Quote Originally Posted by B Butler View Post
Rumsfeld and others among the neo-con group also had a theory... that high tech was a wonderful force multiplier that would allow clean victories with few troops on the ground and few casualties.
This isn't a bad theory if one has lots of money to spend and one is fighting a conventional war with front lines. Given guerrilla tactics one needs a lot more boots on the ground, not to mention patience.
The practice worked well in Grenada, Panama, and in Kuwait. The US did not leave 'boots on the ground' -- that is, brittle targets for guerrilla attacks. "Get in, achieve objectives, and get out" has often proved the best military policy for the US.
Donald Rumsfeld created the "higher-tech, fewer troops" approach to ground warfare. It leaves fewer targets on the ground but ensures that the troops on the ground are more effective. But that itself assumes that the upper leadership has limited objectives. Good military leaders and effective statesmen contemplate what can go wrong -- and thus prepare for bad events that might happen so that they can make such bad events never happen. Bad ones can't see anything going wrong. Dubya, history increasingly shows, was more a poseur than a statesman. Donald Rumsfeld created a military policy well suited to Reagan and the elder Bush, who at least showed some restraint. I just can't imagine any military doctrine suited to Dubya. Obama? It's back to Reagan.
But "muddled objective" remains the key phrase. Some wanted to take out the standing army, depose Saddam, remove the weapons of mass destruction, and go home. Others wanted control of the oil, which required a puppet government of some sort, and plans for a long term stay. Others thought the US would be welcomed as liberators, that the locals would see the obvious superiority of western culture and democracy. All in all, transforming cultures and nation building at the point of a bayonet is hard enough when everyone was on the same page. Everyone was not on the same page.
So it is hard to imagine that anything wouldn't be manifestly better than Saddam Hussein? To be sure, there was nothing wrong with Saddam Hussein that a well-tied rope and the appropriate drop wouldn't solve. Dubya could not understand that the United States could offend Iraqi sensibilities. "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (offering the horrible acronym -- OIL, referring to a commodity that would go from Iraqi control to the control of American and British oil companies). Loyal followers of Saddam Hussein were going to fight in full knowledge of what awaited them.
Once Saddam and his fascistic Ba'ath Party were gone, the Iraqi people could see multiple alternatives, and semi-colonial rule was not a valid one. The Iraqis had their taste of colonial rule, and they didn't like it.
The Republican unraveling coalition seemed to me an alliance of three quite different philosophies brought together as much by dislike of Democrats as common cause. There were neo-con militarists, Wall Street capitalists, and evangelical culture warriors. It seems each group had control of different branches of the US government, each pursuing a different agenda, without a common set of plans and priorities.
Such remains an uneasy alliance working at cross purposes, in agreement almost exclusively in the idea that they want American liberalism dead. The evangelical culture warriors want One Nation Under God -- God as they see Him. Those Culture Warriors want people to focus on the Judgment of God above all else, including human needs, rational thought, and all earthly happiness. The followers of the Culture Warriors would commit themselves to peonage if such protected them from the Devil which manifests itself 'evil' from evolution to homosexuality; they have accepted Pascal's wager, trivializing happiness in This World in favor of the promise of Eternal Bliss*. The Wall Street capitalists obviously want the maximization not so much of paper profits but instead to get as big a share of the productive results of American capitalism as possible. They often fit a Marxist stereotype of profiteers who exact maximal productivity from people consigned to live on starvation rations. The neo-con militarists wish to expand captive markets and put more foreigners under the exploitative dominion of American capitalism. They find each other useful even if they have some doubts. American capitalists do not want their assets ruined in destructive war that might result in some other country dispossessing American plutocrats and ending the Good Life that our bureaucratic elites now enjoy, and they do not believe the theology of the Culture Warriors -- plutocrats want to enjoy their sybaritic excesses. Protestant fundamentalists would hate the plutocrats and militarists if they ever got to meet them and see the consequences of their raw desires (that humanity will either die horribly in wars in the service of the greediest of people or be exploited in "dark Satanic mills").
We liberals need to start addressing the economic distress of poor white people, especially in the Mountain and Deep South. Can't we at least say that if working people have strong unions that get real pay that workers will be able to have more money to put to the service of God in the collection plate?
But it seems too soon to start writing history books.
Such remains either current events or the reverberations of recent events. Those, to the extent of their importance become history. That said, politicians who pay little attention to history (like Dubya) make very bad history.
*If Pascal's wager were valid, then we would submit ourselves to slavery or allow ourselves to become sure victims of meat-grinder wars so that we could find a glorious Afterlife.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 01-11-2014 at 05:03 PM.
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Originally Posted by B Butler ![[Image: viewpost-right.png]](http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png)
...(I)t seems a proper time to mention the Powell Doctrine. Eight questions...
I don't know that every state in every era should follow such a doctrine rigidly. If one is fighting for survival, or to avoid the intolerable, one does what one has to do. One can hire a think tank to fine tune an end game later. Still, I would hope that any US command authority would at least seriously consider each of Powell's questions.
Let's try the first Gulf War.
Saddam Hussein had plenty of opportunity to leave Kuwait. Most significantly, we let him believe that he could cut a deal with the Soviet Union through the diplomat Yevgeny Primakov that would have allowed him some appearance of controlling something. The elder Bush might have called the Soviet deal less than perfect -- but it would have worked. He would have been stuck with it, but what the heck? Saddam Hussein would have had to retreat from Kuwait and get his military machine trimmed back.
I suspect that George H W Bush wanted Primakov to succeed and get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Meanwhile the US and its allies were consolidating more strength, ensuring that if the hammer had to come down it would come down even harder.
Now, for the Second Gulf War:
Rumsfeld and others among the neo-con group also had a theory... that high tech was a wonderful force multiplier that would allow clean victories with few troops on the ground and few casualties.
This isn't a bad theory if one has lots of money to spend and one is fighting a conventional war with front lines. Given guerrilla tactics one needs a lot more boots on the ground, not to mention patience.
The practice worked well in Grenada, Panama, and in Kuwait. The US did not leave 'boots on the ground' -- that is, brittle targets for guerrilla attacks. "Get in, achieve objectives, and get out" has often proved the best military policy for the US.
Donald Rumsfeld created the "higher-tech, fewer troops" approach to ground warfare. It leaves fewer targets on the ground but ensures that the troops on the ground are more effective. But that itself assumes that the upper leadership has limited objectives. Good military leaders and effective statesmen contemplate what can go wrong -- and thus prepare for bad events that might happen so that they can make such bad events never happen. Bad ones can't see anything going wrong. Dubya, history increasingly shows, was more a poseur than a statesman. Donald Rumsfeld created a military policy well suited to Reagan and the elder Bush, who at least showed some restraint. I just can't imagine any military doctrine suited to Dubya. Obama? It's back to Reagan.
But "muddled objective" remains the key phrase. Some wanted to take out the standing army, depose Saddam, remove the weapons of mass destruction, and go home. Others wanted control of the oil, which required a puppet government of some sort, and plans for a long term stay. Others thought the US would be welcomed as liberators, that the locals would see the obvious superiority of western culture and democracy. All in all, transforming cultures and nation building at the point of a bayonet is hard enough when everyone was on the same page. Everyone was not on the same page.
So it is hard to imagine that anything wouldn't be manifestly better than Saddam Hussein? To be sure, there was nothing wrong with Saddam Hussein that a well-tied rope and the appropriate drop wouldn't solve. Dubya could not understand that the United States could offend Iraqi sensibilities. "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (offering the horrible acronym -- OIL, referring to a commodity that would go from Iraqi control to the control of American and British oil companies). Loyal followers of Saddam Hussein were going to fight in full knowledge of what awaited them.
Once Saddam and his fascistic Ba'ath Party were gone, the Iraqi people could see multiple alternatives, and semi-colonial rule was not a valid one. The Iraqis had their taste of colonial rule, and they didn't like it.
The Republican unraveling coalition seemed to me an alliance of three quite different philosophies brought together as much by dislike of Democrats as common cause. There were neo-con militarists, Wall Street capitalists, and evangelical culture warriors. It seems each group had control of different branches of the US government, each pursuing a different agenda, without a common set of plans and priorities.
Such remains an uneasy alliance working at cross purposes, in agreement almost exclusively in the idea that they want American liberalism dead. The evangelical culture warriors want One Nation Under God -- God as they see Him. Those Culture Warriors want people to focus on the Judgment of God above all else, including human needs, rational thought, and all earthly happiness. The followers of the Culture Warriors would commit themselves to peonage if such protected them from the Devil which manifests itself 'evil' from evolution to homosexuality; they have accepted Pascal's wager, trivializing happiness in This World in favor of the promise of Eternal Bliss*. The Wall Street capitalists obviously want the maximization not so much of paper profits but instead to get as big a share of the productive results of American capitalism as possible. They often fit a Marxist stereotype of profiteers who exact maximal productivity from people consigned to live on starvation rations. The neo-con militarists wish to expand captive markets and put more foreigners under the exploitative dominion of American capitalism. They find each other useful even if they have some doubts. American capitalists do not want their assets ruined in destructive war that might result in some other country dispossessing American plutocrats and ending the Good Life that our bureaucratic elites now enjoy, and they do not believe the theology of the Culture Warriors -- plutocrats want to enjoy their sybaritic excesses. Protestant fundamentalists would hate the plutocrats and militarists if they ever got to meet them and see the consequences of their raw desires (that humanity will either die horribly in wars in the service of the greediest of people or be exploited in "dark Satanic mills").
We liberals need to start addressing the economic distress of poor white people, especially in the Mountain and Deep South. Can't we at least say that if working people have strong unions that get real pay that workers will be able to have more money to put to the service of God in the collection plate?
But it seems too soon to start writing history books.
Such remains either current events or the reverberations of recent events. Those, to the extent of their importance become history. That said, politicians who pay little attention to history (like Dubya) make very bad history.
*If Pascal's wager were valid, then we would submit ourselves to slavery or allow ourselves to become sure victims of meat-grinder wars so that we could find a glorious Afterlife.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 01-11-2014 at 05:03 PM.
Originally Posted by B Butler ...(I)t seems a proper time to mention the Powell Doctrine. Eight questions...
- Is a vital national security interest threatened?
- Do we have a clear attainable objective?
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
- Is the action supported by the American people?
- Do we have genuine broad international support?
I don't know that every state in every era should follow such a doctrine rigidly. If one is fighting for survival, or to avoid the intolerable, one does what one has to do. One can hire a think tank to fine tune an end game later. Still, I would hope that any US command authority would at least seriously consider each of Powell's questions.
Let's try the first Gulf War.
- Is a vital national security interest threatened? Yes -- preventing the rapid rise of a dangerous superpower
- Do we have a clear attainable objective? Yes -- Iraqi armed forces out of Kuwait
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? Yes -- scrupulously and completely.
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted? Saddam should have taken the Soviet offer.
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? Saudi Arabia did not want US forces there forever.
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered? Consequences of failure or inaction were worse.
- Is the action supported by the American people? Definitely.
- Do we have genuine broad international support? We got UN approval.
Saddam Hussein had plenty of opportunity to leave Kuwait. Most significantly, we let him believe that he could cut a deal with the Soviet Union through the diplomat Yevgeny Primakov that would have allowed him some appearance of controlling something. The elder Bush might have called the Soviet deal less than perfect -- but it would have worked. He would have been stuck with it, but what the heck? Saddam Hussein would have had to retreat from Kuwait and get his military machine trimmed back.
I suspect that George H W Bush wanted Primakov to succeed and get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Meanwhile the US and its allies were consolidating more strength, ensuring that if the hammer had to come down it would come down even harder.
Now, for the Second Gulf War:
- The "need" for the President to have a military triumph
- No. We would be long-term occupiers of a country whose people would tire of us.
- Risks? Costs? What are those?
- Not starting a war based upon lies? That is the minimum standard.
- We will be seen as liberators -- forever.
- Great for war profiteers!
- Not for long even if Saddam Hussein got what he deserved (hanging).
- Hell, no! German intelligence, then very good due to the dual heritage, contradicted Dubya. When a top ally disagrees you are in trouble.
Quote:Last edited by pbrower2a; 03-30-2014 at 09:03 PM.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.