Jericho: Allow me to be clear.
I am not some crypto-fascist war monger - as I am sometimes painted on this site.
Mao Zedong once said that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Mao has a point, but he was way more militant than I. I prefer Roosevelt's idea of walking softly but carrying a big stick - it's still too violent, but it's along the right idea.
It is impossible to bargain from a position of power if you have no power. As the kids say today - duh! However, power comes in many forms. Certainly, a strong military will grant you power. But, as the Soviet Union proved, a military is only as strong as your economy. The United States is the richest nation on Earth. We have a robust economy - even in the worst of times - don't be fooled! We are voracious consumers and as time passes we are consuming far more than we produce. Thus, many nations want to keep us happy because we buy their product. That, however, can be a double edged sword.
When Hussein took Kuwait before the first Gulf War, many in the US were concerned. We were concerned that Hussein was gearing up to be a new Hitler, taking the Rhineland all over again. But, this wasn't enough to bring our troops to "liberate Kuwait". It took concern of another kind. Hussein went after Kuwait for the oil, why not take Saudi Arabia? Saudi implored the US, fearing Hussein. We dropped troops in Saudi first. So, here is a country with no military to speak of, who can summon the most powerful military in the world to its defence. In that case, political power flowed from the oil field. Without their oil, or with higher oil prices set by Hussein, our economy would have been in trouble. I would have loved to see the protests by the "No Blood for Oil" crowd when their houses went dark and gas rose to $10 a gallon.
There is a place for military power. There is a place for diplomacy. If you were a powerful country, would you care what a diplomat said if there wasn't a powerful military or a powerful economy behind that diplomat? No, you wouldn't. Why would you waste your time?
There is a place and time for war, for peace, for diplomacy, for embargo and for charity - a worthy leader would know when to do which. A coward will always choose war. A brave leader will always choose peace. Sometimes a brave leader needs to be a little cowardly. Hussein only understood war. Hitler only understood hate. Gandhi only understood peace. All of them were wrong - they all could have used a lesson in flexibility.
Leaving Hussein to his own devices was a bad idea - he would have taken over the entirety of the Middle East in a few years, killed those that he hated and jacked up oil prices so high our economy would have collapsed. We took him down several pegs in the early 90s. We removed him from power this time. All told we lost about 10,000 troops. It seems like a lot - but remember about 30,000 American troops died in Normandy on D-Day. One battle! One day! Now that Hussein is gone, we need to make sure that the Iraq government can hold its own, then we need to get the hell out of there! They hate us and everything we stand for. When we came to liberate, they cheered, then two days later they booed. They are very much like the French!
We may have to go back and clean up Iraq more than once. Diplomacy is failing in Iran, we may have to resort to military action. Diplomacy seems to be keeping North Korea at bay for the moment. It also seems to be working in China.
I wish Diplomacy worked every time, it doesn't. I wish we didn't need to make less powerful countries client states, but it seems to be the only way to go. I wish our economy was independent of all other factors but its not. We can't live without the rest of the globe and we can't allow them to live without us.
Mao Zedong once said that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Mao has a point, but he was way more militant than I. I prefer Roosevelt's idea of walking softly but carrying a big stick - it's still too violent, but it's along the right idea.
It is impossible to bargain from a position of power if you have no power. As the kids say today - duh! However, power comes in many forms. Certainly, a strong military will grant you power. But, as the Soviet Union proved, a military is only as strong as your economy. The United States is the richest nation on Earth. We have a robust economy - even in the worst of times - don't be fooled! We are voracious consumers and as time passes we are consuming far more than we produce. Thus, many nations want to keep us happy because we buy their product. That, however, can be a double edged sword.
When Hussein took Kuwait before the first Gulf War, many in the US were concerned. We were concerned that Hussein was gearing up to be a new Hitler, taking the Rhineland all over again. But, this wasn't enough to bring our troops to "liberate Kuwait". It took concern of another kind. Hussein went after Kuwait for the oil, why not take Saudi Arabia? Saudi implored the US, fearing Hussein. We dropped troops in Saudi first. So, here is a country with no military to speak of, who can summon the most powerful military in the world to its defence. In that case, political power flowed from the oil field. Without their oil, or with higher oil prices set by Hussein, our economy would have been in trouble. I would have loved to see the protests by the "No Blood for Oil" crowd when their houses went dark and gas rose to $10 a gallon.
There is a place for military power. There is a place for diplomacy. If you were a powerful country, would you care what a diplomat said if there wasn't a powerful military or a powerful economy behind that diplomat? No, you wouldn't. Why would you waste your time?
There is a place and time for war, for peace, for diplomacy, for embargo and for charity - a worthy leader would know when to do which. A coward will always choose war. A brave leader will always choose peace. Sometimes a brave leader needs to be a little cowardly. Hussein only understood war. Hitler only understood hate. Gandhi only understood peace. All of them were wrong - they all could have used a lesson in flexibility.
Leaving Hussein to his own devices was a bad idea - he would have taken over the entirety of the Middle East in a few years, killed those that he hated and jacked up oil prices so high our economy would have collapsed. We took him down several pegs in the early 90s. We removed him from power this time. All told we lost about 10,000 troops. It seems like a lot - but remember about 30,000 American troops died in Normandy on D-Day. One battle! One day! Now that Hussein is gone, we need to make sure that the Iraq government can hold its own, then we need to get the hell out of there! They hate us and everything we stand for. When we came to liberate, they cheered, then two days later they booed. They are very much like the French!
We may have to go back and clean up Iraq more than once. Diplomacy is failing in Iran, we may have to resort to military action. Diplomacy seems to be keeping North Korea at bay for the moment. It also seems to be working in China.
I wish Diplomacy worked every time, it doesn't. I wish we didn't need to make less powerful countries client states, but it seems to be the only way to go. I wish our economy was independent of all other factors but its not. We can't live without the rest of the globe and we can't allow them to live without us.
posted by Jericho Brown at 6/01/2007 12:14:00 PM
5 Comments:
I can't believe I am letting you drag me into this stupid argument again.
Iraq was a mistake.
A bunch of neocons wanted to turn the US into the new Roman empire with Shrub as First Among Equals. They convinced the sheep in this country that Saddam was the demon child of Hitler and Hans Blofeld and that the world was going to end if we didn't take him out.
Now even the sheep realize that was bullshit.
The US is a great and mighty power. But despite what you seem to think, we have a hell of a lot more to offer the world than death from above. We should - and if we reallytried could - be energy independent. Quite frankly I would rather see $10 a gallon gas if that is what it takes to get us off the stuff.
As for Iran and diplomacy, why are you writing diplomacy off when we only just started. Despite what Shrub thinks, threatening war is not diplomacy. Now that we are at the table, it may take some time, but how about giving it a chance before buying into another line of neocon fertilizer?
I just watched a piece on the Iran Iraq war and the rise of Hussein. Everything I said above is wrong.
Nuke the Middle East out of existance - it's the only way to be sure.
Someone recently said that pulling out of Iraq and letting it descend into civil war may actually be a wise tactical move. If the Sunni and Shi'a go back to killing each other, they'll spend less time and energy on killing us.
Instead, we can do what we should have done in the first place - hand this mess over to the State Department, the FBI, the CIA and the NSA.
Last I heard, they were now called "Homeland Security"
If you are saying our new layer of bureaucracy does not inspire confidence, I agree. But lets not tar the real agents with the same brush.
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