The best defense may be not a good offense, but a strong defense…

It’s a given that at any time somewhere in the world someone or ones are plotting against the U.S. and it is in our interests not to let them succeed. On the other hand it does not seem logical that we could keep up with it all – we can’t be everywhere at once.

(Just read about the failed state of Somalia – probably a hot bed of anti-Americanism there. Should we rush into there (Blackhawk down?) And clean things up so we don’t have to “fight them over here”. I think not.)

Also, a sports axiom is that the best defense is a good offense. But while I can see the logic in that, national defense is for real; it’s not a game. I think we (the U.S.) may be in danger of over extending our offense.

In the real world of national defense (not sports) the best defense just might be a strong defense.

I’m making these comments in reference primarily to the situation in Afghanistan. What I have been reading is disturbing. One analyst opined that we are not losing, but we are not winning. On what might be a positive note he said that Al Qaeda has been essentially neutralized there, but on a not so positive note he said that it has moved into Pakistan – you know that nation that has the bomb and is supposed to be our ally but seems to somehow not be able to or even really want to rid itself of Al Qaeda.

And then there is the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is hard for me to discern the difference between them and Al Qaeda. At any rate, another disturbing thing is that I am reading that the talk is that we need to pay them off so they will be on our side. I guess paying them off (with what money???) is better than getting more of our troops killed, but it sure seems like adding insult to injury – paying off the people who have been working with the people who are trying to do away with us.

Still another disturbing thing is that I have read that Afghanistan is likely to consume the presidency of Barack Obama. He promised to do so many positive things here at home but he may have his hands tied with what President Lyndon Johnson referred to as the situation in Vietnam, a “tar baby”.

I read that Korea ended up consuming the presidency of Democrat Harry Truman – I know his seemingly intractable engagement there led to the victory of Republican Dwight Eisenhower who vowed to go to Korea and clean things up – get us out of that quagmire.

Johnson got stuck in the quagmire of Vietnam and it ruined his legacy and I think led to his own premature demise.

And while I doubt whether George W. Bush ever had a chance of being considered a great president, I do think that Iraq wound up consuming his presidency and making it impossible for him to accomplish much of anything good.

Obama was an opponent of the Iraq War, but he campaigned on continuing and even expanding the effort in Afghanistan. It is his war now and he cannot blame it on Bush or anyone else.

Unfortunately I read that he is playing some sleight of hand there that reminds me of Bush tactics. He is replacing some military support contingents with private contractors while adding combat troops, allowing him to claim that he is not significantly increasing troops.

It seems to me the evidence clearly shows that private contractors are much more expensive and not nearly as accountable as troops. And whatever happened to the army (and all military) being self sufficient.

While I haven’t read too much about glorious victories of the French Foreign Legion recently, I once read that all they needed when being dropped into some foreign outpost was a rifle and bullets. They did not have to have Pizza Hut stands installed. And by that last remark I did not mean to insult our troops. From what I read and see we have one of the most courageous, willing and able forces ever. But I want to use them wisely.

I also think that if we continue our current path in Afghanistan we may have to reinstate the military draft. I also think that we would wind up stuck getting involved in all kinds of places all over the world if we continue on that path.

Seems like we ought to consider strengthening our defense and maintain a good offense, but use it more prudently.

P.s.

In past blogs I have called for the reinstatement of the draft, primarily on the grounds that if more were subject to possible combat assignments there would be more thought before we got involved in war. But I also see the advantage of the all-volunteer force. Young people (primarily) seeking adventure and a paying job certainly have that opportunity available to them. And it would seem easier to motivate those who were motivated to begin with. On the other hand a professional military tends to always be looking for the next war because it’s there job to fight and it is harder to get promotions in peace time.

It’s a great life if you don’t weaken, and is democracy workable?

Once when I worked as a newspaper reporter/photographer I was doing a photo-story about an old rancher who still drove his cattle through the mountains between winter and summer ranges decades after nearly everyone else had turned to using trucks.

As the bawling herd of cattle broke out of a stand of trees into a clearing and the dust flew, he came riding right past me, turned his horse toward me and grinned, and said: “it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

That was more than 30 years ago, but I finally think I can appreciate what he was saying.

After being laid low by cancer and losing my ability to make a living and now, at least for the time being, being able to go back to work at my occupation of the past decade and more, truck driving, I can say with understanding that it is indeed a great life if you don’t weaken, and it’s a great life if you do weaken but get back your strength.

Related to all of this and the blog I am doing right now, my sister called last night and said she had not been able to get a hold of me (she did not have my cell number, but she did manage to find my wife’s finally) and noted since I no longer was doing my blog she did not know what I was up to.

I reluctantly had to drop my blog postings for the most part for the past several weeks because I have returned to work and have not had the time nor the energy nor the capability to blog each day as I had been doing. As I have noted previously I am trying to get my blogging system mobile so I might be able to resume more regular blogging.

Because the truck I am currently driving does not have an operable radio (the head mechanic tells me he is ordering one) and because newspapers do not seem to be a readily available or even affordable and because of time constraints I have been in a near news blackout for the past few weeks but have caught up a little since returning home for a day or two.

The last time I blogged I addressed the continuing health care debate. I don’t want to say much more about that other than I now think President Obama would do well to just push through a package that would ensure that no one is not covered, and some might argue that such is already the case. I would not argue that, but the issue is so divisive, that I think he would do better to move on and work harder on the economy and resolving just what our strategy should be in Afghanistan.

And I now read that so-called conservative columnist and TV pundit George Will has come out against our continued involvement in Afghanistan (I read his column). Could this be the equivalent of the Walter Cronkite moment in Vietnam? When Uncle Walter went there and suggested it was hopeless that seemed to doom the whole project.

Will uses big and often obscure words and phrases and analogies and seems a little more intellectual than your down-home ordinary reactionary type conservative and not quite as devious as your ordinary neocon who uses his or her education to excite and stir up the more ignorant or not so informed masses, but he is conservative and his position could give the right the tools or ammunition to back out of what might be a losing proposition. And wouldn’t it be weird if the right turned out to be anti-war and the left pro.

Actually, I think that in mainstream or at least Main Street America, except for those who have family members directly involved, the attitude is more one of indifference to the war, except that it is assumed that you either support Team America or you don’t.

And personally, even though I think our wars since WW II, the big one, wrapped up a few years before I was born, have been folly, I do think that if the nation decides to go to war (and we have) then the only object can be to win, and winning means complete defeat of the enemy and unfortunately at least temporary occupation of the conquered lands. If we cannot or do not want to do that, then we should not be engaging in war.

And then the issue of the Obama back-to-school speech where many parents reportedly want to forbid their children from listening and many schools are going along. So we are teaching our children to only listen to things you or your parents agree with. So much for democracy, critical thinking and open debate. And besides, it is my understanding that the president was only going to urge children to study hard and get good grades. And I guess originally he was going to ask the children what they could do to help him. And that seemed political. We need to protect our children from politics.

Sometimes I wonder how practical democracy for the masses is. Maybe that phrase I heard attributed to some college professor years ago was accurate: “the masses of asses”.

Hate your job? Watch the dumpster divers…

Hate your job? Don’t like the working conditions and think you are not paid enough?

Watch what I watched a few minutes ago and you might change your mind.

These days, I have read, it has become a status symbol just to have a job – any job.

I was getting something out of my car in the apartment complex where I now live (we had to downsize from a house to an apartment – we like it though). A young couple was dumpster diving, gathering all the recyclables they could in plastic bags. The guy said hi and told me “it’s a rough way to make a living”. While I was out for a morning walk a few days ago I had seen an older man and a younger man doing the same thing, dumspter diving, that is.

You could say, oh well, people make their own life choices. But really, especially in this economy, it is only by the grace of God, yes and maybe some decisions you made along the way, and luck that you are where you are now.

I truly think that as a nation (a world?) we are in another Great Depression. It may not be as bad as the last one or, in fact, it may be worse. But a lot of people whose lives have not been terribly affected yet, and especially that insulated class we call our leaders, don’t realize the misery much of society is going through.

On a happier note and related to all of this, I am back at work again truck driving. Unfortunately I am not at my last job – I had to go back to a previous job and am making half or even less than half as much as I made in my last job. But I’m not complaining. In fact, I am hopeful that I can keep working, and that will depend on two things: the economy, and my health.

For my regular readers, I had blogged the other day that I would be off the web for awhile because I was on the road. I’m back at home for a day and a half, but it’s back on the road tomorrow.

The optimists (the Republicans) say that if there is15 percent unemployment that it is not bad because that means 85 percent are working. Well without going into all of it, I doubt whether the statistics accurately reflect the real situation – they are at best an indicator. And the indication is that society is in turmoil.

I noticed a lot of businesses along the road boarded up. I was going to stop at a café I used to stop at out on Highway 97 in eastern Oregon, but it was no longer in business.

Stay with me here – I’m not skipping to another subject: I just read a news story that said that Iraq war veterans now in Afghanistan are finding the enemy there fiercer.

It’s an all-volunteer force now – kind of like a mercenary force, and I’m sure they all feel happy to at least have employment. And they seem to be quite brave.

But maybe our leaders need to rethink this whole thing. We’ve already leveraged or indebted ourselves to the tune of a trillion dollars or more to fight in Iraq, which we did not have to do, and now to fight in Afghanistan where our goal is illusive. And Afghanistan has been resistant to invaders through the centuries. Maybe in some broad geopolitical sense there is a rationale for fighting there. But in the real world of economics I am afraid it is going to bankrupt us.

If my job and I hold out I won’t have as much time to blog and pontificate or bloviate (maybe), but at least I will be part of the world again, and I do plan to continue this blog and may blog quite often when I can upgrade and get more mobile with it.

What a captive soldier says under duress does not count…

I vividly recall a class I took in Army basic training at Ft. Lewis, Wa. back in 1968. It was held in a small garage-like structure on our company grounds and the lieutenant was saying that if we were ever to get captured by the enemy it would be a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for us to make any statements on behalf of the enemy. Okay, I said my recollection was vivid. I don’t recall his exact words; I just have the clear mental picture of the setting and the gist of what he said.

He also said that the only thing – the only thing – we were supposed to divulge was our “name, rank, and serial number”, as per the Geneva Convention (and as a bit of trivia, we had serial numbers then, that being just before they exchanged military serial numbers for Social Security numbers). Our main duty, the lieutenant said, was to conspire with other prisoners to escape.

With that in mind, I watched and read with sadness the story of the Idaho soldier who has been taken captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan (apparently everything in that part of the world ends in an). There he was saying he was “scared” (quite understandable) and he urged his government to bring the troops home. Of course he was saying all of this under coercion. One wonders how the enemy can think this has any effect.

The military rules back when I took the class, according to that lieutenant, carried penalties (treason) for any soldier who gave in to the enemy like that. But as far as I can detect those rules have not been enforced, at least since Vietnam (Korea?), and I think I read once that they have been softened some.

Even fearless John McCain (and I am not being sarcastic – anyone who could pick Sarah Palin for a running mate seems fearless, and there I was being sarcastic) temporarily gave in to the enemy after being tortured, although he later recanted and resumed his brave resistance while still in captivity.

I feel nothing but sorrow and pity for anyone captured by the enemy and give no weight whatsoever to what a person might say when obviously under duress.

(And that goes for both sides. Waterboarding is not truth serum.)

While I don’t believe in news censorship, I do believe in news judgment. While I think it probably is incumbent on those who present news in such a story to mention that a captive has been obviously forced to make statements, there is no need to actually play videos of them, or to say much more.

It is important to know or get clues about how the enemy is treating our prisoners.

Unfortunately we can only expect the worst if we look inward and think how maybe our government has treated some prisoners.

The U.S. military charges that the enemy is violating international law by forcing the captured soldier to peform for a video. Too bad our government was not so concerned with laws against torture. It weakens the case.

Yes, even though I might not always agree with U.S. war policy, I still think that it is generally correct to say that the U.S. is on the side of right.

On the other hand, our foes have no doubt convinced themselves of the same thing, and have no mercy for captives.

P.s.

My condolences to the captured soldier’s loved ones and a wish that he comes home safe after all.

Message from McNamara’s book: it’s not too late to rethink our war policy…

With the war in Afghanistan getting more serious and the indication that Iraq’s ongoing civil war might be heating up with the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the cities, it seems a good time to look into not-so-distant history – the Vietnam War – and see if something can be learned from it.

I have now finished reading the late Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara’s book, some would say his mea culpa, on Vietnam: “In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam”, published in 1995. McNamara died a week ago at the age of 93. He lived with the fact that many had called Vietnam “McNamara’s War”. Having left President Lyndon Johnson’s administration in 1968, he apparently kept all that bottled up until he published his book.

After reading it, I would sum up his position this way:

I was wrong. I was not the only one. We should have analyzed the situation better, but the mood of the times (Zeitgeist?), the Cold War philosophy, precluded that, and we were supported by the public up until we had gone too far. And the reason we conducted a limited war (instead of doing anything and everything to win) is that we feared getting Communist China and the Soviet Union directly involved and pushing events to a nuclear confrontation. And we eventually realized that due to the ineffective government in South Vietnam and the ambivalence of the population there really was never a chance to save that nation from the communists.

One portion of the book dealt with the fact that at one time there seemed to be a direct and public confrontation between the military chiefs and McNamara. They accused him of micro-managing the war and not letting them do their jobs. They, the military chiefs, wanted to be more aggressive, especially in the air war, and go after all targets, no matter their geographical location, such as Haiphong Harbor and on the border of China.

And I have blogged before, and nothing in this book told me anything different, that the mood of the public at the time was this: first the nation was truly divided on the war. Nonetheless, I think even among those who did not like it, most of them agreed with war supporters that if we must fight then the only way was fight to win and get it over with. By doing that, we would achieve our goal of saving South Vietnam from the communists and we would save American lives by not needlessly prolonging the conflict. I lived through this entire history and I heard people, so many, say things like: “I don’t really believe in this war, but if we’re going to risk American lives then why don’t we fight to win?”

In one brief passage in the book, McNamara notes that in the process of trying to save South Vietnam we indiscriminately killed a large number of civilians and did much damage to the country. I would add that it seemed like we were doing more damage to South Vietnam, our ally, than North Vietnam. We bombed North Vietnam, but with many restrictions. And we never invaded North Vietnam, even though North Vietnam invaded the south with both regular army forces and the Viet Cong guerillas they supported (and McNamara referred to other types of forces, such as militias, I was never aware of).

I’m not going to go back through the book and quote things. But I would suggest if you have not read it to read it. It’s kind of self-serving, and I got the impression that he slyly took the blame while spreading it around and went to great lengths to say that he at some point knew along with many others who supported the war that they were all wrong and that he tried to tell other insiders, thus trying to lessen his own blame (I would blame LBJ and then Richard Nixon; they were the commanders in chief through the all-out part of the war).

But here is something important that I think the book brings out: Public opinion means everything. You can’t fight to win a war without full public support. And unless you level with the public early on, you will not get it or be able to keep it. The Johnson administration withheld their own studies that demonstrated the cause was probably hopeless (and they knew this early on).

We fought the Vietnam War on the premise that we had to hold the line against the expansion of communism. But once we withdrew and once South Vietnam fell, while that nation became one nation under communist rule, the communists did not expand. Their own system worked against them and does today.

Also, reading the book has only served to confirm my already-held belief that the United States should only fight wars in true self defense. Sometimes it is hard to decide what that actually means, but that should be the rule to guide decision making on whether to fight a war, nonetheless.

(Also before I forget, I have more than once blogged that really we could have won the Vietnam War, kind of Korea style, but I am not so sure of that now, but that is moot anyway.)

So, using history as a guide, the U.S. needs to reassess what it is trying to do now in Iraq and Afghanistan and whether we can prevail and whether it is all worth it (and is it ever too late to save American lives?).

My take on what the Obama administration’s position seems to be is that we need to exit Iraq gracefully, but we need to press on in Afghanistan because that is where the 9/11 forces staged and where Al Qaeda leaders got refuge (so they seem to be in Pakistan now – so do we invade Pakistan?). The administration has also decided that we should protect the Afghan villagers to get their support, kind of like the pacification program in Vietnam (which was a failure).

But my question is: given our economy at home, whose living conditions should we be working on, those of Afghan residents or U.S. residents? (And there is a direct parallel here with the guns and butter approach of the LBJ administration – fight Vietnam, improve things at home at the same time, and that did great damage to our economy – but as often is the case, I digress.)

We did manage to install a government, however effective or ineffective, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Maybe we should simply tell it, handle it, and don’t harbor enemies of the U.S. We can come back by air or land or both.

And I think that if the Obama policy makers came to the conclusion in private that winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans cannot be done, they would face the same dilemma as McNamara said he and others did. They were afraid that the U.S. would lose face and would become weak. Decisions are tough. But do you continue to commit others’ lives to save face?

In my previous blog I wrote that the U.S. still today needs to come up with a clear policy on how the nation gets into war. I think we ought to follow the Constitution, which indicates that declaring war is the responsibility of congress. While the president always has to have the authority to deal with emergencies, a war is a much more involved process with such dire ramifications that it needs deliberation and support from elected representatives. And don’t play games with the definition of war by calling it something else (police action, conflict), everyone knows one when they see it.

The U.S. has not fought a constitutionally-declared war since World War Two. And I don’t think it is a coincidence that we have not had a clear-cut victory since then. Korea was a stalemate (although we did save South Korea), Vietnam a failure, the first Gulf War indecisive in that we found ourselves going back into Iraq years later, Kosovo, well you have me on that one, I don’t even know why we felt we had a dog in that hunt (and that was not an all-out war on our part), and the current wars – don’t know, still in progress.

But without taking a position on the current wars, I can only say, let’s learn from history and think this thing out and do what is actually best for our own defense and realize we cannot nor should not remake the world in our own image.

And to paraphrase a famous quote: who wants to be the last person to die for a lost cause?

Oh. But I feel self-conscious now, for some would contend I am not supporting the troops. To the contrary, I support them one hundred percent. I am only saying we need to clearly have goals spelled out and be in agreement that they are just and we need to make an honest assessment as to whether our efforts are practicable. If we have checked all the boxes in support – throw everything at it and fight to win.

I do not believe in the concept of “limited war”. Seems like if you limit your actions but the other side does not, you lose. And if you both agreed to limit your war, you would both be morally wrong — wasting lives for a game. 

P.s.

I did not mention the involvement of the UN or NATO in Korea or Kosovo, respectively, or coalitions, because it is my observation that the U.S. always uses those organizations as cover for its own policy. On that subject I fear one day it could come back to bite us. Sure it works when we run the show, but what if we were outnumbered? And in no case should the U.S. ever give over its sovereignty to another nation or entity (I think it has been done to some small extent, but it should not be done).

Aside from us being blackmailed for billions, I like Obama approach to Muslim world…

At the end of my last blog I wrote something to the effect that I would like to go back over any details of President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world to see if there was anything I might have missed or that I would disagree with and that I would be interested in world reaction.

After reading the official White House transcript, complete with notations of applause and someone blurting out “Barack Obama we love you!” and the president saying “thank you”, I concluded that I had indeed heard the speech in its entirety and I did not find anything particularly objectionable, save his promise to provide billions of dollars for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in even that I can accept the concept, just don’t see how we can afford it.

So, my plan here is to go down through the transcript, paragraph by paragraph, and make some comments. Before that, I note that as of this time it seems overall world reaction, particularly among the target audience, the Muslims, seems to have been quite receptive and quite good. And, as I expected, his biggest detractors were the American far right (you know, those folks who love to hate and love torture) and some Muslim extremists (you know, those folks who love to hate and love to torture).

And now the paragraph by paragraph analysis of the transcript of his speech:

The president greeted his audience at the Cario (Egypt) University and noted that for a thousand years it has been a “beacon of learning”, and he said he carried with him a greeting from Islamic communities in the U.S.: “Assalaamu alaykum” (Peace be upon you), to which he received enthusiastic applause.

Later on a talk show someone commented that it is good that he spoke at a university and there were a lot of young people in the audience, and it was said that it is a mis-perception that terrorists come out of only the poverty-stricken class. In fact, many, including the 9/11 terrorists, are highly educated.

And I realize now that commenting on each paragraph or each line is too tedious, but I am going to arrange my commentary in descending order of the transcript paragraphs.

He noted that there are great tensions between the Muslim world and the U.S. (And the whole Western world) and he acknowledged the role colonialism played in all of this and the fact that the best interests of the inhabitants were not looked after and that in the Cold War Muslim country’s were treated as proxies in the struggle between the West and the communist block nations (although he did not actually mention the communist nations or the former Soviet Union). But anyone who has any grasp of recent history knows that it was all about the competition between primarily the U.S. and the Soviet Union for influence in the Middle East and other areas of the world. The president also said that Islamic traditions were not always respected. And I think that the fact that President Obama recognized Islamic traditions and even used some Islamic phrases and quotations from the Koran is a major deal. You do not have to adopt someone’s religion to respect it. And this recognition, a show of respect, plays big in the Muslim world.

And the president said that he had come to Cairo to “seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world”. And that “new beginning” phrase I note was used in headlines around the world – pretty powerful stuff.

To show his sincerity, Obama noted that although he is a self-professed Christian, he has Islamic roots in his family and lived in a Muslim country (Indonesia) and heard the morning and evening prayer calls (he did not say, but I think it is correct that he attended a Muslim-run school for a time). He also said that he worked among Muslims in Chicago neighborhoods. I don’t know if he meant members of the “Black Muslim” sect or just Muslims in general. But it does demonstrate his unique ability to connect with Muslims. And it shows that he is an adept politician in that he downplayed (had to ) his Muslim roots and connections during his presidential campaign (does anyone think that in this day and age anyone who even hinted he might be a Muslim could be elected president of the U.S.?). I think it is a de facto requirement at present in the U.S. that one be a Christian or profess to be in order to get elected president (that might change some day – stranger things have happened, like the election of Obama).

He noted how the whole world is interconnected and thus has mutual interests. In the global economy all nations suffer at a downturn. Disease threatens all. Nuclear weapons threaten all.

And I’ll jump in here and note that just going chronologically doesn’t work here either. So I will jump to the fact that he said that Iran has a right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes but that developing nuclear weapons, no. And that is the great irony we have come to and these are my words. The U.S. was the first to develop nuclear weapons and the only nation to ever use them. They are so terrible we are stuck with the quite necessary and difficult task of doing everything we can to make sure no one else who has not already got hold of nuclear weapons does.

President Obama assured his audience that the U.S. in not at war with Islam. I note here that even George W. Bush said the same (but the overall tone from his administration and those who so adamantly supported his policies made it seem otherwise).

In probably one of the most important parts of the speech as far as U.S. policy and justification for it, Obama made it clear that the U.S. was and is justified in going after Al Qaeda (and other extremists) in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the result of the 9/11. He noted with some force and even anguish in his voice that nearly 3,000 innocent people in the U.S. were killed on 9/11.

And then he turned around and said that on the other hand, while we felt compelled to invade Afghanistan (because the 9/11 extremists were based there), our government (then headed by Bush) chose to go into Iraq and that there was much controversy within the U.S. at the time over that. Obama, who had been on record as against the Iraq invasion, implied in his speech that the U.S. made a mistake in doing so and had learned a costly lesson. I think that he essentially admitted that the U.S. had over reached in its rightful authority in Iraq (and I realize that arguments could be made either way on all of this, but in the end, the Iraq invasion does seem to have been a blunder – and even if it all works out, that does not make it right).

The president also proclaimed that the U.S. seeks no permanent military presence in either Iraq or Afghanistan. And I think that is a major policy statement.

President Obama said that he has unequivocally made his position clear that the U.S. will no longer use torture (so I do not know what Dick Cheney meant when he claimed recently in his own defense that even Obama had reserved the right to use “enhanced interrogation techniques” — the right wing nut euphemism for torture). That is a powerful statement that hopefully puts the U.S. back on the high ground of humanity (if we become as ruthless as the terrorists, what do we have left worth saving?).

One part that bothered me was that he pledged several billions of dollars to build schools and hospitals and infrastructure and in economic support for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now probably that is a good idea in that folks with a better standard of living and a better standard thanks to us might be less inclined to become terrorists against us. But it also seems that we are being blackmailed here and there is a question in my mind: who needs this money more? folks over there or folks here at home? (Does not charity begin at home?) But that is the great quandary we always find ourselves in as the world superpower (and one wonders how long at this rate we can hold on to that claim).

And maybe the biggest thing president Obama proclaimed in U.S. foreign policy was his insistence on a two-state solution for the 61-years-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his insistence that Israel quit expanding its settlements into Palestinian territory. And I say, what other solution is there to all that and why have we not insisted on that all along?

He said he supported women’s rights and the right of women to education, which is significant in that conservative Muslims often deny such rights to women (but I note that conservative Christians in this country often put down the idea of women’s rights and seem to promote the idea that women must be subservient to men – it’s all biblical, you know).

President Obama also said that although the U.S. prefers democracy and the rule of law it would only promote its form of government rather than force it upon other nations. But I have to note that wouldn’t it be heck if after all of this that Iraq or Afghanistan, for instance, would wind up with hardline Islamic governments ruled by religious leaders without regard to human rights?

I probably missed some things to comment upon after all, but I’ve probably already gone on too long.

Personally, even though a cable news commentator said his speech contained no real policy statements, I think it was the strongest and most reasonable foreign policy speech I have ever heard from a U.S. president (and even though I was young at the time, my memory goes back to hearing Dwight David Eisenhower).

Obama appears as peacemaker for the world, but far right and terrorists line up together against him…

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”

So says the Holy Bible.

And if with the speech President Barack Obama has just given in Cairo, Egypt in an address to the Islamic world he is not seen as just that, a peace maker, well then no one could be seen as such.

He was extremely even handed in addressing the issues and extremely humble in admitting that the U.S. and the rest of the Western world has not always acted with good intentions or in the best interests of those in the Islamic world.

But at the same time he asserted in no uncertain terms that the U.S. would not back down from fighting extremists who threaten the U.S. and the whole world, to include their own Islamic world.

There is no doubt that Mr. Obama has a God given gift of speech. I actually think most American presidents going back over the years, at least as far back as Eisenhower, might have liked to have given just such a speech (maybe even George W. Bush would have – don’t know). But maybe the timing was not right and maybe they just did not have the abilities or the persona that Mr. Obama embodies.

As a black man (and half white in heritage), a Christian with Islamic roots and experience living in the Islamic world, even attending an Islamic school for a time, a community organizer on the mean streets Chicago’s black neighborhoods, a top Harvard Law graduate, and a masterful politician, the stars have just seem to come together for him.

Is he “The One”, the perfect person? Of course not. He is human and not everything he does can be correct – but all evidence so far is that he sure is trying.

Strangely, I imagine – have not heard a lot yet – that the biggest detractors of his speech will be both the far reactionary political right (Limburger/Cheney and company) and Islamic extremists. Neither side wants peace, well except if it is totally on their terms, but paradoxically peace cannot be obtained on either of the afore mentioned sides’ terms.

The president took a chance I think in asserting that we CHOSE to fight in Iraq and indicating we made a big mistake in doing so (even if that is correct). And the far right is certainly going to hate that he said not only that but that we will not maintain permanent military bases there or even in Afghanistan and that we are in fact on our way out of Iraq.

But the president also asserted that we (he) had a duty to defend the U.S. (and by extension the Western world) by fighting Islamic extremists in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And his critics will (already are) howl about his call for a more even-handed approach in the 61-year-old dispute between the Palestinians and the Jews over the creation of Israel and the need for an independent Palestinian state (it seems to me that such should have been the U.S. position all along, but of course there is the Jewish lobby and all the money it throws the way of politicians, guilt feelings over the Holocaust, and the history of the Cold War when everything was seen as a competition between the West and the Soviets and so on).

I don’t think I heard all of President Obama’s speech, but I heard most of it and I will be interested to read more about it and catch up on parts I might have missed and that I might not agree with and I will be interested to see the reaction around the world, and of course particularly in the Middle East and Persian Gulf states and all of the Islamic world.

P.s.

Interesting that President Obama quoted from the Holy scriptures of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – all with similar messages of peace. If only the leaders who profess so strongly in these beliefs all practiced what they preach.

If we suffered Vietnam-style casualty rates the war would be over, won or not, and war and oil usually do mix…

War has become so blase that the fact that four more U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan did not make any headlines.

ADD 1: If you really wanted to gauge public opinion of the war on terror, just imagine what it might be if we had casualties on the scale of the Vietnam War. During a two-week period in April  in Vietnam in 1968 the U.S. suffered 752 combat deaths. In Iraq in 2007 the U.S. had 334 deaths over a four-month period, and that was considered alarming. In Vietnam that high of a casualty rate with no end in sight turned public opinion steadfastly against the war. I hate to be cynical, but the public seems to be able to put up with lower casualty numbers, regardless of the justification or practicability of a war. I realized that the Democratic party victories in the congressional elections of 2006 and the presidential election of 2008 were seen as a kind of referendum that was negative on our war policy, but I notice that the war on terror continues, seemingly much as it would have under Bush/Cheney if they could have continued or even John McCain (of course the referendum was more related to the economy during the presidential election and Obama did admit in his campaign that he would push harder in Afghanistan). If the public mood was as anti-war as it became in the early 70s, we would be done with the whole thing, right or wrong.

And back to where I began with this blog:

I first read the fact that there had been four more combat deaths in Afghanistan while reading my morning newspaper on Tuesday in the ninth paragraph (on the jump page) down in a somewhat oblique reference in a story. Admittedly, the paper long ago gave up trying to be the latest in news on the national and world front. But you would think the death of four U.S. service personnel would rate a little higher priority. But maybe that was kind of the point of the story. It was something about the military using the latest communication tool for those with short attention spans, Twitter.

News that U.S. and Afghan forces had killed four “militants”  (I guess that’s what we call the enemy) was put out via Twitter by the military, according to the story, as a way to reach an audience that gets its news outside the traditional sources.

Let’s cut through the bull here – the military is using news selectively for propaganda to reach young people to ra ra ra the war (and I realize morale is important, but so is honest and complete info). Conveniently, as the story indicates, the fact the four service people were killed was not tweeted. Supposedly, according to the story, that was because, well, I did not get this part, something about that all has to go through NATO command.

But using that story and then searching the internet, I finally gathered that there had been four more U.S. combat deaths.

Now in traditional wars, four deaths in one day is not really big news unless you might turn it around and say that ONLY four were killed. Back in the old-time wars thousands were killed in a day or even less than a day. Then we went to hundreds, and today in our wars we go to things like one, none, seven, four, that kind of thing. But it all adds up and it seems to go on forever.

(The latest figures I got off of Wikipedia show there have been at least 4,296 U.S. combat deaths in the Iraq war since 2003, and 677 in Afghanistan since 2001 (I don’t think this includes the latest deaths, and of course there are deaths from other nations’ forces and the of Iraqis themselves and thousands wounded.)

And maybe too close attention to the negative gets in the way of the mission. Maybe that is why we lost the Vietnam War. We concentrated on our losses and not our wins – that often seems to be the new history (revisionist?) of the whole thing I see these days. I just watched an Vietnam War documentary and that’s partly why I’m blogging this today. But I am not a convert yet. I still think Vietnam was a deadly mistake for us and also a shame because we sacrificed so many without having a clear cut purpose or resolve. I hope we are not replaying history in another part of the world now.

No we probably should not have screaming headlines that say FOUR KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN. But at the same time we should not get so numb or jaded about the war effort that we just put it all out of our mind.

The fact that the Military would see fit to brag that we killed four enemy, but leave out that we lost four of our own reminds me why we need independent reporting so we can get the full picture.

And I go back and forth here because I realize that just as the government and military can be biased and misleading in its reporting, so can so-called independent sources.

I have to admit that the tone of the reporting on television and the newspapers and news magazines for the most part during most of the Vietnam War seemed negative against the war. We were told that we seemed to be meddling in the affairs of a nation that had a corrupt government and had a civil war going on (what would have we thought if England, who leaned toward the confederacy in its feelings, had interfered in our own Civil War?). But the civil war in Vietnam was being aided and abetted by the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent communist China. But the idea of North and South Vietnam was basically an artificial one – after all they were all Vietnamese and it was a Cold War construct that created a North and South, just like the two Koreas. We were told that there were no front lines and that despite our overwhelming fire power (most of the time), the enemy seemed to be inexhaustible, anywhere and everwhere, and could take heavy losses and come back forever. We were also told our own government would not let our forces go all the way (and I guess that was because the public had been convinced that wars could be controlled, as if run by a rheostat device or a light dimmer – escalate, de-escalate, which begs the question, why not just turn them off then?).

Probably our biggest mistake in Vietnam was not to do everything we could to disrupt the supply lines and go to the source of supply in North Vietnam. We finally did do some of that late in the war, but by that time support at home for the war was depleted. I actually have to credit Richard Nixon for some of his actions – but it was too late and not carried far enough, because as I mentioned, public support was gone. I think he must have thought that somehow we could stave off the enemy a little longer and that South Vietnamese forces would fight on their own and in the meantime we could get out and haver “peace with honor” (Nixon’s own words)). But without our continued involvement and with the fact that their government was corrupt, there was no hope.

Okay, so much history. Maybe only useful to history buffs. But could we apply this to today? Do we really know what we are trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan? Personally, as much as I follow current events, I keep asking that question.

(In the beginning – the first Gulf War, it was all about oil, and if we are honest, even though we have 9/11 to consider, doesn’t oil still become the bottom line here? And if does, does that make it wrong? Why do we not want to admit it?  And see Add 2 at the end of this blog.)

George W’s (and dark Dick Cheney’s) concept seemed to be of an all-encompassing never-ending war against not a particular force or group or nation, but a concept (U.S. vs. Concept) called “terror,” or as W pronounced in “Terrr”.

President Obama seems to be trying to extricate us from Iraq (ever so carefully), but has vowed to fight on in Afghanistan. He would have never have got the support of the electorate if he had simply just run as an updated version of George McGovern and Vietnam. Americans were nearly always divided on Vietnam and seem to be on this one, but all out surrender is not to our liking (even if we did essentially quit Vietnam).

But even if we were able to subdue those who seem to support terror against us in Afghanistan, who is to say the forces of terror will not pop up somewhere else?

Bottom line here:

The reason we fought in Vietnam was that we had a well entrenched Cold War policy of containment of communism and along with that we followed the “domino theory” that said if one country falls, they all will. China fell, South Korea would have if not for our defense of it, and no one wanted to be blamed for losing South Vietnam (even though in the end we did lose it).

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we find all these years later that communism, although a terrible form of government as practiced, with its totalitarianism and its police state mentality, crumbled seemingly by itself from its inefficiencies and failure to catch the imagination of the people it subdued. Seems given a chance most of them want capitalism and the goodies and freedom that come with it – although there is some indication that some former communist citizens miss the social safety net – in Russia, the former East Germany, as examples. But the last major power to still have communism, China, seems to be evolving into a capitalist society, with only the old-line government officials holding out.

Had we known all this (and we couldn’t have), we could have avoided conflict and just waited it out, perhaps. Of course the fact that the Soviet Union decided to spend so much of its resources fighting us in places such as Vietnam, which was really a proxy war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, helped lead it to its demise. It essentially went bankrupt (oops, I shouldn’t mention that, a country going bankrupt).

And isn’t it ironic that after another proxy war where we fueled the insurgents in Afghanistan against their Soviet neighbors who also expressed concerns about disruptive forces there, we find ourselves fighting many of those same insurgents we once aided, to include Osama bin Laden, if he is still alive.

A lot of disjointed thoughts here maybe. But I got this idea originally because I was reading a book about Pearl Harbor and the fact that we conducted a policy that led to it (not that we were in the wrong – that can be debated). And I thought about how in World War II we fought a costly war with Japan only to become good buddies later and then for a time we were even threatened by their own prosperity that we helped create (that role has now gone to China, whom we saved from Japan).

It’s all about making sure we really know what we are trying to do and what the consequences might be and deciding whether we should continually try to fight the whole world or whether we should try to live in peace, but keep our defenses strong. The general public can remain in ignorant bliss in all of this and leave it to the politicians, but there are risks.

Add 2:

I made a reference to fighting for oil earlier in this blog. Related to that I recall I blogged some months ago, possibly in August, that here we have been fighting in Iraq and we know it has something (a lot) to do with the fact that most of the world’s oil is in that region and meanwhile China has signed a deal for oil with the government we helped install there after executing Saddam Hussein. I just ran across an article on the web (dated April Fools Day, but it’s apparently too true) that says our main rival for world oil, China, has indeed finalized an agreement to develop an oil field in Iraq that is expected to produce 25,000 barrels per day for the first three years and 115,000 barrels per day for the following six years . China had initiated the deal in the 1990s when Hussein was in power.

So, yes, it is about oil, but whose oil? Seems like if we fight for oil, we should get it all. (I don’t recall China helping us out in Iraq).

But kind of related to the idea of fighting for oil, I ran across this in a history of the Vietnam War on Wikipedia: “Because of the vast Dutch oil discoveries in nearby Indonesia, first the French, then the Americans, wanted to explore the broad Vietnamese contenental shelf.” Today Vietnam is not listed as a top oil exporter, but it is an exporter. It installed its first oil refinery in February.

P.s. It occurs to me in all of this that the thinking of policy makers seems to have been that the U.S. can fight wars if casualty numbers can be kept down low enough that there will be no significant public backlash. We all would like to minimize casualties, but in so doing we run the risk of both prolonging wars (thus raising casualty rates) and being unsuccessful in the long run.

As we get deeper into Afghanistan I sense public indifference…

I know polls are done all the time and I know that one reason, besides the financial crisis, that is given for Barack Obama winning the election is that the public is displeased with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in my own highly unscientific view of things (support the troops bumper stickers notwithstanding) I sense great public indifference to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen was quoted within the last 48 hours as saying it might take the U.S. as much as two more years just to turn the tide in Afghanistan (and I think most of us see just an indefinite or open-ended commitment). And Mullen also said we have a difficult time avoiding civilian casualties and that those casualties play into the hands of our enemies, the Taliban, or is it Al Qaeda ? (whatever we’re calling them today)

Yes, in going after the enemy if civilians are in the way they are no doubt going to suffer. I really don’t know how our forces are expected to do their job trying to figure out who is friendly, who is indifferent, and who is the enemy, and who may be all three, keeping in mind the fact that none of these people are wearing uniforms.

And what with civilian casualties, yes it does seem a strange way to win the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan people, something that we are being told we must do to win the war.

Maybe, just maybe, if the people of Afghanistan realized that we are committed to going after the enemy and that to be near the enemy is dangerous that might have some effect on how they deal with this enemy. Or we could send tons of aid to try to win those hearts and minds. And meanwhile, what about the hearts and minds of so many of our own people? Pardon me if I sound sarcastic or frustrated or both.

Didn’t we face this same problem in Vietnam? Didn’t we fail there too? And didn’t I blog this previously? Yes to all.

I actually thought at one time we were in Afghanistan to go after the forces that hit us on 9/11. Now was that Al Qaeda or the Taliban? Originally we were told that it was Al Qaeda, which was given aid and comfort by the Taliban who at the time of the invasion were officially in charge of the country. Nowadays they still seem to be in charge of most of that country.

Somehow Al Qaeda and the Taliban have become one.

And for some comparison/contrast: at the height of Vietnam the U.S. had a half million troops committed. I think the U.S. invaded Iraq with some 300,000 troops and today we only have about 140,000 in Iraq, and we are trying to ease our way out. In Afghanistan the U.S. has committed nearly 60,000 troops, which include 17,000 ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama. An additional 30,000 have been committed by other NATO members.

We are nowhere near the casualty numbers in the current wars as we suffered in Vietnam and that may be a key reason we have been there so long and remain. That and the fact we have no military draft. If the draft had been imposed I doubt we would still be in Iraq or Afghanistan (win or lose).

In Vietnam, after more than a decade of war, the U.S. casualty total was nearly 60,000 military personnel dead with hundreds of thousands wounded. More than 4,000 have been killed and some 50,000 wounded in the current wars (primarily in Iraq, with the Afghanistan casualties rising). We’ve been in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003.

So, anyway, Admiral Mullen sees a tough road of as much as two years ahead. We were told for more than a decade in Vietnam that there was light at the end of the tunnel and that we were winning. In Afghanistan we are told it is indeed hard to see that light and, as a matter of fact, right now we are not winning. We’ve been there for going on nine years now with no measurable progress. Iraq is not won yet, but we may be smart enough to declare victory and get out — or not.

Supposedly we now have a counter insurgency, black ops expert of a general by the name of Stanley A. McChrystal who has been selected to take over in Afghanistan. Maybe he can figure it out.

But it seems like we need to be reminded of what our exact reason for being there is and if the American people are really as indifferent as I sense, I have to question why we are there at all.

P.s.

The idea that we can conduct business as usual at home and successful wars abroad seems questionable at best. Maybe some of us can block the human tragedy out of our minds because we are not directly involved. But the financial cost of it all has already come home to roost. If you haven’t noticed the U.S.  either is or is going bankrupt. How long will China, a political and ideological adversary, bankroll our wars?

Will Obama get stuck to the tar baby with a guns and butter approach in Afghanistan???

Add 2

Long before Democrat Barack Obama came upon the scene to enact change in government another Democrat sought to do the same thing. And he did.

President Lyndon Johnson became a champion of civil rights and greatly expanded the government’s role is social welfare with his Great Society program. And he might have done more and his legacy might have been brighter had he not become stuck to the Vietnam War tar baby. The monetary costs of that war cut into the funding needed for his Great Society and caused the government to go deeper into debt by borrowing to pay for what at the time was called “guns and butter”.  The human costs in lost and ruined lives and the discrediting of the government that had lied as to the facts leading up to full-scale war in Vietnam and the progress along the way wreaked havoc on our whole political system which in some respects is still trying to recover.

Asking for nearly $100 billion in supplemental funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with an emphasis on Afghanistan, and appointing a new general to lead in Afghanistan, Obama has now made it his war (at least that’s how everyone is writing about it). The wars have already cost the U.S. nearly $1 trillion and it is estimated they may eventually cost 2 or 3 trillion dollars (or more).

While President Obama seems to be pulling back somewhat from Iraq, he is going full speed ahead in Afghanistan. One wonders if Afghanistan will be President Obama’s Vietnam and American’s Vietnam, part 2.

Add 1:

What if in all this nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan we create governments that are not really democratic and do not really serve the best interests of the citizens in those respective nations and what if those governments turn out to be corrupt and what if they are not friendly to us after all? What will all of this have been for? Remember, we propped up a corrupt government in South Vietnam, and we supported the assasination of a previous corrupt leader there. Getting too involved in other nations can create quite a mess.

———————-

The preceding was afterthoughts following original posting of the following blog:

A different time, a different place, a slightly different situation, and newer technology – that’s how I see the difference between the Iraq and Afghanistan (Pakistan) war situations today and Vietnam some 40 years ago.

But it seems to me that for all intents and purposes, the war in the Persian Gulf area today is essentially Vietnam all over again with some key differences.

In both war situations we have essentially committed conventional forces against an enemy that uses guerilla tactics. We have the overwhelming power in forces and technology, to include highly sophisticated unmanned, drone, aircraft, that can go after specific targets, being piloted remotely here at home, thousands of miles from the battle area, but it does not seem any guarantee to success. We are still for the most part ponderous. The enemy is light footed and melts into the urban settings in Iraq and into the rugged terrain in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Vietnam we were fighting on the belief in the so-called Domino Theory that said that nations would fall one after another under the influence of communism and in the end the communists would enslave the whole world. We eventually gave up in Vietnam. The communists did not take over the world. In fact, the biggest communist nation ever, the Soviet Union, eventually dissolved. And China, as Vietnam, has moved toward capitalism and maybe even some crude form of democracy (I’m not sure about the latter).

In the current Persian Gulf situation we first faced the prospect of unfriendly Islamic extremists forces (and maybe even China) gaining control of a precious source of oil (the U.S. is the biggest oil consumer, with China now after much of that oil too). And then after the 9/11 attacks on our own soil we went after forces supposedly protected in Afghanistan. We went into Iraq under the notion that supposedly the enemy was supported by that nation or that nation was somehow allied under an unfriendly dictator with our enemy or maybe he was about to get his hands on weapons of mass destruction (really who knows? Or who can remember all the reasoning?).

Our former adversary North Vietnam was heavily supported by the Soviet Union. Today, I am not sure who supports our enemies. Seems to me that might well be a key to any kind of headway in the wars in the Persian Gulf area. Find that out and go after them in any means practicable.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban have to get their arms and ammunition and resupply from somewhere. I have not heard a lot about that. I hate to think that in some quirk of the vast international arms trade that we are inadvertently supplying our enemies (there have been reports indicating that).

The Afghanistan war has spilled over into Pakistan. During Vietnam, then President Nixon was castigated for moving forces into Cambodia (“widening the war”, his critics cried). Today we have struck into remote areas of Pakistan where the enemy seeks refuge (and Pakistan is supposed to be our ally but now it is fighting its own insurgency).

Continuing with the comparison/contrast between Vietnam and today’s Middle East or Persian Gulf wars, in both we have wound up trying to “win the hearts and minds” of the populace. There seems to have been some success along those lines in Iraq (some, I emphasize), but not so much in Afghanistan.

I don’t think the efficacy of winning the hearts and minds of potential enemies along with nation building has ever been proven. And yes, we are being told now in no uncertain terms that we must do nation building in Afghanistan to win the war. In my mind I automatically question why it is the job or even the right of the United States to make people side with us and to help them build a nation, regardless of what their prevailing attitude may be.

Think of all that we could do in our current economic crisis here at home were we not burdened with the costs of “winning the hearts and minds” of all those people and helping them build a nation.

And what are we to do when adversaries appear in other parts of the world? Back to winning the hearts and minds, I suppose. This could get out of hand, or in fact already has.

Personally, I would be more apt to support the notion that our mission should be to go after forces that may pose a threat to our own security here at home or after forces that might latch onto the capability of destroying the world (such as is the situation in Pakistan and even Iran). Granted that is hard to do when, as in the case of Afghanistan, these forces often do not wear uniforms and blend into the populace and have the cover of rugged terrain. Nonetheless, even if we are to have success in so called counter-insurgency measures or, as we called them in Vietnam, pacification measures, in the end I think overwhelming force is still likely to be the deciding factor.

Iraq right now is in a holding pattern. We have not won. In Afghanistan we are in fact told by the military now that we are behind the curve, not only are we not winning, we are in grave danger of losing big time if we do not pour much more resources into the area immediately.

This week it was announced that the current Afghanistan war commander Gen. David McKiernan was fired, reportedly the first field commander suffering that fate since MacArthur in Korea. The Secretary of Defense has proposed that he be replaced by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, credited with being an expert in things such as counter-insurgency and black ops or whatever. McKiernan is to stay on till his replacement is confirmed. The fired general was said to be old-school, tied to the notion of force on force (or overwhelming force as I like to say). To the old man’s credit, it has also been proposed that another general, David M. Rodriguez, be appointed to a new position of deputy commander. So it takes two men to replace one.

I hope the new plan, to the extent there is one, and the new team works. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that unless we introduce overwhelming force we are in for a long drawn out fight, a war of attrition, ending in some kind of jumbled stalemate, to be followed later, if there is a later, by still more war.

P.s.

Supporting my point about force, what success we have supposedly had in Iraq after all these long years is always attributed to the recent “surge” or addition of troop strength there. Now we are having to rob that theater of war of troops and equipment to augment the effort in Afghanistan. History of the region tells me that we are facing a tougher fight and a tougher adversary in Afghanistan.