Readers write: U.S. as World Cop
Folks,
The right-wing reader’s comment I forwarded under this subject line last
week touched off some good responses from lefties on the list, and I daresay,
more eloquent than mine. In the interest of continuing this worthwhile dialogue,
I submit them for your consideration. Hopefully this will help move the right
wingers to reconsider the leftist position, and will help the lefties forge a
more respectable position on national defense.
–C
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 9:58
AM
Subject: RE: [GetRealList]: U.S. as World Cop
some very interesting points although I’d have to disagree with a few of
them. Specifically, maintaining a military with a strong “first strike
capability”, as we did for the latter half of the last century, is markedly
different then having an active policy of self-anointed preemption. I
think your author would benefit from considering the nuances between a
policy of “containment” and “deterrence” vs.. that of
preemption. The former existed so as to head off the chance of conflict
and make war an option of last resort. The same can not be said of the
latter.
reality of the Cold War was that there was balance to the powers, and that
balance kept the war cold. Mutually Assured Destruction was the world’s
collective insurance policy against preemptive military actions. Weather
or not this balance was achieved by design or happenstance, the net result was
still the same. Today, in the absence of a balance to increasingly
belligerent US power, the world becomes a much more volatile and polarized
place. Furthermore, as the author points out, forces were
maintained in Europe at the “behest of the Europeans” in an effort to maintain
stability. The fact that we are not invited guests in the middle east – in
addition to the myriad of cultural and religious complications that exist there
- means that US military presence there will have a opposite effect on regional
stability in the middle east then it did in Europe. Yes, we may be closer
to the hot spots but we’re also throwing more gas on the
fire.
why - now that the very fabric of this Administration’s argument for going
to war in Iraq (the nexus of WMD, rogue states, and terrorism) has been proven
false – is it so hard to get an honest and open dialogue about our reasons,
actions and goals in Iraq? I’ll give you the connection between Saddam’s rewards
to Islamic Jihad and Hamas, these are proven. However, the presence of one
terrorist with al queda links in Iraq hardly justified the focus of our efforts
on this nation in the wake of 9/11. IMHO, the unfortunate thing about your
friend’s email is that amidst his command of a wonderful series of historical
facts he misses the main point about Bush and the war on terror; Iraq had very
little to do with the problem. Fact: Iraq was militarily impotent prior to
our invasion. Fact: there was no active WMD program, there was no
stockpile of weapons either, there was no Nuclear program. Fact: Saddam’s
secular Iraq was not an exporter of terrorism to the world at large nor was
it an exporter of the perverted form of Islam that has been associated with Bin
Laden. Fact: containment provided an acceptable enough level of security and
threat reduction for the region and the world that we could have worked towards
a better solution to the Iraqi problem while focusing our efforts on the real
issues.
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 12:54
AM
Subject: RE: [GetRealList]: U.S. as
World Cop
I’m not sure this is so well thought
out. At the very least it’s missing a vital connecting piece for me. It just
seems a stretch to draw such precise parallels between the Cold War and the ‘war
on terrorism.’ I remain unconvinced that the threats to U.S. security come from
nation-states that can be checked or combatted militarily. I remain unconvinced
that the likelihood of the next terrorist attack will be affected one way or the
other by our plans for expanded military presence around the world. Fighting
terrorists is going to take a radical rethink of national security, and the
Cheney/Neocon/NeoColdWar idea — let’s use our army to police the world —
doesn’t sound like a radical new concept to me.
The argument is made that failed
nation-states are the breeding grounds for terrorists. That may be true, but how
is our military going to be the answer to that? Are we going to impose stability
on Somalia, Chechnya, N. Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan with our military
presence? Not if we can’t even stay the course in the ONE and ONLY nation where
we’re absolutely positive that the 9/11 terrorists were being trained. If
Afghanistan is the model, then this policy is going to hell in a handbasket.
The terrorists aren’t setting up
capital cities for us to roll tanks into. They aren’t lining up behind barbed
wire fences along established borders. I don’t disagree that we need to police
the world against terrorism. But we need a new vision for policing the world.
Far be it from me to say that I have such a vision, but I think it’s clear that
this administration doesn’t have it either, and is just falling back on
old-style Cold War strategy, which I think is the wrong choice. We need a
stealthier strategy, and we need to combine it with a non-military side to our
foreign policy which stops creating these monsters in the first place. Try to
get your hawk friend to admit that non-military U.S. foreign policy is at least
partly to blame for anarchy in Afghanistan, or for Saddam’s military buildup in
the 80s, or for the Saudis funding terrorists under the table. Go on, just
suggest it…
Oh, and as far as elevating
the discourse goes, this person’s message hardly inspires. “If anyone here
thinks the War on Terrorism isn’t real or scary, go to New York or Jersey and
say that. You’ll get an earful. My brother lost a friend in the Towers.” This is
the kind of fingers-in-ears, nyah-nyah discourse that the Right has been
specializing in since 9/11, painting anyone who doesn’t think *this* particular
strategy is right as not only a namby-pamby pacifist but a heartless traitor who
would forget our dead. The Right does not own defense and security, but it’s
dialogue like this that convinces voters — even the majority of Democratic
voters — that they do. And it drives me batty.