Agreed--the more gridlock, the less damage the gubmint can do, right?

I appreciate these examples--Americans seem to have really short memories, politically. Or tunnel vision, perhaps. Whichever party is in power, the opposite spends four years displaying indignance and denial, and pretending that they would never do--or never did--such things. Then they bring out the demeaning rhetoric, like "moonbats," or "mouth breathers," to completely dehumanize and discredit their fellow Americans who simply have an opposing perspective. Kinda makes me sick, really.

I guess if I'm going to rant, I should get my own blog!

Waaaaah! I lose more commenters that way - when they start to blog, they don't have time to hang out!

John,

You wrote in not too many sentences, the essence of how I have felt about the use of the military since the Balkans. I wrote to Clinton more than once (not that he'd read anything I sent him, 'cauise he never resigned either) about my unhappiness about the Balkans, Somalia, and etc. I have done the same with the current Boss, but with a different intent....

Interestingly, if you go back and review what is know about the constitutional debates and the federalist papers (old and new), you find that "slow-go" was clearly and specifically the intent. Congress was not to be motivated or swayed by 'factionalism,' and the distance between the leaders and the citizenry was intentional, the founders wanted congress to have to time to plan for the long haul and to be able to stay above the day to day ebb and flow.

I'm not sure about pure gridlock, but I've come to find that as often as not, taking no action is the correct action. I suppose we'll see.

Anyway, good write-up.

John, don't worry. I am completely unmotivated to get my own blog.

Then there are those commenters who start to blog and then don't have time to blog and resume commenting...

As you know I am neither US or military so can hardly speak for the US military but as far as I am concerned as your average citizen of the west, the Balkans were the most successful operation since WWII except for the huge fact they did not start soon enough. The dictators are all rotting in a Dutch jail where they will die and the continent has been relieved of the last vestige of a form of tyrany that had infected it for around eight decades.

I understand to a point, but beyond that point 'I needs me some edumafacation'.
Let me put this question to you though: It's 1956 and Hungary is about to try and get out of the USSR, but you see the troops massing to crusch the revolution on the border. Do we go? Do we want to go, but think better of it because of the possible ramifications?
Or, it's 1968, Czechloslovakia is about to go behind the Iron Curtain. Same as before, do we go or not, and if we don't go is it because we're worried about causing a major war?

If the reasons for opposing the Soviet Union militarily were that it was illiberal, inhumane, corrupt, and murderous why shouldn't we oppose others as well based on first principles?

I'm kinda surprised too. Especially given the occasionaly remembrance of 'Never Again' and the admonitions to live up to that promise here at Castle Argghh!. I never liked Clinton. I felt he was teh democrats versin of Nixon except that Clinton never did anything as important as Going To China or stopping US involvement in the Vietnam War. But if we really mean that we will not abide genocide ever again we have to accept the cost of such a decision too.

'Which isn't all bad, really. If either side of the debate gets what they want...disaster will ensue.'
Being a little bit pregnant are we, John? ;)

And now Bill is posting self-absorbed autobiographical navel gazing... gad, we're falling apart around here!

Throw more pepper!

Heh. Looks like I trapped myself into a post. Shite.

I think the practical difference between 1956 and 1968 and the Balkins is practica - we could. We could finally crush it and put an end to that aspect of history. So we did. While it was a bit about genocide, we have not taken steps in Africa to follow up so we should not be too proud of that. I think its success is really about the ending of the viability of dictatorship in the NATO sphere of influence. Given Europe was the generator of my anti-democratic influence over the generations (imperial, colonial, communist, fascist) this is a good thing.

Just remember even Carter pushed the cruise missile. You never know where the good stuff might come from.

*enters Castle... gets hit in face by wave of pepper... sneezes*

OHHHHhhhhhh GODDDDDDDDDDDD

YES YES YES!

*I love this place*

I was really only looking to make two points, Mr. McCloud. One on the motivations and the reasoning behind the decisions. The other being that pledges have costs.

The devil is in the details, of course, but the logic for meddling(or more accurately in the cases of 1956 and 1968, the feelings of guilt for not acting or being unable to act) in sitaution A having the criteria I listed will hold for all situations that meet those criteria.
If we believe it is morally correct to fight one regime because it has certain characteristics we are still correct to oppose other regimes that have those same characteristics.

'Never Again', well, if we mean it let's mean it. LEt's not have it be a saying we drag out when it's convienient to be principled. That means some mighty fine men and women won't go home to their families sometimes. Essentially TANSTAAFL.

And, Carter and the cruise missile, sure fine. He cancels carriers and bombers which out with the cm is rather an impotent toy, but he did push the mil into accepting it, if you're assertion is right(though, I have seen some systems referenced in J Pournelle essays that make me doubt that the cm wasn't in the works before Mr. Peanut got behind it. ANyone remember anything about QUAIL?). Heee. I'll take my beating for insolance on Mon. okay? Angels games tonight and tommorrow and Sun I have a bbq. ;)

mmm...actually, this was why I was a democrat that voted for Bush in 2004.

I suppose I am a hawk, all the way around. I supported every military action we've taken since Gulf War I. I would have supported Somolia ass kicking even more. However, getting older and looking at this war and many implications, I've come to understand why you might not attack someone at a particular time considering the consequences and any goals you might expect to reach.

then again, I don't think that we should be so parsimonious with our military that it means nothing when we speak or, as ry said, make pledges.

I will tell you that I was having this discussion at Blonde Sagacity with a lefty about why Rawanda was a place we did not want to go. First, we would have had to take sides and kill someone. There was no way you were doing "peacekeeping" there. Second, the French were already supporting a side and that was the murdering, genocidaires (no surprise really) and would have been a diplomatic issue. Third, every nation around the area was putting their money and people behind one side or the other.

That was a very big situation and staying with our natural allies would have made us on the side of the slaughterers.

That's the logical side of me, the side that looks at the options and says "don't do it". but the other side that had to see the daily deaths on the TV was screaming for us to do something because, we are strong and we are supposed to protect the weak; because we said "never again" and we didn't mean it unless it was convenient for us; I guess, I just think that we are stronger, more capable and have a moral obligation to other people who are being oppressed and murdered.

Call me an idealist. Or call me a hawk.

maybe that makes me a fascist, militant, imperialist American?

Whatever. If we are the force for good than we should act like it.

I believe we have to be careful of who we side with and why. Realpolitik has caused us far more and longer lasting problems that keeping our word. Vietnam is a case in point. I don't want to step on any Truman'phils toes here, but his failure to live up to Roosevelt's promise is the root cause of everything that came after that.

Most people are unaware that Ho Chi Minh was an ardent ally of the US/Allies during WWII. Why? Because in negotiations for his support against the Japanese, we (the US) promised not to let the French back into Indonesia. From the Vietnamese perspective, their treatment at the hands of the Japanese was only marginally worse than at the hands of the French, who looked down their noses at all non-French as inferior (and still do it appears).

After Roosevelt died, Truman decided that a promise made in that part of the world by Roosevelt was either non-binding or just too much trouble to keep, and allowed the French to reclaim the territory. The Vietnamese, and Ho Chi Minch in particular, viewed this as a personal betrayal. The anger over this, swept them into the Communist camp as they re-started their insurgency against the French.

In an ideal world, when the French appealed help, the help we should have provided was transports to get the French out and apologies for Truman's betrayal. Instead we got sucked into a war against a betrayed former ally, to bail out a country that had thumbed its nose at the rest of the Allies after WWII.

This is an oversimplification of all the factors involved, but the main premise cannot be denied. If Truman had held to Roosevelt's promise, then there would have been no betrayal to drive the Vietnamese to the Communists.

The rest, as they say, is history...

Three things:

1) The cruise missile, especially the GLCM was WANTED by the Europeans, not pushed on them or on anyone else for that matter. There were excellent reasons for the Germans to want GLCMs on their land. Of course the German Gov't couldn't very well tell its citizenry that it was hoped this would force the Americans and Russians to be more careful, since a GLCM sent to Moscow from the FRG would invite retaliation against both Germany and CONUS. Why? Because the US controlled the nukes, and with the stationing of the GLCMs in the FRG, there was thenceforth hardly anyway the two MAJOR powers could ever again fight a war in Western Europe that did not also involve both superpower homelands. If Germany/Nato was about to be over-run, NATO could demand the use of the GLCMs, and THAT changed everything. The US could no longer just walk off leaving Europe a smoldering ruin, with no real damage to the US.

2) Carter: He did several things that mattered, though I still despise him. A) The failure at Desert One was the reason SOCOM exists, give or take a few details. That screw-up was the last straw. B) Carter declared that the use of Chemical weapons in war would be considered by the United States the same as the use of nuclear weapons. This too changed things considerably. Those of us who faced east knew the WP considered chemicals (nerve, mustard, blood, etc.) the same as conventional weapons. A very scary thought, considering the number of artillery tubes those blokes had. Carter changed the equation, and the WP changed the composition of its load and the level of authority needed to use the stuff (at least that's what I remember reading later).

3) Clayton is for the most part right about Ho Chi Minh; however, it is also true that Ho was actually trained at Chaing Kai-Shek's military academy at Wampoa as was Mao (according to J. Fenby, in his book titled Chaing Kai-Shek). He had dealings with both Mao and Chaing, who by the way was in fact trained by the Japanese at a military academy in Japan. Also of interest, General Ridgeway--later of Korean War fame--was a military advisor to Chaing in WWII, but Chaing pretty much ignored his advice, preferring instead the advice of German and Russian advisors. What I've gotten from all I've read is that the failure in Asia did not start with Truman, but rather under Roosevelt, who was willing to acquiesce to almost anything to get Chaing to keep fighting the Japanese, even though his was among the most corrupt and poorly run governments of his time.

Isn't it amazing how complex and interconnected everything *really* is; much more so than most people even begin to realize. Kind of like 1SG Keith's 6 degrees of separation post a bit ago.

Ry - tonight you can back your Angels and Mr. Figgins as my Red Sox are already into 2006.

But this is a very interesting discourse, folks. Far be it from me (with all honesty - not jsut "blognesty") to question why US leadership do not "pull the trigger" and get engaged at this point or another in recent history with that might in the cause of freedom. You should be perhaps more proud than you are. We few to the north have had a very different recent history and may have done a similar - or a different thing - at the scale we could which sometimes turned into a right thing. Yet to know that feeling of "should of", "could of"...it's awful. It is awful especially when you think of "never again" - that cry of the said as young men now almost a century ago who were old men, the WWI vets now long dead, that I met as a kid in my father's church in the early 1970s. They demanded a purity in these things. Who has heard them? Who tried?

BTW, in 1968, the Czechs were already under control of the Russians and thus, were already "be-hind the Iron Curtain." The Prague Spring was a peaceful attempt to gain more control of the government, and to get more personal freedom; however, the Czechs flatly refused to fight. They were not the Hungarians, and the Russians didn't have to kill a lot of them. I've asked almost every Czech I ever met why the Czechs didn't fight in '68, and the an-swer almost to a person was, "We survived." And they did, didn't they? Of course, they only had to be slaves to the Russians for another 30+ years, but hey, they survived.

Also, you must remember, we had already "betrayed" the Czechs once, when Roosevelt all but gave the Czechs to the Russians. In fact, the US Forces that had already crossed into Bohemia were forced to withdraw to Germany, in spite of strident pleas from the people of Prague to liberate them before the Russians arrived.

And finally, one complication in 1968 was that even before the end of WWII, the leader of the Pro-visional Government of Czechoslovakia (in-exile in UK), Eduard Benes, had signed a se-cret security agreement with the Russians. This was done without US or UK knowledge, supposedly, and I suspect this severely complicated any response the US might have made otherwise. Benes was Slovak, and supposedly didn't trust the west as much as he did the Slavic powers to the east.

So much for easy answers, huh?

A final note on the Czechs:

Vaclav Havel was the first freely-elected President of Czechoslovakia after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Before then, he was well-known as a poet, writer, and dissident. In 1975, he wrote the following in an open letter to the general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party:

"If every day a man take orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions, and he is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.

"On the contrary: even if they never speak of it, people have a very acute appreciation of the price they have paid for their outward peace and quite: the permanent humiliation of their human dignity. The less direct resistance they put up to it--comforting themselves by driving it from their mind and deceiving themselves with the thought that it is of no account, or else simply gritting their teeth--the deeper the experience etches itself into their emotional memory. The man who can resist humiliation can quickly forget it; but the man who can long tolerate it must long remember it. In actual fact, then, nothing remains forgotten. All the fear one has endured, the dissimulation one has been forced into, all the painful and degrading buffoonery, and, worst of all, perhaps, the feeling of displayed cowardice--all this settles and accumulates somewhere on the bottom of our social consciousness, quietly fermenting."

---
Words to live--and die-by!
~SangerM

Actually, Clayton,
1. Ho Chi Minh had been an ardent Communist since about 1918--he was one of the co-founders of the French Communist Party (1920);
2. Sanger's nailed (big surprise--*not*) it as Roosevelt (Potsdam Conference), rather than Truman who had the finger in the nuoc mam bowl when he, Churchill and Stalin redrew the proposed post-war map of Vietnam;
3. the Viet Minh were our ardent allies (rather than the Vietnamese populace) not because of any promises we made about post-war policies, but because we were aiding them in their fight against the Japanese; and
4. in September, 1945, Ho announced the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, theoretically plopping the Vietnamese into the Communist camp well before the Viet Minh cranked up the "War of Liberation."

You made some good points, though, but is it realpolitik causing us the grief or is it self-inflicted due to our oft-unwillingness to accept the consequences of going along for the ride?

Ah, the sage Messrs. SangerM et Tuttle buttoned down that ragged thread, in expert fashion.

As far as Somalia & Bosnia is concerned, I contend that we did not have a dog in those fights. Heart wrenching as the atrocities comming from those garden spots were, the U.S. did not have a compelling national security interest in getting involved in them. Since when were we annointed to be the Caped Crusaders, to right all the wrongs of this world? There used to be a time in which self-contained internal strife was considered a purely internal matter. As far as I'm concerned, it should still remain so.

On Boq's note, I've always wondered why the most vicious bloodlettings throughout history were termed "civil" wars...

Talk about an oxymoron; there ain't 'nuthin civil about them.

Well....

Thanks for the nods, guys, but re: the Balkans, I'm not sure that wasn't a national interest thing as well. Certainly it was in the interest of western Europe to halt that destabilizing crap, being in their own backyard so to speak, but we all know the continentals weren't going *anywhere* we didn't lead, so that was a non-starter.

That said, I think things changed when it became clear that the so-called civil war had turned into genocide, which like-it-or-not, I feel powerful countries have an obligation to prevent/stop, etc.

Of course, I really, truly, to the depths of my soul hate that it always has to be us--us sorry-satanic imperialist Americans--who have to stop all the real villains of the world from killing everyone else. Just once, I'd like to see some other major player send its blood to flow in the soil of a distant land, just to protect the weak and innocent from those who prey on their own. I mean, we're all here because our ancestors left those places in the first place.

Oh well, sometimes, you just gotta step out there, and that's a notion we Americans understand well and fully. I just wish there were more starters in the world who could carry the water.

[sigh]

Maybe someday, eh?

With respect - and I mean it - I just don't get this:

"Just once, I'd like to see some other major player send its blood to flow in the soil of a distant land, just to protect the weak and innocent from those who prey on their own. I mean, we're all here because our ancestors left those places in the first place."

The UK is in Basra, we up here are in Afganistan and a bunch of other places...and lots of countries are doing lots. Sure we don't sent 100,000 soldiers anywhere because we are 1/10th your size and don't have 100,000 to send. But we have sent all we have everywhere we can and for a very long time when we were sending troops for peace duty in hot spots were were the only North Americans doing so. As well, I should not need to mention 1914 to 1917 and 1939 to 1941.

I think sometimes it can be possible to be so sensitive to one's own good deeds that you miss the good deeds of others.

Actually, Alan, I am well aware of the work others have done, truly I am; however, I stand by my belief that if the U.S. doesn't lead, others just don't go first--not any more, anyway. [Note: while typing further down, I remembered Australia went into East Timor, not sure who else helped there or the scope of the effort].

When was the last time Canada led a peace-keeping mission anywhere? Or Germany? Or France, Russia, China? South Korea? Japan? I am not talking about mini-missions in support of UN efforts, but major world-class efforts, requiring a great expenditure of national wealth and blood. C'mon. Taiwan? India or Pakistan? A single African country? Any continental European country (I did say continental previously, BTW)? Any South American country? Name one.

Yeah, I know other countries have helped, and I neither discount nor demean that effort, but just once it would be nice if Europe did something without us having to show them how; if any great military undertaking in the world didn't have to include the American military. Continental Europe & Canada have let their militaries weaken almost to the point of ineffectiveness while the U.S. has been called every sort of dirty name by many of the people in those countries because we kept up the effort. And I know about Canada--I have work-related reasons to be well aware of its recent statement of intention to revitalize its military.

WWI might have been won without US involvement, but I don't think so--I could be wrong, I'm not all that knowledgeable about WWI. At the end of WWII, however, Europe would have been owned by Fascists were it not for U.S. involvement. And since....

.... well, I've said what I meant and meant what I said. Yes, many countries have helped the U.S., but none have done anywhere near as much as we have done to help others, and for so little lasting gratitude. And don't even get me started on the U.N.

And lastly, I just can't let this go by. "Sure we don't sent 100,000 soldiers anywhere because we are 1/10th your size" Ok, be honest, Alan: even if Canada had a much larger population, do you really think your country would have as large an Army, proportionally, as we do? Or that it would take the lead in any kind of military action by, say, invading Darfur to stop the genocide there?

I'm sorry, but I just don't see it.

V/R
~SangerM

Here's where I jump in an suggest that, in an ugly twist of fate... if the US had *not* gotten into WWI, WWII as we now it might well have not happened. You can make the argument that by 1918, the war would have been a draw, and concluded by mutual exhaustion. Who knows...

There still would have been a reckoning between the Soviets and Europe at some point, and the Japanese and US at some point.

Of course, Harry Turtledove makes a lot of money writing about stuff like that.

And, back to the core of the thread... as Alan knows, this space has said Good Things about the Canadian Armed Forces, while bashing the government... and even said nice things about the German Armed Forces, while bashing the government, and *gasp* the French soldier, while, um, well, bashing the government.

But I'm consistent in this regard. I say Good Things about the US Armed Forces... and bash the government.

Snerk.

"Since when were we annointed to be the Caped Crusaders, to right all the wrongs of this world?"---Boq.

I ask you all to consider for a moment that maybe while we weren't annointed the Caped Crusaders that maybe we have assumed that mantle. I'm not arguing that this is a good thing, but possible(recieve-Sanger's-boot-to-the-head countermeasure deployed).

The Monroe Doctrine, and what it's meant to enforce it.
Containment, and what it's meant to enforce it--particularly the economic stability angle and the employment of the USN in that role during the Cold War.
The Truman Doctrine, ditto the above.
Being the muscle for the UN since its inception and its largest benefactor, while not trying to reign in all of its meddling.

While I agree that we proll'y ought not to have nor should we take on the role of Leviathan if given the chance I still think it's possible that we actually have.

A: As I said, I really don't know that much about WWI (the whys and wherefores, that's kind of a gray area for me), but I do know it led almost directly to WWII because of the harsh penalties, etc; which as I understand it, was one of the main reasons we put so much into the Marshall plan--to prevent WWIII for the same reasons.... It'd be interesting to actually trace a possible future from our not geting involved in WWI, though. Hmmmm...

B, just FYI: The Monroe doctrine had but one purpose: to keep other folks from screwing around in our backyard. Moreover, it was never meant to have any beneficiary but the US, even though on more than one occassion, south or central American countries tried to invoke the doctrine to get us to come to their aid. When they did, we politely explained to them that 1) they didn't have the right to invoke our doctrine and 2) we weren't going to send help. Suffice to say, that caused problems that still reverbarate today.

C: Boot to the head? Never. And as for us assuiming the mantle of caped crusader, why sure we have. That wasn't me who questioned same, that was Boq. For my part, I'm an isolationist at heart--the more I learn about other countries, the less I want to think about them. Unfortunately, I am also old enough and wise enough (in my own mind anyway) to understand that we just can't be that way. I'm not sure we need to go to war as often as we do, but then I read the Dorsai Trilogy years ago, and I still believe that was THE ideal to strive for... Read it if you haven't. Fun SF with a purpose.

Nuff for now, gotta go eat.

'Boot to the head? Never.' Meant it the way Prakish over at Armor Geddon's tank Sgt. does here: 'I looked at his station. He was outside of the tank from the waist up, but I watched his left leg snap forward and kick Stoker as hard as hell right in the back of the head. Stoker’s head recoiled off of the browpad and bounced backwards.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STOKER? THERE’S A GODDAM HUMVEE IN FRONT OF YOU!”' Basically an 'Open your eyes, fool!' thing instead of a split my head open like a ripe squash thing. It was an attempt to say I realize I'm focusing on something and not paying attention to all the ancillary so please don't smack me in the back of the head to point them out, or smack the pointer on my desk while telling me I've just provided the wrong answer.
You're not mean, Sanger. Just hard to please at times. You keep forcing me to look at things I often see as peripheral issues. Sometimes, more times than not actually, you're absolutely right to do so. Sometimes it's nitpicky or missing the point.
I had to put that down. Comments here are an open melee.

It doesn't help that I'm not the clearest writer in the world, and that failing leaves things open to many inferences and interpretations of what I put to paper.

My point about the afore mentioned policies wasn't so much the intended effects or the actual intents this time, but the ultimate outcomes.

Monroe doctrine has kinda come to mean that we will go down to S. America any time a rule set is threatened, not just when national interest is the question. The support for the Contras for example, or the alleged deposing of Allende to put Pinochet in charge, or Greneda. Not so much a question of national interest in these examples as an attempt to maintain a certain legal/political framework.
Same with Containment and the Truman doctrine: we'd go forth to instill a particular rule set or preserve it. What national interest is served by sailing the USN to defend Formosa in the 50's?
Nial Ferguson says it much better than I. The political/legal/economic system is the empire and the US is the defacto Legion that protects it.

Thanks for not slapping me in the back of the head!

And a good case has been made by more prolific military writers (they get paid for it, anyway) that WWII was merely a continuation of WWI. Remember, the 11th of November was originally "Armistice Day"--not "Germany Surrenders Day"...