I haven't seen anyone else comment on this, so I apologize if it's already been covered. I don't always agree with OSC, but he hit this issue squarely. I think he left out one important issue: The islamic population growth in Europe and how that threatens those democracies.
Suprisingly, I'm not as pessimistic as Card about the affect a Democrat Party victory would have on the War on Terror. When pushed to commit, only a handfull of Dems voted to withdraw troops from Iraq. This holds true for Hillary too, and other Dem Senators who had to vote onthe issue in an election year. I like to think most of the Dem leadership understands the repercusions of leaving Iraq prematurely, and that none of them want to be recorded in histroy as the president or Party that abandoned Iraq and emboldened the terrorists with another US defeat. But I'm afraid that their constant sniping at the war effort may continue to further embolded the terrorists in Iraq, cost more American and Iraqi lives, and undermine the war effort.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I think they already have a thread started talking about it over on the other side Posted by Mig (Member # 9284) on :
quote:Absolutely brilliant commentary by OSC on the War on Terror and Bush's leadership thereof.
I'd have to disagree. But, then, you knew that.
I think it's relatively well-written. I find the conclusions of the piece -- and the assumptions underlying them -- generally alarmist and ill-considered, though.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Pro-war/Anti-War--the only truth we have, the only facts we have show that the current administration is Bad-At-War, and that is what needs to change.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
But the brilliance of OSC's piece is that it asserts that saying the current administration is bad at war emboldens terrorists! Once you've started a war, therefore, it becomes outright treasonous to criticize the people in charge until the war is over.
Posted by Zeugma (Member # 6636) on :
Of course it's well written. Card is an excellent writer. Unfortunately, he's increasingly chosen to use his talents to manipulate and terrify people into sharing his, in my opinion, alarmingly close-minded political views, and I'm not at all surprised to see someone like Rush Limbaugh singing his praise.
Articles like this one make me wonder how on earth someone like me can possibly fit into the version of America that Card and Rush and company envision, how we can even belong to the same country.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
What, in particular, is close-minded about OSC's political views in this case?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Been there, done that, complained to Sartre about it, Poly. Posted by Zeugma (Member # 6636) on :
Thanks Tom, I'd plum forgot. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:There are no values of mine which will not be gravely endangered if the cut-and-runners are allowed to cause us to lose Vietnam. I mean, Iraq. Did I get the decades mixed up again? Dag gummit.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Tom- I thought you were responding to my question to Zeugma. I scratched my head for a good five minutes wondering what in the world you were trying to say to me.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Come, now - the US recovered, sure, but you can hardly argue that Vietnam was a good thing for the survival of Western values. Just because you can come back from a setback doesn't mean it's not a setback.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:you can hardly argue that Vietnam was a good thing for the survival of Western values
You are very right! It would have been better had the United States never entered Vietnam.
But you can't say that the setback is only a setback just because we left. The issue comes with the cascading failure which mitigates the retreat.
Right now, we have the cascading failure. In fact, we have had years and years of cascading failure and inept leadership. The G.O.P. is in the shameful position of not being able to blame any of the crisis in Iraq on Democrats, as they were fully in control and allowed to run the war exactly the way they wished.
If I'm watching a battle take place, and I see one side get routed and crushed before ordering a retreat, who do I blame for the loss? The person who ordered the retreat, or the person who directed the failed charge?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I've commented on this subject at length on the other side , and I'd point people to the very beginning and very end of that thread for some discussion on the subject. Chances are I'm going to remain a bystander in this thread, as there seems to be plenty of people covering my side, and I don't want to post the same thing on both sides.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
samp: we're getting crushed, now?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Operationally, things are going terrible. By any reasonable metric, we are losing. Feasible win conditions grow more elusive. It's the slow death that personified the Vietnam failure.
Is the situation truly unsalvageable? I dunno! Most democrats don't think so! But things are not going well.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
(Skip right to the end if you just want the summary)
quote:I recently read an opinion piece in which the author ridiculed the very concept of a "war on terror," saying that it makes as much sense as if, after Pearl Harbor, FDR had declared a "war on aviation."
Hey, the only thing I agree with in the article. Too bad he's quoting somebody else.
quote:The name "war on terror" clearly conceals the fact that we are really at war with specific groups and specific nations
Really, what specific nations would those be?
quote:This is not a war that can be named for any particular nation or region.
If the war can't be named for a specific nation, why did you just say the US is at war with specific nations? Oddness abounds.
quote:And in another sense, we might not see victory for another five years, or even a decade -- a decade in which Americans will be dying alongside Iraqis.
This site claims the DoD puts American casualties at 2837. Bush has apparently put the Iraqi casualties at 30 000, "more or less." Including civilians. Well... I guess a 15:1 ratio can be called "dying side by side."
quote:But we are not waging a "War in Iraq." We are waging a world war
A world war... against two specific nations and a terrorist group.
quote:We cannot name this war for our actual enemies, either, because there is no way to name them accurately without including some form of the word "Islam" or "Muslim."
Ok...
quote:It is our enemies who want to identify this as a war between Islam and the West.
While we'll just say "we can't refer to it that way, even if it's true."
quote:The unification of one or both of the great factions of worldwide Islam under a single banner.
Uh, that's an ok plot device for a science fiction novel, but to seriously consider it a possiblity in real life is a real stretch.
quote:We call it a "War on Terror" because that allows us to cast it, not as a war against the Muslim people, with all their frustrations and hopes, but a war in which most Muslims are not our enemies at all. . . .
But it is precisely those people -- the common people of the Muslim world. . . .whom we must treat as if they were not our enemies.
More of the "we can't say it, even if its true." I can't tell if OSC is actually trying to conceal his apparent idea that this is a war against Islam, or if this is a lot of nudge nudge, wink wink for his chosen audience.
quote:No matter which miserable dictatorship we moved against after the Taliban -- and we had no choice but to keep moving on if we were to eradicate the grave danger we faced (and face) -- we would have faced the same problem in Syria or Iraq or Sudan that we had in Afghanistan: We had to establish order in a nation that had never actually become a nation.
Now, this paragraph is a real oddity. It seems to suggest that Syria and Sudan were legitimate possibilities to be post-Afghanistan invasions. This, despite the well known, pre-911 plans of the Bush jr. admin to "deal" with Saddam. This, despite the fact that Syria and Sudan have been comparitive blips on the foreign policy radar.
And what is this "grave danger" he speaks of? This WMD debate has been hashed over repeatedly, but surely the vast majority of people now accept that there was no "grave danger" from Iraq, or indeed anywhere else? So why does this phrase pop up here? Surely not fear mongering!
And then... well, then he talks about Vietnam. As if anything productive could ever come out of a Vietnam analogy, other than the conclusion that you should mind your own bloody business.
quote:The tragedy is that all it would have taken is a show of force on our part in support of the rebels, and Saddam's officers would have toppled him.
Interesting idea. I've never heard this before, and I'd be curious to hear support for it.
So let's say Hussein's officers kick him out of office. Love and puppies all around!
Or another military dictatorship. Great alternative, there.
quote:Fortunately, there are other lessons as well: West Germany and Japan. . .
Well, if you're suggesting we need to beat the Iraqis into a bloody pulp like we did with the Germans and the Japanese, then yes, you've learned a useful lesson.
quote:Taiwan and South Korea
Are these really useful analogies? The US invaded and occupied neither.
quote:Because even more than they fear terrorist bombs, the pro-democracy forces within Iraq and Afghanistan fear American withdrawal.
Can somebody point me to a source here? How can this possibly known? I just don't know how anyone could gather the information needed to support a statement like this.
quote:American prosperity requires free trade throughout most of the world. Free trade has depended for decades on American might.
I spoke too soon! A second statement in this article I agree with. It's too bad he doesn't explore this further.
quote:We cannot win by going home. In a short time, "home" would become a very different place, as our own prosperity and safety steadily diminished. Isolationism is a dead end. If we lose our will to protect the things that support our own prosperity, then what can we expect but the end of that prosperity -- and of any vestige of safety, as well?
Wait, wait. More agreement.
There's a subtext to this article. When you shave away all this silliness about honour and courage, you see that OSC recognizes, perhaps in spite of himself, a very stark reality:
The US's prosperity is bound up with US might and control. The US needs to maintain this might and control in order to maintain the prosperity. The US needs to maintain its hegemony.
None of us - at least those of us living in North American and possibily Europe - really truly want that to change. US hegemony benefits us too much.
The Muslims are challenging US hegemony. Them or us. Praise the Lord and pass the ammo.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I can't verify that we're losing or that we're winning. We have such terrible reporting on Iraq: much about car bombs, little about the state of everyday life. But suppose we're losing. What could we do to win?
What I heard was "send in 10 times as many soldiers." I hope that's not true, because I don't see it happening.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No, I think two to three times as many soldiers and some serious restructuring of our approach could deal with it.
Of course, that's not happening either, though unlike 10 times as many soldiers it wouldn't require a draft.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:The Muslims are challenging US hegemony. Them or us. Praise the Lord and pass the ammo.
Guess that this is a fundamental false dichotomy. Methinks we was doing better before all the international opprobrium, and so do most world political experts.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I think maybe that was intended as a straw man anyway. Not that that's a good thing.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: samp: we're getting crushed, now?
I've made my feelings about the war pretty clear, but I'd agree that "crushed" might be a bit of an exaggeration. Not that that was exactly what samprimary was saying; I think a metaphor was being made equating the ongoing occupation to a single, conventional battle (in which there might be a conventional "charge" or "retreat", which would certainly not be the case in the present occupation.)
What we do have is an ongoing and intensifying attrition. And even strategies that sounded promising (to me), like the neighborhood-by-neighborhood disarmament campaigns, have not produced the results desired and expected.
If we can't move forward, and we're taking ongoing losses, temporary failure to lose is insufficient.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
You caught the metaphor expertly. In a war like Iraq, defeat can only be inexorable and slow, and cause predates downfall by months and months, if not years.
"Temporary failure to lose is insufficient" is such an elegant statement, and it stabs at the heart of rosy misconceptions of the war's present viability. I heartily concur, wot wot.
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