What are we spending all this money on, anyhow?

We have a fifth of the troops than in Vietnam, we've privatized Army healthcare to the point that generals are being demoted because it stinks...

Is all this just for fuel and ammunition for troops stationed elsewhere that are supposed to be stations to defend the homeland?

Where is all this money going? It'd even be a large part of our economy if it were being spent at home...

"short of turning the Middle East into a glassy plain"

More and more, I think that this is the true goal of the Bush administration. The sad thing is that Middle East was the fountain of knowledge and culture just a millenium ago. What is it with some Christians and their need to eliminate this faith that rivals their own?

Good question, and the most essential, Crissa.

The entire premise of so-called GWOT specious, and when you look at it from a bean-counter's point of view, it would be far more cost-effective to rain Adidas on the Middle East than anything we're doing now.

Kevin wrote:
We should be spending more on non-military responses to the GWOT than we do on military responses, not a mere 1% or even 10% as much.

Yeah, but it's harder to corporatize non-military responses. Gotta pay back all those donors and lobbyists and cronies, ya know. It's soooo easy to throw $$ around on military hardware and troop support services. Added bonus: a military solution begets a military solution, keeping the whole gravy train thing going.

It'll be interesting to see if Cheney goes back to Halliburton in 2009.

Wars are won by guns, not diplomats. The more we spend on diplomacy the fewer wars we are likely to fight, so money spent on diplomacy is wasted, anyway. Bush has carefully though these things out, and come to yet another wise decision you foolish liberals just can't understand.

Here's a serious question: does anyone here believe we'd be on a substantially different track with a more competent/Democratic chief executive? That we'd be somewhere other than on the brink of war with Iran, that we wouldn't be spending more money on armaments than the rest of the world combined, that jingoistic, violence celebrating films like 300 wouldn't be so popular with mainstream viewers? We probably wouldn't be in Iraq, I'll certainly grant that, but looking around at the culture we have it seems to me that Bush's drunken driving got us to a place we were heading towards anyway, just faster.

Wars are fought with guns and ended with diplomats.

And yes, I believe that things would be appreciably different if we had never known president aWol.

Trojans 63 Texas 47 - Holy Crap Kevin, things are going better this go round eh?!

Some find it so easy to send others into battle.

We probably wouldn't be in Iraq, I'll certainly grant that, but looking around at the culture we have it seems to me that Bush's drunken driving got us to a place we were heading towards anyway, just faster.
Posted by: Steppen

If we hadn't invaded Iraq, if we'd focused all our energy on Afghanistan, there's a possibility we might actually have left that country in relatively good shape. I say "relatively" because that's a country unlikely to rise out of feudalism anytime soon.

If we hadn't invaded Iraq, there's a very good chance that Iran wouldn't have gotten all puffed up thinking they had to demonstrate their importance in the region. It has to be very unsettling to have an extremely belicose and unstable militarist creating chaos in the country immediately adjacent to yours, and the Iranian response has been to attempt to equal the neocons' belicosity with their own.

As to the investment in weapons: that's not going away, because so much money depends on it. When push comes to shove, a Democratic administration is just as willing to issue huge military contracts as a Republican administration.

I agree with our host about the 'hearts and minds' aspect, but he seems to have left a few things out of the equation. Many of those on the far-left think the U.S. is a bigger terrorist than, you know, the terrorists. Moderate Democrats don't exactly seem to be doing their part to reign in people like that.

On the wider issue, both the GOP and Dem leaderships are willing to put the U.S. at great risk out of fear of alienating their respective interest groups.

Recall that ChuckieSchumer pulled a web video about BorderControl simply because one or two Hispanic groups sent out press releases. Rather than taking them on, he capitulated. And, here's something most probably don't know either: HezbollahTerrrorists have infiltrated the U.S. over our porous SouthernBorder. That happened on Bush's watch, but you haven't heard any Democrats speak out about it.

Perhaps the GOP leadership should put the U.S. CofC on hold and think about protecting the U.S. And, perhaps the Dems should put the NationalCouncilofTheRace on hold and think about the same duty.

What war on terror? Are we talking about the terrorists we are creating in Iraq, or the ones who threaten to retake Afghanistan? The latter are the ones who nailed us many times before. So why are we all but ignoring that situation?

Oh, I forgot. The more groud the Taliban wins back, the more military we need to take it back again, the more profits Halliburton makes. Their profits will drop drastically when (not if) we pull out of Iraq w/o another major war.

It has to be very unsettling to have an extremely belicose and unstable militarist creating chaos in the country immediately adjacent to yours

We pretty much have them surrounded. We have troops on two borders and a bomber wing in a country that shares a third. If you can read a map, you can understand their consternation.

Wha? You can read a map? I thought they were just purty wall decorations. That geography thing must have been left behind with our children's education. Oh well.

If we hadn't invaded Iraq....

If we hadn't invaded Iraq, then what? The country would still be tortured by sanctions no Republican would lift, and no Democrat politically could, with the big, bad, dangerous Saddam (or his successor -- it really doesn't matter) in charge, a threat, as we have seen, to the entire world with his WMDs. War with Iraq was almost inevitable, just as some kind of military confrontation with Iran is inevitable. It was, and is, a matter of time. Everyone is focusing on Bush, but I think Bush is more a mirror for the country.

Look at this American Hawk person, who, if he or she were brighter or had wit, I would assume was caricaturing not just the right of this country, but large parts of the mainstream, who think the same sorts of things. But he/she isn't caricaturing anyone -- they are serious, and they are speaking for many more people than themselves. Bush is a symptom of something, as well as a cause, and focusing on him is a mistake in my view.

I know I shouldn't feed TLB, but I just can't help myself.

Hezbollah invading the US? BAHAHAHAH! Using Tom Tancredo as if he were a reliable source? Stop, man, you're killing me!

Better go check your fridge, TLB, the terrists are probably replacing your whole milk with skim milk as we speak!

It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight. As has been pointed out, Khalid Sheik Mohammed's recent confession could mean that far from there having been some massive pan-Islamic movement behind 9/11 and other attacks, it was basically just a small bunch of troublemakers. I emphasize "could" because this is not certain. It's also worth noting that there have been zero Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11, and also that the London and Madrid train bombings were both the work of locals with no international ties.

Chickenshit: "As I recall, Hitler was defeated by a brigade of negotiators."

And you point is...? Nothing, as usual.

Let's face it: if you were German in the 1940s, you'd still be cheering Der Führer as the last bombs fell.
So who gives a flying V-1 what you think?

It's quite simple: the diplomatic corps and other non-military foreign policy institutions don't have a major corporate-industrial base that gives enormous donations to the Republican Party. Ergo, they can't possibly be important and worth investing in (i.e. paying back).

It'll be interesting to see if Cheney goes back to Halliburton in 2009.

They already broke ground on his bunker in Dubai....

Let's face it: if you were German in the 1940s, you'd still be cheering Der Führer as the last bombs fell.

Only from the safety of Argentina.

Right, and he'd be calling everyone else cowards for letting down the leader. LOL!

George Bush wanted to be the war president. His defense of the indecency of his administation's barbaric brutality in the interview on Meet the Press back in 2/04 was "We are at war, I am a war president."
It is an identity crisis he has been having, and we are paying the price.
Our soldiers have paid the price, as have the Iraqis. He says he is a Christian,
but he doesn't act like one.
His passive construction of thought in 1/07 that "mistakes were made" just showed his hollowness and pathetic lack of empathy.
The war is over. He lost.
But Halliburton is moving to Dubai.

What would have happened to democracy in the U.S. if Bush had actually succeeded in Iraq? Think about it! The republicans would want to make him Caesar.

As it is, watch for General Petraeus to run for president if he can manage a halfway decent outcome i.e. an honorable exit.

First of all, we shouldn't get too caught up in the spending numbers before analyzing them to distinguish spending genuinely related to terrorism from things the Pentagon would be asking Congress for anyway. Most procurement falls into the latter category.

Even after doing this, though, the fact remains that Kevin is essentially correct, not only that the Pentagon has a much larger role in counter-terrorism than the State Department but also that the current administration has turned increasingly to serving or retired military officers to fill posts outside the Defense Department. As I've written here before, the Pentagon's increased role reflects the continuation of a trend begun years before George Bush became President -- and, among other things, the fact that we have not had a strong Secretary of State since James Baker, while since Bill Clinton took office we have had two very powerful Secretaries of Defense (Perry and Rumsfeld).

Though Sec. Gates has indicated a willingness to dial back Rumsfeld's expansion of the Pentagon's role in the intelligence business somewhat, overall we still have the same dynamic -- a very weak Secretary of State serving with a Secretary of Defense determined to run his department. This is bound to produce a diminished role for State in making foreign policy generally, and in fighting terrorism in particular. You won't see that change without a President who has thought enough about foreign policy to understand that this kind of bureaucratic imbalance is fundamentally unhealthy. The good news for Democrats is that some of their 2008 Presidential candidates -- Dodd, Biden, perhaps Richardson -- fit this description. The bad news is that the current front-runners -- Obama, Edwards, and perhaps especially Clinton (during whose husband's Presidency most of the damage was done)-- do not.

Iranian Chickenhawk,

"As I recall, Hitler was defeated by a brigade of negotiators."

Yes, he was. You see it was the diplomats who worked out deals with Britain and Russia (a huge enemy before and after the war) to get them armanments that greatly benefited the war effort. Moreover, Ike had to be a diplomat to get anything done in the allied army, because of so many different nations that were part of it.

Everyone,

Please stop bashing 300. It was movie. For that matter, a good movie. It was not historical, as the filmakers said, but based off of Frank Miller's comic. If you've seen Sin City, you wouldn't be bitching. B/c in that movie, the Catholic Church is full of corrupt bureaucrats who take part in canibalism. It's a movie, leave it alone.

I'm a retired US Army officer who agrees totally with just how foolhardy this administration is. I, and many of my contemporaries (Vietnam vintage) agree that military action should be the last resort and that diplomacy must always be first. Augmented, of course, with robust and professional intelligence work, which complements diplomatic approaches. We think State should be the point of the spear.

But there is a problem. The generals cited by Kevin may well be the most qualified people for those jobs. Fact is, the State Department has withered on the vine. Senior military officers are often far better educated and much more versed in the realities of the world than are senior State Department people. Generals often speak more foreign languages than their State peers and are much more at ease with the realities of today's world. Many generals are not war lovers and more often fit the model of Eisenhower or MacArthur rather than that of Patton.

The State Department has worked assiduously to make itself irrelevant since Vietnam days. Its senior people opt out of going to troublesome locales; they all want to be in Paris or London. Hardships and sweating are not in their lexicon. Dealing with foreign devils is often distasteful or beneath them. They really are all too often the striped pants set and it's easy to understand how buffoons who want action right now pass them by.

Besides, what would one expect from a cabinet department headed by Condoleeza Rice?

It's also true, I believe, that military leaders are more often more inclined to view their oath as being to the country, not to the party currently in power.

I don't even know how this consortium of gangsters, chickenhawks, killer fruits, and fundamentalists managed to wrap themselves in the flag of the military—except that they really, realty wanted to, and nobody stopped them from co-opting the brand. Consequently, all too many recruits go into the army, especially, thinking they are in a branch of Republican Party—only to be literally bit on the ass once they get in the field or need something in return from Uncle Sam.

How do Dems, with their much higher percentage of veterans, address this fatal distortion when it seems to pain them (as it should) to toot their own military horns?

...more often more...

Sheesh, a little overemphatic there. Sorry.

As to cost, the GAO estimates that each member of the regular services ( approx. 1.4 million active duty) costs $100,000 per year. So just the active duty military costs $144 billion per year.

this was one of the better posts that you've written kevin. maybe inspired by how well the pac-10 did this weekend? :0) but seriously, everyone's eyes have been taken off the ball: China. we've been running in place because of this administration's basic incompetence/corruption. my bigger point: good post.

Sorry--the war on terror has been brought to you by those with the vision for a global empire, or "Pax Americana," described in the description for Project for A New American Century in June, 1997, with the goals of nurturing a powerful military, "challenging regimes hostile to our interests and values,"
and needing "to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilites today and modernize our armed forces for the future,"
and signed by Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Don Rumsfield, Paul Wolfowitz, Steve Forbes, William Bennett, I. Scooter Libby, et al.

"The biggest role -- assuming we actually want to win, that is -- will be played by programs and policies that work to convince the Muslim world that we're not at war with them." - Drum

I think some of them understand that Kevin. Surprisingly though, you don't. This article is dated March 16, 2007 by the BBC'S Marie Colvin:

Marie Colvin, Baghdad
March 19, 2007

"MOST Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today.
The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.
One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today.
Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.By a majority of two to one, Iraqis believe military operations now under way will disarm all militias. More than half say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces.
Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said the findings pointed to progress. “There is no widespread violence in the four southern provinces and the fact that the picture is more complex than the stereotype usually portrayed is reflected in today’s poll,” she said."

IMPEACH BUSH

Please stop bashing 300. It was movie. For that matter, a good movie. It was not historical, as the filmakers said, but based off of Frank Miller's comic. If you've seen Sin City, you wouldn't be bitching. B/c in that movie, the Catholic Church is full of corrupt bureaucrats who take part in canibalism. It's a movie, leave it alone.

300 isn't the problem. It's the fact that thinking, well meaning people like yourself don't understand that, that is, in part, the problem.

Kevin talks about the militarization of the "war on terror" as a problem; I think it's a natural outgrowth of public attitudes -- much like the content and popularity of 300. This is, after all, a democracy. We have the leadership we deserve and vote for, and we're in the process of voting for more of it, to judge by the leading candidates at this juncture.

Just to make myself clear, I'm not one of those "One party is the same as the other"
people. I'm just a little bit frightened that -- four years into a stupid, disastrous war -- none of the leading candidates seems able to even begin to honestly discuss making profound changes to the direction of our foreign policy. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that we are, collectively, getting the foreign policy, militarization and all, that we want.

"But it still wouldn't be within light years of where it should be. We should be spending more on non-military responses to the GWOT than we do on military responses,..." - Drum

Like what and how much? Be specific. It's pathetically easy to continue to criticize what's being done, and a hell of a lot harder to offer concretet alternatives.

If the Democrats think they know how to best win the war on terror, why is their ONLY plan, a plan of withdrawal?

Kevin Drum >"...It's the fastest way imaginable to lose the war on terror and mortgage our country's future to the Bank of China at the same time..."

At least, unlike many posting here, Kevin "gets it".

The King of The Hill always has to be deposed somehow.

Mission Accomplished through Dick & George`s Great Adventure.

"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" - Sun Tzu

Noah >"...in that movie, the Catholic Church is full of corrupt bureaucrats..."

And this is different from the real world how ?

"We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." - Jonathan Swift

As Paul Craig Roberts claimed, "The new American Militarism has abandoned the Founding Fathers, deserted the Constitution, and unrestrained the executive. War is first resort. Militarism is inconsistent with globalism and with American ideals. It will end in abject failure.
The world is a vast place. The U.S. has demonstrated that it cannot impose its will on a tiny part known as Iraq. American realism may yet assert itself, dispel the fog of delusion, cleanse the body politic of the Jacobian spirit, and lead the world by good example. But this happy outcome will require regieme change in the U.S."
"American hubris, which flows so freely from President Bush's mouth, explains why half the U.S. population yawns over the U.S. slaughter of Iraqi civilians and communist-style torture of Iraqi prisoners. The cake-walk war...the delusion...
"America's security and the well-being of the world are threatened by America's belief in the efficacy of force....being assigned such an exalted role creates the delusion that America's virtue is unquestionable, and its use of preemptive coercion is infallible, a delusion that led to the "cake walk war" that would entrench democracy in the Middle East and have the troops home in 90 days."

"....yawns over the U.S. slaughter of Iraqi civilians and communist-style torture of Iraqi prisoners." - consider

Your above post was really good. You were able to spew every left wing talking point without one original thought or grain of truth.

>"It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight"

You are probably a lot closer to the truth than you think. Find the BBC documentary 'The Power of Nightmares' on Google video and watch it. It's all in there.

If you want a good pattern for the 'War on Terror' look no further than the raging success of the 'War on Drugs'. Billions spent on military goodies, the constitution trashed and overall the program is wildly ineffective.

Someday the american people will figure out they'be been had.

Ok, now go watch that documentary. If you don't have 3 hours, at least watch the last episode.

Kevin: the payoff to the donors isn't near as much for State Department type expenditures as it is for the Pentagon and the stuff they do and companies they use etc.. I am disappointed you didn't point that out as a major reason.

OOps, sorry big guy, I suppose by saying "money talks" you did put that up as a reason for military getting the best lift, albeit somewhat obliquely.

The biggest role -- assuming we actually want to win, that is -- will be played by programs and policies that work to convince the Muslim world that we're not at war with them.

What would it actually take to persuade the Muslim world that attacks against Serbs, against Baathists, and against the Taliban are not part of a war against Muslims?

Or, to put it differently, that wars in support of Muslims in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, in support of Muslims in Iraq, and in support of Muslims in Afghanistan, are not parts of a war against Muslims?

Millions of Muslims live in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands others have studied here or do study here. Billions of dollars are spent annually on commercial projects linking U.S. and Muslim firms. Thousands of American sailors have enjoyable shore leave in the U.A.E. monthly. A U.S. aircraft carrier carried water and food into Aceh after the tsunami. What exactly are you proposing that the State Department do while the military is fighting against those few Muslims who are our military enemies, compared to the billions already spent annually on trade and development projects? The actual Muslim enemies, like the suicide bombers in Baghdad and the aircraft hijackers who destroyed the WTC are not interested in projects of understanding and cooperation. They want reconquest of Iraq by Sunnis, reconquest of Afghanistan by Taliban, reconquest of al Andalus by Moors, and they want conquest of southern Thailan, northern Malaysia, and most of Indonesia by Wahhabist-trained and financed fighters there.

To a modest and hard to measure degree, France, G.B. and Belgium are under attack by Muslims despite the nearly complete absence of military measures against Muslims in those nations.

Exactly what role can diplomacy play in all these places if the military does not defeat the militant Muslims arrayed against them? Especially in light of the fact that the early success of the surge, not politics or diplomacy, is creating a greater air of optimism in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq?

More than half (Iraqis surveyed) say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces.

So, Jay, according to your cite most Iraqis favor the Democratic approach. Kay?

Democrats have plenty of ideas about dealing with terrorism. Maybe it's difficult for you to hear a proposal if it doesn't involve the use of deadly force.

You aren't well, Jay. Maybe suck up your courage and take a crack at therapy.

Kevin, it's the WAR on terror, not the spending spree on terror. Wars are won with bombs and guns and missiles, not handouts. And the measure of a war's success is not how cheaply it is fought, but the pride that Americans feel in its armed forces. Most Americans who aren't defeatist liberals take great pride in Operation Iraqi Freedom and in our mission to bring democracy to Iraq and the Middle East.

Exactly what role can diplomacy play in all these places if the military does not defeat the militant Muslims arrayed against them?

Maybe its a job better performed by police work and not the military, for the most part.

Is it possible that military action can be counterproductive? In fact, if you look at what we have wrought in Iraq with an objective eye how can you avoid exactly that conclusion?

Bush & crew are very good at multiplying our enemies. That's because paranoia, fear-mongering, belligerence and an utter lack of capacity for negotiation and statesmanship are great news for arms dealers and terrible news for peaceful coexistence.

>"It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight"

Like the moon landings, the WTC destruction was actually staged. If you visit NYC instead of just viewing tv shows, you can see it still standing. The Taliban are religious students engaged in pilgrimmages and reflective retreats. The "Bali Bombing" was an exploding meth lab inside the club. The Janjaweed in western Sudan are soliciting funds for the financing of medicines and hospitals for the Palestinians of the West Bank. It has, amusingly, all been cleverly contrived by the MSM to look different.

Even the murder of Theo van Gogh was a fake: van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali staged it because their earlier movie was not box office success, and in order to facilitate Hirsi Ali's admission to the U.S. for refuge from political "persecution".

At the end of "Wag the Dog", the director asks "What could I do to top that?" Now you know.

Ah, Kevin.

Yes, The crazy man of Iran, Achmadinejad, is open to reason. We can negotiate with him and trust him. He just wants to be understood. Poor little Ahmadinajid.

We can feel all warm inside while his nuclear warheads are falling upon us.

Jay--deep down you know what Roberts said is right. Andrew Bacevich--West Point grad, soldier for over 20 years, and a conservative like yourself, wrote--"in the aftermath of a century filled to overflowing with evidence pointing to the limited utility of armed force and the dangers inherent in relying excessively on military power, the American people have persuaded themselves that their best prospect for safey and salvation lies with the sword."
" America will share the fate of all those who in ages past have looked to war and military power to fulfill their destiny. We will rob future generations of their rightful inheritance. We will wreak havoc abroad. We will endanger security at home. We will risk the forfeiture of all that we prize."

Not much of a historian, are you?

Got war?

Here's another way to put it, spider:

Do you think it is effective to attack a Muslim nation that did not attack us and had nothing at all to do with 9/11?

Is it rational? Would you choose to be represented by irrational leaders? Would you trust irrational leaders to protect our nation?

When Donald Rumsfeld wrote, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, "Sweep everything up, things related and not" he made the Bush teams irrationality explicit. What you see in Iraq is the fruit of their madness.

If you think events there bode well for our security I would say you're living in dreamland.

You really think that little twerp is anything other than a fugurehead? He was only allowed to become president because Bush pissed off the mullahs with that "Axis of Evil" crack. They stuck a diminutive thumb in his eye.

He gave a speech at his own alma mater and the students shouted him down and torched pictures of him. His cars were bouncing off one another - literally - as his panicked drivers tried to flee the scene at 25 mph. He took a thumpin along the lines of the thumpin Bush took just a few weeks earlier.

He sure as hell won't be around the ten years it would/will take them to go nuclear.

But go ahead and tremble. It's what you do best.

George W. Bush showed how "tough" he was in dealing with terrorism when he sat staring blankly into space for seven minutes on 9-11, after being told by Andrew Card that "America is under attack". We have it on videotape. Then, he jetted off to hide in a cornfield in Nebraska for the rest of the day, while America yearned for a real leader to provide words of comfort to a grieving country, like Bill Clinton would have.

However, a plutocratic coward like Bush has a couple of other reasons to throw trillions at the Pentagon. Being a deserter from the National Guard, Bush can assuage some of his inevitable guilt by dressing up in flightsuits and calling himself "the Commander-in-Chief" incesantly. Finally, he probably snorted coke with a lot of the guys who are now the CEOs of Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and other defense contractors and may still owe them from old drug deals.

obscure: Is it possible that military action can be counterproductive? In fact, if you look at what we have wrought in Iraq with an objective eye how can you avoid exactly that conclusion?

1. Yes, it is possible.

2. Any objective account of Iraq has to include the fact that most Iraqis are better off (at least they say so, and it is clear they are in about 14 of the 18 provinces); and the fact that most of the infrastructure that degraded during the sanction regime has be rebuilt. Whether the net effect has been good or bad might be debateable. Whether even a good net effect was worth the American investment in lives and treasure is also debateable.

At the outset of the war a lot of war protestors maintained that the sanctions regime was working and that it should be continued. I don't presume to know your opinion on that, but the sanctions regime was also a military solution. Very few people at the time were in favor of a completely non-military solution. Among the possible plans, all with costs and shortcomings, it is not obvious that the invasion was counterproductive. It may yet prove so, and I think that in the U.S. today it is considered that the gains were not worth the costs. I respect the votes of my fellow American voters; I took the 2006 vote as a strong repudiation of the war, and I am concerned that the Congress is acting too cautiously. With that out of the way, I do not think that the invasion and occupation have been counterproductive.

Like the moon landings, the WTC destruction was actually staged.

Don't be an ass.

The question is, who perpetrated the crime? And what is the most effective response?

George Bush, who admitted to knowing nothing of the difference between Sunni and Shiite Iraq just 2 months before he invaded, will go down in history as one of the most ignorant and disastrous leaders ever.

Osama kicked us in the balls, so GWB stuck a grenade in Saddam's ass. And threw a lighted torch on the middle east in the process.

A couple of years ago I said the fuse had been lit on the bomb that could blow up the world, and TBROSZ called me a drama queen.

If he was here I would ask him if he remembers that?

With that out of the way, I do not think that the invasion and occupation have been counterproductive.

I can not make head or tail of this statement.

Of the sanctions I don't really know. But I trust Hans Blix orders of magnitude more than I trust the current administration. Weapons inspections were working. We know that. What more was needed?

Why go around setting precedents for unprovoked aggression?

Why get our military bogged down in a completely unnecessary civil war?

Why cause unnecessary death, destruction and RESENTMENT OF THE USA?

Why attack someone who did not attack us? Is that so difficult to get your head around?

hey BGRS:

Save the drama for yo mama!

LOL!

Talk about drama queens!

Go on and tremble, it's what egbert's do best.

obscure: The question is, who perpetrated the crime? And what is the most effective response?

Read the comment that I was responding to: it said that we are fighting our nightmares and have no actual enemies.

Of the sanctions I don't really know.

No one really knows. That is why we can not be sure whether the invasion and occupation have, to date, been counterproductive or not.

You do not always object to attacking people who do not attack us, do you? We attacked the Serbs because sitting passively by would, we thought, have been the greater of the available evils. The U.S. invaded Iraq for the same reason, basically, but the details were written out in the Congressional declaration that was voted out, unlike the case of the Balkans wars. The reconstruction of the infrastructure has been a non-negligible outcome of the invasion of Iraq, as has the reflooding of the lands of the Marsh Arabs.

Right. That's what I said.

Sweep everything up, things related and not.

Like the moon landings, the WTC destruction was actually staged. If you visit NYC instead of just viewing tv shows, you can see it still standing. The Taliban are religious students engaged in pilgrimmages and reflective retreats. The "Bali Bombing" was an exploding meth lab inside the club. The Janjaweed in western Sudan are soliciting funds for the financing of medicines and hospitals for the Palestinians of the West Bank. It has, amusingly, all been cleverly contrived by the MSM to look different.

Like the moon landings, the OKC Federal Building destruction was actually staged. If you visit OKC instead of just viewing tv shows, you can see it still standing. The White Nationalists are anthropology students engaged in academic study and reflective retreats. The bombing of abortion clinics were because of exploding meth labs inside the buildings. The Christian Identity movement in the western U.S. is soliciting funds for the financing of medicines and hospitals for the poor whites stuck in the ghetto. It has, amusingly, all been cleverly contrived by the MSM to look different.

Even the murder of Barnett Slepian was a fake: Slepian and James Charles Kopp staged it because abortions weren't getting the exposure they needed, and in order to facilitate Kopp's extradition to the U.S. for refuge from persecution by snobby French waiters.

Anyone who thinks we're not a war with Christian Whites is a fool.

/snark

Aren't hasty generalizations fun? Let's see, 5 billion Muslims - the hundred thousand or so tops involved in all the unrelated examples you gave = less than one tenth of one percent of all Muslims.

Not to mention the fact that the Taliban were a political entity as well as a religious one who despite their theocratic ways actually brought stability to their region after ten years of civil war. And let's completely ignore the fact that none of the entities you mentioned actually share a coherent ideology (e.g. the Taliban and the Iranian Mullahs are bitter enemies) and all of them were acting out of disparate and regional political ends.

A more facile analysis you could not possibly make. But I know that won't stop you from trying.

"The question is, who perpetrated the crime? And what is the most effective response?"

Answer 1: A splinter group of about 30 Saudi Arabians who were enraged by the presense of US bases on Muslim soil.

Answer 2: Spend a trillion dollars (or so) by invading a nation not involved. Kill a half million (or so) people. Construct torture chambers. Conduct assinations. Turn a pool of 700 active Islamic terrorists worldwide [CIA estimate] into tens of thousands of willing Jihadists... who can be very, very patient.

Great strategy, this.

Love the snark - the wit is rapier - just one quibble...it's one billion Mislims - but other than the typo - rock on!

Make that one billion Muslims

The number of Mislims is still undetermined.

A more facile analysis you could not possibly make. But I know that won't stop you from trying.

I could not possibly make a more facile analysis, but the following, that I quoted, is indeed more facile than what I, or you, wrote:

>"It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight"

It appears that we are in agreement: there is something, indeed some things, to fight.

Read the comment that I was responding to: it said that we are fighting our nightmares and have no actual enemies.

No.

'Peter' at 7:33 wrote:

It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight. As has been pointed out, Khalid Sheik Mohammed's recent confession could mean that far from there having been some massive pan-Islamic movement behind 9/11 and other attacks, it was basically just a small bunch of troublemakers. I emphasize "could" because this is not certain.

At 9:39 'Buford' responded to 'Peter':

You are probably a lot closer to the truth than you think. Find the BBC documentary 'The Power of Nightmares' on Google video and watch it.

Neither Peter nor Buford made the assertion that we have no actual enemies. Obviously we do. And one of our worst enemies is excessive paranoia. You can take that to the bank.

There are rare occassions when it makes sense to attack a regime in the absence of aggression towards us. Certainly the Nazis are a textbook example. If you can't see a rather LARGE distinction between the Nazis and Saddam then I just don't know what to say...

Mislims are the lite version — you know, like Reform Jews. Most notable are the Virginia Mislims.
(Yes, they've come a long way, baby. Just ask old Macaca-head.)

Talk about drama queens!

You rang?

Listen. It's quite simple.

The best way to lose the war on terror? Stop fighting.

The other side doesn't actually want us to win. They want us to divide against one another, turn on our leaders, form intractable partisan opinions that cannot be bridged via compromise, and give up.

So the classic liberals method of solving problems--which is to give up and throw tax dollars at it--isn't going to work in this case.

Well, this conservative will never give up. I have dedicated myself to absorbing the ire and the bile and the abuse here so that our leaders can go about the business of defending us. I am fighting you here so that they don't have to listen to your incessant whining.

You're welcome.

2. Any objective account of Iraq has to include the fact that most Iraqis are better off (at least they say so, and it is clear they are in about 14 of the 18 provinces)

No they're not, and no they don't. They say they are glad Saddam Hussein was removed from power. They don't say they are "better off". Their position is similar to most Americans, who are also glad that Saddam Hussein was removed from power, but who nevertheless, all things considered, wish the US had never invaded Iraq.

I'm going to post here without reading. It's the first time I've ever done that but I have never had any reply to what I have said many times before about the war on terra, etc.

War on poverty, on drugs, on terror. Pure politics.

How come no European country has declared war on "terror". Not the UK/IRA. Not Spain/Basque. Not Israel/Palestinian, though they do. Not Germany/Red Brigade. Not any of them against Islam. Why?

The US has a habit og being near hysterical when it sees outside violence although near comatose when domestic; Oklahoma, Waco, black youth death, etc.

Some US person give me a logical argument for the lack of coherent thought behind reaction to violence.

Please?!

The best way to lose the war on terror? Stop fighting.

How interesting. The exact opposite is true.

It appears that we are in agreement: there is something, indeed some things, to fight.

Yes there are some things to fight -- but you're making the ridiculous argument that it is some monstrous monolithic Islam that has its sights set on wiping us out -- clearly you've been proven wrong there.

Secondly, you're using the conservetard tactic of mixing literal terms with metaphors and adding a boatload of emotional appeal to obfuscate the issue. For example, being at "war" with Germany is a deadly existential issue while saying we're in a "war" on drugs or pornography is sloganeering to win over weak minds.

Here's a short list of things "we" -- the U.S. -- apparently need to "fight" gleaned from your post:

Murder (that's definitely a bad one)

Religous intolerance of controversial filmmakers (being something of an iconoclast that bugs me too)

Small, international criminal groups fighting back after a few hundred years of colonialism (those guys are bad, no question)

Civil wars in small African nations (not sure how this is something we have to fight)

Terrorist acts committed in tiny island nations in which the majority of victims were Muslim and Hindu (you're really starting to lose me now)

Yes, these are all things that are bad and that we should one way or another use our influence to actively work toward ending. Having nearly lost my life to a drunk driver I hate those guys too, and despite the fact that they wound and kill tens of thousands of Americans a year they're not a threat to Western Civilization nor should we roll tanks against them. We "fight" them by different means.

The items you mentioned are of very different scales, arising out of different motivations, and some of which have nothing at all to do with us.

Mister Rogers: "They want us to divide against one another, turn on our leaders, form intractable partisan opinions..."

There you have it, folks. The way to defeat totalitarianism is to surrender our democracy. That'll show the bastards.

The best way to lose the war on terror? Stop fighting.

How interesting. The exact opposite is true.

Hilarious. You wrote that without first considering anything. You had no time to absorb the comment and think about what you wanted to say. You're just a pithy one-liner away from being Mr. Sillypants.

If the stated goal of terrorists--the destruction of Western Civilization and the enlavement of all Western persons--were not so laughable as to be impossible to achieve via their means of fighting us, one would be hard pressed to come up with a better way of explaining how this really works.

They cannot ever hope to defeat us. They cannot match us militarily so they attack us in a cowardly manner and try to bleed us. So the only hope they have is that their tactics will become so grisly and unacceptable that we, in effect, surrender by refusing to fight them.

Next time, a moment of reflection will keep you from looking foolish in public.

"It'll be interesting to see if Cheney goes back to Halliburton in 2009."
WTF makes you think he ever left?

brooksfoe -- right on!

Norman Rogers -- You are so wroong. Look at history.

There you have it, folks. The way to defeat totalitarianism is to surrender our democracy. That'll show the bastards.

You are correct in one, simple way. We do need to reassert civil liberties in this country and probably revoke major portions of the Patriot Act. These things would not bother me so much if the disturbing reports of the abuse by the Federal Bureau of Investigation prove to be substantive in nature.

No, your point has more thought to it than that of Mr. Bookfoe. We must not surrender our civil liberties--one cannot have Democracy without civil liberties.

Norman? Are the meds kickin' in, Darlin'? That was damned near lucid. You are scaring me...

Norman Rogers -- You are so wroong. Look at history.

Quitting, appeasement, conciliation and compromise with people who have a state goal of wanting to destroy Western Civilization--show me where, in history, any of that ever led to anything other than invasion and war.

When liberals tell you they oppose the Iraq war but support the war in Afghanistan, they prove the point made by Mr. Bookfoe completely wrong. There are places where we should be fighting terrorists and denying them a base of operations. You disagree with whether we should be in Iraq? Fine. We have consensus that we SHOULD be in Afghanistan.

But, without thinking, Mr. Bookfoe has stated that his position is that we should not fight terrorists and that we will win if we give up. So do we pull out of Afghanistan?

Sound the call, liberals. Let's turn inward and leave the world to fend for itself.

The likelihood of catastrophic terror attacks against the US would be very substantially reduced if we simply pulled out of Iraq as rapidly as possible. This remains true even though morons who have spent the last 6 years being repeatedly wrong about literally every aspect of the war on terror, Mr. Rogers included, insist that it is "silly".

Norman? Are the meds kickin' in, Darlin'? That was damned near lucid. You are scaring me...

Well, if the moderators would do something about all of the parodists and the liars who have besmirched my good name, perhaps I would get the respect I so richly deserve.

Do you see your uncle Norman giving up? Of course not. I am here to put the stick in your eye and the shiny loafer up your kiester and to explain how the world really works to anyone who has the stomach for it. The rest of you can inhale slowly and pass the roach clip.

trex: but you're making the ridiculous argument that it is some monstrous monolithic Islam that has its sights set on wiping us out

not so. I merely mocked the following absurd line: >"It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight"

On the occasions when I note the large number of targets under attack (restoring al Andalus, the WTC, the Bali nightclub) I use the far more restrictive names al Qaeda, Wahhabist, Salafist, or Islamofascist, and I distinguish between them and most other Muslims. It's not a "monolithic Islam" (pun: they do, however, all worship the "one rock", the Kaaba), but it is monstrous.

It is also worth noting that, while the war in Afghanistan was justified and logical as a response to catastrophic terrorism against the US (which is why it had broad international support, even within the Muslim world), we have now botched it so badly that within a year or so the country may be no less a haven of radical Islamic terrorism than it was before the war. Which would mean that ultimately, the entire military aspect of the US's "war on terrorism" over the past 6 years would have proved counterproductive; and we would literally have been better off, and more secure, not having a military capable of waging war in the Middle East, than having one.

The likelihood of catastrophic terror attacks against the US would be very substantially reduced if we simply pulled out of Iraq as rapidly as possible. This remains true even though morons who have spent the last 6 years being repeatedly wrong about literally every aspect of the war on terror, Mr. Rogers included, insist that it is "silly".

Well, I would tend to agree with you. There isn't anyone in Iraq who has the capability of attacking the US as it stands right now.

But you did a nice dance to the left, a dance to the right, and ducked the point. I said that the best way to lose the war on terror was to stop fighting. You said the opposite is true. I made a very salient point about Afghanistan and you made a little remark about Iraq and left the question hanging in the air like a wet fart.

Should we just withdraw from everywhere, leave all of the fronts in the war on terror--and this would include East Africa, the Phillipines, Colombia, the Balkans (where we have caught al Qaeda), Iraq and Afghanistan?

Perhaps you are correct in making this all about Iraq. I won't quibble. But this notion that we must stop fighting terrorists is one that no serious contender for the Presidency would dare to make. Unless you're a Kucinich man.

I note, Norman Rogers, that you have not answered the question about other countries relatively successful answer to terrorism compared to the US.

I also note that you answer with analogies to state-to-state war (I assume Germany) rather than a small proportion of people fighting a state.

Everything the US has done so far since 11th September has been to expand that very small base.

Please discuss.

I have gotten some grief for mocking the following stupid line: >"It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight"

I guess everybody else here thinks it's really swell.

I just thought it was kind of inane so I ignored it.

"restoring al-Andalus"

Gee, they sure seem to be pursuing that goal with singleminded dedication. There were the Madrid attacks in 2004, and then...and then...er...

Did it ever occur to you that the radical Islamic goal of "restoring al-Andalus" might be kind of similar to the RAHOWA white-power movement's goal of establishing a pure white Christian state from Alaska to Georgia? I.e., not something to really keep yourself awake at night worrying about?

Which would mean that ultimately, the entire military aspect of the US's "war on terrorism" over the past 6 years would have proved counterproductive; and we would literally have been better off, and more secure, not having a military capable of waging war in the Middle East, than having one.

That's an amusing moral compass you seem to have misplaced.

Which terrorists would it be okay for us to go fight, then? Some? All? None?

I note, Norman Rogers, that you have not answered the question about other countries relatively successful answer to terrorism compared to the US.

Like Spain? How they gave up and went home?

No one "succeeds" in their fight against terrorism. They make small progress, they hold it back in some areas, and ultimately there are failures in trying to contain it.

Wishing it away and giving up? Not sure if that has ever worked.

brooksfow --

RAHOWA?

Why use it? It trivializes what it is about.

RACIAL HOLY WAR (I had to look it up, which I resent).

Effing RACIAL Holy War. Spell it out. Every time.

But you did a nice dance to the left, a dance to the right, and ducked the point.

No, no, no. You jump to the left and put your hand on your hip...

Should we just withdraw from everywhere, leave all of the fronts in the war on terror--and this would include East Africa, the Phillipines, Colombia, the Balkans (where we have caught al Qaeda), Iraq and Afghanistan?

Each needs to be assessed and the appropriate assets applied. It isn't one-size-fits-all, all-war-all-the-time. In none of the cases you list is the use of direct military force the appropriate countermeasure.

Did it ever occur to you that the radical Islamic goal of "restoring al-Andalus" might be kind of similar to the RAHOWA

Perfect. Fucking. Analogy.

I also note that you answer with analogies to state-to-state war (I assume Germany) rather than a small proportion of people fighting a state.

We have fought Afghanistan; I believe we are more threatened by the Saudis than the Iranians, but that's another pet peeve of mine.

A fine analogy would be Northern Ireland. Do you believe the IRA to be a movement of freedom fighters or an organized crime syndicate.

Careful, now. Freedom fighters usually avoid dabbling in the drug trade.

Each needs to be assessed and the appropriate assets applied. It isn't one-size-fits-all, all-war-all-the-time. In none of the cases you list is the use of direct military force the appropriate countermeasure.

Well, Bookfoe thinks you are wrong. notthere just goes along like a lackey.

Do you believe the IRA to be a movement of freedom fighters or an organized crime syndicate.

Are you fucking insane? (Don't answer that - we know it's Norman...) I would never, in a thousand years, proclaim either way on that issue.

However,in recent history virtually all of the resistance movements that lay claim to the mantle of freedom fighter dabble in all manner of nefarious affiliations and black-market dealings. Drugs, diamonds, human bondage and slavery - revolutions require cash, and black-market cash is easier to lay hands on.

brooksfoe: Did it ever occur to you that the radical Islamic goal of "restoring al-Andalus" might be kind of similar to the RAHOWA white-power movement's goal of establishing a pure white Christian state from Alaska to Georgia? I.e., not something to really keep yourself awake at night worrying about?

sure. also not something to ignore or run away from. In fact, the U.S. fought a sort of anti-insurgency against the KKK for decades. The analogy has some flaws: for example, al Qaeda has lots more money, and the agents fly internationally, and use the international banking system. They are a more dedicated and serious enemy.

Norman Rogers --

the idea that you can hammer other people to come to your view is redundant.

UK/IRA: the sinn Fein/IRA won 80% of the nation and it has taken peace, not war, to bring the other 20% into a conversation, except where the British military/intelligence went outside always within the legal framework. Red Brigade was taken out within the civil legal framework. Spain/Basque-ITA closer now than ever to peace, within civil law. USA until 2001 treated civil unrest within civil law. 11th September 2001, another foreign attack, decided to treat it outside civil law. Why?

I don't think there is any doubt that the last 4 years have been very counter-productive to the "war on terror".

Should we just withdraw from everywhere, leave all of the fronts in the war on terror--and this would include East Africa, the Phillipines, Colombia, the Balkans (where we have caught al Qaeda), Iraq and Afghanistan?

East Africa: withdraw. Get the Hercules gunships the hell out of there before we turn yet another population against us.
Philippines: we're not there in any significant way.
Colombia: what the hell does this have to do with the war on radical Islamic terror? For the record, yes, the drug war in Latin America is largely idiotic and we should get out of it.
The Balkans: We are in the process of drawing down in Bosnia, which is secure, and moving towards a secure permanent solution for Kosovo. So, yes, we should withdraw, as we are already doing.
Iraq: withdraw.
Afghanistan: we have one last shot at pouring effort into that country and trying to leave it a better place than it was when we went in there. We should get the hell out of Iraq and redeploy to Afghanistan.

Dealing with radical Islamic terrorism should involve as little overt violence as possible, especially aggressive violence, especially on the level of massive interventions against entire states. It's in that sense that I think "the way to lose to the terrorists is to stop fighting" is exactly wrong. We should be trying to stop fighting in as many places as possible. We are fighting too much already, and we are loudly threatening even more fighting (in Iran).

Perfect. Fucking. Analogy.

I am "irony challenged" (someone said that last week.) was that ironic?

al Qaeda finances people to go into Iraq and commit suicide by exploding trucks filled with chlorine, in order to kill as many innocent civilians as possible.

Drugs, diamonds, human bondage and slavery - revolutions require cash, and black-market cash is easier to lay hands on.

In the case of the IRA, you missed the boat and failed to note that US contributions from the Northeast (Democratic, almost exclusively) was their primary source of cash. The drug dealing was just another way to keep people in line.

Failing to take a stand means you and everyone else cannot understand what the war on terror is REALLY all about.

In each and every one of these difficult situations, you cannot sit on the fence and hem and haw. You have to take a stand and you have to take a side.

Doing nothing will merely lead to your defeat.

No, no, no - perhaps I wasn't clear - I'm not touching the IRA question.

In fact, the U.S. fought a sort of anti-insurgency against the KKK for decades. The analogy has some flaws:

Like, except for not sending C-130 gunships to bombard towns in Alabama? Or except that the KKK was IN THE UNITED STATES and therefore entirely a matter of law enforcement? That's an analogy that's nothing but flaws. European governments' efforts to combat radical Islamic groups in Europe are a conceivable analogy to the US's efforts to combat white supremacist groups; you'll note that neither of those cases involve the use of, say, air power.

Any organization with a idealogical primacy will take maoney from where they can get and the morality will come second. As a Brit I am not going to ctiticize the IRA for making money where they can to wage their war. The UK or US governments, with means of taxation, is a different matter so, for instance, Iran-Contra is a completely different matter.

Nothing that happened before, on or after 11th Srptember, 2001 justifies any action outside the law.

That includes suspending Habeas Corpus (wow! That's a biggy), putting individuals outside normal law, or fighting an illegal war.

And I am not touching that question because I have lived in the northeast and know people who supported both sides. With a scary degree of fervency.

It's like that South Park episode "Children, I'm not toughing that with a ten foot pole" and the next adult says "...twenty foot pole" and Jesus says "...forty foot pole" and so on.

UK/IRA: the sinn Fein/IRA won 80% of the nation

Eighty percent of what?

They won that which was Irish Catholic in the northern six counties of Northern Ireland; they most emphatically did not win any support from anyone Protestant in Northern Ireland.

And, by the by, giving up and not fighting them would have meant what for Britain? Fewer dead in London, but more dead in Belfast or Derry? A bomb outside of a pub is a bomb outside of a pub, and it kills whoever it wishes to kill, indiscriminately. The who and what are not so important as the why--and the why went away a long time ago. As few as 600 Irishmen who called themselves the IRA tried to bring a nation to its knees and refused to surrender and use political means to address its grievances. So if the other side abandons politics (and hides behind a farce called Sinn Fein, for example) then what do you do?

If you cannot use direct military means, then can you use indirect military means? If you won't fight anyone who will you fight?

It's worth noting that no serious Democratic candidate for President would be caught dead using any of your talking points. They have run screaming from them for five years. How does it feel to be isolated and abandoned by people purportedly on "your side?" As terrifying as it might be, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton are more in line with my way of thinking than with your way of thinking. Or are they calling for universal surrender to all terrorists? I might have missed that...

When you junior birdmen learn something of history, please let me know.

...US contributions from the Northeast (Democratic, almost exclusively) was their primary source of cash....

Posted by: Norman Rogers on March 19, 2007 at 12:26 AM | PERMALINK

Not so much Democratic (wow, a Republican who adds two letters!) as IRISH!!!!!!!

Moronic differentiation.

No, no, no - perhaps I wasn't clear - I'm not touching the IRA question.

Well, I refuse to have an ideological blindspot to anything. I choose sides. I accept the consequences and the abuse for taking those sides.

Let's cowboy up and try to take a side against terrorists who blow up children, shall we? I mean, come on! I will tell you, unequivocally, that the Catholics in the IRA and the Protestants in the UDA are both cowardly scum who should have, rightly, been hunted down and killed by the British Army.

Why won't any of you? Oh, that's right! It's better to surrender to terrorists than to fight them.

Gotcha.

Not so much Democratic (wow, a Republican who adds two letters!) as IRISH!!!!!!!

Moronic differentiation.

Another fool who forgets there's a city called Boston. And the day after St. Patrick's Day!

Priceless!

I'm dealing with the cream of the crop, apparently.

Norman, what are you drinking? Or are you still hung over.

You made the connection between the North-East and cash to the IRA being Democratic. I pointed out the cash came from the Irish US immigrants. Democratic, Republican, Independent.

Am I missing something? Moron.

No, I won't declare on anything I know so little about. I simply do not know enough about the Troubles to declare.

In the Name of the Father is not enough to make such a profound declaration on.

brooksfoe: Like, except for not sending C-130 gunships to bombard towns in Alabama?

The analogy has some flaws. There are European nations fighting al Qaeda/Taleban with military weaponry, but they don't have the AC-130 gunships.

Let's cowboy up and try to take a side against terrorists who blow up children, shall we?

Very well then. How many children have been killed by US armed forces in the war in Iraq? How many were killed when B-52s dropped dumb bombs on Hanoi, or blanketed large areas of the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian countryside? (In Hanoi, about 1300 civilians were killed in the Christmas bombings in 1972; take a general guess at how many were children.)

Oh, but that's different -- we only kill children accidentally, in the course of legitimate military operations against strategic targets. Of course that's the same thing Al-Zawahiri says; and it's utterly predictable that children will be killed in these operations, and the operations' "strategic" value often proves to be nil, as in the case of those Cambodian villages, or indeed the entire Vietnam War, or the entire Iraq War...

Is there a moral difference between a suicide bomber and the US military? Yes. There is a huge difference, under normal circumstances. But the moral difference shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks, with every day that one continues the pointless quagmire of a failing counterinsurgency war.

Before this goes much further let me declare that US citizens that are 4 generations removed from being in Ireland and have no actual historical learning about "The Troubles" (what an ameliorism) are quite willing to state ideas that have no actual attachement to the truth of these difficult relations.

Wish you'd all get worked up to the same degree about Israel-Palestine who have similarly aligned genealogy. We're talking about arguments between brothers in both cases. Yes, we are!

Yes, shrinks and shrinks and shrinks—especially as our culpability grows and grows while learning about the horrors committed in our names while doing nothing to stop them.

I'll state it again. And back up Brooksfoe.

There is a diference between war damage and occupation.

The "war" is done. Finished. We are an occuppying power. We have a responsibility to the people. Every civilian killed should be subject to investigation, inquiry and judgement.

We don't even count them!!!!

Morality is shrinking within the US, It's gone without.

Is there a moral difference between a suicide bomber and the US military?

Yes, and an important one.

The US military is standing between you and the suicide bomber. This allows you to live in a country where you can earn a living, not worry about being invaded, and where you can pretentiously bitch and moan about how evil the US military is without being dragged from your home in the middle of the night and shot in front of your family.

Not that that ever happened in Iraq under Saddam or anything...or in any of these other places I mentioned. (the IRA loved to put bullets in the kneecaps of people on their own side, you know.)

The analogy has some flaws. There are European nations fighting al Qaeda/Taleban with military weaponry, but they don't have the AC-130 gunships.

Rather it is complete and utter bullshit that brooksfoe has rightly called you out on. The fact that you're trying to hang onto it is baffling.

Please describe which European countries are fighting Al Qaeda or the Taliban inside their own borders with a military force.

Here's a clue: Afghanistan isn't in Europe.

To a modest and hard to measure degree, France, G.B. and Belgium are under attack by Muslims despite the nearly complete absence of military measures against Muslims in those nations.

Pleae reconcile this statement with its antithesis quoted at the beginning of this post.
Which is it? Is Europe using military means to fight an insurgency within its borders or not?

Further, please explain how riots by an underclass in France over lack of jobs is equivalent to being "under attack by Muslims" and defend the logically necessary position that the Watts riots and '67 riots in Detroit constituted an attack on the U.S. by by African-Americans and why the participants weren't imprisoned for terrorism or alternately hung for treason.

Finally, please explain the fuzzy logic wherein the tiny terrorist group "Al Qaeda" becomes equivalent to all "Muslims" somehow attacking Europe "modestly." Are they "attacking" it by moving there and bringing their strange tongue and swarthy skin? Is that your contention, Mr. Grand Wizard?

Norman Rogers --

With "activist" IRA we went through the 70s without restricting or impinging individual rights although we all know the UK intelligence services amnipulated murderof IRA personnel.

Germany went through the Red Brigade without changing their laws.

Spain has withstood the Basque and become increasingly libera.

What is wrong with the USA? Are we so weak?

The US military is standing between you and the suicide bomber.

No it's not. I live in Vietnam. But even for those of you who live in the US, this is crap. The US military isn't standing between me and the suicide bomber. The US military doesn't do shit to prevent suicide bombers from reaching the US. The FBI, NSA, police and customs officials do that, to the extent it's necessary; there have only been a few halfhearted cases in the last 5 years. The reason for the low level of interest in suicide attacks in the US - which was always pretty low, a case every few years or so - is that the priorities of radical Islamic terrorists have shifted to fighting the US in the Middle East, because the US military is fighting against local insurgents there. By doing so, it is provoking people into WANTING to come to the US and kill Americans, which they would otherwise have little interest in doing.

The US military is no more protecting Americans against radical Islamic terrorism today than it was protecting Americans against the Viet Cong in 1968. The US military has not been "protecting" Americans against anything for a long time, certainly not since the USSR ceased to be an antagonist in the late 1980s, if not earlier. There is no serious threat to the United States except the threat of a catastrophic terrorist attack; and that threat is exacerbated, not ameliorated, by almost everything the US military is doing today.

European governments' efforts to combat radical Islamic groups in Europe are a conceivable analogy to the US's efforts to combat white supremacist groups; you'll note that neither of those cases involve the use of, say, air power.

Yeah, but US efforts to fight radical blacks *did* involve air power.

brooksfoe: Is there a moral difference between a suicide bomber and the US military? Yes. There is a huge difference, under normal circumstances. But the moral difference shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks, with every day that one continues the pointless quagmire of a failing counterinsurgency war.

Your post is a good one, on the whole. About the quoted passage: is it true that the moral difference depends on success of the war? How about (1) the intention to distinguish combatants from non-combatants and (2) actual success at distinguishing combatants from non-combatants?

The suicide bombers (e.g. those blowing up the chlorine tank trucks or bombing gas stations) act as though they do not even care how many civilians are killed. And the ratio of non-combatants killed to combatants killed is much higher for the suicide bombers than for the U.S. military. The WTC attack, London bomb, Madrid bomb, and Bali bomb killed 0 combatants, and no combatants were even intentionally targeted.

Disregarding my other typing errors, I did not mean to imply that all Basque are either pro or anti Spain. I should have typed Basque-Nationalist Movements.

Another fool who forgets there's a city called Boston. And the day after St. Patrick's Day!

Boston ain't got nothing on Chicago. We've had major St. Pat's parades on each of the last *three* weekends.

...the IRA loved to put bullets in the kneecaps of people on their own side, you know.)

Posted by: Norman Rogers on March 19, 2007 at 1:06 AM | PERMALINK

Cite???

The URL in the comment I left above was edited by a site adminstrator - perhaps Kevin Drum, or perhaps someone else - to make it inoperable. See my comments here. (In case they make that link inoperable too, go to my main page and do a search.)

How about (1) the intention to distinguish combatants from non-combatants and (2) actual success at distinguishing combatants from non-combatants?

I basically agree, spider, that this difference remains. But more on point 1 than point 2; with point 2 you run into problems around the point where we firebomb Dresden and Tokyo. (The body count issue in Vietnam is even more horrific; it still requires political courage in the US to speak honestly about how often troops emptied their clips into any civilians they encountered, on orders of officers trying to meet their body count targets.)

I basically feel that the reason armies are better than terrorists is that armies operate according to rules and procedures. It's always better to be dealing with an officer in a system that has rules which you can hope to learn and follow, than some wacko with an insane ideology who will either kill you or not for reasons you can't understand or reason with. And generally Western armies, the US's included, are better than most because they at least try to replicate the system of checks and balances of a liberal society, and to respect human rights law. But when troops are in combat, they pretty understandably don't think of respecting human rights law as their top priority. The way one assesses how seriously the US "intends" to distinguish combatants from non-combatants is: how high a priority are the procedures for ensuring that civilians aren't killed? How seriously are such cases investigated and punished? Because an army is a procedural bureaucratic beast, the question of its "intent" becomes a procedural bureaucratic question. And that's why the prosecution of US soldiers for homicide and other crimes is a very powerful hopeful thing. But even with the best rules in the world, the longer you stay in a war like Iraq, the more civilians your soldiers are going to kill, and the question of "intent" comes down to how seriously you weigh civilian deaths in your decision about whether or not to stay in the war. American leadership basically never talks about US troops killing Iraqi civilians when asking whether the US should stay in Iraq or not; that doesn't argue very well for the US's "intent".

Cite???

He's probably talking about all the IRA splintering from the civil war in 1922 onwards.

I'm curious TLB - does anyone ever ask you to repost a link to one of your Congressman-Combover paens?

Somehow, I have a feeling that if you didn't make the announcements that your links aren't working, no one would know.

Of course, a prophet is always misunderstood and ridiculed in his own land and time. So take comfort in that.

I am not sure that going back to WWII helps with the present argument.

In 1940 RAF Bonber Command wasn't able to hit a city let alone a target. World civilians had seen Guernica, Warsaw and Rotterdam. Like the cold war in the 50s, even governments believed that cities could be destroyed almost overnight.

Dresden, Rostok, etc. arose from the seed that Hitler and the Luftwaffe sowed. Don't lay the guilt on the Allied powers. Even though 100s of thousands of civilians died in Japan and Germany, it was as a result of their own (elected) governements and their "total war" policies, not the defending powers' war directives, and the need to win.

I consider myself a liberal, far to the left of most I see write here, but war is WAR!

i got here so late and got so distracted by the thread.

Here's ther truth:

The "war on terror" is not the war in Iraq.

You can't fight a "war on terror" with conventional military.

The US citizenship, having gained their idependence through a rebellion, seemingly, have no memory of what that entails.

I find this incredible.

Dresden, Rostok, etc. arose from the seed that Hitler and the Luftwaffe sowed. Don't lay the guilt on the Allied powers.

Refer back to spider's post: "(1) the intention to distinguish combatants from non-combatants". If that is the yardstick of distinction between terrorists and armed forces, then apparently armed forces in WWII, our own included, were not superior to today's terrorists, on these particular grounds. That's all.

Say, "notthere", you seem to have swallowed the foolish misinformation that "unconventional forces", "terrorists", "freedom fighters", "revolutionaries", and "popular uprisings" of any stripe can never be defeated by a mere conventional military.

That is such a 1960's idea and it is so absolutely wrong. The history of the Roman Empire was nothing but a long series of the Romans squashing rebel outbreaks (some that were truly mass uprisings by truly warlike peoples) like so many bugs. Even the British Empire was pretty good at this and if the French hadn't gotten involved with their conventional army and navy we would still be part of the Queen's realm.

But to move on to the present day, Bush is not going to attack Iran next. Once the Sunni insurgency is precluded from its present pathetic tactics of being able to blow people up with suicide bombers and remotely detonated I.E.D.'s Bush will probably attack Pakistan, or at least the Pashtun regions thereof.

This will be dicey as Pakistan will be the first nation we have to rough up which has nuclear weapons.

Condi Rice I am going to bet will end up on the GOP ticket as VP with McCain. If I am a delegate next year that will be my preference. My party tends to like old warhorses, especially if they are covered with battle scars. It means they have paid their dues. Democrats like to propel new beautiful faces out of obscurity into instant celebrity on the basis of a lot of spin and hoopla.

A note to spider:

I have gotten some grief for mocking the following stupid line: >"It would really be amusing if it turns out there's been nothing to fight" I guess everybody else here thinks it's really swell.

This is an excellent example of how rational thought can so easily become derailed by emotional reactions.

First of all, speaking for myself, I don't read the line you refer to literally. I don't believe the person who wrote it intended for it to be interpreted literally. I think the author meant "very little" or "nothing remotely resembling the threat we've been led to believe exists".

Do you understand that hyperbole is the stuff of which human communication is made of? We speak this way all the time. (There's an example!)

I don't see a reason to get hung up on a statement like that, except for the fact that it pushes someone's emotional buttons.

FWIW.

The US military has not been "protecting" Americans against anything for a long time, certainly not since the USSR ceased to be an antagonist in the late 1980s, if not earlier. There is no serious threat to the United States except the threat of a catastrophic terrorist attack; and that threat is exacerbated, not ameliorated, by almost everything the US military is doing today.

I guess they can stand down, then. I beg your pardon.

One wonders if a Democratic Presidential candidate will now adopt your talking points and make that a central issue of their campaign--yes? I mean, to say that the US military hasn't done anything in the last 16 years to defend America and is to blame for all the ills in the world.

Which one? Obama? Edwards? Which one of them is going to run on the "it's the military's fault, stupid" line of reasoning.

What's even more amazing is the silence that accompanies such insanity from Mr. Bookfoe. No other liberal has a beef with what he's bleating about? Do you all hate the military with such a passion that it leaves you silent?

Apparently so.

Moronic Cook:

Condi Rice I am going to bet will end up on the GOP ticket as VP with McCain. If I am a delegate next year that will be my preference. My party tends to like old warhorses, especially if they are covered with battle scars. It means they have paid their dues. Democrats like to propel new beautiful faces out of obscurity into instant celebrity on the basis of a lot of spin and hoopla.

Republicans pick winners; Democrats pick the person who doesn't lose too many primaries. You, sir, are no Republican. You sound like one of the cranks we turn away from the auditorium.

I don't hate the military, and obviously the US military is not to blame for "all the ills in the world". They have very little to do with most of the world's really serious ills, like the spread of AIDS, lack of clean drinking water, global warming, the oppression of women, etc. - a list on which the problem of Islamic terrorism rates rather low.

I'm just saying they don't actually protect the US. They protect South Korea and Taiwan, to some degree. They protect the people inside the Green Zone in Baghdad, and people in Kabul. They're serving useful multilateral stabilizing roles in Bosnia and elsewhere. But they don't protect the US; there is no threat to the US. There hasn't been for a very long time. In the 1990s liberals came to support the US military in part because we felt that it could play such a multilateral stabilizing or democratic-governance promotion task throughout the world. But for the past 6 years they've been playing precisely the opposite role. So who needs them?

Could we do without a military entirely? Probably. But in the interests of prudence it might make more sense to just shrink our defense expenditures to the proportional size of France's, and encourage Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to start taking care of themselves.

No American Presidential candidate will adopt this position because the American public is captive to a fairy tale of unreason about the virtues of American power, and because the power of the military-industrial complex is so vast as to rule out even any move towards limiting our absurdly bloated and useless defense budget, let alone slashing it by half or more. But fortunately, on the blogosphere, people are free to say what's actually true, rather than what can practically be said in the context of an election campaign.

Cite???
Posted by: notthere on March 19, 2007 at 1:29 AM | PERMALINK

Punishment shootings are totally non-sectarian — Catholics shoot Catholics, Protestants shoot Protestants. The number of such shootings varies considerably from year to year; in 1975, the peak year, 189 were recorded; the lowest number occurred in 1978, when there were 67; there were 41 in the first four months of 1980.

Other than for armed robbery and theft, people have been kneecapped for drug dealing, disobeying orders, sleeping with the wife of a man imprisoned for the cause, and for having disagreements with paramilitary group footsoldiers. "They don’t like admitting that they shot people who disagreed with them politically," says Dan McGuiness, "and after they shot me they tried to say they had made a mistake, that they got the wrong person, but that’s rubbish. They questioned me for 15 hours."

McGuiness, 26, now a solicitor and city councilman, was shot in 1972, two days before his 18th birthday. He lived in a Republican area, and was not involved in politics at any great level, but had let it be known that he supported the police. He was lifted from his house at 2 am on July 17, 1972 by two men who moved him from house to house around the district. During questioning he was burned on the neck and wrist with cigarettes, beaten with a belt buckle, and sliced on the back of his head with a razor blade. "The interrogation was much worse than being shot," he says. "Finally I was blindfolded and tied to a lampost at a quarter to six in the evening. It was a short, sharp pain, and that was it. A passerby stopped his car and took me to the hospital, but he left without giving his name. I didn’t know until I got there that I’d been shot twice, once below the knee that broke my right leg, and one bullet embedded in my left thigh."

"They told me to get out of the area, but afterwards I was much more determined to stay. I had hardened considerably."

"Back four or five years ago, people were getting kneecapped who should not have been kneecapped," says Richard McCauley, press officer for the Provisional Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA. "Because of the structure of the IRA at that time, decisions could be made at the local level. Now the structure is more controlled, things are done on a much more rational basis."

"First, no one is kneecapped who is below the age of 16," says McCauley, "For anyone below that age, you go and have a word with the family and a word with the kid, you put pressure on the parents to punish him severely. He might get a beating. I’m not talking about breaking his arms or legs, but a beating is a beating. Sometimes the kids are put under house arrest [told not to leave their home] for seven days. That’s a useful punishment, and generally the kids go along with it."

Norman, you've got my blood boiling. The US has got to invade Northern Ireland. This kind of thing cannot be allowed to stand, by God.

And a belated note to spider, on the "most Iraqis say they're better off" issue. From the new ABC/USA Today/BBC/ARD poll, released today:

"...fewer than half of Iraqis, 42 percent, say life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein, whose security forces are said to have murdered more than a million Iraqis."

I'm just saying they don't actually protect the US.

Spoken like the deep thinker you are. Do they need to be manning the towers that line the coast for you to believe that they are actually protecting America?

Anyone who would argue that the US military overseas does not protect the US is not a serious or rational person. You can subsist on your own delusions without me adding to them.

But fortunately, on the blogosphere, people are free to say what's actually true, rather than what can practically be said in the context of an election campaign.

I'm curious--you say you're in Vietnam. Why not, as an experiment, write out a detailed criticism of the Vietnamese government and post it on a blog under your own name from a local Internet cafe. Don't say anything that isn't true. In fact, go to the website for Amnesty International and write about these two individuals:

Dozens of prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience continued to be detained for their political beliefs and religious affiliations. Many were elderly and in poor health.

Sixty-eight-year-old Professor Nguyen Dinh Huy, the founder and president of the ''Movement to Unite the People and Build Democracy'', continued to be held in prison camp Z30A, in Dong Nai province, for his peaceful political activities. He had been arrested in November 1993 and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in August 1995 after trying to organize a conference about human rights and democracy in Ho Chi Minh City. He had previously spent 17 years in detention without charge or trial.

Reverend Pham Ngoc Lien (Tri), a 59-year-old Roman Catholic monk, was one of three members of the banned Congregation of the Mother Coredemptrix who remained in detention. He was arrested in May 1987 and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in connection with his religious activities. He was reportedly in poor health.

What I would like to see is whether or not you can write openly and honestly to the Vietnamese government about these two individuals. Can you please do this and let everyone know how it goes?

As for me, I already know that I can sit in my home and write about these two prisoners of conscience without fear of being prosecuted. You can sit on your high horse and say that my right to do so has nothing to do with the US Military. Well, you would be wrong. For over two hundred years, American citizens have died in wars both here and all over the world. You can argue they all died in vain, in illegitimate wars, committed heinous war crimes and generally brought shame upon this country.

A hint to you sir--they all died just so you could say that, too.

The US has got to invade Northern Ireland. This kind of thing cannot be allowed to stand, by God.

No need. The British have it well in hand. Besides, there are too many residents of Boston and NYC who would go overseas to fight for the IRA against any US troops who would step in and try to assist the British Government. You can look that up, too.

Get back to us on your open letter to the Vietnamese government about those prisoners of conscience, will you?

Oh, and if anything does happen to you when you publish your legitimate criticism of the Vietnamese government, Mr. Bookfoe, don't worry--

There's a US Embassy in Vietnam, staffed with US Marines, who can assist you if things get a little 'dicey.' I wonder if you've told those poor saps that they're doing nothing to defend America.

Again, you're welcome.

Stop saying "sir". It sounds stupid. What are you, a member of the House of Lords?

Nobody is arguing that every US war has been illegitimate except some weird doobie-toking nightmare figure of your own perverse imaginings. I will restate what I have said before: the US at present faces no military threat at all. From any country in the world. No country is interested in attacking the US. Not a one. Who wants to invade the US? Cuba? Mexico? Canada? The Chinese fleet? Iranians on camels, via the Bering land bridge? What other variety of attack is to be feared? An ICBM from North Korea? Because we had their bank assets frozen? Do we inhabit an Austin Powers movie?

The US has massive armed forces to defend the free world against totalitarianism. This made sense in the context of WWII and in the context of the Cold War while the USSR was aggressively (1950s) or even kind of passively (1970s) expansionist. It was important not to allow gradual shrinkage in the zone of freedom, while that remained an issue. But as Communism collapsed for economic reasons, and the US developed friendly relations first with China and then with the USSR, the logic of our collossal military evaporated. Since Gorby and th Gipper at Reykjavik, the US's military complex has lost its raison d'etre.

Let's put it this way: the Russian fleet is no more. The Russian Air Force has declined every new fighter they've come out with since the early '90s for lack of money. So - anybody bidding to invade Russia? Nope. And they've even got mineral resources worth conquering. There is no military threat to the US, any more than there is to Russia. The only threat to the US, as to Russia, is one of catastrophic terrorism. And for the US, as for Russia, that threat is exacerbated, not ameliorated, by the counterinsurgency wars we fight.

Sir, talking about "the Russian fleet" is a little bit like saying that the only reason that I can't understand you because you're talking out of your ass.

the US at present faces no military threat at all.

I'll let that hover in the air for everyone to think about.

I'm thinking about it, and it's still true. What is the military threat to the US? What country does it come from? Or do you prefer to hover?

I'm thinking about it, and it's still true. What is the military threat to the US? What country does it come from? Or do you prefer to hover?

I'm hovering.

And what did the Vietnamese say when you asked them about those prisoners of conscience?

What is this weird thing you have about Vietnamese prisoners of conscience? Do they pose a military threat to the US? What does it have to do with anything? Why don't you ask your wife about the Vietnamese prisoners of conscience?

The question remains: what is the military threat to the US?

There is no such thing as prisoners of conscience in Vietnam. All Vietnamese citizens have the right to freedom of expression. But those who abuse this freedom to undermine the unity of the nation will be thrown in a dank cell until they get TB if we feel like it, because we is some bad Confucian-assed Communist mothafuckas, and human rights is different in Asia.

Now, will you shut up about Vietnam and answer brooksfoe's fucking question about the military threat to the US already? Jesus.

What is this weird thing you have about Vietnamese prisoners of conscience?

Oh, didn't read the thread, eh? Well, sir, you're the one who stated that you are in Vietnam. You are the one who thinks you are free to do whatever you want to do, regardless of who is actually out there defending that right. So now you willfully duck my challenge to you--I can speak freely, thanks to the US military defending my right to do so. If you don't think there's any value to that, then my suggestion that you go talk to your host nation about the people they are incarcerating because they are some supposed threat to the regime has obviously scared the bejeezus clear out of you.

You go about things without any fear, without any perspective. Therefore, you should feel free to talk about whatever you want to talk about. I'm guessing your Internet Service Provider there in Vietnam is one that the government cannot monitor, yes? Writing from inside the US Embassy? How about asking those Marine guards if they realize they're not doing anything to defend America.

Here is the military threat to the US: currently, there is a threat from international terrorists. There is a threat to it from various drug cartels operating in Mexico and Colombia. There is a threat to its interests overseas, for certain, from Iran, North Korea and Syria. There is definitely a military threat to US ally Israel, is there not? If you want to claim that a threat to US interests overseas is not a threat to the US, then, fine. But I would submit to you that the most vulnerable people who live behind the protection that is guaranteed by the United States would not fall in line with your way of thinking.

Have you missed the fact that democracy is all but dead in Russia?

And suppose the threat from China were not real. Are you aware, being in that region, how quickly the Chinese are arming themselves for Naval operations? Are you aware of the rise of Chinese influence in Latin America and in the Chinese presence in the Panama Canal Zone?

The fact that there is no de facto foreign army on the doorstep of the United States is a trick of geography. But I would submit to you that, were this country to stand down, someone would find a way to exploit that and take advantage of it. The oceans do not guarantee safety anymore.

Now, which Democratic presidential candidate agrees with you? That there's no military threat to the US and no need for the US military?

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam on March 19, 2007 at 10:37 AM

Typical unfunny comment around here. Talent is sparse, even today, I see.

Sir, again you astound me with your quiescent complacency. My stiff upper lip fairly quivers with indignance. Pardon me whilst I sample this scone. There, now, that hit the spot. And now I may explain to you the transparent foolishness of your position.

The military threat to the United States comes, in the first place, from our ancient foes: the British. While apparently acquiescing to our independence, they have been secretly scheming to reimpose their tyrannical monarchy upon our free and democratic people for lo these several centuries. Do not be misled by the Queen's milquetoast pronouncements on Boxing Day, nor by her quaint crumpet-like hats. Beneath that placid countenance writhes the mind of a very dictator.

For you and your kind, sir, I have but one Cassandra-like utterance: the Red Coats are coming. No doubt such as you would welcome them with open arms, that they may defile our women with their filthy British perversities. Now excuse me; the whip beckons.

Posted by: Norman Rogers on March 19, 2007 at 10:46 AM | PERMALINK

[Yawn]

Sparse, for sure. This is what happens when you draw blood--out come the wolves in the guise of pups.

Here is the military threat to the US: currently, there is a threat from international terrorists.

International terrorists are not a military threat. They're terrorists. You may have missed the part where we don't consider terrorists to be "military", and therefore don't accord them the rights due to POWs. Terrorists attempting to strike the US have never been stopped by the US military; they've been stopped by law enforcement agents. Again, I've already been through all this above. You don't have carrier battle groups to fight a cell of guys with a Ryder truck and some fertilizer. You're proving my point here.

There is a threat to it from various drug cartels operating in Mexico and Colombia.

Again, the US military has no business trying to fight drug cartels. That's a law enforcement matter, and the US military has never done anything useful or successful in the drug war. In any case, drug cartels do not pose a military threat to the US. They pose the threat of continuing to sell drugs in the US.

There is a threat to its interests overseas,

A threat to "our interests overseas" is not a threat to the US. Christ, if you had set out to prove my point, you couldn't have done it better. So our military is in Iraq to protect US oil companies' interests there? Man, that's a convincing argument for continuing to spend $500 billion a year on the military.

There is definitely a military threat to US ally Israel, is there not?

A. This is not a threat to the US. B. No. Israel has massive military superiority over any combination of its enemies. The threat to Israel comes from the counterinsurgency wars it is fighting, and it will never have peace until it resolves those wars politically. The US military plays no significant role in any of this.

Are you aware, being in that region, how quickly the Chinese are arming themselves for Naval operations? Are you aware of the rise of Chinese influence in Latin America and in the Chinese presence in the Panama Canal Zone?

Norman. Norman. Are they going to invade Hawaii? I'm begging, here: what is the threat to the US?

But I would submit to you that, were this country to stand down, someone would find a way to exploit that and take advantage of it.

Translation: I can't figure out any kind of threat that even seems plausible...but somebody out there must want to invade us. I'm sure of it. I just get this feeling sometimes in my buttocks that somebody really wants to invade me.

Obviously, in the present world we can have severe "military" threats to the U.S. that leave no tracks leading particularly back to any country. For a long time it was assumed that the radioactive fall-out of a nuclear blast would leave tell-tale isotope patterns so accurate that analysts could tell not only what particular reactor the material came from, but what month it was processed.

That may not be so true anymore. Someone assembling a "dirty bomb" may be able to mix a lot of nuclear material from a lot of sources. If they want to put together an actual fission weapon, they may have to do that. Suppose a small nuclear weapon goes off on Manhatten Island
and within two hours the president knows that 45% of the material came from Ukrainian power reactors, 25% from a French power plant, 25% from a Chinese source, and 5% from a medical research source in Switzerland. What does he do with that information? I would guess that a big money Islamist in Saudi Arabia probably spent a fortune buying up stuff from corrupt officials. But do you retaliate against Riyadh on that hunch? If 25% of the material came from Iran do you nuke Tehran?

Biological threats are even worse. Airline security is a problematic task and some sad day we will probably figure that out.

China is really the big issue in any such discussion. The U.S. lost the Vietnam War because we were afraid of provoking a direct intervention by massive Chinese armies, the way we did in Korea. We could have beaten North Vietnam and the Russians by invading Hanoi, because Russia had no means of directly projecting force in the area without transiting China. But we were afraid of China.

We are afraid of China today, which is exactly why nothing is being done about Darfur. Worse yet, we are only going to get more and more afraid of China because their capabilities grow daily. Almost all of their arsenal is leading-edge stuff.

The U.S. has some neat stuff in development, but on the front line we have a lot of stuff designed many decades ago. The new stuff tends to be extremely expensive and our social welfare budgets balloon so fast as to preclude ever again being able to do a 1941-45 style "arsenal of democracy" surge in military production.

Besides which, nobody really knows what a "good" weapon is anymore. Weapons have to fit the local political situation. An aircraft carrier might be a terribly inappropriate weapon. A ten dollar fuse timer for a homemade bomb or a hundred dollar night scope for a hunting rifle might be a great weapon. A two hundred dollar bottle of germs might be the greatest of all.

The U.S. lost the Vietnam War because we were afraid of provoking a direct intervention by massive Chinese armies, the way we did in Korea.

(sigh)

And why did the Chinese lose their Vietnam War in 1789? And why did the French lose in 1954? And why did the Chinese lose again in 1979?

Could it be because you cannot fight forever against a people, under strong and united leadership, that does not want to be ruled by foreigners?

Very good points, Mr. Bookfoe. I would take you to task where appropo, but the fact remains--

You are curiously silent on speaking up for Vietnamese prisoners of conscience. Cat got your tongue?

The way it works is, I responded to your challenge with detailed answers. You've yet to respond to my challenge.

Until you do, further debate ceases because you're not adhering to the give and take. If I've ducked your challenge anywhere, I'd be happy to respond once you respond to me.

Ball's in your court, sport.

I'm not responding to your "challenge" on Vietnamese prisoners of conscience because it has nothing to do with the value of the US military. Nothing. It's classic red herring crap. I write about Vietnamese prisoners of conscience all the time. Here's the deal: in the runup to the APEC conference last year, the VN gov't allowed an unprecedented level of political debate on the internet and so forth. In the last 6 weeks or so they've engaged in a sharp crackdown, arresting various dissident figures. You can look it up on Human Rights Watch. Vietnam is a single-party state. It represses freedom of expression. And so forth. All true.

And all totally irrelevant to anything. All your examples of supposed "threats" were crap. You have no justification for the US continuing to spend $500 billion on its military.

I'm not responding to your "challenge" on Vietnamese prisoners of conscience because it has nothing to do with the value of the US military.

Well, I see you're both a moral and a physical coward. I cannot blame you; you are living abroad without realizing that the protection afforded by the US military guarantees that I can sit in my home and speak clearly and honestly about issues without fear of being arrested. I am thankful for that; you live in that liberal world where the freedoms and liberties you demand are just there and you have no concept of the price that was paid by others to give them to you. It's a sense of entitlement I don't gloss over. It is fragile. And if you think there aren't people in this world who don't want to take away the freedoms and liberties currently enjoyed by Americans, you are blinded by that same sense of entitlement.

Good luck in your endeavors. I hope you never need the assistance of the US Embassy in Vietnam, but I do hope they are able to assist you if anything goes amiss for you.

Thank goodness they are there for you. I would submit to you that the reason they are able to exist there is because of the US military and the force that it projects throughout the world to guarantee the safety of Americans, but I guess I'm just naive and foolish, correct?

Mike Cook and rdw - both ex-Navy - Is a pattern here? Nah, Chief makes far too much sense.

And the "ball's definitely is neither in the Terrapins nor Blue Devil's court.

In Cook's scenario, Shrub would attack Pemex in Mexico.

...and by extention, there are no bad people in the world who take advantage of weakness.

Is that what I'm sensing from you? All of a sudden, after thousands of years of human history that shows, time and again, the strong dominate the weak and that weakness on the part of any one people in world history has pretty much guaranteed that someone, somewhere will show up and exploit that weakness just evaporated six or seven months ago because, hey, we have the Internet and we have blogs now and all that stuff is just bogus, right?

When did the bad people disappear? And now that we don't need the US military anymore, we can all get jobs playing video games, right?

Awesome, dude.

"The United States used to be an iron fist with a velvet glove over it. Now it is viewed by many abroad as just an iron fist."

Worse than that, I'm afraid -- as our deadly yet incompetent flailing around in Iraq has shown, we're now a velvet fist in an iron glove.

Or, to reverse Teddy Roosevelt's famous dictum, we now speak loudly while waving around a very small stick and occasionally poking ourselves in the eye with it.

Or, to reverse Teddy Roosevelt's famous dictum, we now speak loudly while waving around a very small stick and occasionally poking ourselves in the eye with it.

Perfect! I am laughing my ass off over here, picturing the little guy from Monopoly waiving a stick and jumping up and down, red-faced and ranting. Thanks for the chuckle.

He looks a lot like John Bolton, now that I let my imagination off the leash to romp...

we're now a velvet fist in an iron glove.

That may be true on planet dingbat, but what would happen if the iron fist and the velvet glove gave way to a tiny, frail hand with an olive branch?

Since there are no more bad people in the world, I'm guessing it would lead to a lot of hugging and frolicking.

And what say you, liberals, to the notion we don't even need that iron fist anymore? Ready to live without it, are we? Now that freedom is an entitlement we don't have to pay for anymore, like music on the Internet?

I live in a country where, by your account, one risks prison for saying things on the internet like "Vietnam represses freedom of expression". I just said it on the internet, so on your account, I just risked prison. You live in the US, where you can spew whatever treasonous nonsense you want to on the internet without fear of anything worse than starting a flame war.

And this makes *me* a "moral coward"? I don't follow your quote "logic" unquote.

You live in the US, where you can spew whatever treasonous nonsense you want to on the internet without fear of anything worse than starting a flame war.

Exactly. I can do so, thanks to the fact that there is a US military who guarantees that freedom by protecting this country.

You see nothing ludicrous about living in a country where the government can arrest you for saying something bad about the way it governs in the midst of a discussion about why America is so evil?

He looks a lot like John Bolton, now that I let my imagination off the leash to romp...

Please don't use the words "John Bolton" and "leash" in the same sentence, given what we know about the Honorable Ambassador's predilection for sex clubs.....

You see nothing ludicrous about living in a country where the government can arrest you for saying something bad about the way it governs in the midst of a discussion about why America is so evil?

Umm, we all live in a country where the government can arrest us for no reason whatsoever and throw us in jail for the rest of our lives with no hope of appeal. All the President has to do is claim you're an enemy combatant and there you go....

we're now a velvet fist in an iron glove.

This is a good one, Stefan, as is the poke-in-the-eye.

I've found I like to think of the US in the Bush years as a belligerent drunk in a bar, picking fights with people for no good reason, making threats he can't follow through on, and yammering on and on with some long convoluted story about this Arab-lookin' guy who hit him in the face a few days back...or weeks was it?...and he won't let his guard down next time, and he's gonna teach that guy a lesson he'll never forget! And his friends too! In fact, you look kinda like that guy! You're a friend of his aren't you?! You're just waiting for me to let my guard down! Well I'll teach you! You want to fight, let's do it! Bring it on! Come -- ow, shit! That hurt!

I can do so, thanks to the fact that there is a US military

You're like still arguing for phlogiston here. It's ridiculous. You know, Canadians can say whatever they want to on the internet too. So can Mexicans, and South Africans.

No doubt this is all due to the sterling efforts of the US military, which is the only thing keeping Mexico, Canada and South Africa from being overrun by totalitarian...um...eskimos? French people? The Chinese Navy?

No doubt this is all due to the sterling efforts of the US military, which is the only thing keeping Mexico, Canada and South Africa from being overrun by totalitarian...um...eskimos? French people? The Chinese Navy?

Right. The fact that there is freedom in the world is because the US military has fought in various conflicts to preserve it or because there are no bad people in the world?

After the US threw Iraq out of Kuwait and then drove Serbia out of Kosovo, no doubt there were people like you who scratched your head in confusion. Were you saying to yourself, but I thought the US military was supposed to be the bad guy...

Stefan, make sure that you have nothing liquid in your mouth and you are sitting before you click this link

The fact that there is freedom in the world is because the US military has fought in various conflicts to preserve it

So you're saying we need 11 Carrier Battle Groups because we fought the Nazis and the Japs? Or is it because we deterred the USSR in 1962? See, defense strategy is supposed to be based on meeting threats that actually exist, not ones that existed 40-plus years ago.

So you're saying we need 11 Carrier Battle Groups because we fought the Nazis and the Japs? Or is it because we deterred the USSR in 1962? See, defense strategy is supposed to be based on meeting threats that actually exist, not ones that existed 40-plus years ago.

No, we need those carrier groups to project our force overseas so that we can protect our allies and our interests. Those darned carriers were pretty handy when they went to help the victims of the Tsunami, weren't they? And they came in handy when we had to liberate Kuwait and Kosovo. (two items you gloss over yet again.)

You've already proven yourself incapable of seeing the world as it really is. Pull the plug, send the carriers to the bottom, and the world will link arms and sing kumbayah, I guess...

Those darned carriers were pretty handy when they went to help the victims of the Tsunami, weren't they?

This is a perfectly idiotic justification for having Carrier Battle Groups; the really depressing thing is that it's also the justification presented by the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet. What does a carrier battle group cost, about $100 billion? If the mission were projecting emergency humanitarian relief to disaster areas, it could be accomplished vastly more effectively for 1/100th the cost. It's like justifying the space program with velcro and Tang. Of course we'd never actually spend the $1 billion to put together a dedicated mobile Asia-Pacific rapid-response humanitarian relief unit, because we don't really care that much about saving people. We'll gladly spend the $100 billion for the ships designed to kill people, though; and when a tsunami comes along we'll send it over to help out and get some nice PR, even though that's not really what the troops are trained to do and they're not as good at it as a dedicated humanitarian unit would be.

I backed the first Gulf War and the Kosovo war to the hilt. But neither of those wars had anything to do with a threat to the US. If US military power were always to be exercised in the service of broad multinational pro-democratic (and largely reactive) aims, it would be fine. The past 5 years have taught us that US military power will often be exercised in stupid, unilateral, homicidal and destabilizing ways. Given that reality, I would prefer there be far less of it. If future Kosovos threaten, let the Europeans pony up more of their share to cope with them; if future Gulf Wars threaten, let the Gulf states fend for themselves a bit. Maybe if they had to raise armies that would actually fight for their countries, they'd start relating more democratically to their people.

I backed the first Gulf War and the Kosovo war to the hilt.

But if we didn't have a US military and 11 carrier groups, we certainly couldn't have done anything to fight the wars that you now claim that you "backed."

You see, we have a military to defend the country against the threats that will occur, not the ones that you, joe blow sitting in Vietnam, approve of. And there is an incredible amount of waste when, at the end of the fiscal year, it turns out we didn't need four of those carrier groups because no one attacked us. Is it possible that no one attacked us because we had the resources to answer swiftly? Something we need to restore, and quickly, I might add.

Maybe if they had to raise armies that would actually fight for their countries, they'd start relating more democratically to their people.

So the person who opposes the US military just said that the people of the world--a world where there are no bad guys--need to raise up their own Armies and that will lead them to become more "democratic" in how they relate to people. A person convinced that the US military is oversized and evil is advocating the militarization of the world. I have to tell you--I've read a lot of pacifistic drivel, but the notion that mobilizing the entire world and putting an AK-47 in the hands of every able-bodied male will lead to more "democracy" strikes me as the most ridiculous thing you've said on the subject to date.

Do you realize just how mind-bogglingly stupid that is? You can withdraw the remark with no questions asked. I'm going to do for you what I do for friends and give you a mulligan on that one.

Iraq is dead. Murdered by Bush.

"This is an eternal war against terrorism. It’s like a war against dandruff. There’s no such thing as a war against terrorism. It’s idiotic. These are slogans. These are lies. It’s advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented and developed." - Gore Vidal

Norman, my dear old chappie,

the notion that mobilizing the entire world and putting an AK-47 in the hands of every able-bodied male will lead to more "democracy"

Introduction to Early Modern European History. Course #1636. Interstate rivalry and military strife in Europe from the Middle Ages on drove governments to innovate both ideologically, inventing ideas like citizenship and nationalism to rally popular support for standing armies, and financially, creating new mechanisms like government securities to raise the funds needed for warfare. Countries which were early innovators in citizenship and nationalism, like Britain and the Netherlands, displayed remarkable results, driving other countries to imitate them; principalities which didn't develop strong nationalist movements were incorporated. In contrast, areas governed as imperial colonies with regimes largely installed or propped up from afar, like the Balkan territories of the Ottoman Empire, retained weak feudal-style government structures, suffering from a lack of popular engagement, ineffective tax structures and chronic revenue shortages, and were ultimately dismembered by stronger nationalist states. Texts: Niall Ferguson et al. Discuss applicability to postcolonial Africa and Asia, contemporary Persian Gulf states. Iran vs. Saudi Arabia, compare and contrast.

But if we didn't have a US military and 11 carrier groups, we certainly couldn't have done anything to fight the wars that you now claim that you "backed."

In 1990 we inherited a Cold War legacy military. We had it, we used it, good on us. We don't need it any more. Kosovo is in the middle of Europe; the US didn't need 11 carrier battle groups to mount a joint air war with all of NATO against tiny little Serbia. In the future, it would be better if a reduction in American forces forced Europe to take more responsibility for preventing ethnic cleansing in Europe itself, rather than calling in the US.

Recently, someone explained to me, in response to my question about the US Navy combating piracy, that it is better in most areas for competent local governments to enforce their own security rather than have the US come in and do it for them. The gentleman in question is named Admiral Gary Roughead, and he is the commander of the United States Pacific Fleet. But perhaps you consider him mind-bogglingly stupid.

The gentleman in question is named Admiral Gary Roughead, and he is the commander of the United States Pacific Fleet.

When do we take away his carrier groups? And of course he doesn't want to fight piracy--he doesn't have enough ships. I think you should ask him if he thinks the Chinese pose a threat to Taiwan and to US interests in the region as a whole.

Up kind of late aren't you? Are the Vietnamese secret police coming for you? Or do you slumber behind the protection afforded to you by the Marines who guard the US embassy?

Do you realize just how mind-bogglingly stupid that is... Norman Rogers at 2:06 PM

I can tell you how stupid your crap is. That vaunted military did nothing to defend against 9-11. That trillion-dollar military is fighting two wars in third world countries and losing both. That vaunted military is one of the least cost-effective on the planet because of the revolving door of military industrial government pork. The American military has been used since 1898 as a means of spreading American corporate power and enables the US to suppress democratic movements around the planet.

The GWOT is a dream come true for the US military-industrial-corporate complex. Not something new, but something a lot bigger.

Are the Vietnamese secret police coming for you... Norman Rogers at 3:47 PM

Of course, I won't bring up the fact that the British Navy effectively ended piracy on the high seas and did so by projecting its force to every corner of the Earth. And who benefited from that in the post-Napoleonic era? Why Europe and the US, of course.

So if the British had gutted their Navy and left it up to the locals, would the locals have fared well against the pirates?

Mr. Bookfoe tries to quote an Admiral because he knows he has dug himself a vast and deep hole with no hope of escaping, and yet the very anecdote he fishes out of the ether in order to try to salvage his tattered argument blows up in his face like a firecracker on Chinese New Year.

The rest of you rally to his defense and denigrate the military--remember to thank a Veteran some day for giving you the freedom to tell everyone what you think, deep down in your cold, deluded hearts.

It'll be interesting to see if Cheney goes back to Halliburton in 2009.

They already broke ground on his bunker in Dubai....
Posted by: Disputo

It's in Montana if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure he has at least one other bolt hole. But in Montana he gets to do it on our dime (Secret Service). Already hardened with the finest security the taxpayers can provide. And he's long since moved his immense personal wealth off-shore into Euros...

When do we take away his carrier groups? And of course he doesn't want to fight piracy--he doesn't have enough ships.

I hope we take away his carrier groups as soon as possible; it doesn't seem to me that they're actually doing very much. The only exception is Taiwan, but there too, it seems to me like for defense of the island, it has to be vastly more efficient to base one's aircraft on a giant unsinkable aircraft carrier -- viz., Taiwan -- than on ships that can be sunk.

The American military has been used since 1898 as a means of spreading American corporate power and enables the US to suppress democratic movements around the planet.
Posted by: Mike

Bingo. What I was saying about McKinley's SecsofState (3)....if they'd had ICBs...

I hope we take away his carrier groups as soon as possible

Well, this much is obvious--you know nothing about how the world really works.

Of course, I won't bring up the fact that the British Navy effectively ended piracy on the high seas

You're right, you shouldn't have, since, as Adm. Roughead explained, the US Navy doesn't fight pirates. In the Pacific, they don't do it at all; they leave it up to Singapore and Malaysia in the Straits of Malacca. Off Africa, I've read elsewhere, they do a little, but it's an afterthought and not very effective. My tax dollars go to the US Navy today, so what the British Navy did in the 19th century is irrelevant.

...remember to thank a Veteran some day for giving ... Norman Rogers on March 19, 2007 at 4:15 PM

You're right, you shouldn't have, since, as Adm. Roughead explained, the US Navy doesn't fight pirates.

You are wrong.

US Navy Exchanges Gunfire With Suspected Pirates

Created by doina. Last modified on 2006-03-21 11:14:37
Topic: Piracy
Countries: Somalia

News agencies reported at the weekend that two U.S. Navy ships exchanged gunfire with suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia on Saturday March 18, killing one and wounding five. The battle occurred at about 5:40 a.m. local time, about 25 nautical miles off the Somali coast in international waters.

At the time, the USS Cape St. George, a guided missile cruiser, and the USS Gonzalez, a guided missile destroyer, were conducting maritime security operations as part of a Dutch-led task force.

They observed a 30-foot fishing boat towing smaller skiffs and prepared to board and inspect the vessels. The naval boarding team noticed the men were armed with what appeared to be rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The suspected pirates opened fire and the US warships returned fire with small arms. Several suspects were taken into custody.
------------------

US Navy Captures Suspected Somali Pirates

Created by doina. Last modified on 2006-01-23 10:09:17
Topic: Piracy
Countries: Eritrea, Oman, Somalia, Sudan

On Saturday January 21 the U.S. Navy boarded an suspected pirate ship about 50 miles off the Somali coast and detained a number of men for questioning.

The Navy said it captured the dhow in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur on Friday that said pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was passing some 200 miles off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

The Churchill shadowed the suspect vessel, and tried to make contact over the radio, before resorting to "aggressive manoeuvring in an attempt to stop the vessel". When this failed, "Churchill fired warning shots. The vessel cut speed and went dead in the water," the statements said. Later a number of sailors were taken off the vessel and a quantity of small arms was recovered.
---------------

U.S. Plans to Deploy Marines to Guard the Strait of Malacca

Created by doina. Last modified on 2004-04-22 21:46:40
Contributors:
Topic: Piracy
Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand

The Regional Maritime Security Initiative was disclosed during congressional testimony by Admiral Thomas Fargo, U.S. Pacific Commander. The proposal grew out of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led multinational group cooperating to halt the transfer of nuclear technology by land and sea.

Admiral Fargo told Congress that he expected "a broad range of support" from Southeast Asia as "all the countries are concerned about the trans-national threat. This is a pretty vast space, and no country can do this by itself."

Najib Razak, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister, objected to the idea as a question of national sovereignty.

Marty Natalegawa, an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman said, "The security of the Malacca strait is for Indonesia and Malaysia to shoulder. Therefore, we will not accept any policies or steps that are inconsistent with that reality."

Both countries complained that they had not been briefed on the proposal by U.S. officials. International security experts have expressed concern about the vulnerability of shipping in the strait, through which a quarter of the world's trade passes every day.

More than 40 percent of global piracy attacks last year occurred in Southeast Asian waters, with oil and gas tankers a prime target, raising fears that a terrorist group could hijack a tanker and blow it up to block the strait or devastate a busy port such as Singapore. Although Malaysia has cracked down on piracy, Indonesia is considered ineffective in combating it.

You have 2 incidents in all of 2006, both off of Africa, as I mentioned; and one plan from 2004 to deploy to the Straits of Malacca, which, in view of Adm. Roughead's statements, is obviously no longer operative. He specifically said there was no US anti-piracy effort in the Straits of Malacca and that Malaysia and Singapore could take care of the problem.

But hey, the Navy shot up pirates off of Somalia in 2006 -- twice! That'll run those bastards off the high seas.

So Mr. Bookfoe says...

You're right, you shouldn't have, since, as Adm. Roughead explained, the US Navy doesn't fight pirates.

And when you prove him wrong, he's not wrong.

Interesting debate tactic. Too bad you can't string together a coherent thought and admit you were wrong. But that would mean you're capable of actually learning something. If you had just said, 'oh, I did not know of these incidents; I was wrong' you wouldn't look so foolish.

You'd look like someone worth debating. Sadly, you're not worth continuing this process with.

"Are you aware of the rise of Chinese influence in Latin America and in the Chinese presence in the Panama Canal Zone?"

Do you mean Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong based company run by Li Ka Shing, the famous Hong Kong billionaire? The billionaire whose primary funding has traditionally come from HSBC that hardline Communist run - er British owned, London based bank?

Hutchison Whampoa run many of the worlds large ports and the reason they do it is because they do it better and more professionally than the companies that ran them before.

They also manage to make huge profit doing it too.

However, they do NOT do the following things Norman Rogers:

1. They do not run the complete cargo security operations. This is the responsibility of the government in whose country the port is.

2. Run PLA soldiers, sailers and airmen in disguise as dockworkers, stevedores or lightermen waiting for the signal from Zhongnanhai to take over the world.

Clive Cussler has a bee in his bonnet about Chinese taking over the US, maybe he's barking, what's your excuse for this lame arsed argument?

Also if you are really worried about the influence of the Chinese, perhaps you could have a word with the President. Just point out that the Bank of China is directly financing the country at this point because Bush wouldn't know a budget if it slapped in the face.

Norman, you're such a loser. You: we need to give the US Navy hundreds of billions of dollars because the British Navy suppressed international piracy in days of yore. Me: the US Navy is not the British Navy, it doesn't fight pirates at all in the Pacific, it does fight the occasional pirate off East Africa but that's an afterthought that has no significant effect; I have a personal interview with the commander of the US Pac Fleet to prove the former. You: look, I have 2 incidents of the US Navy fighting pirates off East Africa! And a report that in 2004 at some point the Marines were planning to deploy something in the Straits of Malacca! Me: like I said, a couple of random instances off East Africa that have no real effect, and a plan to deploy in the Straits of Malacca that is clearly no longer operative. You: I have proven you wrong and you must admit it!

I was right, you loser. You think the US fights pirates in the Pacific, find me an instance from this year, or call up the Navy and ask whether their actual policy contradicts what the commander of the US Pac Fleet told me. You think US anti-piracy efforts in the Indian Ocean are significant, find me more than two gunfights over an entire year. You're using the same standards of evidence that allow conservatives to say "Saddam DID have WMDs!" It's pathetic, and everyone knows you and your kind are doomed.

I was right, you loser.

But wait a minute...

You're right, you shouldn't have, since, as Adm. Roughead explained, the US Navy doesn't fight pirates.

-two U.S. Navy ships exchanged gunfire with suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia

-On Saturday January 21 the U.S. Navy boarded an suspected pirate ship about 50 miles off the Somali coast and detained a number of men for questioning.

-special operations forces like the Navy’s Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen and their special boats have been involved in counter-piracy operations off Iraq.

and from 2006:

-When USS Winston S. Churchill captured the earlier-mentioned pirate vessel, she was operating as part of a multinational task force assigned to patrol the western Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa region as a deterrent to piracy and terrorism. The International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was founded specifically to combat the problem. Law enforcement agencies all over the world recognize the growing threat, and they're learning to communicate and cooperate more quickly and more effectively in response to reports of pirate activity. The world is gearing up to take on the bad guys, and -- as usual -- the United States Navy is in the thick of the fight.

I think most Americans already know that our Navy is heavily involved in the war on terror. Many people are also aware that Navy ships routinely go after smugglers and drug runners. But I have to wonder how many citizens of this country know that the United States Navy is engaged in a fierce and ongoing battle against modern day pirates.

Either they do or they don't son; you're wrong and you're hopping mad.

Stop being pathetic and admit you were wrong. Have a nice day.

...find me an instance from this year

Okay:

U.S. navy eyes hijacked Somalia aid ship Updated 2/26/2007 9:54 PM

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Three Somali police speedboats and a U.S. military vessel were headed Monday toward a U.N.-chartered cargo ship hijacked by pirates, a senior police official said. Piracy has been rampant off the Somali coast.

Somali pirates boarded the MV Rozen — which had just delivered a total of 1,884 tons of food aid in northern Somalia — on Sunday, taking the crew hostage, officials said. It is the third U.N.-chartered ship to be hijacked in Somali waters since 2005.

Police boats were within sight of the ship "but we asked them to stop going further because our biggest concern is the safety of the crew of 12 on board," said Col. Abdi Ali Hagaafe, police chief of the Bari region.

"We have asked the U.S. navy in the Red Sea ... to help us in the operation, and they told us they have started to move towards the ship," he said.

The ship is not in international waters, but "U.S./Coalition forces are in the area and are monitoring the situation," said Lt. Denise Garcia of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command based in Bahrain.

Somali pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and Global Positioning System equipment. They typically are armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades, according to the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia.

The militiamen target passenger, cargo and fishing vessels for ransom or loot, using the money to buy weapons. Somalia's 1,860-mile coastline is Africa's longest.

Now, do you want me to find an instance from March or January or are you, umm, pretty much without any credibility or dignity at this point? Which is it then?

Oh, and you never specified where the US Navy does or does not fight pirates; you just said:

the US Navy doesn't fight pirates.

And I've proven to you, conclusively, that it does fight pirates.

I used to do this to a fellow named rmck1. He would make some outlandish statement and hop up and down and steam would shoot out of his ears when he was proven to be demonstrably and completely wrong and he would use the most foul and unpleasant language. Do not become the new rmck1, Mr. Bookfoe. It is unbecoming of a person to have that kind of a public meltdown. And it clogs the old blog with someone's personal problems, and we simply do not need that...

A little more reading for you, because ignorance is a disease you cure with a love of learning and sharing!

Admiral Fallon pledges to fight terror, piracy in Straits of Malacca February 27, 2006 Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The United States on Monday pledged to help combat the threat of piracy and terrorism in the Straits of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Details of the cooperation will be planned after Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore sign a pact in April outlining standard operating procedures for maritime security, said Adm. William Fallon, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, which includes U.S. forces in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. ....

He noted that U.S. support for Indonesia’s military could be made more readily available after the United States lifted a six-year long arms embargo on Jakarta in November as a reward for its cooperation in the war on terror. The ban was originally imposed to protest human rights abuses by Indonesian troops.

Oh, another!

The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Vern Clark would like to see more nations help in conducting such searches. Speaking in October to navy and coast guard leaders from 75 countries at the 16th International Seapower Symposium in Newport, R.I., Clark called for “a worldwide coalition of military and law enforcement organizations� to police the world’s oceans.

“This coalition would share information to track shipping around the world to end the illegal exploitation of our sea lines of communication and stop terrorism at its root,� Clark said.

It is imperative to protect the world’s sea lanes, Clark said. “Thirty percent of the world’s economy depends on trade. [A total of] 99.7 percent of all intercontinental trade travels by sea, carried by [more than] 46,000 vessels, servicing nearly 4,000 ports.�

Attacks against these shipments are on the rise. “During the first half of [2003], there was a record of 234 reported attacks against seafarers,� Clark said. “This was the worst six-month period since the International Maritime Bureau started compiling piracy statistics in 1991, and a full 34 percent increase over the same period last year.�

Piracy is a form of terrorism, Clark said. “It’s clear that we, as leaders of the navies and coast guards of the world, have the shared responsibility to keep our oceans free from terror and allow our nations to prosper.�

Special bonus article to drive you batty, sir:

Combating Piracy and Terror in the Pacific
By Richard Halloran

Far from the political upheaval in Washington and the continuing carnage in Iraq, the navies of the Pacific are girding themselves to provide more of the maritime security that is vital to their expanding economies.

In particular, the U.S. and Asian navies are seeking to prevent the terror that has been spreading on land in Asia from moving to sea where it would threaten the lifelines of all but the landlocked nations of the region.

These navies, however, are not doing so well in working together to prevent the shipment of nuclear weapons and missiles from North Korea to terrorists in Southeast Asia or elsewhere. Led by South Korea, which has been seeking an accommodation with North Korea, several navies have balked at searching North Korean ships on the high seas.

A U.S. naval intelligence report on terror in Asia says: "The number and lethality of attacks are growing as smaller, decentralized jihadist groups increase the violence against local political, security, and communal targets." Many assaults occurred in the Philippines and southern Thailand.

In 2006, the report said, 1015 people have been killed in 491 attacks, compared with 880 killed in 373 assaults last year. Safe havens for terrorists have been discovered in Bangladesh, the site of much civil strife, in Burma, Laos, and Papua New Guinea.

Both U.S. naval intelligence and the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which tracks piracy worldwide, reported a decline in sea robbery as navies and coast guards have gone on the offensive. Piracy around Indonesia dropped to 40 incidents in the Jan-Sept period, compared with 61 in the same time last year. Even so, Indonesia still had the world's worst record for piracy.

The potential for a link-up between pirates and terrorists remains, the intelligence report says. Some 70,000 ships pass through the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea every year carrying half of the world's oil and a third of its commerce. A ship scuttled or blown up in those sea-lanes would cause unpredictable economic and political disruption.

The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Mullen, told a recent naval symposium in Honolulu: "These ideologues, pirates, proliferators, criminals, and terrorists are prevalent throughout the coastal regions that we are all obligated to protect." He asserted: "Without maritime cooperation, we cannot hope to effectively battle these forces of instability."

Grrrr! says the crabby little bear...

the US Navy doesn't fight pirates.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

February 18, 2007
Adm. Fallon Reflects on Leaving Pacific
By Richard Halloran
...In the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Singaporean forces have reduced piracy and, so far, prevented a tie-up between pirates and terrorists. "They are doing it," Fallon said, "and we are helping in the background."

Asia Times, Feb 21, 2007
China's strategic Southeast Asian embrace
By David Fullbrook
The US administration's emphasis on securing counter-terrorism cooperation from countries in the region has taken precedence over most cordial diplomacy and reportedly rendered bilateral relations awkward with Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia....Both those countries have recently rejected as an infringement of sovereignty Washington's offer to send US Navy ships to help crack down on the pirates in the congested Strait of Malacca - which coincidentally is also where an estimated 75% of China's fuel imports travel through.

Care to provide any more out-of-date articles there Mr. Rogers?

Piracy in the Strait of Malacca
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Piracy in the Strait of Malacca has historically been an unresolved threat to ship owners and the mariners who ply the 900km-long (550 miles) sea lane. However recent coordinated patrols by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore; along with increased security on vessels have sparked a dramatic downturn in piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).[1]

Poor Mr. Bookfoe.

Slicing and dicing articles to show little or nothing doesn't refute the fact that the US Navy does, indeed, fight piracy.

A hint to you sir--when the guns of a US Navy vessel are used to defeat pirates and when the US Navy uses intelligence to track and chase pirates, that is what is called fighting them. I realize that you cannot fathom what this means to your credibility, but as you boil and fester with rage, consider this--I have never been defeated and I have never, ever walked away from a battle. I have my two fists for typing and for clearing rowdy bars--I call them Archibald and Haymaker--and I have a brain that has bested far better than you, sir. Because I have such a well-developed brain, Archibald and Haymaker usually have nothing to do.

Please, sir. You're dissolving into nothingness. Your credibility is all but gone. Let this convince you of the impossibility of ever retrieving your shattered credibility:

-----------------------------------------------
Homeland Security: Navy Operations -- Background and Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service Report for Congress

Ronald O'Rourke
Specialist in National Defense
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress
Updated 2 June 2005

Summary
The Department of Defense (DOD), which includes the Navy, has been designated the lead federal agency for homeland defense (HLD), while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes the Coast Guard, has been designated the lead federal agency for homeland security (HLS). Several Navy activities contribute to HLS and HLD. The Navy's HLS and HLD operations raise several potential oversight issues for Congress, including Navy coordination with the Coast Guard in HLS and HLD operations. This report will be updated as events warrant.

Background

Key Terms And Definitions.1 In discussing the Navy's homeland security operations, key terms include homeland security (HLS), homeland defense (HLD), civil support (CS), maritime domain awareness (MDA), the global war on terrorism (GWOT), and anti-terrorism/force protection (AT/FP). These terms are discussed briefly below. The maritime elements of HLS and HLD are abbreviated MHLS and MHLD, respectively.

Navy officials, following the National Strategy for Homeland Security, define homeland security as "a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, to reduce vulnerability to terrorism, and to minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur." Following the Defense Planning Guidance for FY2004-FY2009, Navy officials define homeland defense as "the protection of U.S. territory, sovereignty, domestic population, and critical infrastructure against external threats and aggression," and civil support as "Department of Defense (DOD) support to U.S. civil authorities for domestic emergencies and for designated law enforcement and other activities." Under these definitions, there is some overlap between HLS and HLD, particularly with regard to protecting against terrorist attacks within the United States, and some overlap between HLS and CS, particularly with regard to responding to effects of terrorist attacks within the United States.

Navy officials define maritime domain awareness as "the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, or economy of the United States." MDA, Navy officials state, "globally links coordinating commands, helps to define the initial battlespace, and is a national-level mission requiring cooperative efforts by many different departments, agencies, and civilian organizations." Examples of potential maritime threats to be detected by MDA, Navy officials state, include terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, piracy, arms trafficking, narcotics smuggling, other criminal activities, and mass migrations. The Coast Guard has identified the achievement of MDA as a key goal, and has identified specific programs in its budget as supporting MDA.

Maritime Domain Awareness

The document you have reproduced above proves conclusive that the US Navy considers it part of its mission to be AWARE of piracy.

This is the best you can do? Hey, I'm aware of the North Korean nuclear program. Guess that means I fight nuked up badguys! Toe to toe with the enemy, baby! Somebody give me $150 billion please.

The document you have reproduced above proves conclusive that the US Navy considers it part of its mission to be AWARE of piracy.

Yes, it also has to be "aware" of terrorism, proliferation of WMD, arms trafficking, narcotics smuggling, other criminal activities and mass migrations.

The Navy exists to fight, contain or control these things. It does not exist to sail blithely past these things with its head in the sand and do nothing. It answers some of these things with gunfire, with boarding, with force, and with humanitarian assistance where needed. It does not IGNORE these things when it is AWARE of these things and, thank the Creator, when the US Navy becomes AWARE of a situation, it DOES SOMETHING about that situation.

Really, you should abandon all hope at this point and hope your employers don't find out what a nincompoop you really are.

The Navy exists to fight, contain or control these things.....Norman Rogers at 11:07 AM

"Afloat Training Group Hosts Food Show"

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Norman, how many times in 2006 did US naval vessels engage pirates?

Pacific: 0
Atlantic: 0
Indian: looks like about 4 by my count, all off of Somalia

How many incidents of piracy were there in 2006?

The IMB's Piracy Reporting Center says 239 actual attacks, and it looks like about half as many "attempted" attacks; both are obviously undercounts. Only 4 of those "actual attacks" were in the vicinity of Somalia, which is the only area where the US Navy engaged any pirates. There were far more pirate attacks in West Africa (no US intervention), the Caribbean (no US intervention), and most important the Eastern Indian and Pacific Oceans (no US intervention).

The US Navy fights pirates like the FBI fights traffic violations. If you double park in front of an FBI agent, he might do something about it. We spend $170 billion a year on the Navy; they engage pirates a few times a year, and only in one area, the Horn of Africa. That's not a serious justification for the money we're spending, and it's not doing anything serious to stamp out piracy. The ICC's Int'l Maritime Bureau considered the Islamic Courts government of Somalia (which we just helped topple, brilliant) to be doing more to combat piracy off of Somalia than the US Navy was doing; and that's the only place where the US Navy WAS doing anything.

Mr. David Brooks does not have much of a foe...

thank the Creator, when the US Navy becomes AWARE of a situation, it DOES SOMETHING about that situation.

Except for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, that is, where despite being AWARE of piracy, it does nothing. Whoops, sorry 'bout that, Creator.