Do you mean the US is using the wrong policy or that their policy is so wrong-headed that it’s not even a real effort at peace?
I don’t agree. I think the author took the alleged lack of post-war planning to be evidence of our imperial intent. That would be a stretch, even if the premise were true. It’s even sillier since post-war planning has been widely reported.
OK, but under this interpretation, where’s the imperialism? We have troops in Japan and Germany, but we don’t control those countries. Our troops didn’t prevent their leader from being re-elected on anti-Americanism.
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any country that hasn’t done something immoral during the last 150 years.
P.S. Is your real name archy as in archy and mehitabel?
Well, the masses on my desk aren’t huddling quite so energetically as they were a couple of hours ago, so here goes.
FTR, I never said I’d swallowed Mr. Bookman’s arguments hook, line, and sinker. He’s just the first person I’ve seen express doubts in a mainstream journalistic publication about the U.S.’ actual motives for military involvement in Iraq. I’ve always had a couple of issues with the U.S.’ plans toward Iraq these days, though, so I found it interesting.
Some further thoughts of mine:
The timing of this proposed escalation has been troubling to me. We’ve had this relatively low-intensity bickering with Saddam Hussein since the Gulf War; he kicks out inspectors, shoots down planes, we kvetch and make threats, but nothing really big happens for ten years. We knew about his WMD and his violent proclivities toward his own people the whole time, and even before the Gulf War. But shortly after we get involved in Afghanistan, all of the sudden war with Iraq is a high priority again, even without the support of the vast majority of our usual allies? Something here just doesn’t add up.
If the U.S. does invade Iraq, I find it nearly impossible to believe that we can be in and out of there quickly. It’s rather reminiscent of Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the current campaign in Chechnya saying, “We’ll be out of there by Christmas.” More than three years later, Grozny has been bombed back to the Stone Age, something like half of Chechens have become refugees, and Russian soldiers are dying on a daily basis. Not a happy state of affairs, and I can’t envision Iraq being any more cheerful, especially if it happens simultaneously with a long-term involvement in Afghanistan.
Why didn’t we start with Kuwait? Well, for one thing, what plausible excuse would we have had? What have they done to piss off the U.S, beyond not necessarily jumping every time we said so? No WMD, either, by anyone’s allegation.
Again, Iraq is not going to be “fixed,” by anyone’s standards, in a day. I just don’t feel that the current administration knows what it’s getting itself into, if it wants to enable any lasting change, either in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Maybe we can get rid of the current government there; then again, maybe we can’t. In either case, though, it’s going to take a level of commitment, both in terms of personnel and resources, that I don’t see the U.S. wanting to make in the medium- to long-term, especially without international cooperation.
Having a few discontents in exile sitting around drafting proposed legislation isn’t exactly a comprehensive post-war reconstruction plan.
Iraq is a hell of a lot closer to Central Asia than most of the U.S.’ other bases. And Afghanistan is waaaaaaay closer to the formerly Soviet Central Asian nations than anywhere else I can think of the U.S. having a military base, a fact which I’m sure is not lost on the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, or the Russians (or the Chinese, for that matter). Central Asian geopolitics (and yes, that includes petrolum geopolitics) could get veeeeery interesting over the next few years. In fact, my M.A. in Russian & East European Studies (focusing on the non-Russian areas of the FSU) is looking more practical all of the sudden.
If Tony Balir knows about this then I guess the reason he’s so closely supporting Bush is the bit about allies reducing their own defence spending and increasing spending on health and other things, because being a socialist I don’t think TB would like the idea of an American Empire. (neither do I. I don’t want to be an American, I quite like beng a Brit. At least it is not a Nazi Empire though)
Go easy on me. I rarely post in GD, I thought I’d dip my toe in the pool on this one.
The US does have an interest in acquiring control of Iraq’s oil, in order to make us less dependant on the Saudis. We also have an interest in being able to establish substantial military bases in the Middle East, and Iraq is as good as place as any. The timing of Bush’s Iraq rhetoric is troubling in terms of its relation to the upcoming November elections. Bush has given unclear, unproven and conflicting reasons for his policy towards Iraq.
Given all this, isn’t it also possible that Bush may also have a genuine and severe security-realted reason for wanting to invade Iraq. I think he’s done a horrible job in publicly justifiying his policy, but that doesn’t mean the policy is a bad one.
Apparently loonies abound.
For a more detailed elaboration of Bookman’s ideas check out David Armstrong’s (www.publicedcenter.org/nsns.htm) current article in the October issue of Harper’s (unfortunately not available online), *Dick Cheney’s Song of America[i/].
His sources of “paranoia” are the Defense Planning Guidance reports from 92, 99, and 2002 and Defense Strategy for the 1990s authored by Cheney, Wolfowitz, and later Rumsfeld and Libby. He follows the transformations of “the plan” from the late 80s on up. In it he writes
As far as connections to Japan and Germany go, look no further than one of the statements presented to Senator Biden’s committee, by Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney (retired), concerning the results of a successful US war.
Global domination isn’t necessitated by old-style imperialism, it doesn’t take an international policy wonk to see that economic (GAT WTO etc.) and intermittent militaristic control is much less messy and, over time, more effective.
No need for conspiracy theories when the truth is so simple. The US needs a steady supply of oil, and Iraq will become part of the solution. This report commissioned by Dick Cheney in March 2001 (before 9/11) recommends taking a hard line with Iraq.
Bush was/is an oilman - I find it hard to believe that he would not heed this advice. So far, events seem to bear this out (the report does not elaborate on what ‘other means’ would be appropriate!).
That one is real easy, actually. So easy, I expect you to :smack: when you read it:
Bush (probably much like Clinton) came into office viewing Saddam as a long-term threat, and that containment of Saddam was breaking down. Had he his druthers, the U.S. would act to end the threat once and for all.
However, before going to war, a president needs the support of Congress and the public, and that wasn’t going to happen during his first year in office. Once 9/11 occurred, the American public gained a new appreciation of the dangers of long-term threats, so the political prerequisite for garnering support for an attack on Iraq was achieved.
And no one is saying that. The Bushies expect we will be there for years.
Our excuse would have been that we do not liberate countries in order to turn them back over to absolutist monarchs. The U.S. could have excused staying in control of the country in order to set up a democratic government.
Why do you think that there wouldn’t be international cooperation in the rebuilding of Iraq? The U.S. would want it, and the rest of the world would be eager to protect the Iraqis from the Evil American Empire.
:rolleyes: That article addressed one aspect of post-war plans. It didn’t address the whole thing. The hint should have been that the military wasn’t mentioned at all in the article.
Um, that’s exactly the point. The U.S. had its golden opportunity to create an “aircraft carrier” in Afghanistan, a vitally strategic part of the world, yet it is not doing it.
Let’s face it - the U.S. has the Middle East covered. We have bases/allies in Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The only benefit from occupation of Iraq is that we would have bases in a country bordering Iran. Afghanistan borders Iran, and, as you noted, is an ideal place from which to project power into formerly Soviet Central Asia.
Bookman’s argument is that we are attacking Iraq in order to be able to put pressure on Iran. Why would we go to the bother of a full-scale war in order to achieve what we can achieve right now in Afghanistan?
And as usual, you have no cites or any other sort of evidence to back up your paranoid and panicky ramblings.
This applies to your first post in this thread, too.
Gotta find a cite for you, but I think the Post quoted some Administration folks as saying that they didn’t want to mess up the Iraq vote. I find that to be completely credible explanation.
As for the OP, Sua is correct. Why not make it in Afghanistan? We would have had international support, local support and a credible explanation. Not only that, a large military presence would have helped to protect that fabled Unocal oil pipeline that supposedly triggered the whole invasion of Afghanistan.
Again, we have bases in Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. Not much further away from Iran than a base in Iraq would be. The whole article is just very Illuminati-ish and provides no hard evidence, just paranoid crying.
Again, the masses are huddling on my desk, but just a thought: who’s to say the U.S. won’t end up with a lasting military presence, and/or bases, in Afghanistan? Just because we haven’t broken ground yet, doesn’t mean we never will. That’s a separate, but related, debate from this one, though.
All of these steps would make the eventual conversion of Afghanistan into an American aircraft carrier a lot easier, and they are obvious. But they haven’t been done.
That’s the funny thing about these conspiracy theories - they assume that America is incompetent and omnipotent at the same time. The U.S. can turn the world into an American Empire, but can be counted on to screw up the steps necessary to establish that Empire.
Perhaps we do, but that is a far cry from saying that the “real” reason we are preparing to enforce the inspections on Iraq is that we want to create a global empire.
Military bases in a former enemy who is now an ally is hardly setting up an empire, unless you want to count Japan, Great Britain, and Turkey as colonies of the US.
Eva, honey, you don’t have to keep apologizing for not being able to respond to everything the minute that it’s posted. I think we all understand that you have an actual life, and a job, unlike some of us…
And anyway, “tending your own thread” doesn’t mean you gotta feel obligated to leap into action the minute someone posts a response. Lots of people start threads and then don’t come back for hours, or even days, and it’s no biggie.
–Well, okay, when they don’t come back for days it is annoying, but I mean…relax.
You crack me up! Yes, the frustrated wannabe poly-sci Ph.D. in me is yearning to post something more comprehensive, which will take more than the few minutes at a time I can sneak away from the huddled masses. And I have a class tonight (guitar, not more grad school, unfortunately), so it’ll probably have to wait a bit.
And yeah, when I worked for Immigration Court, the waiting room frequently looked like your picture on calendar call days…but now that I do work visas, the masses huddle mostly metaphorically on my desk. (They’re mostly professional types, so they dress a little neater and have better posture, plus we mostly deal with them by phone, fax, and e-mail, not in person.)
And yeah, my job is giving me issues with U.S. foreign and domestic policies these days…but that’s another thread, and a long one at that, and one that would be professional suicide if anyone I know professionally knew my identity on this board…
[end of hijack, back to figuratively huddled masses]
These days I draft employer petitions for work visas, for a private law firm which specializes in employment-based immigration issues. So you can imagine just how fun and predictable my job has been the past year or so, between 9/11 and the recession. I’ve got experience in other areas of immigration, though; I used to work for the Office of the Immigration Judge, as an interpreter in just about any kind of deporation case you can think of. Asylum, marriage fraud…never a dull moment.
