not force, is what is allowing the Taliban to break agreements and advance. They are there now because they will be crushed in Afghanistan.
Hardly Orwellian, and Americans generally don’t hate the French. Many were angry with them for America-bashing and not supporting our efforts, right or wrong, but only loons hate them. And Bush did not belittle the French or ever portray them as an enemy. My ‘coddled’ statement is simply a commentary on being protected. The French have been safe from tyranny for several generations whereas it is still very fresh with Ukrainians.
We certainly disagree here.
I hope that I am not misrepresenting what you were trying to say. Your post was that America-hate was (a) not in any way related to Bush (as presumably the left leaning media claimed), and (b) it won’t change just because of Obama’s overtures.
You have made claims that Al Qaeda was “pinned down in the mountains of Afghanistan.” My response is that they are clearly not: bombings in Bali, Morocco, Spain, and London, never mind that they have taken over (and may be getting creamed) in the Swat valley. Wherever, pinned down they are not.
You have stated both “FDR got this in his day, I hope Obama gets it in ours” and “Chamberlain-like naivety” (don’t know what event in the last century you are referring to). The right has been hoping to equate 9/11 and the war on Iraq with WWII, and Bush’s courage with FDR’s. Which is, of course, comical. Iraq is not the European and Pacific war theaters, not by a long shot. And one building plus a dusty country is not the near end of democracy either.
It is Orwellian to equate, even faintly, Bush to FDR or Iraq to WWII. It is trying to get legitimization and grandeur by association.
I doubt very much that you referred to the “coddled French” as referring to freedom from tyranny. I say this because you clearly know a bit about history. In the past 90 years, France lost over 1 Million men in WWI and nearly as many in WWII, never mind the countless deported French to gas chambers and those tortured under the Nazis. These images are fresh enough. The Ukrainians suffered worse, granted.
When the right speaks of “coddled French” they don’t speak of how well they have been having it. It is a derogatory term aimed at their life style. It is creating contrast, of making them soft, too soft for war as many commentators have stated it. (These comments are from heavy right wing blowhearts who couldn’t pass boot camp when they were 18, never mind join the resistance in wwii).
The Ukrainians may have wished that someone would save them from Stalin and Hitler, but Bush would not have done it. He wouldn’t even protect Georgia from the Russian invasion in 2008.
These are all somewhat of a distraction from your original theme: Obama’s v Bush’s rhetoric. I’ll restate my original statement: Obama is trying to separate mainstream Muslims from radical elements.
I think Obama is doing great. I think I heard you say so as well.
The post was a commentary about Chinese students laughing at Geithner for reckless fiscal policies. It also contained commentary on Obama and the media’s belief that America hating or mocking is exclusively about Bush, which is not the case, proven by how Obama’s change and apology efforts thus far have done little to change this. In fact, it may be worsening.
First, the Madrid bombings were in 2004, Bali 2002 and 2005, and London in 2005. Second, I should’ve clarified it by saying al Qaeda’s principal and inspirational leadership. The movement is a stealth, de-centralized sleeper threat around the world. One that will take many years to extinguish.
Neville Chamberlain’s historic naivety for capitulation and negotiation in the face of the evil of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Hardly. Whereas Bush did not have to confront large uniformed forces hell-bent on conquering the world, FDR did not have to deal with a threat of non-uniformed radical crazies blending in as American citizens (or citizens of our allies) with the exclusive mission of indiscriminately killing as many innocents as possible just for the sake of carnage, death, destruction and Allah. FDR dealt with a naval sneak attack on a distant military base on an island not yet a state. Bush dealt with the surprise bombing (planes as bombs) of New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. killing thousands right here at home! Complete destruction of meaningful America landmarks and damaging one of the central places of American government. All from an organized invisible global threat weaved into our free societies – unprecedented in modern times and rightly terrifying.
Each is unique in its time and horrible so the only comparison made is to the very dangerous threat of this evil (yes it is!) and how it is being confronted. Iraq is a whole other issue and you know my position on that.
They have been protected and safe from tyranny for over 60 years. There are still citizens in their late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s who remember the horrors of WWII, but the majority has no clue. It’s only been 15-20 years for Ukrainians and it is still fresh. I was in a court room in Mykolaev and you could still see the outline of the sickle and hammer on the chairs from where they ripped it off. Statues of Lenin are still in many city squares. It was simply a comparison of perspective from two loud voices, not a hate on the French. As a matter of fact I use many French phrases in my posts, the only language I know a little of besides English. Don’t make it into something it’s not.
Not quite. The post was about him being ineffective with a popularity and apology approach to the world. On the other hand, his speech in Cairo was excellent (sans the apologizing). His reluctance to bow to left pressure, continuation of many Bush policies while adding a fresh approach of influence is encouraging. Time will tell.
People who know much more about foreign policy differ with you. Here is Richard Lugar (R-Utah), ultra conservative Republican, saying Obama’s speech is an achievement. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=am9AlCxZPzUE.
The shear scale of WWII compared with a few thousand ragtag radicals makes any comparison between FDR and Bush absolutely comical, or worse, Orwellian. Al Qaeda hardly dented democracy. The movement hardly motivates anyone except certifiable crazies. In almost any city, AQ can be contained by a police department – hardly giant armies sweeping across continents. There is no comparison.
It is Orwellian to over dramatize an incident, its threat and significance, in order to justify the use of illegal means to usurp the constitutional powers and subvert democracy. 19 terrorists, 4 planes, and now the government is reading your email. Where are protectors of the constitution such as yourself? They are scared. Get over it, it’s not WWII.
I have always felt that Bush, and now it would appear you, have a TSED, toy soldier envy syndrome. Stop playing war.
I stated his speech was excellent.
This thought is very naive and very dangerous. The threats are different – one massive conventional warfare, the other stealth, indiscriminate murder of potentially massive proportions. 9/11 was a small taste and it was the most horrific attack on our mainland in modern times, maybe ever. Not during WWI, WWII or the Cold War did something like this happen. A small, organized and decentralized stealth group of motivated plain clothed crazies weaved into the fabric of western societies around the world, in these modern times with the right weapons and a complacent world could cause devastation on an unimaginable scale. We dismiss it at our own peril.
Uh, no.
Ok then, continue playing war. Want me to send you some toy soldiers?
Equating AQ to WWII is shear nonsense. Few people seriously have postulated it. You are one of the few defending the idea.
I argue that the US and its allies should find, route, and eliminate AQ and its support systems. We should “get” Bin Laden and cohorts.
To do so, among the things we must do its to separate mainstream Muslims from their radical elements. We must make Iran seem odd and out of place. Instead, we are making Iran and Bin Laden defenders of Islam. Toning down and nuancing the rhetoric is a huge step forward.
I think Obama is making some very good strides.
Not sure what this is about.
I guess you missed the fact that I said the threats were different many times, or simply chose to ignore it because of the preconceptions you bring to this argument. I am not comparing the wars. Again, the only comparison is the very dangerous threat of this evil and how it is being confronted. Chamberlain was a lesson. When we see an evil growing, do we confront it head on or are we apathetic? Chamberlain and the League of Nations chose the latter. They also believed Hitler posed little threat in 1938 … left to his devices, history proved otherwise.
Modern terrorism is an unprecedented threat that resulted in the worst attack on American soil in modern times, maybe ever. This is a fact. Bush had to face that horror. This is also a fact. Orwellian arguments that the threat is minimal, thinking simple law enforcement can sweep it away, and believing ones alarmed by, speaking of, or acting on the threat are just fools of a conspiracy to control people in order to do dastardly things is the real nonsense here. Far leftists believe this, Obama certainly doesn’t.
Why do you keep bringing up Chamberlain? Each time you bring Chamberlain, you are basically stating “this is like WWII.” WWII would have happened with or without Chamberlain. The idea that you could have saved France by saving Checkoslovakia is ludicrous. (see more below)
Why aren’t you trying to separate mainstream Muslims from the radicals? The Nazi’s were stopped by invading Germany; AQ will be stopped by dismantling Bin Laden and his cohorts (something Bush failed to do) — and by stopping future would be Bin Laden’s. This will only happen by separating mainstream Muslims from the radicals elements. This will drive demand for democracy in countries where there is none.
Almost everyone, except some radical right can see this as the necessary strategy. Even Bill Gates (Bush/Obama Secty Defense).
Can’t see the Orwellian? Let me see if this helps.
What makes it Orwellian is that we subverted our Constitutional rights. This is a fact. We cannot fold up and throw away our principles because of an attack, large or small. We attacked our Constitution – not AQ.
The principles in the Constitution are principles because they work in times of war and threats. This is when they have to work. This is when they must protect citizens from the government so we don’t turn into a facist or police state.
The threats were similar in 1787 as they are today. Granted there was no atomic bomb, but a spy or two in Philadelphia could have just as easily gathered the intelligence needed to allow a British attack to succeed.
Benjamin Franklin famously said “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
To counter the threat inside the US, we have used essentially law enforcement techniques: interview people, develop leads, infiltrate groups, monitor those with cause. We did not use armed forces to secure cities. Therefore the AQ threat in America is largely a law enforcement effort.
To monitor AQ world wide, we used foreign intelligence gathering techniques: spies, informants, monitoring, that sort of thing.
About WWII, Hitler’s plans were always for a greater Germany. He wanted to avenge the defeat of WWI (or at least he wanted to whip Germans into a frenzy over avenging the defeat of WWI). He was going to go into Poland and France regardless of whatever happened in Checkoslovakia.
The blind spot was not in giving up Checkoslovakia. The blind spot was not seeing the larger picture. That picture was that Germany wanted all of Europe, certainly North Africa and the Middle East, all of which European nations already ‘owned.’
I don’t think you see the larger picture here: AQ wants to capture Muslim nations by forcing the toppling of weak Middle East countries. They hoped to prove a weak West, specifically a weak America not by avoiding war, by by dragging the US into a war they could not win.
They wanted to drag the US to commit atrocities and to suffer great casualties. Once the US pulled out, the US would have no credibility and no ability to stop AQ. AQ would be the remaining victors.
In that context, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition significantly diminishes the US’ capabilities to win the hearts and minds of mainstream Muslims.
No I am not. It is a lesson to be learned from WW II and we have acted on this lesson for the last 60 years, from the Cold War to Kosovo and Iraq, and now the War on Terror. Ignoring that lesson or believing Hitler was unstoppable in 1936-38 is ignorant.
I never said it was a war on Islam and I am for all efforts to marginalize terrorists in Muslim societies. Reread what I pulled out of Obama’s speech, this is also a a method of marginalizing extremism.
It is also not all about law enforcement, it includes intelligence and military. I said this in my conservative principles: “Democrats imply the War on Terror is a law enforcement issue. Republicans have claimed it an actual war, and as such is subject to rules thereof. Bottom line: it’s both.”
Sometimes it seems you are arguing with a rightwing caricature of me as opposed to what I actually say.
Even Obama recognizes the uniqueness of this threat. Is this part of him “doing great” as you say? If so, it’s quite hypocritical.
I don’t think you see it. You describe not the larger picture but a phase of it. The ultimate goal of al Qaeda and affiliated organizations is a single Islamic fundamentalist government under their form of Islam put in by force over the historic caliphate regions. Looks familiar, doesn’t it? Again, not comparing the ‘War’ just pointing out that it is a threat, a very real one as 9/11 has proven, and it is quite evil.
Finally, we are getting somewhere. We agree that the invasion of Afghanistan to stop AQ, and we agree that Obama is doing well to marginalize extremists.
My large picture description was a shorter term, yours a longer term, both correct. I am glad to see that we both agree on the larger picture.
I am not sure what the difference is between having WWI or starting a war a few years earlier. In the WWII case, there is no military reason to suspect that the well concentrated German army would not have prevailed in their own soil. The allies only prevailed after the German army had been stretched thin, attacked from both sides, starved of fuel, and its stomach for further war utterly collapsed.
Suggesting war in 1936 is in itself very wishful thinking. It would have taken much more than 4 years to defeat Germany; the taking of Poland and France inevitable; and the entry of the US hardly guaranteed.
Sometimes it is said that the holocaust could have been prevented if Germany was attacked in 1936. Since Germany continued the holocaust until 1945, I doubt it as well.
Your response above is full of references and comparisons to how similar WWII and its lessons are to today: restoration of historic caliphate regions to the greater Germany. I’ll accept that you don’t feel that the Iraq is on an equal scale to two front wars against the Axis. I don’t accept that Bush’s “courage” is at all equal to 1936.
There is simply no intelligence to support that Iraq was a threat. Both the Left and the Right finally get that. So it isn’t like 1936, never was, never will be. Any text suggesting it might be is purely wishful thinking — it is using a perceived threat to justify many things: military action, spending money we didn’t have, etc…
Iraq is certainly NOT a way to stop AQ, not even a way to stop a threat to this country.
If we did want to stop a threat to this country we should have invaded Iran, or NKDP. We can use another post to discuss why we didn’t and why we are not likely to. If there was ever a reason to invoke 1936, or 1936-1938, or WWII it would be to stop Iran or NKDP.
But not Iraq and not Afghanistan.
correction: change WWI to WWII in the first sentence of the third paragraph
Should read: “I am not sure what the difference is between having WWII (incorrectly had typed WWI) or starting a war a few years”
Everyone knew what was happening in Germany … did you see the date of the British poster link? The secret map of 1937 and the author surmise it to have been circulated between 1937-1940. Germany’s first action was invading the Rhineland. The League of Nations ignored it, even justified it because of how Germany suffered after WW I. They continued to appease, ignore and justify his actions. Remember, this was a defeated country after a large war allowed to rearm and invade with impunity. This largely does not happen today. Why? Because of the lessons learned from WW II. Germany, Japan, Italy after WW II were not allowed to significantly rearm and were rebuilt and governed by the victors until stable. North Korea was stopped, pushed back then isolated and contained for almost 60 years now. Iran has been isolated and contained since 1979. Iraq invaded Kuwait, was defeated but left intact and after the failure of the UN, reinvaded, rebuilt and is being governed by the victors. Yugoslavia and ethnic cleansing was stopped. Soviet expansion stopped at every turn and isolated until it collapsed.
You are not understanding the difference between using ‘lessons’ learned from WW II and making some comparison to the size or efforts or wars. I am not doing the latter.
This is ignoring the lessons of WWII. Iraq was defeated in a war; NKDP was not (stalemate), so it was isolated. In Iraq, the victors (UN Coalition) left the evil dictator in power and punished him with sanctions and isolation. He was getting around them through bribing UN officials and outright dismissal, kicking out mandated inspectors all while brutalizing internal dissidents. He then made everyone believe he had WMD and the world had little intelligence knowing otherwise. Why? Because as victors we left without finishing the job – big mistake. No bases, no troops, nothing. It was left a smoldering powder keg. The coalition should’ve finished it in 1991, as Swartzkoff advised. The U.N., Bush Sr. and the American people did not have the fortitude to finish it, being the first significant military action since Vietnam. Long-term ground troops and occupation reminded us of that war’s horrors so instead of learning the lessons of The League of Nations or what WW II taught us about how to handle a defeated (evil) power, we left. Bush Sr. failed this and Bubba Clinton failed this leaving the mess to Bush Jr.
The only parallel to al Qaeda is that 9/11 provided the American public fortitude to finish the job in Iraq. Evil was no longer some distant thing we could skip over to watch Seinfeld. It was real and we felt it at home. Bush wrongly used this environment to act independently instead of laying out the case I did above and acting with a significant U.N. coalition. Europeans may have not gone along with it anyway as they were still skipping over evil to watch Seinfeld (two seasons behind) since 9/11 happened in America. It is likely if 9/11 had never happened, Bush may have also kept the status quo in Iraq because of public apathy, which would have eventually lead to a much bigger mess or outright catastrophe. At the end of the day it was about balancing politics with doing what is right.
We do agree invading Iraq did little to stop al Qaeda except draw some fighters out of the shadows and onto a battlefield. Invasion of Afghanistan to clear out al Qaeda’s safe haven was a necessary first step in the WOT as well as most of the efforts since including reorganization of the security and intelligence apparatus, tighter security measures, law enforcement, more intelligence and other military actions. Iraq was a lingering war that needed to be finished properly and should’ve been labeled as such. We can agree they are different.
Your point is we need to attack Iraq because it comprised a threat so serious, so compelling, so eminent, so sure from real solid intelligence that to do nothing was to allow an attack on US soil – or one of our allies.
The facts (inconvenient in your case) are that (a) Iraq did not have a massive build up of chemical or nuclear weapons; (b) The parties planning and executing the “great caliphate” are in Afghanistan; and (c) the countries that do have significant nuclear weapon threats that would gladly pass unto to terrorists are NK, Iran, and some nuts in Pakistan.
Why go to Iraq when the threats are everywhere but Iraq? Explain that.
If the lessons of WWII are so clear, then why did Bush drop NK from the list of terrorist sponsor states in Dec 2008? Seems to me that if were to apply the above reasoning, it is better to attack NK today (or back in 2003) than it would be next year, or after they ship a nuclear weapon to Bin Laden.
The lessons of WWII is an argument that was put forth in 2002 by Dick Cheney on “Face the Nation.” It was not used back in GW I, or back when we were fighting the Soviets, or Vietnam, or North Korea.
It is a new lesson. It rallies the faithful on the right. It is politics and theater. But it isn’t how Bush played international affairs.
Your “lessons” have holes and they clearly don’t apply to Iraq at all.
My point is we had already attacked and went to war with Iraq for invading Kuwait leaving it a smoldering mess instead of finishing the job.
(a) We did not know that at the time
(b) … and around the globe
(c) For which we are actively pursuing everything within our power short of war to prevent it from happening
I already did.
He was wrong to do so and NK proved him wrong by balking yet again.
We DID NOT defeat North Korea in a war, it was a stalemate. So we have been actively pursuing everything within our power to prevent what you say from happening. We have largely used the lessons of WWII in bad situations, but not always like in the case of the first Iraq War’s end.
You have got to be kidding. So since there is no lesson as it relates to Iraq, we should have left it alone. We should have let Saddam have Kuwait and the babies his soldiers were killing and tossing on hospital floors. Look away as he takes Saudi Arabia (he wanted it), no problem – send in the diplomats. Let him destroy Israel (he wanted to do this). He had the 4th largest standing army and an active chemical and biological weapons program – leave him to his devices to grow it further. Israel should’ve never bombed his infant nuclear facilities. Allow him to build up, conquer and invade with impunity. What threat?
Obviously we did not let this happen. Why? Because of the lessons of WWII, except after combat operations were stopped the lessons regarding war, victory and its aftermath were forgotten. We left a mess with this evil still in power. Then what. He kicked the inspectors out and wouldn’t let them back in until the U.S. was on his doorstep with war, then gave them nothing but deception. He was bribing the UN and brutalizing dissidents. His military was left intact except what was destroyed in the south. The whole thing a smoldering powder keg mess. What then, lift the sanctions? Hell, he had no WMD and apparently we should’ve known this somehow and ignored ALL of the intelligence from Russia, England, US, etc. that said otherwise. Give me a break.
NOBODY HAS EVER given a viable solution to what should have been done with Iraq circa 2003. Conveniently, people against the Iraq War never have and never will.
Um, sorry, I didn’t know there was a rule that said we have to fight a war, defeat the enemy, leave it smoldering before we invade again – my bad.
That is the rule you applied above: we can go into Iraq cause we smoked them once; we can’t go into NK because we didn’t.
Your justification about Iraq is all about Kuwait, and atrocities there. I thought we solved that problem with GW 1. Did we not?
Your strawman argument is way, way off track: no one is arguing that GW 1 wasn’t justified. It was justified as an aggression against an ally. Move to this century.
To be perfectly clear – no one ever invoked 1938 as a lesson for GW 1. Thank you for confirming that the “lessons” theory is all recent historical rewrite. Just try to find an article from 1991 on GW 1 and 1938 that has any currency.
Your arguments are full of “holes” because we only apply it to countries we can defeat easily. We don’t apply it to countries we cannot defeat without significant cost. The reality is that decisions are made on the basis of cost: not perceived threat.
Bush-43 believed, so we are told, that Iraq would take 3 mos, cost $200B and people would be placing olive branches at our feet. Worst case the human cost to the US would be 1,000 casualties. It cost 6 years, $800B+, almost 5,000.
And that was the easiest of the axis of evil countries.
You conveniently ignore Iran in your arguments. Where is your “lessons” theory now?
What rules? I didn’t say there were any rules.
I did not say this.
No we did not, that’s the point. We didn’t finish the job. We left it to fester.
No strawman. The first Iraq war was left unfinished into our new century.
I am not calling out any one particular person or leader invoking anything. Thinking the world does not consider the lessons of WW II in any of the instances I mention including Iraq is ridiculous.
Costs as the recent return to Iraq have shown are not an exclusive deterrent to war. I said politics and the fortitude to do what is right.
I mentioned Iran. We have never directly gone to war with Iran and they are not invading neighbors. The international community has spent the last 30 years isolating Iran for being a militant nuisance and is trying desperately to keep them from their nuclear ambitions now.
Also, quit trying to homogenize Iran, Iraq, North Korea and the WOT … they are all different and require different solutions for different reasons. The only common thread is (was in the case of Iraq) evil and being a threat.
Let’s get back on track:
Your point was that to stop a serious threat you must intervene with force. That, to you, is the “lesson of 1936.” I can pick holes in that “lesson” forever. The major point is that you apply that “lesson” to just one instance.
You have all kinds of unusual sentence structure and conditions that exclude much larger threats. We won’t with Iran because it never invaded another country. Yet in the same paragraph, we won’t in NK because it did invade another country.
More convoluted logic: we had Saddam contained, but that wasn’t good enough; yet we have Iran contained and that is good enough. Or worse, we have NK contained and that is good enough.
The logical conundrum you now face is that the oh-so-valuable “lesson” is never applied. It is worthless.
Get back on track? More like off track, again. Not my point. I never said or described intervention with force as an exclusive lesson of 1936. Never even used the term or implied it. Go ahead and pick holes in your own conclusion.
You don’t have to defend or clarify your own conclusion. However, by doing so you are waking away from your position.
If I have it wrong, then correct it. Not by going on about Kuwait in 1991. Stay on track and explain what the lesson was. If you already have, quote it in your reply.
I already have explained it.
“Chamberlain (WW II) was a lesson. When we see an evil growing, do we confront it head on or are we apathetic? Chamberlain and the League of Nations chose the latter.”
“The League of Nations ignored it, even justified it because of how Germany suffered after WW I. They continued to appease, ignore and justify his actions. (Germany was) allowed to rearm and invade with impunity.”
“Iran, Iraq, North Korea and the WOT … they are all different and require different solutions for different reasons. The only common thread is (was in the case of Iraq) evil and being a threat.”
My ‘going on’ as you put it on each one including the history of our conflict with Iraq (Kuwait in 1991) was explaining why they are different.
“I never said or described intervention with force as an exclusive lesson of 1936. Never even used the term or implied it.”
And my final comment was directed at the conclusions ‘you’ have drawn from what I have said, which is not based upon what I actually said but your misconceptions.
Antisemitism, not the passive watching of evil unfolding, played a significant role in the response to Hitler. So did historical claims to the Sudeten and timing. Both of these factors must be discussed in order to view the events accurately. You can then draw your conclusions, and any lessons, from there.
British immigration policy was antisemitic. So was that of almost all of Europe and of the United States. Britain routinely denied entry to fleeing Jews, both in Great Britain and in Palestine. See http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/WW2Timeline/palestine.html (just one of many hundred of such cases).
Then there is the case of the St.Louis, a ship that sailed the Atlantic only to be denied entry into the US. It returned only to have most if not all of its passengers perish in Shoah (Holocaust). See http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005267
Or this article, Roosevelt and the Jews: A Debate Rekindled http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/books/01roos.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=jews&st=cse
So the world was never motivated by the plight of the Jews. The evil in Europe never entered the equation. Chamberlain’s mistake was never one of “seeing evil” and being unable to move. The same applies to the League of Nations.
Chamberlain did not act out of fear. He agreed with Hitler that the German people had a case in the Sudeten. The argument was that the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire (AHE) and subsequent partitioning by the victors created arbitrary borders.
The Sudetenland was part of Germany until 1806 and of the German Confederation between 1815 and 1866, until it was lost to the AHE.
Timing was also a major factor. Hitler’s demands on Checkoslovakia unfolded between March 1938 and September 1938. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (late August 1939) and the invasion of Poland September 1939.
The entire time frame for Chamberlain was roughly 6 months: March to September 1938. War started 11 months later.
So Chamberlain was never a case of “seeing evil and not doing anything about it.” Chamberlain thought Hitler’s demands were just. He would not act in any other way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Czechoslovakia
The real motivation was avoidance of war, in no small measure because of the experience of WWI.
So, what is the lesson? Chamberlain didn’t see evil, agreed in part with Hitler, and saw the historical connection. It is nothing like Iraq.
And, I just don’t see going to war to avoid war. That’s why I think there are no lessons of 1938.
Really. I know of no one who would agree with this statement.
You just illustrated many lessons, especially with the plight of Jews. This was wrong. As a matter of fact, The League of Nations was required to protect minorities and was powerless to do so. Hitler’s growing evil was no surprise. As much as there was antisemitism in the world, the fact is it was rancid in Germany – everyone knew this. “Mein Kampf ” was published in 1926 for everyone to read, and everyone knew Hitler was a growing menace, if not why were they trying to pacify him in the first place? America even had a serious debate about boycotting the 1936 Olympics. Spain did boycott them. Chamberlain and The League of Nations did nothing as Hitler advanced and took lands by force. They did nothing as Mussolini did the same. I had mentioned “they continued to appease, ignore and justify his actions” as you stated. This was wrong. After defeat in WW I, they allowed Germany to rearm. This was wrong. It all lead to the most horrific war in world history. After WW II they finished the job, governed as victors and did not allow this to happen again. We got peace in Europe.
There are probably more, but I am not a historian.
The lessons for Iraq, yet again.
One of Iraq’s justifications for invading Kuwait was a “claim” to being part of Iraq carved off due to British imperialism. If it were 1938, the LON would have said it was ‘just’ and done nothing even though it was taken by force. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate to avoid any more war. This would’ve been wrong and forgetting the lessons of WWII. We didn’t do this. The problem is that we knew Saddam was evil before he invaded Kuwait, yet we pulled out after being VICTORS leaving him intact – thus in this case forgetting the lessons of WWII. We certainly didn’t just kick Germany out of all of the lands it had invaded and then stop, leaving him in tact. That would have been unthinkable and we would have never known of the holocaust, just like in Iraq we would not have known of the mass graves (of course on a smaller scale but indeed horrible). Bush Sr. was wrong, the job should have been finished properly as Schwarzkopf suggested, just like it was in Germany, Italy and Japan after WWII. In 2003 we went back in and finished the job.
Gentlemen… There have been many interesting thoughts in this most recent back and forth between you two. I have enjoyed it, but feel the need to add a little to the discussion.
I agree that the “lessons” of WWII are the main thrust of Viking’s argument, but would add that just because an analogy is not perfect does not make it completely flawed. Since both of you have pointed out that Obama’s speech in Cairo was good (though you both used different adjectives), I would point out that he used an analogy to compare the 6M Jews killed in the Holocaust to the plight of the Palestinians. If you can accept that flawed analogy, I think it is safe to say that you should not find fault in the comparison of the actions of world leaders prior to WWII to those proposed actions in modern times… even if it is not perfect.
Richard Lugar is a moderately conservative Republican from Indiana. His voting record was rated 63% conservative in 2008 and a lifetime rating of 78%. Hardly ultra anything. By comparison, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the new GOP ranking member on the Judiciary Committee had a conservative rating of 84% in 2008 and a lifetime rating of 95%. Now that is a strict conservative.
Hardly. It had some good lines, but it was full of the grand fluffery and moral relativism we have come to expect. I pointed out the equating of the Holocaust to Palestinian displacement already, but in addition, the speech was riddled with historic inaccuracies. Reagan at the Berlin Wall it was not.
It does not matter how often Obama restates the lie that he is different from Bush, the fact is that Bush never declared war on Islam, never lumped all people together, and took great care to point out (correctly or incorrectly) that Islam is a religion of peace. One of his first stops after 9/11 was the Washington Islamic Center to state just that. I can not recall a speech when he did not mention Islam and profess the differences between radicals and peaceful Muslims. This is not new… Obama is using what you would call Orwellian tactics. Borrowing your words: “In an Orwellian world, the government manipulates its people by creating enemies and rallying against them. It also happens to be the definition of a demagoguing. Enemies are made from former friends who happen to disagree with out politically.” Repeating a lie enough will make the weak minded believe that it is the truth. The truth: President Bush never declared war on Islam, and went out of his way to make sure that this was clear.
Two parter: Who exactly is the “radical right”? I can point out exactly who the radical left is, but who are these righties denying that we should separate the good from the bad? Second part, the Secretary of Defense is Robert Gates… Bill Gates used to run some insignificant software company.
Viking never said it outright, but I will. If the Allies had held Germany to its repressive treaty conditions after the Great War, there would likely have been no WWII. The West allowed Germany to rearm itself at a rate that was unbelievable. Back in 1936, Hitler could have been stopped. His armed forces were small and he was more pomp and circumstance at that point. He had power in Germany, but the country was hardly a force to be reckoned with, especially comparing it to Britain and France. His world power increased exponentially throughout the 1930’s. Two problems. The West was in denial and represented by Chamberlain, and the West was in no mood for war, after suffering tremendous and historic losses in the Great War. No one could have guessed what could follow.
On the other hand, we could… we had the benefit of history. VIking laid out a pretty good path that Saddam could have taken if left unchecked. He could have consolidated power with further Saudi oil fields. A nuclear program would have followed, and likely the destruction of Israel. We can chuckle about what kind of toothless lion he was now, but as history reminds us, Hitler was kind of a joke too. We see this today as well. When the military or police arrest some guy with an al Qaeda training video and guns, we say how much of a idiot that guy is and how these guys are hardly a military force. I am sure we would have said the same on September 12th if 19 mid-easterners were arrested at airports across the country. We forget that terrorists getting it right once can cause massive carnage. We need to be right all the time.
Loaded question. If the West had taken Hitler out in 1936, the Holocaust would have likely been avoided, although anti-Semitism would have survived and most likely thrived in Europe. One of the positive things that came out of the most horrid Holocaust was that anti-Semitism in Europe became despised, and not accepted by mainstream folks.
If the West had practiced better “containment”, it is likely that it would have continued at a lower pace as long as Hitler and a credible successor had stayed in power in a smaller Germany. One can say with certainty that if the West stood up to Germany, the Holocaust and the war would not have occurred exactly as it did, and most likely it would have occurred more to the Allied advantage.
I don’t think that was ever the complete thrust of anyone’s argument. Iraq was unique, as Viking pointed out… and I will go further. The US had international law on its side. Saddam’s Iraq had been in constant violation of the UN resolutions passed. It was said that he would face “grave consequences” if he did not comply with the weapons inspection. The Congress passed the right to use the military to support the UN resolutions. The US went to the UN and presented its case. As it turns out, some (not all, but some) of the intelligence was incorrect, specifically to WMD. Regardless, Saddam did nothing to comply, and he was in violation of the peace agreements signed at the end of hostilities in 1992. The US did not need France, Germany, or Russia’s permission to restart the hostilities… it had international law on its side. There are no accusations of the US violating international law because he had the right to go in under current UN resolutions. I disagree with Viking’s assertion in a later response that Bush 43 did not build the coalition needed in 2003. In my opinion, he build a pretty large one, although many decided to sit it out.
In addition to that, the country no longer waits to be attacked in order to declare an imminent threat. Like a chess board, we are capable of looking down the road. Do you think Britain thought that Libya was going to attack it when the plane exploded above Scotland? If they would have attacked Libya back then, the world would have been outraged. These days, we don’t wait for rubble.
The reason NK or Iran have not been attacked, as it was correctly pointed out, is because we have not been involved in a hot war with them recently with UN resolutions backing up our re-entry. If I was to guess, I would say we have a better case against NK, although I don’t think either have risen to the point of pre-emption yet. Under Obama, you would need not to worry about that.
And finally…
Err… just a question, was this post not about Geitner getting laughed at by the Chinese students? How far off track is acceptable?
We all knew Windbag wouldn’t stay out of this one too long, being the history buff he is. A few follow up points …
Obama’s speech was indeed excellent (sans the appologizing, I will not dissect it here), and it needed to be done. Only time will tell if it lives up to Reagan at the Berlin Wall, so this comparison is premature.
Regarding Iraq, having the support and/or troops of several of our chief allies would’ve been much better and I am not on board with your preemptive war argument or the change to this Bush implemented. This is historically un-American and is a slippery slope.
Mike believed we were getting off track of the current argument, as the comments in this one turned into more of a forum stream, which is OK.
Otherwise, truly excellent points!
Viking… We can disagree on preemption, and so I will leave that alone. My response to Mike’s “off-track” comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. So I will concentrate where you are wrong: the “greatness” of the Obama speech. You and Mike may have common ground here, but I don’t. As you have pointed out, I am a student of history. I am not a professional, but I enjoy it very much. I learn something new every day, and try to retain what I have learned and apply it to the vast swathes I currently store. So my opinion is such: like Chinese food, Obama speeches seem to lack staying power.
I also feel that his speech was anything but great. As I pointed out, it had some great lines. I am happy that he pointed out the ignorance and hate of those who deny or minimize the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust. I am happy that he pointed out some other policy points in which Americans tend to agree. But to give the whole speech the label of excellent or good, you need to not just brush aside the constant apologizing and self-flaying that Obama does in each speech about America. We talk about our failings within the family and in therapy. Obama, like his supporter Oprah, seems to think that his feelings need to be broadcast world wide. We must beat the drum how the country that has done more goodness in the world than any other nation on Earth is a bad and sinful place.
As I mentioned before, he also compares the plight of 6M Jews to the displacement of Palestinians… a terribly misguided and repugnant comparison at best. Their suffering is not morally comparable.
Let’s us go on to the factually errors. Many people have pointed out some of his mistaken historic references, but let’s go to a man who is incredibly respected for his opinion — Michael Barone (emphasis mine):
I’ll respond later on the Lessons of 1938, but for now I seriously doubt:
“Obama seems not to have learned from previous presidents’ attempts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement that no solution is possible without an interlocutor willing to let Israel live in peace.”
Peace between Israel and a Palestinian state depends on such guarantees.
I also believe that the largest obstacle is not Abbas or the Palestinian Authority at this point. I think they are really ready to sign. The problem is one of legitimacy with Hamas’ challenge to PA authority and representation.
The settlements are a huge problem – regardless of their natural growth. Just how much peace would you sign if Mexico was building a settlement on this side of the border. How much of a positive move would growing it be?
Obama has done some things wrong as president thus far, this is not one of them.
I understood this as invading a country like Cuba because it is Communist or Iran because it is a theocracy just to make it a Democracy by force. This is not what we do, though many in the Arab World have been told this. Japan, Germany, Iraq, et al were conquered nations after war. To do nothing is to leave anarchy – poor example.
This is arguable and more of a pick at semantics. And what does the Barbary Pirates have to do with anything? Because we were a participant in a war with mercenary thugs off of North Africa, who happened to be Muslims? It was quite appropriate to call out the positive contributions of Muslims in the American story.
I didn’t conclude that from his speech. The desire for the Jewish homeland predates WWII, only it was made real again because of what happened in that war. Palestine existed before WWII as a League of Nations Mandate, before that part of the Ottoman Empire. Early last century, native Muslim Arabs and Jews of the area were promised homelands by various occupiers. Israel was rightfully born for the Jews, Palestinians still have no home. The plight of the Palestinians is for a homeland too. There is no comparison in the suffering of the holocaust to that of Palestinian displacement – if his intent was to do this, he was wrong. Acknowledging Palestinian suffering in pursuit of a homeland is not wrong to do or inaccurate. Read both paragraphs again and take “On the other hand” out of that speech. I am giving Obama the benefit of the doubt and figuring it was a speechwriter snafu to include a phrase that might lead one to draw a conclusion of them being equal. If not, he is truly a moron.
I don’t think you can, and we as a nation should weight the plight of one people with the plight of another. To draw it starkly, why didn’t we just move displaced Europeans including Jews to North Carolina — after all their plight was greater than yours would be.
Israel and the Palestinians can rehash but they can’t rewrite their recent history. They can only find a way forward. I think we should be building schools and hospitals in Palestine along side a peace treaty, but education and basic health are essential in any fight against extremism.
I agree, the plight for a homeland shouldn’t be weighted in this case, but comparison of suffering from mass murder and atrocity to suffering from displacement is wrong.
North Carolina is not their ancestral homeland.
As long as it is not Hamas education.
North Carolina was clearly a rhetorical example (the sort that requires no answer) to sort of bring it home a bit. But it is the ancestral land of some people. What if those people came and claimed the land your home is now situated? What if the Constitution were declared void in your case? What if you wound up in a camp?
All examples, no need to debate the Constitution on this one, again all illustrative points.
The Jewish people have a long history to the area of Palestine. Not to be missed, so do the Palestinians. There was a large displacement of people during the partition with people moved to camps.
I am not surprised that there is a war. For each Israel must have peace, there is Palestine must have access to ports and commerce.
They’ll figure it all out.
Michael Barone’s comments are not even remotely correct or accurate. They are just plain absurd
The US did impose it’s government on other countries as well, notable Iran in 1953, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Cuba in the early part of the 20th Century. The fact that we did in the past does not mean that we should. It is a lesson learned: nations need to learn how to govern themselves.
I am pretty sure Obama here means that he would not have invaded Iraq to impose a government, and the US should not have either. It reminds me of Bush’s no nation building campaign promise. That doesn’t mean that once we did invade that Obama shouldn’t be involved in getting Iraq stable and self governing.
That comment from Barone is sufficient to negate anything else he may want to say, but lets move on
This is just arguing the semantics of the word necessity. Fact is that we went to destroy the bases that the enemy used against us. That was what the commander in chief was required, thus necessity.
Barone has not basis to second guess Bush, therefore has no basis to make any comment here.
An analogy would be that since we had a war with a Christian nation: Germany, or Spain then Christianity could never be a part America’s story? Or do we need to air brush the war against Germany or Spain out of our history books. This is really a dumb argument.
Islam has been a part of America’s story simply because Muslim’s rich traditions are interwoven into our history – like those of other religions. Yes, I can identify these influences.
Barone seems to feel that displacement of someone he doesn’t know is justified. Barone is essentially arguing that two wrongs make a right. Obama is arguing that two wrongs do not make a right.
As noted earlier, how much right is in displacing everyone in North Carolina to relocate European Jews, or to relocate ancient native Americans. Two wrongs simply do not make a right.
Obama has never argued that that Israel must give up on requiring Israel’s tight to exist as Barone is suggesting. Barone is making stuff up because he ran out of other nonsense.
Any eventual agreement will give Israel the right to exist, give Palestine it’s statehood, and provide all parties for access to ports and commerce.
Barone is simply off base in his comments.
Neither of you will be too surprised to hear that both of your dismissals of Barone seem off base to me.
We have imposed our government on others in the past, but are those places better or worse off as a result? We can claim that the Star Trek “Prime Directive” approach is the best policy, but I would bet that men and women who were tortured and murdered by Saddam would have disagreed. Principles like that are not meant to be absolute. In addition, arguing “why did we do it in Iraq but not in Iran or NK” is not a credible stance. If I see a car rushing down the street about to his innocent people, if I save one of those people, is it right to blame me for not saving all of them, especially the ones further away?
All wars are optional. We can either attack or not attack. Phil Donahue represents one extreme, saying we should never attack, but rather be “adults”. Others want to pre-empted attacks on all nations that sneeze in our general direction. Both should be dismissed as ninnies. When al Qaeda attacked our embassies or the US Cole, we did not attack, and we did not go after their bases. By “go after” I mean more than lobbing a missile towards them, I mean attack. George W. Bush did attack. That is the choice.
In addition, there were no bases used in the attack on 9/11. It was 19 rogue guys with box cutters, pilot licenses, and angry dispositions. The plans were made in many different places, such as restaurants and bars, but they were not destroyed. This is not an army that attacked us, but a terrorist enemy that hides in the shadows, Viking did a good job breaking this down earlier.
This seems to be not only a misrepresentation of Barone’s position, but on oversimplification of both his and Obama’s. The history of Israel’s creation is not “the big bad Jews moved in and displaced the Arabs”. Also, the myth that there is a historic “Palestinian” people is also carried on and on. Facts are that the Arab wars against Israel caused the displacement of Arabs, and Palestine was only a country for a couple dozen years.
It didn’t work in the Philippines or Nicaragua, Viet Nam, or Iran (1953). One single sentence can explain why it worked in Japan and Germany but not in the other countries mentioned. That one sentence is that it worked where we defeated the ideology.
Viet Nam is an interesting case: they certainly would have been better off with democracy. National identity, the need to remove western colonialism and the desire to self determination was the ideology. The result of our involvement was at least one million dead. It didn’t work out.
As for Iraq, it’s too early to tell if the government we put in place will remain viable. It could eventually be overthrown by an Iranian puppet government.
Try this analogy, it better fits the reason for my comment. There are three criminals: one has a knife, one has a missile, the other has a nuclear bomb. I can certainly ask why you arrested the knife and let the missile and nuke go free.
You can use selective facts to justify any position. I’ll give you the counter argument to what you stated. Let’s see which one has more weight.
Palestinians have a 2000 year old claim to the area West of Jordan. They were known as Philistia, hence the Philistines of the Bible. Their nation occupied what is roughly known today as the Gaza strip.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_century_palestine.gif
About 630 AD, this area became predominantly Muslim. This encompassed areas formerly known as Galilee, Judea, Philistia, and Samaria. Eventually, they became a nation recently. It does not change 2,000 years of history.
As for the loss during a war, the idea you are proposing would be akin to the following set of events unfolding:
- a group of people who claim a lineage to ancestors who lived in your land 2000 years ago immigrate and now want to gain nationhood status over you.
- you start a war and lose it
- you are displaced, they get the nation, and it’s all your fault that you lost everything
Ludicrous. All of these “histories” attempts to place a spin on history to justify a lie.
It has only worked where we have won a war and properly rebuilt as victors. We did not win in Vietnam, we lost. The Philippines were well on their way to final independence before being invaded by Japan in WWII, and then got it by the treaty of Manila. We occupied Nicaragua early on last century and then only covertly meddled late. In Iran, the government was there, we just tried to corrupt it in our favor.
More like this analogy …
One we fought and had him beaten but decided to stop suddenly, spare him, leave the knife in his hand and allow him to bribe us to look away.
One we fought and could not beat because his big brother stepped in. So we convinced others to join us in ostracizing and keeping him in check, while trying to convince the big brother to talk some sense into him.
One was our friend that turned nasty after getting pissed at us for trying to manipulate him. He calls us names and threatens our friends, but has never acted and we have never fought. So we ostracize and keep him in check.
Truth: The two state solution is nothing new. Both the Palestinians and Jews have ancestral roots in the area and both were promised homelands since the defeat of the Ottoman Empire (before the Holocaust and WWII). The UN wanted a Palestinian and a Jewish state with Jerusalem governed by the UN. When the Jewish state was declared and rightfully recognized in accordance with a 1947 UN resolution, surrounding Arab Countries went to war to destroy it and vanquish the Jews. They were NEVER going to allow a Jewish state to exist. They lost that war but have kept that same position ever since, while threatening it with annihilation. Israel has fortified, and rightfully so under this threat. Arabs need to stop the rhetoric and stop attacking Israel. They need to formally recognize Israel and leave it alone, while Israel must stop expansion and support the creation of a sovereign Palestine. Sound familiar? The foundation of the Roadmap.
That is only an analogy if you choose to ignore 2/3 of the actual points of the first two analogies.
Your recounting of the GW2 ignores everything that has been said on this thread about the reasons why we went there. Try again.
That’s only if you look at the history of these countries after WWII. Try reading up on the history of these two countries for the half century before it.
The point you make is identical to mine: you can only build up countries whose ideology has been thoroughly defeated. Their own country no longer wants it.
Only in that context can you have a true beginning.
Therefore, democracy, counter intuitive as it may seem, must be home grown instead of imposed. Let’s see how well our finish-the-job-we-started works out.
Additional for Windbag …
Training camps, not bases. Destruction of al Qaeda’s safe-haven of operation and training was the proper first step in the WOT. Griping over the word ‘necessity’ is over blowing the semantics in his speech.
Should I have also added that the one we beat up made us believe he still had a gun that he used in the past; the one we couldn’t beat up made a small gun but has never used it; and the one we never fought says he is not working on a gun but we think he might be?
Iraq: I argued quite extensively that it was an unfinished war and the reasons we gave were incomplete and why.
Or marginalized to the point of insignificance. There are still Neonazis. In cases where we have set up new governments after defeating an adversary they are not mini-Americas but considerate, hybrid democracies unique to the people and culture – including in Iraq.
The Philippines was a colony inherited after the Spanish-American War that was trying to be subjugated, not a defeated adversary. Colonialism had its failures all over the world.
We meddled in their affairs over a canal but didn’t try to nation build here. They were also not a defeated adversary.
I am glad to see that in your response you agreed with 99% of what I said.
The purpose of the analogy was to show we ignored real threats and that we went after the easiest — an adventure by the President in what turned out to be a horrifically misguided effort. If you keep ignoring Iran and NK in your analogy, it is pointless for me to further discuss the topic.
The notion that we “needed to finish the job” is just as misguided. It is a lie about everything American.
Everything that is American is that we follow the will of the people – not what some right wing blogger happens to think is a good idea. The mandate was to liberate Kuwait~ not an 8+ year adventure into a for ever war.
To think we might have “won” in Iraq is a costly miscalculation in the face of facts to the contrary. We haven’t “won” this one yet: we have a government we have to prop up and defend. How long will it last after we leave?
I my comment, I used bases and camps synonymously. Any defended set of buildings built for a military purpose is a base, whether it is national, rebel,or ragtag forces.
I am not sure how I am ignoring Iran and NK by referring to them so many times, including the last two comments. The threats are not homogeneous.
On Iraq, I have explained why this is ignoring the lessons of WWII many, many times. You believe differently so the readers can decide.
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