The Architecture of Perpetual War
Of late, many of the nation’s literati have preoccupied themselves with a mendacious New York Times op-ed column by a couple of think tank hacks named Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, the burden of which is that, by golly, the glorious Surge really is working. Of course, the whole thing was a put-up job, sold on the man-bites-dog pretence that the two authors were longtime critics of the Bush administration who had gone to Iraq and seen the light. Their performance is deftly skewered here.
But as edifying as it might be for us to wallow in the discrediting of Messrs. O’Hanlon and Pollack, the piece is rather unimportant in itself – merely one of a thousand bits of semi-official war propaganda, essentially backward-looking as it attempts to vindicate the disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Our eyes alighted upon a more fruitful field for analysis in the form of a column by two other think tank hacks, Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution (not coincidentally, the place of employment for Mr. O’Hanlon as well), and Robert Kagan of the catastrophically misnamed Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The piece is ominously titled “The Next Intervention.” Just when we thought two cloddishly mismanaged wars at the same time in Iraq and Afghanistan might chill the American appetite for military intervention, the authors rush to assure us that the dreadful prospect of a few years of peace can be safely ruled out. Why? “Despite the problems and setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, America remains the world’s dominant military power, spends half a trillion dollars a year on defense and faces no peer strong enough to deter it if it chooses to act.” Might makes right apparently. Rather than fighting on behalf of some morally unimpeachable cause, the principal reason the authors advance for going to war is because we can do it. This is, in fact, the opposite of “peace through strength,” and suggests that critics of Pentagon spending were right all along in their assertion that more spending equals more war.
Mindful of the idiotic way in which the Bush administration handled diplomacy in the run-up to their Mesopotamian Blitzkrieg, the authors concede that getting other countries to sign off on our wars is a good thing. For one thing, it sells war to the Better Sort of People in America (the ones who shop at Whole Foods, watch PBS, can find foreign countries on a map, and are likely to be reading one’s op-ed in the Washington Post): “It matters to Americans, who want to believe they are acting justly and are troubled if others accuse them of selfish, immoral or otherwise illegitimate behavior.” Horrors, the mortification of being accused, as a right-thinking American, of such low-class behavior! As well to receive a nasty letter from one’s homeowner’s association berating one for not cutting the lawn. After all, if the Frogs are on board as well as the Brits, it makes the war more Atlanticist and gives everyone a dose of righteous nostalgia for the Euro-American solidarity of the cold war.
But the problem, as Messrs. Daalder and Kagan see it, is that damned United Nations. We aren’t ever likely again to be in a situation like 1950, when the Russians boycotted the Security Council, so there will always be a permanent member able and willing to veto a U.S. military intervention. We need to overcome this problem because, as the authors pompously remind us, “Toppling Saddam Hussein was a just act and therefore was inherently legitimate.” That is no doubt a great comfort to the next of kin of the 600,000 or so “excess mortalities” that the British medical journal Lancet estimates have occurred pursuant to the U.S. invasion.
The solution? – a “Concert of the Democracies” to replace the United Nations. One can almost hear the director cuing the inspirational music, à la the “Why We Fight” series. Nowhere, of course, do the authors define what a democracy is. If it means majoritarianism via one-man-one-vote, then the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College would have difficulty passing muster. If it means the rule of law maintained by such bedrock principles as habeas corpus, there will be a lot of embarrassed coughing behind the hand in Washington’s think tanks.
Even on more practical grounds, one can find insuperable problems with this scheme. One could point to any number of indubitable democracies in Latin America that, from bitter experience, would hesitate a long time before giving a blank check to Washington to intervene wherever it liked. In all likelihood, the authors’ vision, were it ever realized, would amount to no more that the same “coalition of the willing” we have in Iraq, i.e., a smallish group of subservient and/or well-bribed countries. It has, in fact, always been the administration’s preference to act as the capo among a group of clients, rather than as one sovereign country dealing with others of the same status. The op-ed piece so neatly fits the administration’s line, in fact, that it might as well have been drafted in the White House basement.
Much has been written about the military industrial complex: its obscene cost overruns; the corrupt relations between the uniformed military, the contractors, and Congress; the wild threat inflation. Too little studied has been the role of ostensibly non-partisan think tanks as the semi-official propaganda arm of the complex, and as the transmission belt of propaganda themes between the government and the prestige press. While the activity of the American Enterprise Institute as a propaganda organ is widely known because of its tub-thumping for the Iraq war and its championing of Iranian spy Achmed Chalibi, the same charge applies, to a greater or lesser degree, to most of the “prestige” think tanks: Brookings, Carnegie, CSIS, the Hudson Institute, etc.
They are an integral part of the government’s two-track propaganda machine for selling war. For the downscale end of the market, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Michael Savage will do nicely. Their braying voices and crude arguments are finely calibrated to reach every low-status white male out in satellite dish country. The notion that it’s even theoretically a good idea to have world opinion on America’s side before it embarks on war would be derided as sissy stuff in such precincts. One recalls the eve of the Iraq war, when the visceral hatred of the French in the Murdoch gutter press actually exceeded the vituperation against Saddam Hussein.
But to convince the professionals, the academics, the people who show up at the various world affairs councils which dot the provinces, it is critically useful to have mediators like Messrs. Daalder and Kagan. The Better Sort roughly corresponds to the National Bourgeoisie in Wilhelmine Germany or the outer Nomenklatura in the Soviet Union. They may not send their kids to war in any appreciable numbers, but their support for war is crucial to any administration. The more tender-minded of the Better Sort, in particular, lust in a most alarming way for some sort of “humanitarian” intervention they could support. It is the task of the Daalders and Kagans to toss around terms like “genocide” to provide a humanitarian gloss to whichever invasion advocacy project they are promoting at the moment. (One rather doubts a bunch of fuzzy-minded do-gooders was able to finance the recent campaign to intervene in Darfur that included full-page advertisements in the prestige papers and 60-second spots on television; there must have been more substantial interests involved. Although the “invade Sudan” lobby has thus far failed in its aim, it must be admitted that the target country of Sudan was a poor prospect: with a head of government not one person in ten thousand could name, it lacked an identifiable Hitler; and with a technology base more suited to the stone age than the space age, the fearmongers and threat inflators could hardly suggest WMD without eliciting laughter. When President Clinton dispatched cruise missiles against a Khartoum aspirin factory, the operation was not wildly popular, even among normally bellicose Republicans. One suspects the latter regarded it as an unwelcome distraction from their relentless drive to impeach him. If so, it was a rare case of domestic concerns trumping national security issues.)
Note as well, that in the division of propaganda labor between the roughneck demagogues and the think tank chin-scratchers, the propaganda themes to promote a given policy are disparate or even contradictory. The Limbaughs and the O’Reillys sell a frank brand of gutter patriotism emphasizing the joys of killing foreigners. If there is any policy reason that appeals to the target audience, it is likely to be something direct and tangible, like the acquisition of valuable resources such as oil. On the flip side, the fear used to motivate Limbaugh Nation is some comic book level bugaboo, such as the notion that an Islamic army will physically invade and conquer America. (Lest the reader think we exaggerate here, internet columnist Glenn Greenwald has written about exactly how prevalent this fantasy is among the Right Wing.)
That sort of thing won’t sell with the Better Sort. Ideally, we are fighting, after a vigorous and probing national debate, and much searching of souls, for a better world, to prevent genocide, to stop female circumcision, or for credibility with our allies. If there is an overriding fear that motivates the Better Sort, it is that old nemesis of the MacNeil-Lehrer set, “regional instability.” While the lumpenproles seethe with apocalyptic visions of hand-to-hand combat with the minions of the Caliphate in downtown Paducah, the Better Sort’s fantasies parse like a graduate seminar from hell. Mr. Daalder and Mr. Kagan are only too happy to feed the conceits of the class that nurtured them on behalf of the government that employs them at one remove.
The day before yesterday it was Vietnam; yesterday it was Kosovo; today it is Iraq. Tomorrow it could be Iran, or Belarus, or Venezuela, or any one of a dozen prospects. The duty of the think tank hacks is to make war seem not only inevitable, but respectable in the eyes of the Better Sort.
Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst.
Comments
It seems we, that is Americans, don’t have much choice having been hoisted on the horns of a dilemma by irresponsible leaders over the last 50 years, elected or otherwise. I have no sympathy for the United Nations, an artificial construct that has replaced the Catholic Church as the moral arbiter of national differences, or for those political prostitutes who pursue internationalism under the guise of bringing freedom and democracy to the world (the global village) for the sake of vested interests,i.e., international bankers, Israel, transnational corporations, and Freemasonry. The only real choice we have is to vote for Ron Paul and let us see where the chips fall. He is the man to cut the Gordian Knot of an insane foreign policy that endangers us all.
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It’s long past time for a serious public exposure of the think tanks. I used to go to a blog called talismangate. it was, and I guess still is, run by a guy who was part of the iraqi national congress. He was and is a big chalabi supporter. I couldn’t even believe what I was reading. Not only was this jerk not in jail, he was being paid by a think tank as if curveball never existed. I’m sure he’s been on C Span and dennis pragers radio program numerous times. why is this considered okay? it’s just wrong
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A Concert of Democracies??????
Our President has unjustly been forced to defend his foreign policy of “spreading democracy” to the poor peoples of the Middle East and other areas of the world. History has long shown us that a democratic government, “the rule of men”, is vastly preferable to a republican form of government, “the rule of law”.
The virtue of democracy was recognized long ago as Rome was transitioning from an isolationist republic to a democratic empire destined to provide “Pax Romana” to the world. The great Seneca commended democracy to us, stating “Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants”. Likewise, (as summarized by Dr Will Durant) Cicero compared democracy to other forms of government, stating “monarchy becomes despotism; aristocracy becomes oligarchy; and democracy becomes mob-rule, chaos, and dictatorship”.
Anybody who would oppose sending our troops overseas to invade other countries to provide democracy should be considered a traitor. After all, the author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, endorsed democracy when he stated: “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% may take away the rights of the other 49%”. Likewise, his coworker, Ben Franklin, both commended democracy (and endorsed gun control) when he wrote: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”
Let’s not forget Samuel Adams: “Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself! There never was a democracy that ‘did not commit suicide.’”
Contributors to our Constitution also endorsed democracy. Surely, they would have endorsed using our military to spread it to others (the requirement for a Congressional Declaration of War is so quaint and outmoded)!
Elbridge Gerry: “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want (that is, do not lack) virtue; but are the dupes of pretended patriots.”
Alexander Hamilton : “It had been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
and
“We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.”
James Madison: “..democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
(There’s no turbulence and contention in Iraq, is there! If only the minorities would accept the tyranny, oops, wise rule, of the majority!)
And then there’s John Marshall, who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, who said: “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”
The famed Englishman, Benjamin Disraeli, made a speech to the British House of Commons in which he said: “If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and
perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.”
And there are many others who would have endorsed spreading a carpet of bombs across the Middle East in order to provide them with Democracy:
James Russell Lowell: “Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.”
W.H. Seward: “Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.”
Oscar Wilde: “Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.”
H.L. Mencken: “The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goosestep.”
Ludwig Lewisohn observed: “Democracy, which began by liberating men politically, has developed a dangerous tendency to enslave him through the tyranny of majorities and the deadly power of their opinion.”
In 1931 the Duke of Northumberland, in his booklet, The History of World Revolution, stated: “The adoption of Democracy as a form of Government by all European nations is fatal to good Government, to liberty, to law and order, to respect for authority, and to religion, and must eventually produce a state of chaos from which a new world tyranny will arise.”
Of course, there are those cynics who claim that if our leaders really had the best interests of, for example, the Iraqi’s at heart, they would have guided them to a national constitution similar to that ignored, no, interpreted loosely, by our own government. For example, some claim that a First Amendment type “The Iraqi Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion” might have been wise. Instead, they (our “advisors") provided the clause that “all laws must conform to Sharia [Muslim Holy Law]”. There can be no doubt that the effect of this statement in the Iraqi Constitution, resulting in the systematic persecution, murder, expulsion, and genocide of Iraqi
Christians and other religious minorities, was entirely unforeseen! After all, the majority, (in this case, Shiite Muslims) is always right!
Can it be that we need to revisit our History? Is it possible that we have been sold a false definition of patriotism? Is it possible that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others would have told us to bring our troops home; rather than imposing chaos, tyranny, and death on others?
No doubt, Dr. Ron Paul knows the difference between a Constitutional Republic and an Imperial Democracy.
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A word on the United Nations. This corrupt group exists simply to endorse US global imperialism either before or after the fact. Invasions such as Kosovo and Iraq were endorsed by the UN after the fact. For anyone wishing to go further in depth on US militarism, I would recommend the book The New American Militarism by retired Lt. Col. Andrew Bacevich.
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With all its flaws, the United Nations can act as a
brake when the US is hellbent on a crusade. Nations
like France or Russia tend to have a more pragmatic,
common sense of the world, and act on it. They tend
to live in the real world and do not get sidetracked
by abstractions. That’s why the hartred against the
French who have made their own experience with getting
stuck in a colonial war and nearly ending up with a
civil war because of it. When people like that tell
you not to do something they know what they are
talking about. They’ve been there and done that.
To illustrate the wisdom we can get, I am including
the letter that a Communist dupe called Francisco
Franco wrote to president Johnson about Vietnam
“Excelencia:
He rogado a mi embajador le transmita mi sincero enjuiciamiento de la situación en Vietnam del Sur.
En los últimos meses se ha incrementado la agresión abierta contra el pueblo y el Gobierno del Vietnam y les han sido impuestas muy graves cargas a las fuerzas armadas y al pueblo vietnamita.
Durante dicho período, como VE. conoce, y a causa de la firme y rígida oposición de Hanoi y Pekín, no han podido tener éxito los reiterados y constructivos esfuerzos realizados por muchos gobiernos para llevar este problema a la mesa de conferencias.
A lo largo de estos últimos días he estado revisando la situación a la luz de recientísimos informes, procedentes de mis colaboradores de mayor confianza. Aunque aún no se han adaptado decisiones definitivas, puedo decirle que parece seguro será necesario incrementar las Fuerzas Armadas de los Estados Unidos en un número que podría igualar, o ser superior, al de los 80.000 hombres que se encuentran ya allí.
Deseo sepa V.E. que al propio tiempo que realizamos este importante esfuerzo adicional, continuaremos haciendo todo posible esfuerzo político y diplomático para abrir paso a un arreglo pacífico.
Continuaremos también usando toda clase de prudencia y moderación para evitar que la guerra pueda extenderse en el continente asiático. Nuestro objetivo sigue siendo el de que finalice en Vietnam toda injerencia exterior de forma que el pueblo de dicho país pueda decidir su propio futuro.
En esta situación debo expresarle mi profunda convicción personal de que las perspectivas de paz en Vietnam aumentarán grandemente en la medida en que los necesarios esfuerzos de los Estados Unidos sean apoyados y compartidos por otras naciones que comparten nuestros propósitos y nuestras preocupaciones. Sé que su Gobierno ha mostrado ya su interés y preocupación concediendo asistencia. Le pido ahora que considere seriamente la posibilidad de incrementar dicha asistencia mediante métodos que indiquen claramente al mundo y quizás especialmente a Hanoi— la solidaridad del apoyo internacional a la resistencia contra la agresión en Vietnam y al establecimiento de la paz en dicho país.
He pedido al embajador Duke se ponga a su disposición para cualquier consulta que desee hacerle sobre este asunto.
Sinceramente,
Lyndon B. Johnson
PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMERICA”
CARTA DE RESPUESTA DE FRANCO :
“Mi querido Presidente Johnson:
Mucho le agradezco el sincero enjuiciamiento que me envía de la situación en el Vietnam del Sur y los esfuerzos políticos y diplomáticos que, paralelamente a los militares, los Estados Unidos vienen desarrollando para abrir paso a un arreglo pacífico. Comprendo vuestras responsabilidades como nación rectora en esta hora del mundo y comparto vuestro interés y preocupación, de los que los españoles nos sentimos solidarios en todos los momentos. Comprendo igualmente que un abandono militar de Vietnam por parte de los Estados Unidos afectaría a todo el sistema de seguridad del mundo libre.
Mi experiencia militar y política me permite apreciar las grandes dificultades de la empresa en que os veis empeñados: la guerra de guerrillas en la selva ofrece ventajas a los elementos indígenas subversivos que con muy pocos efectivos pueden mantener en jaque a contingentes de tropas muy superiores; las más potentes armas pierden su eficacia ante la atomización de los objetivos; no existen puntos vitales que destruir para que la guerra termine; las comunicaciones se poseen en precario y su custodia exige cuantiosas fuerzas. Con las armas convencionales se hace muy difícil acabar con la subversión. La guerra en la jungla constituye una aventura sin límites.
Por otra parte, aun reconociendo la insoslayable cuestión de prestigio que el empeño pueda presentar para vuestro país, no se puede prescindir de pesar las consecuencias inmediatas al conflicto. Cuanto más se prolongue la guerra, más se empuja al Vietnam a ser fácil presa del imperialismo chino, y aun suponiendo que pueda llegar a quebrantarse la fortaleza del Vietcong subsistirá por mucho tiempo la acción larvada de las guerrillas, que impondrá la ocupación prolongada del país en que siempre seréis extranjeros. Los resultados, como veis, no parecen estar en relación con los sacrificios
La subversión en el Vietnam, aunque a primera vista se presente como un problema militar, constituye, a mi juicio, un hondo problema político; está incluido en el destino de los pueblos nuevos. No es muy fácil al Occidente comprender la entraña y la raíz de sus cuestiones. Su lucha
por la independencia ha estimulado sus sentimientos nacionalistas; la falta de intereses que conservar y su estado de pobreza les empuja hacia el social-comunismo, que les ofrece mayores posibilidades y esperanzas que el sistema liberal patrocinado por el Occidente, que les recuerda la gran humillación del colonialismo
Los países se inclinan en general al comunismo, porque, aparte de su poder de captación, es el único camino eficaz que se les deja. El juego de las ayudas comunistas rusa y china viene siendo para ellos una cuestión de oportunidad y de provecho.
Es preciso no perder de vista estos hechos. Las cosas son como son y no como nosotros quisiéramos que fueran. Se necesita trabajar con las realidades del mundo nuevo y no con quimeras. ¿No es Rusia una realidad con la que ha habido que contar? ¿No estaremos en esta hora sacrificando el futuro a aparentes imperativos del presente? A mi juicio, hay que ayudar a estos pueblos a encontrar su camino político, lo mismo que nosotros hemos encontrado el nuestro.
Ante los hechos nuevos, no es posible sostener la rigidez de las viejas posiciones. Una cosa es lo que puedan acordar las grandes naciones en Ginebra y otra es el que tales decisiones agraden a los pueblos. Es difícil de defender en el futuro y ante los ojos del mundo esa división artificial de los países, que si fue conveniencia de momento dejará siempre abierta una aspiración a la unidad.
Comprendo que el problema es muy complejo y que está presidido por el interés americano de defender a las naciones del sudeste asiático de la amenaza comunista; pero siendo ésta de carácter eminentemente político, no es sólo por la fuerza de las armas como esta amenaza puede desaparecer.
Al observar, como hacemos, los sucesos desde esta área europea, cabe que nos equivoquemos Guardamos, sin embargo, la esperanza de que todo pueda solucionarse, ya que en el fondo los principales actores aspiran a lo mismo: los Estados Unidos, a que el comunismo chino no i nvada los iterritorios del sudeste asiático; los Estados del sudeste asiático, a mantener a China lo más alejada de sus fronteras; Rusia, a su vez, a que su futura rival, China, no se extienda y crezca, y Ho Chi Minh, por su parte, a unir al Vietnam en un Estado fuerte y a que China no lo absorba.
No conozco a Ho Chi Minh, pero por su historia y sus empeños en expulsar a los japoneses,
primero, a los chinos después y a los franceses más tarde, hemos de conferirle un crédito de patriota, al que no puede dejar indiferente el aniquilamiento de su país. Y dejando a un lado su reconocido carácter de duro adversario, podría sin duda ser el hombre de esta hora, el que
Vietnam necesita.
En este interés superior de salvar al pueblo vietnamita y a los pueblos del sudeste asiático, creo que vale la pena de que todos sacrifiquen algo.
He deseado, mi querido Presidente, haceros estas reflexiones confidenciales en el lenguaje directo de la amistad. Aunque sé que muchas están en vuestro ánimo, le expongo lealmente mi juicio con el propósito de ayudar al mejor servicio de la paz. y del futuro de los pueblos asiáticos
Suyo buen amigo,
Francisco Franco
JEFE DEL ESTADO ESPAÑOL”
Dear President Johnson:
I thank you profusely for the sincere judgement you send me about the situation in South Vietnam and the political and diplomatic efforts that, along with the military ones, the United States are making to lead to a peaceful resolution. I understand your responsabilities as a major power at this time in the planet, and I share your interest and worry, to which us Spaniards always feel solidary. I also undestand that a military withdrawal from Vietnam by the United States would affect all the security systems of the free world.
My military and political experience letst me appreciate the great difficulties in the effort that you
are commited to: a guerrilla war in the jungle has avantages for the indigenous insurgents,
who, with few elements can keep at bay very superior number of troops; the most powerful weapons lose effectiveness when facing the atomization of the objectives; there are no vital points that can be destroyed to win the war; communitations are chancy, and it takes large manpower to
protect them. Given convetional weapons, it is very difficult to end the insurgency. War in
the jungle is an open-ended endeavor.
On the other hand, even recognizing the ever present question of prestige that this endeavor
represents for you country, it is not possible to forget the immeditate consequences of the conflict. The longer the war lasts, the more it pushes Vietnamn to be prey to the Chinese imperialism, and even if it were possible to break the power of the Vietcong, for a long time there would be residual guerrilla action, which would mean that you will be occupying for a long time a country in which you will always be foreigners. The results,as you see, do not seem to be proportional to the sacrifices.
The insurgency in Vietnam, even though at first seems a military problem, is, in my opinion, a
profound political problem; one which is always present in the situation of the new nations. It is not easy for Western nations to understnd the feelings and root of these questions. Their struggle
for independence has aroused their nationalist sentiments; the lack of interests which to conserve, and their porvery pushes them towards social-communists, which offers them greater possibilities and hopes that the liberal system endorsed by the Western world, since this system reminds them of the humiliations of colonialism.
Countries tend towards communism because, aside its power of attraction, it is the only way that produces results left for them. The game of extracting help from chinese or russian communists is for them a question of opportunity and profit.
We must keep these facts in mind. Things are as they are, not as we would wish them to be.
We must work with the world’s realtiy, not with daydreams. Isn’t Russia a reality with which we
have had to face? We may be in danger of sacrificing the future to illusory demands of the present
In my judgement, we must help these countries to find their political way, as we have found ours.
.
When facing new facts, it is not possible to hold on to the rigidity of old positions. It is one thing
what the big powers agree to in Geneva, and another that such decisions please the peoples to whom they apply. It will be difficult to defend in the future such artificial divisions of countries, even if was convenient at is time, because they do not destroy the aspiration to unity.
.
I undertand that the problem is a complex one, and it is dominated by the american interest to defend the Asian Southwest nations from the communist menace; but since this menace is of
a political character, it is not to be conquered by the force of arms.
.
As we observe these things from Europe, it is possible that we may be mistaken. Nevertheless
we hope that it can find a solution, since after all the main actors wish it: The United States want to keep the chinese communists from invating Soutwest Asia; the Southwest Asia states, to keep China as far away as possible; Russia, too, that its future rival, China, does not expand, and Ho Chi Minh, for his part, wants to unite Vietnam in a strong state and to avoid being absorbed by China.
I do not know Ho Chi Minh, but by his history and his efforts to expel the japanese first,
the chinese afterwards, and the french later on, we must believe him a patriot who would not
desire to see his country destroyed. In spite of his being a recognized strong adversary, he could be key man, the one that Vietnam needs.
In the superior interest to save the vietnamese people, and the people of Southwest Asia, it is needful that we all sacrifice something.
I have wished, dear President, to give you these confidential reflexions in the direct lagunage of friendsihp. Even though that many consierations press on you, I loyaly offer you my judgement to help with peace and the future of the asiatic peoples.
.
Your good friend.
Francisco Franco
JEFE DEL ESTADO ESPAÑOL”
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the implication is that other “democracies” will be more likely to go along with their hairbrained nation building/ invasion schemes. I don’t know why they think that is the case. France and Germany were against the Iraq war, as were most people in england, if not the leader himself.
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The Franco letter was quite interesting. Franco was for the most part a wise ruler, but he got too close to the US, permitting the US to have bases in Spain. Worse yet, since Franco’s death, has been the transformation of Spain into a sodomite cesspool - to a large extent by the influence of American culture.
The UN has never acted as a brake on American imperial ambitions, but the recent joint military exercises of Russia and China and the return of Russian nuclear bombers to permanent patrol may indeed act as such a brake. If the US refrains from attacking Iran (and that’s still a big if) it won’t be for fear of a Russian veto in the UN Security Council, but fear of Russian nuclear weapons.
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Dear Adriana, Francisco Franco a communist dupe? First time I’ve ever heard that one. Also, what historical evidence do you have that the United Nations ever acted as a brake on U.S. “crusades”, i.e., military ventures?
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@ Meng: “Dear Adriana, Francisco Franco a communist dupe? First time I’ve ever heard that one.”
Sir, please begin taking irony supplements, because you suffer from an irony deficiency.
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Gee, sorry John Ball, I’m not as perceptive as you.
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Regarding Kosovo.
There seems to be a remarkable lack of knowledge in the USA about what happened in the Balkans in the 90’s and even more lack of knowledge about the direct and constant meddlings of the USA into Balkan’s affairs.
To very shortly recapitulate, the administration of Bush1 rooted for the evilest and most brutal party in the conflict, the Serbs under communism and Slobodan Milosevic. The american administration didn’t care much for ideology or freedom. They concluded that the Serbs were the strongest and most brutal of the Yugoslav peoples. So they supported the Serbs. As did Israel, China, Russia and most of then Social-Democratic Europe and Third World.
Well, the Serbs failed to deliver, despite the UN embargo on selling arms to Yugoslavia, thus denying the breakaway states any possibility of defending themselves agaist the Serbs who were armed to their teeth.
After several disgraceful episodes with Western hostages chained to radars, Serb concentration camps showing up Auschwitz-like inmates and programs of mass raping their enemies women, it became too embarrasing supporting the really really bad guys. So, breaking the UN embargo and her own laws the Clinton administration started secretly arming the next preferred group, the Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks as they came to call themselves.
The military incompetence and impotence of the Bosniaks was even worse than that of the Serbs, they delivered even less than the Serbs, nothing.
Finally, the third and last possible group that could be supported, the Croatians, got their field day. Unleashed, they retook their own territory in a mere three day blitz-krieg and proceeded to conquer great chunks of neigboring Bosnia as well, not only for themselves, but for the Bosniaks too.
This was probably a bit too much of “delivery” for the Clinton administration, so they stopped the Croatians and at the same time the Kosovo Albanians, who, emboldened by the defeat of their enemies, wanted to engage in something similar in their own province.
The only way for the US to stop the Kosovo Albanians was to promise “to do something”.
A halfhearted bombing campaign against Serbia ensued and a status quo of sorts happened in Kosovo, which is still the case today.
The USA actually managed to support ALL the warring parties in the former Yugoslavia at one time or other! Well, mabe not Slovenia, that mini-war was only ten days long.
The epilogue and conclusion to all this, in American rightish circles at least, is that one of those meddlings was so much wronger than the others, the aerial bombing of Serbia.
Thus once again Americans have shown to be easily duped. Andrew Bacevic, Srdja Trifcovic and other Serbs or Americans of Serb ancestry have been instrumental in this business. Congrats to them.
If you’re a conservative, or rightist, person, ask yourself why your arguments against the bombing of Serbia not only resemble, but are vertatim of what various socialist and communist groups say about the matter as well?
Don’t read commie stuff?
Well, then better start reading it. Maybe it will open your eyes in an unexpected way.
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The US should not have attacked Serbia because it is unjust to wage wars of aggression and conquest. For the same reason it should not have attacked Iraq and should not attack Iran. If this is what socialist and communist groups are saying about the matter, they are right.
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@Kirt
You are fearless in denouncing aggresion by our country
and for that you may be comended, but you have this
old Christian failing, of thinking that you are the
only sinner in the world - transposing to the corollary
that yours is the only sinning country in the world.
That leads you to underestimate the capacity of other
countries to sin, to wage wars of aggresion, and to
become threats to all. Which makes for a very
unrealistic foreign policy.
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Of course, the US is not the only country to ever commit aggresion, but it is the only country currently to routinely use force on just about any pretext to micro-manage the affairs of others. Haiti was invaded by Clinton to install Aristide in power after his overthrow by a military coup and then was invaded in turn by Bush to throw Aristide out and install someone else. Panama was invaded and about a thousand innocent civilians killed to make a drug bust. These are the small examples - the ones that slip right by as the devastation of Iraq continues. The US maintains more than 700 military bases in more than 100 countries around the world. Global imperialism on this level sort of makes what anyone else is doing look pretty trivial at this time. Indeed Americans should remove that huge plank from their own eyes first before dealing with the speck in the eyes of others.
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Secession is freedom.
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I’ve been waiting for three days for my postings to appear.
Another ‘giltch’ Mr. Sarto ?
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“A democracy is the worst form of government except
for all the others.” Winston Churchill
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