America’s Place in the World (Still More Discussion)

In my last post entitled "America’s Place in the World (More Discussion)" I set forth my exchange on this subject with Herb Reiner of Cedar Grove, NJ, and then set forth a somewhat lengthy exposition on the subject by Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia.

I decided that I can most effectively juxtapose my views against Nekimken’s by interlineating my comments directly into his. I do so by showing Nekimken’s text in italics and my responses in bold type. Those who may want to re-read Nekimken’s views without distraction can do so by referring to my last post "America’s Place in the World (More Discussion)."

I found myself agreeing the most of your reply to Eric Offner, Did you? It doesn't sound that way! even while remembering that FDR's record was not unblemished: despite all of the admirable decisions that he made, which you summarize, he also refused to admit boatloads of desperate Jewish refugees, such as the ship St. Louis, that was ordered to turn around and return to Europe. 

I don't believe that this is a fair criticism. The immigration laws were clear, and these refugees were not eligible for entry under those laws. I don’t think Roosevelt had the power to ignore those laws. Also disappointing, recent biographical scholarship has revealed the extent to which he shared the general anti-Semitism of people of his class and times. Again I disagree! There is no indication that Roosevelt had anti-Semitic views. To be sure Cordell Hull, The Secretary of State did, but to a large extent Roosevelt was unaware of this, until much later when Morgenthau brought it to his attention Roosevelt was shocked but did not feel there was much he could do about it without shaking up his Administration and he wasn't about to do that.

Your rejection of Eric's list of historical sins of America on the world stage was justified insofar as it has been used as a justification for refusing to take action in Syria today. Nevertheless, it reminds us that nations, including America, make geopolitical and diplomatic decisions based mainly on contemporary perceptions of national interest, not according to high principals of morality. Not every Administration is equally guilty of this. Democrats are much more given to humanitarian considerations, than Republicans.  Clinton acted in Bosnia and Obama in Libya. Carter was always concerned with Human Rights.

More troublesome was your conclusion that the world needs a policeman and the U.S. should accept the mantle of that role because it can.

While I accept and even applaud some of our recent interventions, such as in Bosnia that were a relative success, or in Somalia, which failed, Somalia didn't fail! We didn't act! Overall I think your conclusion is flawed for the following reasons:

The listing below I think is the crux of your argument.

·As Eric's comments suggested, the reputation of the U.S. has been tarnished. The rest of the world is quite suspicious of American motives and tends to fly into a frenzy of conspiracy speculation about them rather than admire us for spending money and taking risks to "do the right thing" wherever that motive takes us. True! , But we can change that perception, if we follow a consistent policy that puts greater emphasis on human rights than national Rights. Can we do that politically, doubtful, but it is worth striving for.

·We also can't undertake the responsibility of being the world's policeman because most of the world rejects our authority in this role, even if a minority welcomes it. This ambivalence results in a high potential that our efforts will continue to have unintended, or counterproductive results. Not so! Neither Bosnia nor Libya had that effect.

·We can't afford to be the world's policeman in terms of either money or manpower. How reminiscent of the mood in 1939. Expensive foreign interventions risk pushing our debt to arguably unsustainable levels while our economy remains weak and the need for domestic spending rises due to demographic changes, globalization, automation and other factors that are shrinking the size of the tax-paying workforce to historic lows. Limited intervention does not have very high costs and non-American lives have just as great value as American ones. Neither Bosnia nor Libya had a major impact on our budget. Iraq is always the bugaboo but that was the wrong war with the wrong commitment.

Also important, we can see from the results of the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions that the detrimental effects on our own military--individual soldiers, preparedness infrastructure and stockpiles--have been considerable and were likely understated. At least one-third of the soldiers returning from those battlefields bring with them serious, lifetime mental and physical disabilities that will require expensive attention for many decades.

But you and those likeminded keep coming back to Iraq and Afghanistan.  Those are not relevant models and references to those are misleading and inapplicable.

·For this reason, new initiatives that put the U.S. in the role of world policeman will inevitably catalyze the trend now underway to replace human soldiers with increasingly automated drones and other robotic equipment. 

This will happen regardless of anything else. Technology, not policy drives this. 

·Even if this trend shows some success on financial and tactical grounds, it exposes us to very dangerous moral dilemmas. Automated drones are being now prepared for global deployment that will either not require human direction, The will always require human direction though from a remote location. or will prevent it as a measure to counter cyberterrorism. As this trend accelerates, so does the probability of error, collateral deaths and anti-American agitation. Only a Defense Department order prohibiting the use of self-piloted drones has prevented their deployment for now.  I don't understand this. Self piloted drones are in use. However, this prohibition will not last indefinitely and it has no effect on the rest of the world where the cost of conducting ever more deadly terrorist operations continues to fall along with fading moral scruples against launching strikes with inexpensive drones or chemical weapons. But this is not relevant to policing atrocities.

Worse, automated drone warfare risks depriving attacks of any identifiable geographical address. We attacked Afghanistan and Iraq because they were perceived to be harboring terrorists. In the future, we may not be able to identify either the source location or even the identity of the sponsors of terrorist activity. It's difficult to be an effective policeman when you can't locate the criminals. Now you are talking apples and oranges. Dealing with terrorists is something we are doing, and will continue to do. It has its challenges as you point out. But it has nothing to do with intervening when mass slaughter on the scale of the Nazis, or in Bosnia and/or Kosovo or in Rwanda, takes place, and as we saw in Bosnia and Libya, it does not require boots on the ground, or even huge expenditures. You are raising a great many irrelevancies and bugaboos.

·Returning to Syria, there seems to be general agreement that, if it had been possible for the U.S. to use military force to quickly eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, we probably should have done so. However, to attempt to do this without a U.N. mandate, without good intelligence about the location of the weapons (which have already and obviously been dispersed or hidden), there was a high probability that our effort would have failed and only worsened the situation. Chemical weapons have not been the issue until now! It has been the slaughter of peaceful demonstrators. Right then and there we should have told Bashar al-Assad, stop or there will be consequences, followed by drone attacks on airfields and on anti aircraft batteries until his capacity to use those weapons was suppressed. Anti tank weapons, to the secular forces would also have made sense.

·Even Israel next door was ambivalent about the wisdom of a unilateral attack on Syria's chemical stockpiles by the U.S.  Nobody has suggested an attack on the chemical weapons.  Such action would only have pleased Saudi Arabia, which continues to sit on its hands and treasure, refusing to risk either--and Turkey whose president, Erdogan, has deployed only his big mouth and volunteered the U.S. to undertake all the risks and costs.

·Erdogan complains with justice that no country has even stepped up to help the refugees who have fled Syria and are living under desperate situations in neighboring countries. Erdogan is absolutely right! His country is bearing the brunt of caring for Syrian refugees, while we are doing nothing to help them. He is in no position to unilaterally take on Bashar al-Assad. (Apparently, such spending doesn't pump money into the hands of defense contractors or create many jobs in American congressional districts, so it has little appeal.) This last is unworthy of you! As you well know I am not looking for spending more on armaments and the humanitarian actions I am urging, have nothing to do with defense contractors. They will do very well regardless.

The slaughter of innocent civilians, whether Jews in Germany or the Soviet Union, or Slavs, or Africans, cannot be permitted. Better that we can unite on it, but it cannot be tolerated unless you feel that the worlds polices toward the Jews in the Holocaust was right. Russia or for that matter China cannot be allowed to be the dogs in the manger, who continues the defense of the indefensible and the absolute obstacle of humanitarianism.

It seems to me your instincts are pacifist and even suggest isolationism, which after Iraq and Afghanistan has gripped the country, just as it did after the WWI.

Final comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to, but not distributed.

Taking a Sabbatical

Recently the President gave his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. It was hailed by most observers as one of his greatest.

The full speech which is well worth listening to, and which has been hailed as a seminal one, can be seen and heard here.

To hear an excellent discussion of it by Shields and Brooks I urge you to listen to a segment from the PBS Newshour. On the left of that site you will find a listing of recent videos. Look for those under 12/11, scroll down until you find the heading, "Shields and Brooks Dissect Obama's Nobel Speech" and click on that.

With that I must once again regretfully take a sabbatical of uncertain duration.

I say regretfully because so many issues that I feel I could beneficially address, remain.

Health Care Reform is so complicated that even though I have addressed this issue more than once, there is still so much I have not covered and which I believe I could shed light on.

Immigration reform is another; Same Sex marriage, the so called war on drugs, end of life issues, lobbyists and election reform, the filibuster and the state of our Democracy, to name a few that immediately come to mind.

Senator Lieberman has become an increasingly controversial figure and there is much to be understood, both about the man and the pragmatism that applies in dealing with him, or for that matter with other issues that divide Democrats in the face of adamant and united Republican opposition and the need for 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

The issue of torture and rendition and how we should deal with this legacy deserves focus.

Unfortunately, to address these or other issues, not just with of the top of the head opinions, but with carefully researched facts, which is the only way I care to do it, is extremely time consuming. In addition to distributing these commentaries to some 500 people by e-mail I also publish them in my local newspaper and the ensuing debate distributed as comments takes up more research and more time, not to speak of the time it takes for distribution and posting the comments on my blog, where I now have an extensive archive of past commentary along with extensive comments. I intend to keep adding to that archive.

For better or for worse I do have another life which often becomes neglected in my singular focus on my political commentary. Periodically I must attend to personal matters. And so I take temporary leave.

Until then - See you later! Arrivederci, Au revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, ω˙¯‡Â˙¨ 안녕히, 가세요 and До свидания.

The War in Afghanistan

 As I write this it is before the President has announced his policy. This is deliberate because I did not want my views to be influenced by the President's decision.

What disturbs me is that it is a very complicated decision and yet most people, whether Left or Right hold strong opinions lacking nuance or even real understanding.

Thus Cheney, our former V-P who dithered for eight years about having a real strategy in Afghanistan, or about adequately sourcing it, accuses our President of dithering because, unlike our previous President, Bush, he has a deliberative consultative way of reaching decisions. Instead of going, as the former President did, “by his gut”; he takes two month to reach a considered conclusion. To the former V-P it seems everything is a no-brainer, whether it is torture or escalating the commitment of our overstretched troops, and his Republican allies in the Congress are no different.

The hawks even go so far as to argue that we could have and should have won in Vietnam. See the article in Newsweek of November 16 by Evan Thomas and John Barry but that is so unhinged from reality that it is hardly worth time and effort in refuting, for it assumes that it was important for us to win in Vietnam, which subsequent developments have disproved. Losing did not affect our security (the domino theory was wrong) and today we have friendly relations with that regime. In fact it seems that losing in Vietnam had more positive results than winning in Korea, for N. Korea is a hostile state while Vietnam is an important trading partner. As for “we could have won” assumes infinite patience on the part of the American Public and a level of military firepower that might well have inflamed the region in a conflagration, (we dropped more explosives on little Vietnam than on all the axis countries in WW II) which could have set off the 3rd World War.

On the other hand many in the liberal camp, such as Bob Herbert, writing in the New York Times of November 8, 2009, without evaluating the security aspects of the Afghanistan war, seem to feel, in his words that, “We’re worried about Kabul when Detroit has gone down for the count.” That is a wrong and simplistic, though a populist analysis. When we have problems at home it does not follow that we should ignore the problems away from home, and our security can never be dismissed so easily. Would Herbert take similar attitude toward the people of Porto Prince in Haiti. Would he reject, for example, Obama's inspirational words in his inaugural address, "To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds." Would he also say, “We’re worried about Porto Prince when Detroit has gone down for the count.” 

Others are ready to equate Afghanistan with Vietnam and to call for a quick end to our involvement."

As I see it, neither conclusion is obvious and those who see ‘the right course so easily” have not considered all its ramifications.

I have heard that we need not commit more troops to Afghanistan because there is actually no real danger to our security from there and that if Al QAEDA does not find a sanctuary there, they will find it elsewhere, in one of the failed states on the African continent. But if that were so they would have already moved, because they have not had a safe haven in Afghanistan for years, are wandering without real bases, as they roam in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. So the argument that withdrawing from Afghanistan and letting the Taliban/Al QAEDA return does not appear to be valid. Of course, The Taliban and Al QAEDA are not one and the same, but until the Taliban chooses to break the link it might as well be, and there is no indication that they are prepared to do so.

There is also the danger that the Taliban, which now uses Pakistan as a safe haven to attack in Afghanistan, could if in power in Afghanistan use that area as a base to destabilize Pakistan, and that is a far greater danger, though Pakistan, at least for now, seems not very enthusiastic about our stepped up activities in its neighboring state, arguing instead that the more pressure that is brought to bear on the Taliban, the more they are pushed into Pakistan with destabilizing results. This leaves the issue in the grey area to say the least. We are in a situation where we are damned if do and damned if we don’t.

And yet it seems that if we could succeed in keeping the Taliban from overrunning that poor country at a cost that is not excessive in lives and/or treasure it would appear to be the wise thing to do.

But in Shakespeare’s words, “There’s the rub,” for at the moment the Taliban are in the ascendancy. On the other hand that is the direct result of the neglect and inattention given this vital theater while resources where devoted to the wrong place, in Iraq.

Should we not now at least for a limited period see if we can retrieve some limited success from that neglect?

Thus I discount as nonsense the hawks as represented by Cheney and Thomas, but that does not resolve the issue of withdrawal or for that matter a surge. Certainly, the dishonesty and corruption of the Karzai regime does not bode well.

Nor do I join those who feel that the President should be bound by his generals’ recommendations. Our founding fathers, wisely made the President Commander in Chief, not as Bush/Cheney claimed, to enhance the President’s power over the Congress, but to make sure that such important decisions are not made by generals, who have been wrong time and time again, (Lincoln had to keep changing commanders) they misled us in Vietnam, and have never been known for not wanting anything but more troops.

I conclude that it is too dangerous and too early to give up on Afghanistan, but that we must have, if not time lines, performance tests, so we do not get bogged down in an endless and fruitless war. The benefits of a successful pacification of the area are too great not to allow for one last and limited effort.

This view will not earn me kudos from Right or Left, but there are times when the middle is not a straddle, but the right place to be.  

What Have Republicans Wrought?

As we conclude the sixth year of the Republican reign (and by Republican reign I mean having complete control of all the levers of government, the executive, both houses of the Congress and a compliant Supreme Court) it may be well to look at what has happened on their watch. We have often argued about their policies and have found them wanting, but it may be that a much more telling measure may be what they have wrought.

Let us begin with a worldview. As Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001 the country was at peace. Democracy was sweeping the globe; moderate democratic governments were in power in South America, and in much of the globe including Thailand. Iraq was contained with sanctions and no fly zones and in Iran it’s youth was clamoring for reform and had elected as its President, the moderate, Mohammad Khatami. Korea was a member of the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and had admitted inspectors into it’s closed society. It had negotiated the “Sunshine Policy” with South Korea, which led to a lessening of tension, and we were witnesses to relatives from the divided nation meeting each other, amid hugs and tears for the first time in decades. In Thailand a Democratically elected government ruled the country.

Now six years later, we have extreme left wing governments in power in Venezuela and Peru and are nervous as to the direction of the populist government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil.

In Thailand the Democratically elected government has been overthrown by a military coup and a military dictatorship reigns, without a murmur of protest from our government.

In Palestine the radical Hamas has been elected.

Iraq lies in ruins as the death toll of our troops mounts and the total casualty figure is withheld from us. As for Iraqis, their death toll has reached hundreds of thousands and total casualty figures are never mentioned, either for American troops or for Iraqi civilians, as though people who have lost their limbs, but are alive are irrelevant. And what is the response by the head of the Republican Party, who is President? After saying “We must stay the course” innumerable times, he now tells us he never meant that, but wants us to stay the course. After Washington Post columnist, Bob Woodward, published his book “State of Denial” the President assures that he actually sees the television images just as we do, after having told us they are misleading and don’t show all the good things.

He accuses his critics of a mentality of “Cut and Run” apparently never having heard of “Strategic retreats,” so that our soldiers may live to fight another day. The Republicans have lost the war and more importantly the peace in Iraq, and attack their critics for not joining them in their “State of Denial.”

Afghanistan, which was the one and only success of this Administration is back slipping as a result of neglect, and looks like a resurgent Taliban may yet turn that unhappy country into another Iraq.

In Iran, Khatami has been replaced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the youth who once clamored for reform, now clamor for atomic power and cheer the madman. Any hope that the youth will successfully push for reform has gone down the drain.

Korea has left the NPT, kicked out the inspectors and rather than forswearing an atomic bomb brags about having one. It probably does not, but if we “stay the course” in this theater, it undoubtedly will have one before long.

In the meantime Russia’s atomic weapons are left unguarded and it is a more likely source for such weapons falling into terrorist’s hands than any of the rogue states, but negotiations to safeguard this danger have been all but abandoned.

When it comes to terrorism all attempts by the terrorists to attack our homeland were thwarted before the Republicans gained ascendancy. In the years immediately preceding that ascendancy, the terrorists tried again and again to attack our homeland. They attacked the World Trade Center but it was unsuccessful. They planned to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously. They planned to attack and blow up UN Headquarters. They planned to blow up FBI Headquarters; the Israeli Embassy in Washington; Boston airport; the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in NY and the George Washington Bridge. They were thwarted each time. And then Republicans gained power and 9/11 happened and somehow they reaped benefit from it. It shows that they are good at one thing!!!! PROPAGANDA. How can one reap credit for failure?

On the home front Republicans inherited a surplus in the National budget. The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion and the cumulative National debt stood at 5.7 trillion. Even though during the previous twelve years of Republican rule preceding the Clinton Administration, the Federal debt had quadrupled, the White House and the Congressional Budget office projected that the National debt of 5.7 trillion would be retired in ten years. No one questioned these projections and this Republican Administration, with the blessings of the Chairman of the Fed. Alan Greenspan, expressed fear that without a tax cut the surplus would be too large. Well. We needn’t worry about that any more. The cumulative national debt is now 8.5 trillion. While huge sums are stolen, laws are written by lobbyist for their clients instead of by legislators for the American people, and pork is rampant with appropriations for bridges to nowhere. Citizens Against Government Waste calculates that pork barrel spending has exploded from 1,439 projects worth $10 billion in 1995 to 13,997 worth $27.3 billion in 2005. The “emergency” bill for Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war included $1.8m to promote art in West Virginia. At the same time taxes are slashed for a small minority of Republican campaign contributors. How do they propose to remedy this mess? They tell us our entitlements cost too much money. The say we can’t afford Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid anymore or loans and grants for needy college students.

In the meantime wages are stagnating. In the years 2000 to 2005 total compensation for workers, which includes wages, health insurance and pension benefits, declined 2.5% as a percent of gross domestic product, according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis. This contrasts with the 1990s when Workers’ share of the economy grew by 2.3%. What makes this even worse is that it happened while productivity was increasing rapidly.

As for unemployment an area where Republicans are bragging about the low rate, it should be noted that in 2000 just before Republicans seized the Presidency and enacted their “stimulating” tax cuts the unemployment rate stood at 4%. By 2003 it was up to 6% and it is finally down to 4.5% which they claim shows how well things are working. It took them 6 years to get it close to where it was when they seized power. The pain this has inflicted on real people can be seen from the fact that when Wallmart offered it’s extremely low paying jobs without benefits, desperate job seekers lined up. On one occasion 25,000 potential employees vied for 325 available jobs. On another 15,000 people lined up to try to snag one of the 400 available jobs.

Most incredibly, even the people who supposedly are the beneficiaries of the Bush policies have not fared well. The Investor Class, whose taxes have been slashed again and again, has not fared well in this Republican era. Between the ascendancy of a Republican President to go with a Republican Congress investors have actually lost money. At the close of the market on January 19, 2001 the day before Bush took office the Dow stood at 10,587. On October 30 2006, after a very strong run up during October it stood at 12,098 or a gain of 1,511 or 14%. During this period inflation caused purchasing power to decline by 15% or a net loss to investors of 1%. But the Dow is a poor measure of the stock market because it only tracks 30 carefully chosen stocks and they are not weighted equally, so that no one can invest in its index. The S&P 500 which tracks 500 of the largest companies is a much more meaningful indicator. It stood at 1,342 at the beginning of Republican ascendancy. On October 30 it was at 1,378, a difference of 36 or 2%. Factoring in inflation, investors in an S&P index fund lost 13%. If we look at the Nasdaq we find the respective figures to be 2,770.38 and 2,359.86 a loss of 411 points or a loss of 14%. When inflation is factored in that is a whopping 29 % loss.

WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE REPUBLICAN?????????

It seems to me that the Republican Party not only does not deserve to govern but it cannot justify it’s very existence. It deserves to follow the way of the Whigs. It needs to disappear. Then the Democratic Party can and would split into two responsible parties and we would be governed by the people, and not by experts in deception and propaganda.