Pipes
Daniel Pipes has a reasonable proposal. George Mason has a variation on the theme. He seconds Diana West. Update: Ralph Peters says one more try. Frederick Kagan, however, disagrees that we should give up on the Iraqi people. All for your consideration!
posted by Jason Pappas at 10:30 AM
12 Comments:
Interesting but the part I find humorous is that Iraqis blow up Iraqis and the left blames it on the US military. There is no Iraq the whole state is a concoction of an Anglo-French treaty in 1920. The fact is that all of the states in the region were similarly constructed.
Dislike the way Shia Arabs get portrayed natural allies to the Shia Persians, Arabs have been fighting Persians for a long time.
The Iraqi museum artifacts are safe, despite the US military's insistence upon feeding starving Iraqis rather than going riot squad on looters in April 2003.
It's been over 3 damned years, Ducky. When is the left going to offer an alternative plan?
Bush will leave office in 2009, and rainbows and ponies will spring forth everywhere, right?
For God's sake, shut the fuck up already, you fucking idiot.
That’s a good point, unaha. A Marine Colonel I know recently returned from Iraq and what shocked him most were the deep-seated hatreds: religion, tribal, regional, ethnic, etc.
Beamish brings up a topic I was thinking about. The Democrats have become irrelevant. There’s not been one ounce of helpful criticism or plausible alternative. I was critical of nations-building and “winning hearts and minds” but that was because I see Islamic savagery dominating these societies for some time to come. The Dems can’t say that because of PC shackles. Thus, they come up with the absurd claim (often by insinuation) that Iraq would have been a utopia if only we didn’t interfere. Thus, we are the bad guys in their eyes; we are the problem.
We need a two party system and the Democrats have failed to offer an alternative. I sometimes wonder if the Republicans will split in two and the Democrats will go the way of the Wigs. We’ll have Neo-conservatives vs. Goldwater conservatives. Who needs Democrats? What have they to offer except negative nihilist nattering nabobs of nonsense?
Jason let me ask a favor of you. If it doesn't take too long of course. In your opinion exactly what is a neocon? And what is a Goldwater conservative? I have my own ideas, but I respect your opinion and would love to hear it.
Beamish you have got to stop being such a friggin wallflower man! Speak up and let's get your opinion for a change! LOL!
Jingoist,
I offer as a premise I can and will defend to the hilt the historically verifiable fact that no leftist has ever presented a view that could be mistaken for rational thought.
Ducky is Exhibit A.
Ducky
This is why you are a fool. You have no knowledge of the region beyond that of Commie sources like Fanon or Chomsky. All these states are artificial. There are no Iraqis, Jordanians or Pseudostinians
and never have been. There are colonial Sunni Arab predators. The Sunni Arab predators have been opressing the Shia, Kurds, Jews and Christians for years.
The Communist Duck contrives an opressed minority out of whole cloth and ignores 1400 years of history. How did Islam spread into Anatolia, Israel, India, Egypt, the Balkans and Spain. The entire notion of Arabs as opressed by anyone is a sick joke and historical ignorance.
As for the Mongols, they were more humane than the Muslims they conquered. The Mongols dismantled the Dhimmi system in Persia as barbaric.
Marxists have a problem with history
as few take the time to study it. The rest rewrite history to suit their class genocide aims.
Jingoist, here I’m using neo-conservative in a rather broad sense. During the Reagan days many pro-defense Democrats backed the Republic Party although they weren’t fully sold on the free market revival. Jean Kirkpatrick, for example, called herself a “welfare conservative” because she backs the federal government’s role in social welfare. The neo-conservatives properly speaking are pro-free market but it is a lower priority.
The Goldwater conservatives (again I’m using the term in a broad sense) wanted to dismantle the welfare state; they also embraced a moderate libertarian stance on non-economic “moral” liberties.
Both are strong on defense. The Goldwater conservatives lean more towards a non-interventionist posture while neo-conservatives don’t shy away from nations-building.
Imagine if there were two strong-defense parties where the only difference were domestic politics (where the American people are of two minds) and the degree of intervention (again the American people differ as to long-term on-going operations.)
The articles I posted above span this defensive spectrum. Pipes supports forcefully dealing with threats but he’s modest in taking control to refashion foreign societies. Kagan leans towards the axis that holds we have an obligation to transform nations and support long-term commitments. That’s an honorable debate. Imagine if we had two political parties holding a respectable and sane debate.
Jason writes “Imagine if there were two strong-defense parties where the only difference were domestic politics…and the degree of intervention…Imagine if we had two political parties holding a respectable and sane debate.”
As long as we are dreaming, allow my vision.
Conservatives would care for principle, so they would seek to defend America, rather than engage in nation-building or in winning the hearts and minds of Muslims & Arabs. Domestically, they would favor the free-market as the only way to preserve our liberty. Conservatism would recognize that what needs to be conserved is civilization (rather than holding power). Moreover, that one cannot preserve civilization unless it meets its challenges, consequently, it would address theory, rather than abdicate it to the left.
Its competitor would be the Objectivist party. Objectivists, while validating the tangible, would avoid the doctrinaire approach, of treating what has not yet been perfected as being mistaken or nonexistent. They would recognize that what is to be discovered supersedes applying what is known. Thus the Objectivist party would become competitive in the war of ideas, rather than abdicating them to the intellectual establishment.
The Conservative and Objectivist parties would then have a cogent and enlightening debate, as to whether we ought be guided by our transcendent aspirations or by our reason.
As to the proposal that we pull back to secured bases in the desert I can only say it’s better than pulling back to Okinawa. Other than that it is still an abandonment of the security function the Coalition Forces are now undertaking. Why are there so many CF casualties? Because we are now patrolling the most dangerous areas, especially in Bagdad. If we quit that the innocent civilian deaths from Sadr’s militia would skyrocket, as would retaliatory strikes against Shias. Sadr is the key here, he needs to be killed and his militia disbanded.
Thanks, Rancher. I gave a few articles with differing opinions which I considered respectable for debate. But I’m not a military strategist and don’t want to play “armchair general.” I appreciate comments from people with military and law enforcement experience.
For fantasy to be fufilled the DoD needs to re-renamed the War Department. Defense is no good at all if the isn't an offense.
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