Make Diplomacy, Not War
By Nicole Belle Sunday Aug 10, 2008 1:00pmJust sayin'...
Nicholas Kristof in NY Times (reg. req'd.):
Iraq and Afghanistan are the messes getting attention today, but they are only symptoms of a much broader cancer in American foreign policy.
A few glimpses of this larger affliction:
¶The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.
¶This year alone, the United States Army will add about 7,000 soldiers to its total; that's more people than in the entire American Foreign Service.
¶More than 1,000 American diplomatic positions are vacant because the Foreign Service is so short-staffed, but a myopic Congress is refusing to finance even modest new hiring. Some 1,100 could be hired for the cost of a single C-17 military cargo plane.
In short, the United States is hugely overinvesting in military tools and underinvesting in diplomatic tools. The result is a lopsided foreign policy that antagonizes the rest of the world and is ineffective in tackling many modern problems.[..]
Dennis Ross, the longtime Middle East peace negotiator, says he has been frustrated "beyond belief" to see resources showered on the military while diplomacy has to fight for scraps. Mr. Ross argues that an investment of just $1 billion - financing job creation and other grass-roots programs in the West Bank - could significantly increase the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. But that money isn't forthcoming.
Our intuitive approach to fighting terrorists and insurgents is to blow things up. But one of the most cost-effective counterterrorism methods in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan may be to build things up, like schooling and microfinance. Girls' education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile.
A new study from the RAND Corporation examined how 648 terror groups around the world ended between 1968 and 2006. It found that by far the most common way for them to disappear was to be absorbed by the political process. The second most common way was to be defeated by police work. In contrast, in only 7 percent of cases did military force destroy the terrorist group.
"There is no battlefield solution to terrorism," the report declares. "Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended."
The next president should absorb that lesson and revalidate diplomacy as the primary tool of foreign policy - even if that means talking to ogres.
This was the approach that Rove, et al. sneered at. Remind me again, how well did their approach work? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result. Maybe it's time to stop the insanity.
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Antagonizing the world? What do you mean?
We're an EMPIRE now! The world has to listen to US. That's what the neocons told us.
The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.
well, duh!
i think that statement needed some thing... like: ... than it has diplomats in it's ranks.
obama is aware of the power of diplomacy. afghanistan and pakistan will only become more stable through diplomacy.
Oh sure, but will MSM sell this to AMERICA?
Doubt it.
The U.S. military is the only branch of the federal government that hasn't been wrecked by the conservative movement, and is therefore the only functional tool left in the government toolbox. To a man with a hammer, every problem has to be a nail.
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
Just sayin'.
Aww...shucks...ya mean if I win the election I don't get to blow shit up?
this is like rose petals wrapped around horse shit.
nicholas "the first step on life's escalator" kristof sees only the resulting problems of an economic system he champions.
this essay is a complete waste of time and insulting. kristof, you suck.
5 Months 11 Days to get rid of the guy who says stuff like:
"And I, unfortunately, have been to too many disasters as president." --George W. Bush, discussing flooding in the Midwest, Washington, D.C., June 17, 2008
☻Bangkok Bob ☺ @ 9:
And I, unfortunately, have seen to0 many disasters caused by and/or mismanaged by this president.
All we are saying...
Is give me a piece...
John Insane @ 7:
You could eat a box of chocolate flavored Ex-Lax.
This misses the root of the problem, which is...(drum roll)......an uninformed electorate! Let CNN show cool night-vision shots of artillery and bombs in a foreign land, parades and waving flags and you get votes. What is the political pay off for diplomacy and peace?
We are so stupid!
Rove's approach worked wonders for the Military/Industrial complex that Ike warned us about.
War is profitable, peace, not so much...
At least that seems to be what the ruling classes believe. Certainly war is a fast buck compared to sustained investment in peace and prosperity... but since when has crony capitalism ever been about the long term?
how many of us here have been saying this for years and years?
There is "no battlefield solution to terrorism"? Tell us something we didn't already know.
The GOP is does not believe in prevention ,which is extremely cost effective. They would MUCH RATHER waste tax dollars later by bailing out whatever the crisis is. They are FOOLS.
“There is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” the report declares. “Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended.”
Depends on who's intentions we're talking about. Military force usually has the exact effect that the terrorists wanted.
John Insane @ 7:
Funny and true....these sick neo-fucks aren't happy unless they're war profiteering and killing brown people.
for some war is a benefit.......is that right mccain?
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/as-russia-goes-to-war-mccain-camp-se...
Diplomacy by the barrel of a gun only solves things for so long. The Tsardom and the Kaisers and the Nazis and the Soviets and the Mongols and the Assyrians and the Mexica and the Imperial Japanese have already discovered that. Endless diplomacy by the sword ultimately bankrupts a nation. The Tsars attempted that for centuries. They destroyed themselves. The Kaisers were incapable of stopping the effects of WWI once the results of their Weltpolitik caught up with them. They destroyed themselves. The Nazis destroyed themselves, and their lasting achievement was zilch. The Soviets bankrupted their economy with war spending with little thought to anything else. The Mongols attempted to rule most of Eurasia with sword-diplomacy. No more Mongol Khanates. Assyria made so many enemies Babylon became liberators. The Mexica at the time of Montezuma created so many enemies that Indians more than Cortez destroyed them. And Imperial Japan ended up with entire cities rubble or green glass.
Only a fool would imagine the same might not one day happen to us. Remember, Montezuma's empire seemed unconquerable, too...
Liberal AND Proud @ 1:
That's what Montezuma II's advisors told him.
...
Didn't work out so well, did it?
General_Rennenkampf @ 23:
Our present administration is suffering from Montezuma's Revenge, they are full of shit.
General_Rennenkampf @ 23:
Hmmm...so when Iraq turns into a tourist attraction...Americans shouldn't drink the water for fear of catching Bush's Revenge?
This Col. was on dnow this morning ... said some very very scary things re: Georgia.
worth a listen.
From democracynow.org:
"Col. Sam Gardiner, retired Air Force Colonel. He has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. His recent posts on Georgia have appeared on the blog NewsDissector.org here and here"
what kristof fails to discuss and comprehend (again) are the policies and actions that lead people to resort to "terrorism" (which is a vastly overused term).
which, funny enough, are what he spews forth.
kristof is merely lamenting the failure of the US to contain the nightmare we exported--not the nightmare itself.
he is jim-dandy fine with the draconian methods used to subjugate millions, he just has a problem with how you deal with those people, or, excuse me, those 'terrorists'
Liberal AND Proud @ 25:
Iraqis are the descendants of Mesopotamians, they've had a civilization for 6,000 years. Methinks it'll be the ruins of the US that will be tourist attractions, not Iraq. The question will be if we go the Caesar way, the Atahualpa way, or the Montezuma way.
☻Bangkok Bob ☺ @ 24:
Heh, that's sadly humorous. But the point is very much valid. Montezuma Xocoyotzin attempted to rule a great empire by being as much of an asshole as possible. Unfortunately he attracted so much hate from other Indians that Anahuac became renamed Mexico.
The investment in diplomacy will never happen because diplomacy never made the stock prices of General Dynamics, Halliburton, and Raytheon go up.
Pericles @ 5:
Well, they haven't wrecked the military budget, but the US Army is in pretty bad shape after 8 years of Bush.
Yeah, well, if you called Neo-Conservatism "chocolate" more people would accept their warmongering ways and eschew the more "vanilla" of progressivism i.e. diplomacy.
☻Bangkok Bob ☺ @ 9:
one of the more intelligent statements he's made as "the commander guy"
Diplomacy is for appeasers.
cant wait for 09 @ 32:
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The military industrial complex funnels money to greedy politicians who share their world view. Progressive politicians who belive in diplomacy first are labeled as unpatriotic. BTW who appointed the US as the worlds policeman?
Make Diplomacy, Not War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glORpVXA1Iw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xBLYMSgxCE
ysbaddaden @ 11:
Exactly, if diplomacy was a priority, the funding would be there; but, how much money can the war profiteers make off of diplomacy. War is a racket!
samsuncle @ 35:
Theodore Roosevelt.
RonDumsfeld @ 37:
Yeah...
and sometimes the racketeers pay for it, too. Just ask the Nahua.
Russia is pushing to control Geogia's oil pipeline. Bush's state department has had another failure! The United States is going down. Cheney is calling for war with Russia by saying Russian agression should be met by our military power.
The bush administration's policy is if it moves, shoot it. Then be diplomatic when you talk about the death.
General_Rennenkampf @ 39:
Actually I was just talking dirty.
I'm surprised no one's yet mentioned the US's militaristic culture. When even criticising generals or general war behaviour by our troops is considered anti-Americanism, the troops are considered noble warriors etc, well, there you go.
And yes, I'm aware some of them are there for financial reasons, some actually believe in the noble causes etc., that doesn't mean there aren't a**hats in the military and that I have no right to call them on it.
all hail the hypno toad @ 43:
The US culture we have is militaristic for the exact same reason that South American culture is. Our founder was a general and the older generations delighted in war. We didn't have the "benefit" of seeing what such an attitude leads to like Eastern Asia and Europe did.
How well did Rove, Bush, Cheney's approach work? Wouldn't that depend on the desired outcome? Perhaps the desired outcome was not to eliminate terrorists after all? I'm just asking.
stacy @ 18:
It's their exact same approach to healthcare.
Forget preventive steps, just spend lots of money after it's too late and you're on the brink of death from a serious illness.
General_Rennenkampf@44
i don't think that is an accurate as assessment.
i wouldn't agree that the older generations in either area 'delighted in war' (the US population wasn't exactly gung ho about WWI, WWI, vietnam, among other conflicts)
and, not to mention, the actions of the CIA and corporate interests in south america using fear and torture to keep people in line for decades (see, operation condor, etc.)
this doesn't seem to be a popular effort, more of a situation forced from above.
now, i would agree that the current atmosphere in the US is heavily militarized, but i don't think that is from historical roots but from purposeful programming.
Liberal AND Proud @ 10:
George W. Bush is the disaster.
How do you rationalize a justification for:
Matthew 5:3-12 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
WITH
1. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
forward into battle see his banners go!
Refrain:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
2. At the sign of triumph Satan's host doth flee;
on then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell's foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.
(Refrain)
3. Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
(Refrain)
4. Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
but the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
we have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail.
(Refrain)
5. Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud, and honor unto Christ the King,
this through countless ages men and angels sing.
(Refrain)
The lyrics were interestingly enough by Sabine Baring-Gould, who wrote The Book of Werewolves, that was one of the key sources for Bram Stoker's research on Dracula, according to his writing notes at the Rosenbach Museum of Philadelphia.
That's actually not the definition of insanity--it's an urban legend.
Samson- @ 47:
You're wrong. The current attitude in the US comes from several deep historical roots. 1) The easy, by our standards, conquest of the majority of North America from Indians and Europeans both. 2) For several generations, Americans did delight in war. Do I have to use the General Lee quote here? People in generations prior to WWI were exceptionally romantic about warfare, and saw nothing wrong with it, even its barbarities.
3) The founding figure of the US, George Washington, was a general. This encouraged, to some degree, a tendency to have people connected with the military in some sense as presidents, feeding into the first two channels.
As for South America, google "Francisco Solano Lopez" and get back to me. Warfare fell out of favor increasingly after the greater information combined with the much larger scale of the world wars and the ever-present threat of nuclear holocaust constricted it. South Americans do have a much more macho and militarized culture than Yankeestan. The threat of Yankeestani intervention actually encourages that, rather than halts it.
The militarism of today's society derives from several roots that extend far back into the relatively short history of the US as a nation.
Well, the first part is actually from the Bible.
The second part is from a hymn written by someone who'd obviously never read the first part.
Easy. Next question?
ysbaddaden @ 49:
The Conquest narrative of the Israelite genocide in Canaan. Next question, please?
General_Rennenkampf@51
so you are saying that the WWI generation DID delight in war?
they didn't, so how does our "current attitude" differ from previous generations prove that our current militarism flows solely from history? you are stepping on your own argument.
i think you are trying to make a simplisitc argument, that is a lot more complex than general washington, native americans and general lee (which the vast majority of americans don't know squat about). but it sounds good.
it seems to me that has more to do with economics, politics and ignorance than what happened in the 18th and 19th centuries.
this is just my opinion (although i predict you will claim your opinion as fact)
Liberal AND Proud @ 1:
I believe the exact quote was "We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality."
That's true, any madman can make a 'reality' in his own head. There's just no guarantee that the outside world will have to follow the script. What was that quote that Dick Gregory told his grandson? "There's nothing wrong with you building a toy castle, as long as you don't start using it for your address." These guys have been using their own personal castle in the sky as OUR address for far too long.
lordkoos @ 30:
I guess you're right about that. They hadn't managed to wreck the last functional part of the federal government until NOW. I guess the difference is that they wrecked the other parts deliberately.
53 General_Rennenkampf
Were the Canaanites werewolves?
Never moon a lycanthrope.
General rennenkampf,
I think that you could say that about any society or culture in that they all have a military root, in America we are no different in that way then any other country.
Actually Americans have always had an ambiguous attitude toward violence. Short skirmishes they certainly didn't mind, like the Indian Wars. But until WWII was over we'd disarm pretty quickly. World War I and II there were large numbers of isolationists and even draft riots (earliest I know of was the Civil War.) Then artists often picked major battles as being worthy subjects for "Great Works."
The thing was the skirmishes were regional and the major battles generational, so it was easy for people who weren't in that region, or that generation to forget the true nature of warfare.
Additionally, soldiers have always seemed to be tight-lipped over what they've seen, and this adds to the fiction of the glory of war, because those that know better don't speak up, or if they do, they're pushed aside by the war-hawk politicians.
Gen Smedley Butler once said the hero of today is the bum of tomorrow.
I don't think I really want the Bush Administration hiring any new diplomats - let it go until January.
Since some commentators are saying Russia wants to cede Georgia for the oil, wonder if some country will invade the US for all that oil they found in North Dakota. More has been found there then in Alaska and offshore drilling. BUT HAS ANYBODY HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT IT...HECK NO....THAT WOULD CUT INTO THE REPUBLICANS SCREAMING FOR OFFSHORE DRILLING.
The real reason that most groups resort to terrorism is to have a voice where they are marginalized. AQ and bin Laden are saying "America, stay out of our Holy Land. Leaders of Islamic nations, keep the US out." Their voices aren't being heard in their own countries, so they organized and chose violence as a last resort. Their membership would drop in half overnight if there was an apparatus that said to them, "I will listen to you."
To contain the diehards that refuse a political option, the US needs to invest in more human intel and in unconventional warfare.
"Military first" is a mantra for people who want to blow shit up. "Diplomacy first" is a soultion for people who want to stop the threat of terror.
This is a collective derangement. We have allowed militarism to creep in and take hold in nearly every congressional district in the nation. Defense industry jobs are making weapons for which there is no enemy. Our schools have become proto-military camps where children are subjected to drills and tests, and teachers are afraid to teach the Bill of Rights because it does not fall under the mandated assignments.
Meanwhile concerted action on climate change is nowhere to be seen.
Pogo still said it best.
But if we are to survive, if we are to remain coherent as a nation and a people we need to get rid of the Republican suicide cult, and their Democrat collaborators. I don't know if we have the brains, or the luck, for that. I suppose someday the collective derangement will pass but those who are around to witness it will be leading far different lives than we are today.
ysbaddaden @ 59:
It was more of the attitude, then backed up by sufficient force to prove it, that a small group of people by right should dictate to the rest of the world. People like Washington, Santa Anna, Bolivar, and San Martin were exactly what Europe feared. When only one side can dictate history, then warfare becomes desirable.
jeff @ 58:
Actually, you're quite wrong. About 90% of all nations today are products of imperialism. Including the US, which began as part of a colonial empire imposed over native peoples. Several entire continents, including Africa, the American Continent, the former USSR, much of East Asia and South Asia, and regions like Australia and much of the Pacific did not exist prior to about the 18th Century. Only in Europe do political boundaries co-incide with much that we call reality, and that's because Europe was relatively spared, and even then, the argument can't be made for Europe east of the Elbe. Not every society has a military root. For instance, the root of Germany and France is the division of the Carolingian Empire in two in the 9th Century, and similar rules apply for much of Europe. Treaties often determined boundaries.
You're definitely oversimplifying.
Samson- @ 54:
Um...the 1914 generation was pretty romantic about war making men civilized...until 1917 when reality intruded. The 1914 generation had been raised in a time of the White Man's Burden, when warfare for the sake of civilizing "heathens" was encouraged. The average Doughboy had ancestors who had served in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, and so probably felt that like the Spanish-American War, that the mere arrival of Yankeestani forces would force Kaiser Bill to surrender.
The dislike for warfare that exists today is an artifact of information available about warfare, and that information co-inciding with the two most savage conflicts of recent history, the World Wars. After 1914, militarism never recovered. You're projecting the present onto the past. The era prior to and in the first year or two of WWI was vastly different than today.
Samson- @ 54:
I have to agree with you, the argument is filled with overgeneralizations. I could rattle off a bunch of historical names, trends and facts myself, but it isn't going to make a convincing argument for the actions taken by the Bush Administration (not the "american people" and that nominalization), and their nonstop fuckups and abuses handling domestic crisis, foreign diplomacy and acting as CinC.
Bismarck @ 65:
Argue for the Bush Administration? No.
Pretend that they manufactured out of whole cloth something that any sufficiently talented fool could have done equally well? Again, no.
64 General_Rennenkampf
That's the messianic drive, typified by the Monroe Doctrine, and the Great Expansion. But those were apparent even during peacetime.
ysbaddaden @ 67:
The messianic drive was by no means limited to Anglo Turtle Island. The Mexican revolutionaries and Bolivar and San Martin were equally idealistic-I mean stupid. Ironically, had things worked out differently, Mexico might have been the predominant power in North America, and that would have continued events as they were in Aboriginal days.
That whole 'girls education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile' is only relevant depending on what your true objective is..... Can't sell a gun or missile if everyone is getting along peacefully and behaving now can ya...... So, just what ARE this nation and its' current political and business leaderships true objectives anyway????? Makes ya wonder don't it??? JD
The interesting thing about our history books is according to them we never started wars, but under attack responded. Some concessions were made for the bombing of the Lusitania and the Bay of Tonkin, and now "linkages" between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but they sound more like mistakes made under the fog of war than plots, according to these texts.
Gen. Smedley Butler was complaining home in letters starting about 1910, after some years in the Marines, that the Marines were being ill-used to not protect America, but protect corporations. He would point to metals, and refer to missions and battles he got them for under the name of the corporation he felt was responsible for starting the embroglios.
Part of the problem is Condi. She's just plum lazy. Diplomacy is hard work. Look at the recent positive results in Kenya by an international team led by Kofi Annan. That's more work than Rice is capable of. Of course, she works for an administration that tolerates such laziness, unless there's a partisan political motive involved.
In 1986, the federal budget for The Arts, was less than the amount spent on uniforms for Military Bands (and that was before the Art budgets were slashed to the fraction they are today).
Perhaps the fear of a Military Band Gap has escalated the number of bands to ridiculous numbers?
Ferdinand Tönnies wrote Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, suggesting that under the latter, the larger association becomes more important thatn the individual, although the individual continues to act in their own self-interest. That's typical of the large city, and another typicality of the urban set is lack of appreaciable horizon, which has shown distinct disturbing patterns for other life-forms, so why not us?
Additionally, there's our sub-primate history of almost irrational fits of anger and insanity.
And beneath even that the limbic system in our hippocampus which is called the Lizard Brain, because of our commonality at that leve. It's the seat of reproductions, desire to be the alpha figure or find and follow an alpha figure (Deities being the ultimate expression of this),the flight or fight response and all emotions
Samson- @ 54:
He plainly said the generations prior to WWI romanticized war.
These were the wars before machine guns, airplanes, poison gas, tanks, submarines and all the other atrocities introduced by The War to end All Wars.
YS;
That's interesting. I got three medals while I was in too...
The I washed pots and pans in the persian Golf for over 100 days medal..( also known as the expeditary force medal I think, it's blue and gold) Has something to do with steaming around the bathtub while being a potential bulls-eye. The I put up with living at sea till my eyes glazed over with a star medal, ( also known as the sea service medal/ribbon...whatever. The star denotes putting up with said living conditions twice) and finally the I didn't get caught medal, also called (the good conduct medal)...
Funny how people who actually win medals and ribbons and all that actually think of those things in retrospect.. As opposed to how the general public might view those things... Not at all surprised by the late General Butlers perspective on 'medals'... Sounds like he was as cynical as the rest of us long before we were ever close to being born. Also sounds like the United States military has been cowtowing to corporate America for more than administrations as well..............jus sayin.....JD
... More than a few.... Sigh... whatever.... damn fat fingers!!! D
BennyP@74
no, its more pop psychology.
to me this is a simplistic way to explain the "militarism of today’s society"
why do we use a military empire (which, oh btw, the facts around which are completely hidden from the populace) to enforce american (see, corporate) hegemony around the globe? simple: because of general washington, and "the conquest of the majority of North America from indians"... huh?
I would never go toe to toe with the good general on pure historical fact—I can’t compete—but, that said, I think our economic structure, our politics and the general ignorance of Americans has a LOT more to do with our current militarism than does the actions of general Washington, the eradication of the native Americans, etc.
Further, I think it creates some sort of excuse for our actions that I can’t accept. We are responsible for what is being done in our names—not generals from centuries past
I think the point that the general was trying to make is interesting, I just don’t think it is the end the story, just the background before the real reasons.
Also, jeff@58 made a good point as well.
Neocons and cabals like them will continue to exploit Americans as a warlike people because they need useful idiots to fight wars for them. Until Americans correct this deep spiritual fault things will get worse before they get better.
Samson- @ 77:
Actually, this isn't an excuse so much as it is an explanation. Modern Russia has not faced up to the atrocities of Stalin, which holds it back, and provides a context in which an act of blatant overdoing of military response can and does occur. Russia's response here is as disproportional as Israel in 2006, or the US in 1991 in the Persian Gulf, or for a much further back example, the actions in New England leading up to Metacom's Revolt.
By the same token, because the US has never faced up to the enormity of the Indian Wars, and because in that instance, brute force proved an effective solution to problems (which it really didn't and doesn't, but people think it does which is a post all in itself), the United States could and did create a global military empire of bases far exceeding in size the British Empire or the Russian/Soviet empires. Because force created the US, as well as gave it the present size it currently enjoys, not to mention its prosperity (at least prior to the rotten underpinnings of this prosperity finally starting to collapse), it becomes rather easy to see how an Afghanistan or Iraq can emerge. After all it worked (at least in most Americans' eyes) against Indians and Spaniards and Mexicans and Limeys, so why can't we do it elsewhere?
Our current militarism is also an outgrowth of badly worded reasons for why we won WWII. Militarily speaking, we didn't. The Red Army that battered its way west from Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad to the Elbe River did. Unfortunately, the role that the UK, much less our former "ideological enemy" the USSR played in WWII is often virtually ignored. I put ideological enemy in scare-quotes, BTW, because ideology was a very thin veneer over brute power-jockeying with moralism more prevalent here in the US than in the USSR for obvious reasons.
Because of this badly distorted picture of history, plus the fact that the last war between Anglos which was a foreign war was 1812 and internally 1861, (the Mexican-American war completely written out, as were the Indian Wars), Americans were told that military means were the answer to problems, hard power all the time. The more effective mechanism of soft-power was virtually ignored.
All of this factors into the US of the 1990s, when the USSR had broken up and people presumed history had ended. Unfortunately, the rest of the world disagreed, the collapse of the USSR having left wars and misery in its wake and various leftovers from the Cold War becoming increasingly deadly. Along comes 2000, with the, IMHO, strongly questionable election of Bush. The Administration was gearing up for a Neo-Cold War, possibly even a "limited" war with Red China, when Bin Laden drops a gift into their lap.
A new Other for the West to define itself against. All the strands leading into American militarism in the 90s converged, and the GWOT was born. Most societies have an Other to be defined against, but the West developed that to a new degree. With the US searching for a boogeyman, thus came the GWOT and good ol' hysteria.
so endth the Roman Empire...
'those who dont know their history are doomed to repeat it'
All the billions being invested in DHS and scifi weapons and databasing third world goat herders that said a bad thing about the US while drunk one evening.
Foreign Service (Foriegn Office in the UK) is all about experts and their human and paper knowledge of the world and its peoples,
how people interact and treaties between countries.
Mega military power and high payed / uber equipped forces rely on one MAIN INGREDIENT to operate properly or at all...
MONEY, and when all the free taxpayer FedRes green stuff dries up , so will the superpower status.
Clever people with brains and a memory allows force projection beyond actual numbers and mistake avoidance.
Something that is sadly lacking but not missed by Bushco and the neocons, they are too dumb to play clever.
What is so hard to understand? A billion dollars invested in diplomacy does not generate campaign contributions, graft or cocktail receptions to reward the guilty.
And also be aware, peace does not generate money for Dupont and Monsato to make explosives, for Lockhead, Boeing, Northrup Grumman and all of the other war machine companies.
Who do you think is behind all of this? Just check out who is supporting all of these "think tanks" and paying for Billy "THE WHORE" Kristal to spew his venom. That boy has been sucking at the corporate tit for a very long time.
Until American FORCE our president to reveal what they are doing in our name, cut these bastards finacial lifeline to keep us in a permanent war economy, this bullshit will end no time soon.
Crispin McKenny @ 78:
They crossed the point of no return decades ago.
Ever since Nixon (VP and POTUS) the world doesnt trust America period.
Bushco is the final nail in the coffin.
bigmike601 @ 81:
America is 5% of the worlds population, yet spends 50% of the worlds spending on armaments.
So thats a tenfold over the top spending per capita, money that should be spent on social stuff domestically.
A NHS health service, free education to anybody who wants it, and proper safety nets would make the USA a power house, not the house of cards it really is.
I'm appalled beyond belief. No wonder there's a trail of dead bodies everywhere Lady Liberty goes.
We spend too much money on law enforcement and imprisoning 2.3 million people plus another 2 or 4 million in the parole probation system,
then spend megabucks on steroided bullyboy police and deputies to keep the lid on an unhappy population, and avoiding a revolution.
With a proper social system in the US, we prob could cut LE spending by 10.
Niney billion dollars spent per year on hassling potheads and other self medicating peoples, people who cant afford meds so get what keeps them sane elsewhere.
There was a news story about a sheriffs office somewhere on the east coast in 07 or 08.
Anyway they had this vintage mint condition M16 left over from the early 1970s, and never used.
So the idea was to auction it off to raise money to buy modern handguns for its ninety odd deputies and police.
I cant remember the exact number but the town's population had doubled in 20 years, but the number of armed LE staff had quadrupled !!!!!
Ether they employ a lot of unfit deputies or they have a serious problem and need more deputies to intimidate the town...
Jack Damage @ 75:
There was an interesting article somewhere about USAF officers and their habit of awarding medals by the bucketload to each other.
They hand out medals in the USAF in the middle east on a scale that disgusts most ground pounders.
The US, French, Mexican National Anthems are militaristic. I have not been able to Google any others, but I think the place to start is to remove the bombs bursting in air and rockets' red glare with something peaceful to start, then get off the idea that we have to have some conflict going on somewhere around the world. The peace-loving democracy-peddling USA has been in more wars and skirmishes and has more of their own buried in foreign lands than any other entity in the history of the world, even though we are one of the newer ones.
Of course, to the NeoCons, Diplomacy has only ever been something to step through in the road to war.
The NeoCons are a one-trick pony. Their only song is "Military Action ending in Regime Change, thus spurring the magical Democracy Pony onto the stage." That's all they've got.
When it comes to Diplomacy, they always purposefully poison the well, in order to say, "See? Diplomacy doesn't work with these people-- we MUST bomb, now!"
Read Kagan today, today's Kristol OpEd, Yesterday's Fox News Sunday... Iraq, North Korea... on and on.
It's a pretty tired old song at this point, and I think that even though most of America has no idea who the NeoCons are, they are sick and tired of their game.
--mf
The next president should absorb that lesson and revalidate diplomacy as the primary tool of foreign policy - even if that means talking to ogres.
These same people think of Americans as "ogres" too. The only solution is to meet face to face, and start a process of discovery. Surprisingly, when we meet others, we always find something nice (and moral) about them, even if we thought they were "bad".
ronhohn @ 88:
On that, I must vehemently disagree. The US's period of extracontinental intervention only dates to about the 1890s. In just the period from 1800-1840, the UK equalled every one of the wars the US waged in 118 years in terms of number. Now...
counting the wars of expansion, then yes, the US ranks up in the all-time lists of warring societies, very highly. But to count the war of expansion is to count wars in the UK that extend back in recorded times to Boudicca, and to include all the modern wars of the UK, just the UK alone out of all European societies exceeds the US in terms of wars by number.
Which is understandable. The UK as an entity dates back to the Roman colonies of Britain, or Tin-Land. The United States dates back to the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth.
We're a rather warlike society, of a rather warlike species, but we're not the one with the most wars in all of history.
General_Rennenkampf @ 91:
Oh, and the region known today as the US is not "New" it's rather old and possesses a history of distinguished societies such as the Haudenosaunee and the Pueblo peoples. The region of the Tohono O'odham is one of the most culturally stable in the US, as well as one of the longest-lived. The US is not "new" and stating it is ignores at the minimum 12,000 and at the max 20,000 years of human inhabitation.
Prior to 1776 it was not the USA.
Just be careful about constantly referring to these people and their philosophy as 'neocons' or 'neoconservatives.' They are Republicans, and it is a Republican philosophy. Calling them neocons makes it too easy for the Republicans to step away from the past and 're-invent' themselves, as they've done many times before. If you think liberals are the only ones that can sidestep 30 years of slander and targeted spin by re-labeling themselves 'progressives,' think again. The chorus of "oh they weren't real conservatives. They just hijacked the party. Let's get back to our roots" has already begun, and will shift into full speed very soon. As a courtesy, some of the neocons, like Richard Perle for example, have already started to deny that they've ever been Republicans, and have been going around flashing their outdated membership cards from the Democratic party as proof. Talk about the ultimate sandbaggers.
But the fact is that neoconservatism was born and bred in the Republican party. You can probably trace its roots back to Eisenhower and Nixon, but it came into full bloom in the Reagan administration. The merging of the noble goal of promoting human rights and democracy, with the promotion of free market capitalism (ie-the Friedman school of economics), and the advocation of using military force as a means of promoting these things started in the Reagan years, and became inseparable from the Republican party.
These people and their philosophy are not NEOCONS and they are not a CABAL! They are the Republican party, have been for the last 30 years, and will continue to be for probably another 20 years, at least.
Dr. Toxic @ 29:
and who owns the shares in those companies, greedy Republican voters mostly.
ronhohn @ 93:
Well...by that standard, prior to the 1500s AD there was no Europe. Wanna go down that route? I can take you there, but I really think you don't want to go there.
Pericles @ 94:
Neoconservatives are ex-Trotskyists that threw a hissy fit over Brezhnev's USSR. They represent American Conservatism as well as the BNP represents British patriotism. They're an outgrowth of a merger of pre-Buckley conservatism with Trotskyism, and considering the rigid world of Communism they came from, the mixture proved to be quite volatile indeed. Conservatism, especially prior to Buckley, was made up of combative racists and plutocrats and theocrats. Buckley created a merger that's finally breaking apart without a guiding figure to unite it. Unfortunately, Mr. Buckley did not intend, I think, to create such undesirable outgrowths of his merger as the Christian Right or the Neoconservatives.
87 ferrofluid
I only got two one for basic training, and one for longevity, although my enlistment was only four years.
It always surprises me when I read my DD214, that I had 19 1/2 hours of NCO training. I don't even remember doing this.
It was only after reading an article about a year ago about gas training that I remembered going through that myself. Essentially we had to go into a gas filled house, take a couple of good deep breaths and put on our masks. I did it ass backwards. I thought they were nuts, and put on my mask immediately, and then felt embarassed and removed it.
Maybe that explains my memory loss.
#96 General_Rennenkampf
Did I mention Europe?
Ed McCurdy wrote the following lyrics in 1950:
"Last night I had the strangest dream I'd ever dreamed before.
I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war."
It's a good dream. It's about TALKIN' to our enemies.
I think Obama can get us closer to McCurdy's dream than that white-haired dude.
Just how is a neocon to scam the American taxpayers for trillions in no bid contratcs to their cronies at the military industrial complex, without a war?
Silly libruls' with your reality based community opinions.
Don't you lefties know that diplomacy doesn't pay!
Just saw "Where on earth is Osama Bin Laden" by Morgan Spurlock. He seemed to hear the and come to the same conclusions too.
Whenever I hear that we need to use the military or force I think to myself "what are our real objectives?"...then I heard about PNAC. Global dominance. Doesn't matter what the arabs think or what the reality is when these people aim to create the reality.
'They hate our policies, not our freedom'
Pentagon report contains major criticisms of administration.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1129/dailyUpdate.html
I agree with everything said in this article, but one thing should be pointed out. The main reason there are so many openings for diplomats (also known as State Dept. employees) is that every single one, upon completing what ever schooling they take at the Foreign Service Insitute is almost immediately shipped off to Iraq. The normal tour of duty there is 12 to 24 months. And while they are told all through training that they won't be going to Iraq, they are ordered there. So a lot of them quit!! More of our tax dollars at work.
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