Bush blew it.

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

No, probably not in the way most people mean it. He took office shortly before the defining event of our times, and I don’t think anyone (except Gobbo, who’s sure he orchestrated it) could reasonably blame him for it. He began in “interesting times”, under the most extraordinary of circumstances. He stood at the brink of history, staring across the gulf- and whiffed. He had the opportunity to be great, but he utterly squandered it.

Sure, many of you who are very partisan probably wanted him to fail, but I think for most of us there’s a “honeymoon phase” where we really want the new president to succeed. But in almost every fork in the road where a wise man may have took one direction, he chose the other.

2

Yup, Bush has really been a big disapointment. Back in 2000 I though a “conservative” president would cut taxes and reduce government spending. But really all that has happened was tax cuts with a massive growth in government. I might not be the best at math but if you spend MORE than you make that doesn’t work that well. Not to mention his other various issues.

3

I think that it’s because Americans, and some Europeans, have a fantasy of what war is and how it should be fought. A country like the US should have moved in, crushed the entire population until they begged for friendship, and then occupy the region forever.

Instead, they opted for a friendly approach, which had almost no shock and awe to it, well maybe awe geez, is what it amounted to.

4

Excellent observation, Mr. P. I completely agree. The US no longer has what it takes to win a war of this type. We’re too fargin’ soft.

For having one of the most expensive and technologically advanced militaries in the world, we sure have found a way to screw up a lot of wars in the last 60 years.

5

Yes, the US should stop having any kind of war at all until their culture changes.

The instant after 911 happened voices were heard blaming the US and supporting the enemy. Currently, complaints are being made about time and money spent and not about ideals. People complain about soldiers getting killed, when that’s part of the job. Most importantly, the average person seems to view oil as an abstraction rather than a vital part of the society/political movement’s supply line.

War seems to be 90% abstraction and 10% reality for most Americans, and I suppose that has to do with geography and capitalist greed that’s part of the culture. When the question “what’s in it for me” can’t be answered or seen over the shortest possible time limit, then investment is lost.

6

Exactly! Time to change my sig.

7

I think it’s true.

War is about total domination until you either kill everyone via genocide or they beg you to be friends. For Americans the Japanese are a great example of this outcome.

The current war is being handled like a police action in a friendly country, and it’s not.

8

I don’t agree with that assessment, because it does not take into account a crucial difference between the war against the Japanese in World War II, and the war in Iraq today: the government of Iraq IS friendly to us. (Since we created it, that should come as no surprise.)

The Japanese fought very, very hard until their government surrendered, and thereafter they cooperated. In Iraq, though, the defeat of the government and its military was not the end of the current war but its beginning. We DID hit Iraq very hard during the phase of the conflict that resembles World War II even superficially: the first phase, when we were fighting against the Iraqi government and military. It was much shorter than World War II and cost much, much fewer casualties because Saddam Hussein was a weaker enemy than Hirohito or Hitler.

When we occupied Germany and Japan after World War II, our occupation troops didn’t “kill everyone via genocide until they begged us to be friends.” And THAT is the stage of World War II that parallels the current Iraq war – not the war itself but its aftermath.

This whole business is a different situation for which conventional war offers no parallels and no good advice.

9

I see the current war as irrelevant to 911. I think any possible link has been utterly debunked, even to the most right-leaning partisan. Not that toppling Saddam was a bad idea, necessarily. But it was done with the maximum possible level of incompetance, IMOHO.

10

Japan was broken and so was Germany.

By the end of the war the average German was half starved and happy to see the allies. Some spots were firebombed into oblivion, so the people left alive were in quite a situation. The Japanese were shocked and awed in a state of…

constant lasting Stockholm Syndrome.

That’s what you do in a war, and until your interested in that, then stay away.

11

stop.

look at the big picture.

the war in iraq is just a front in the war on iran. (which is just another front in the war against islamo fascism)

did we stop freeing europe after the liberation of paris?

think about it.

and what do you think happens when we stop and pull out after we get to the rhine?

-Imp

12

How big a factor do you suppose tv-journalism is in not winning any more wars?

13

It’s by no means over. And even successfully occupying Iraq with overwhelming force would not have stopped Iranians from causing trouble until the end. The president of Iran seems to be prepared to sacrifice his country in the battle against what he sees as the Great Satan. But I think this is relative to America’s competence.
Rumsfeld blew it with his minimalistic approach - Bush is still in office, and I’ve read this new secreatary of defense has ideas about cooperating with Iran and Syria. If the US is to pursue that course, political stability might still be in the making.
If Iran isn’t forced into a new treaty of Versailles, where it is left humilated and deprived, there will be no cause for Islamo-facism there, and when there’s no cause for it in Iran there is no cause for it globally. The neocons were intent on making the same mistake again - perhaps the new government will be wiser.

14

The crucial thing is that the population of Iran is not arab/semitic but aryan/persian, and has, from a cultural heritage, more in common with Europa than with most countries in the Middle East.
Add to that the muslim nations allready on ‘our’ side like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the small rich ones favoring the west above ascetic Ayatollah’s like Jordan, Quatar, Oman, Kuwait, etc, and one sees the problems might not be as big as they seem now. The biggest success of the ‘terrorists’ is that they have managed to appear powerful by blowing up more Iraki’s than the Americans would. It is not hard to see that many Iraki’s will therefore favor the Americans over the terrorists when they get the chance. Give Iran some respect, cut the bastards some slack. They’ll cooperate - the people will demand that.

15

Japan was DIFFERENT and so was Germany.

Machiavelli talked about this, I believe. The difference is between a country with strong social unity and one without. A strongly unified country, with a tradition of obedience to established authority, is hard to conquer but easy to rule. A weakly unified country that is always in turmoil and internal unrest is easy to conquer but hard to rule.

Japan and Germany were the former type. Iraq is the latter.

I’d come to the same conclusion you did – we shouldn’t have gone in in the first place – but it’s important to get there by the right road, for future reference.

16

It’s huge.

I can’t remember his name at the moment, but there was a new anchor for ABC news that got shot in the head over there, and now has brain damage. The night before that happened I was watching a story of his and was shocked. He spent a large part of the story at an ice cream shop talking to Iraqi ice cream makers. Then he gets part of his brain blown out.

That situation paints a picture of an innocent American model type, many on TV seem more model than not, creating a story that focuses on their idea of a nice world, but then getting punished for it. That a microcosmic symbol of the whole conflict.

I also believe that Americans are having trouble viewing war outside of their frame of reference. It seems that a police model is being placed over the war. Wars are about mass action to crush a mass activity. Police are more like surgeons in that they go in an get specific people. In a war, you attack everyone and make them hate their own people until everyone gives up on the ideals they initially supported.

The news media approaches the subject in a myopic fashion.

17

No, that’s not the point.

I’m only sort of trying to be funny here, but the trick is that you get the most haunty person in the country to offer a good cock sucking for a chocolate bar, then you’ve won. Then, instead of taking the knob job, you pat them on the shoulder give them the chocolate and then wipe their tears away.

That’s how you do it, and it works because the extreme need of the people wipes away the luxury of their oppositional belief systems.

18

Mr. Predictable, there was no way for us to win in Iraq.

Or, no, let me revise that. There was a way, once we accepted and acknowledged that we were going in to conquer, not to liberate. In that case, we could have resolved to occupy, clamp down, and brutalize the Iraqi people into submission, not merely until they surrendered, but forever.

No chocolate bars. That’s totally unrealistic. You do that, and the guy that was offering you a blowjob before will shoot you in the back as soon as you let your guard down. Take the blowjob instead. Completely humiliate him. And keep doing it.

Of course, there’s nothing in Iraq that is worth that approach, nor will the American people stand for it. But that’s how it could be done, and the ONLY way it could be done.

That’s what I meant by saying that Germany and Japan were fundamentally different from Iraq. Germany and Japan could be beaten, brought to acknowledge their mistakes in backing Hitler or the Japanese militarists, and released thereafter.

Germany and Japan are highly civilized and advanced nations, very disciplined and obedient in their culture. They are unified nations that show no signs of splitting apart and fighting a civil war if they’re not clamped down on. Moreover, they are nations that followed Hitler or the militarists willingly. Sure, Hitler was a dictator once martial law was declared, but before that he was elected legitimately as Chancellor, and even after that he was wildly popular with the Germans until the war started to go sour.

Why can’t you see that none of that is true about Iraq? It’s not highly civilized and advanced; it’s still stuck in the Middle Ages. It’s not disciplined or obedient in its culture, except perhaps to God, and that only provokes fanaticism. It’s not a unified nation but one patched together out of three nations that hate each other’s guts. And Saddam wasn’t a popular ruler, he was a tyrant propped up by American support until either he turned agaisnt us or vice-versa – not entirely clear to me which.

What worked in Germany and Japan would not work in Iraq. As far as turning it into a unified, peaceful, friendly democracy, I can’t see anything that would work.

19

As far as Iraq being a split nation, I’d say blame the British. It wouldn’t suprise me if they had set up Iraq for failure in the begining.

20

We did stop short of Eatern Europe and the USSR as I recall.

The characterization of the Iraq war as incomplete disregards the number and type of munitions used. People hear the term “smart bomb” and think all we are doing in Iraq is removing key targets with minimal loss of life or suffering. The truth is that Cluster munitions and White Phosphorous, both things we have employed in Iraq, do not discriminate. neither does depleted uranium, should this government finally get around to admitting its curious side effects, something I have read even the British government has done.

The truth is Iraq was a nation already defeated once and subjected to ten years of sanctions which, arguably, led to the deaths of over 500,000 civilians.

I don’t know how much more bloodthirsty you would like us to be, Mr. P, but its is hard to shuffle around the world with our veneer of supposed moral superiority with the blood of dead children splattered on our clothes. The reason the war is spun as being half fought is so to retain our particularly American belief that God is on our side, because God would not favor baby killers.

But the truth is we have killed plenty of Iraqi’s, directly or indirectly, and the only result is that Iraq will most likely become a failed state, with us along only hastening its failure.

And this too belies the entire “Iran is next” fantasy… because in this instance, the nation that will profit the most from this war will be Iran. America has lost its political will to remain in Iraq. There is no more mandate. At this point the calls to return the troops home will grow… and it may not be this year, or ten years, but Iran will fill in the vacuum left by our absence. They wil influence the Shia majority of Iraq, if not directly incorporate them, and they will become THE regional power in the Middle East. Bush stood at the precipice of History alright… and he dove in head first.