I just heard a report on NPR about who is buying oil from ISIS. The main customers are the Kurds and Assad's Syria. Now tell me why we should underwrite this bullshit.
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I just heard a report on NPR about who is buying oil from ISIS. The main customers are the Kurds and Assad's Syria. Now tell me why we should underwrite this bullshit.
Except for Polyanna I have seen them all.Originally Posted by Chas'88
Doctor Zhivago begins soon after 1912, if not in 1912, in case someone missed it. Not that it in any way depicts a marvelous time before WWII.
I am reminded about what the historian Barbara Tuchman said of that time: that it was no halcyon time. Perfect eras do not implode senselessly into such monstrosities as World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The nostalgia was for a world that had not soiled itself in the horrors of 1914-1918. This was before automobiles were fashioned into tanks and flying machines had not yet become killing machines.
Life was wondrous for elites, as if that should surprise anyone. "Jane and Michael Banks" were upper-middle-class kids (at the least) who could expect to have a nanny instead of being from the class that supplies the nannies (who could have a low-prole chimney sweep as a boyfriend). People with the disposable income with which to be amateur round-the-world racers of horseless carriages or do stunt flying for the fun of it were then clearly above-average in income. The children in The Music Man stifled in the still-Victorian Iowa in which children were to be seen and not heard -- until they got band instruments. The class divide between the 'gentleman' Henry Higgins and the flower-vendor Eliza Doolittle could hardly be more extreme even if it was almost exclusively speech.
World War I was arguably the worst sort of war that could appear in an Unraveling, and its unusual lethality and cynical conduct ensured that the ensuing Crisis would be particularly nasty. The Russian Revolution in some respects resembles the American Civil War except that the opposing sides had no trace of gentlemanly character -- and occurring about as a 3T turned into a 4T, when the Idealists had polarized into opposed camps seeking the annihilation of each other, Adaptive types insisted upon process no longer having any support, and Reactive types seeing war as an adventure and an opportunity instead of a carnage.
Maybe the victorious Allies would have been wise to not impose the vindictive terms upon a defeated Germany. Peace on Earth between 1920 and 1940 would depend upon a strong, prosperous Germany whose people had no cause to strike out. We know all too well what happened.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Assad I can believe. I'm surprised the Kurds think this is smart.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Yep.
No, I'm thinking states will remain but be more fluid. Militaries will remain as well but much less focused on inter-nation issues and more on intra-nation and state-less threats where there will be increasing inter-nation cooperation.
Yep
I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.
"Breaking down" is not "broken down." US is still the only blue water fleet of any significance and can project power into anyone's back yard. Control of the financial system is also there; the Russians are just getting the tip of that iceberg and it was enough to change an imminent 2 week takeover of Kiev into a possible land bridge to Crimea bobbie prize.
Yes, on the same page, but very much appreciate the thesis - very insightful/interesting.
Hmm, interesting that I would say the same thing to you as to why the hegemony needs to continue.
That's why these things (i.e. too high tariffs, too much devaluation) will not happen.
It's a matter of degree and while business cycles and even panics will happen, I believe it is govt's role to deal with the worst of them. If the New Deal structures were not in place, and the few positioned folks (e.g., Bernanke) had not taken the necessary steps because they had also drunk the Randian KoolAid, we would likely still be well into climbing out of an ACTUAL depression even today. I'm not partial to soup lines.
I was being absurd to mirror your equally absurd notion that it would be a walk in the park in a manner of months or even a couple of years. Economic upheavals have at least as much collateral damage as the wars fought today.
From just my presenting the notion of both a temporary and diminishing hegemony for most of the world and another for the exceptions of NK and the Islamic world, I was hoping to get across that I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The first step is to know you enemy; the near-immediate second is to be able to discern them from one another and act appropriately.
The discernment does lead to groups where Stalin's notion of "no man, no problem" comes into play. Applying that to everyone, of course, would be disastrous game playing.
You do recognize that would be playing the game. You're just deciding how far to cast your umbrella. It's different than how I would play, but you're still playing.
For me, killing ISIL makes sense. If it can be done to avoid any collateral damage that makes sense to me as well. And I believe that is Obama strategy (e.g. isolate and immobilize without bombing population areas and then SpecOp the leadership out until the organization collapses and likely turns on itself). It's going to take time to do it that way, but he is exactly the guy who has not only the perseverance but in entering his lame duck years he has even less reason to showboat, if he ever had the need to begin with - Spock don't play that.
I don't buy into the unending clone machine meme. They'll come and they'll go with diminishing verb and stamina. Basically, religious nutjobs that eventually wear out their welcome one way or another - it's just the ones that rise to a genocidal force (or attacks on the homeland) need to be taken out just more quickly than the others.
Last edited by playwrite; 09-16-2014 at 10:26 PM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
Hold up... Hold up... When has there ever been a US bombing campaign where there wasn't collateral damage? Suggesting that it can be done is laughable, suggesting it's something we'd actually do is downright ignorant.
I knew a guy who was dishonorably discharged because he refused to shoot cruise missiles at a hospital in Iraq. That was under Clinton. I knew another guy who saw a US cruise missile come down on the coordinates his squad was supposed to be at after he'd refused to do something particularly nasty (I can't remember what, but it was an obvious ethical issue). That was under Bush.
War is nasty business. Don't engage in it unless your back is up against the wall.
The Iraqis, the Free Syrians, and Sunnis within the IS territory, may also be helping themselves. Obama is proposing helping them as well.
But if you mean these regional players are not sending troops, then I agree the USA should not send troops instead.
A fluid state isn't really a state. Think of the analogy you are using. It uses phase boundaries to analogize a fluid border between two discrete elements, for example oil and water. What makes the phases distinct is their different properties. Things that belong in one phase don't enter the other. Salts stay in the water phase. Oily stuff like fat or kerosene stays in the oil phase. But the world you are envisioning is one where economic and military factors freely move between states. That is, the stuff that belongs in one phase can go into the other. There are substances called surfactants that can dissolve in both phases. These are molecules like the salt of a fatty acid (soap) that has an ionic end that likes water, and a long fatty end that likes oil. The two ends dissolve in the two phases and thus straddle the phase border. Add enough surfactant and suddenly the discrete oil and water phases collapse onto a single emulsion phase.
You can't just say, oh I want there to be some states to do certain things, but I don't want to pay much in the way of taxes to them. This is the same sort of pipe dream libertarians have. The political/military elites who run states are themselves actors. They are not a service organization. They respond to their own political calculus, which often, but not always, aligns with the calculus of economic elites.
I am not making a prediction. I am stating my preference.I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.
Here you miss the point. It's not whether some (or one) nation(s) still have very powerful militaries, its whether or not those militaries achieve any benefits for that nation. Any rich nation can build a powerful fleet. And they used to do exactly that. Modelski shows a figure of naval share over time in his 1980's book on the hegemonic cycle where you can see the successive hegemons rise and fall. When I searched for Modelski's figure showing naval share (I was hoping there might be a web version) what came up was MY figure from page 147 of my book The Kondratiev Cycle. I'm not sure this will work, but here it is."Breaking down" is not "broken down." US is still the only blue water fleet of any significance and can project power into anyone's back yard.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6lQ...0share&f=false
American falls into a different category, it goes to nearly 100% and then drops below 70% by the late 1980's. I suspect this decline was mostly the result of Soviet naval buildup, and it headed back up after 1990. The issue is its too high. The US controls about the same fraction of world GDP as Britain did in the mid-19th century, yet its naval share is much higher. Why? Because rising powers like China, India and Brazil are building fewer capital ships (aircraft carriers in today's world) than countries of their size and position did on the past. Why? Apparently they look at what the US has been able to achieve with its expensive blue water fleet, and have decided its not worth it.
Again why should it matter to me or any other American whether the Ukraine is part of Russia or not?Control of the financial system is also there; the Russians are just getting the tip of that iceberg and it was enough to change an imminent 2 week takeover of Kiev into a possible land bridge to Crimea bobbie prize.
I am saying the benefits of hegemony fall mainly to the very top tier of the economic elite, who control its application. The costs are borne by all of us.Hmm, interesting that I would say the same thing to you as to why the hegemony needs to continue.
My critique of hegemony is one part of the general concern that the US is coming to resemble a plutocracy. Your assertion that it is impossible to slow to the march towards plutocracy is supposed to make me more supportive of the process?That's why these things (i.e. too high tariffs, too much devaluation) will not happen.
You just asserted above that the government cannot deal with these things in an effective manner because the economic elites will not let them. Look 2008 shows that the panics happen now, the cycle has resumed. We are in the 7th year of the business cycle. Interest rates are still near zero. 10 years is as long as business cycles seem to go, so I would say a recession will begin by the end of 2017. Do you think there is any possibly for the Fed funds rate to get to 6% by the end of 2017? What about 4%? Just how much room for rate cuts will there be in 2017?It's a matter of degree and while business cycles and even panics will happen, I believe it is govt's role to deal with the worst of them.
The FED has been engaging in QE policy during an economic expansion for some time. Did we get any price inflation? The behavior of financial markets show that animal spirits are high. So we have lots of animal spirits and walls of money, and no inflation, and all this during a business cycle upswing.
But expansions end, and then you will have low animal spirals, a declining economy, falling markets, and unchanged interest rates and the same walls of money. If the wall of money isn't producing inflation now, how is it suddenly going to start doing this in a recession? What I am saying is the Fed has reaching the limit of its independent action. They only way they can do more would be if their worked with Congress (e.g. they could explicitly monetize the debt and use the money created to pay for domestic spending-as was done in the 1940's). But the GOP Congress is flatly against this, that cannot happen. So the Fed is powerless. Congress could pass another TARP, but again they are adamantly opposed. So that won't happen either. And they hate stimulus too, so no stimulus either.
So if we get another panic the government is not going to be able to do anything to stop a depression that would be considered kosher by the economic elite. There IS effective action that could be pursued (banks could be nationalized until the crisis is over) but that falls into the category of the things you say aren't going to happen because they would be opposed by economic elites.
Pursuing ISIS, or otherwise playing the game is not going to prevent this depression.
Yes they do. But you are asserting that practicing hegemony can prevent such upheavals. As "evidence" you propose fanciful scenarios of what might happen if we don't do something like deal with Iran's nukes. You say if we don't stop them, then the Israelis will start some massive Mideast war that will shut off access to oil causing recession or even depression. I am saying that Israel isn't going to do that. If Iran really wants a nuke then they will get them. If the issue is fear of a US invasion of Iran like we did in Iraq, then we could handle the Iranian nuke problem the same way we handled the Cuban nukes. By promising never to invade Iran and lifting the sanctions we can could probably get them to get rid of the program.I was being absurd to mirror your equally absurd notion that it would be a walk in the park in a manner of months or even a couple of years. Economic upheavals have at least as much collateral damage as the wars fought today.
But if the real issue for Iran is that Israel has nukes. Then we get Iran and Israel to agree that neither will have nukes. As you imply, Iranian nukes are really much more a problem for Israel than the US. I f Israel doesn't agree, and they won't, then say there is an impasse, you can take a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. We wash our hands of it.
You made it clear that you think that carefully applied hegemony can yield benefits at acceptable cost so that the entire operation passes a cost/benefit analysis. I don't disagree. But viewpoint ignores the human propensity to fuck up. If you are going to play the game, you won't just get Kosovos and Gulf Wars. You will also get Vietnams and Iran's. And since the costs incurred in the fuck-ups outweigh the benefits gained in the successes, the net return to Americans of playing the game is negative.I was hoping to get across that I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The first step is to know you enemy; the near-immediate second is to be able to discern them from one another and act appropriately.
Of course. The me of ten years ago would be 100% on board with what Obama is doing. For the most part what Obama has done domestically has pretty much what I would have done in his situation. I even tepidly supported Libya (mostly because I thought our direct involvement would be minimal). I differ with him on Syria and ISIS, but only because my views have changed from where they were in 2003. In 2003 Obama was a father of young children, a state senator, and was preparing to run for Senate. His plate was full. I was a recent empty nester, with a sinecure job. Obama has had no opportunity to evolve in his views since 2003, as I was able to do. He is back where I was in pre-2003, when I was parent with children at home, and still working on my career and so did not have time to evolve views.You do recognize that would be playing the game.
So I cannot blame the man, he is doing it the same way as I would if I too still had kids at home and a demanding job. Given that fact, the game is going to played. I don't like Obama trying to build a grand coalition like Bush I did. It is clear he cannot do that because none of the players are as supportive of acting against ISIS as they were in acting against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The only sort of coalition he is going to actually get is a fake one like the one Bush II put together. To that I say nooooooooooooooooo.
It's not an unending clone analogy. It's the whack a mole. The problem of ISIS is analogous in certain ways to the spree shooter/gun homicide problem in the US. Obviously they are nothing alike in terms of their scale.I don't buy into the unending clone machine meme.
Outsiders look at ISIS executions and US gun deaths and see crazies. If we starve out the crazies, (deny ISIS access to weapons and supplies or ban guns in the US) those crazes can suppressed. Americans know they cannot restrict guns because many Americans believe they have a right to carry guns around and to use them as they see fit. In the same way, regional leaders know they cannot effectively suppress ISIS because many of their people believe that Jihad is a legitimate political expression even if they abhor the way ISIS does jihad. That some armed Americans kill (mostly black) Americans or heavily-armed ISIS members kill (mostly non-orthodox) Arabs is regrettable, but shit happens.
We cannot really starve ISIS of arms, supplies and recruits any more than we can deny guns to those who kill. The right of all to arms is strongly supported by the NRA and ISIS's enemies are willing to trade with them. Beside, they tell themselves, the alternatives are worse. American gun violence is preferable to restricting gun rights to the majority who don't misuse them. ISIS is preferable to having the endure life under Alawite or Shiite dictators.
So there is really not much that America can do about ISIS, just as there is little the Europeans can do about American gun deaths. Ask yourself, would a trade embargo from the rest of the civilized world convince Americans to do away with the 2nd Amendment? I don't think so. Even though I generally am not supportive of the gun lobby, I think I would resent this deeply and be inclined to join gun rights folks to demand that our government reject it.
Last edited by Mikebert; 09-17-2014 at 03:27 PM.
Thinking over Mikebert's comments, one has to ask if being the global cop is cost effective for the USA. Or worthwhile, at this point in time.
As for imperialism, gunboat diplomacy is definitely not cost effective. It would much cheaper, in terms of money as well as blood, to simply bribe the instigators instead of going to war.
All of the advantages an occupier had in the age of imperialism have been reversed. First, cheap effective weapons like homemade bombs and AK's are easily available to any movement. Also, the demographics of the world are such that now the population of the third world is much larger than it was in 1945. Almost any aggrieved community has enough young that may be willing to fight if they think that they have a chance. And the cheap weapons give them a chance.
No, I'm arguing that we have no business in this fight at all, except to compensate for earlier stupidity. We failed to back the Kurds (and the Iraqi Sunnis, for that matter), when it was obvious that the Shiites were doing unto the Sunnis ans Kurds what Saddam had done unto them. I also feel sorry for the Yazidis who never asked to be in this fight in the first place. But ultimately, this is not our country or even our region. By acting as Lord High Protector, we let all the regional players sit on the sidelines eating dates, free to whine about how badly we are doing a job that is clearly theirs to do.
Supply the Kurds, and improve the arms they have to defend themselves, then be done with it. Let Turkey take the lead. In fact, insist that they do.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
That's a perfectly valid stand, IMO. I feel however that when a people is being attacked by genocidal monsters (as the Syrians and Iraqis are), it is worthwhile to consider helping them with arms.
If they act like monsters, and we respond every time, then assume that more of that will occur. It's to their advantage to have the Evil Empire to castigate, as they go about their own brand of dirty work. It's time for us to tell the Turks and Saudis to get going on this. It belongs to them by proximity and, to be perfectly honest, their actions helped make this happen.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Sorry for the big clip. I made the mistake of traveling Amtrak at the moment, and while it is the Acela, its a little bumpy for these old hands to handle much of a long response. I may come back to it later.
In the interim, I will note that there is a lot here to agree and disagree with as well as some that leaves me scratching my head. However, let me just respond for now to two points.
- but that preference is based on your implied prediction that while senseless deaths will happen to others, a non-intervention would have any negative consequences for the US being rather minimal. It stands to reason then that you believe Obama's alternative of involvement means little in the way of preventing those senseless deaths and much in terms of negative consequences for the US. That is going to be tested regardless of yours or my own preferences. The question will then be where do you draw the line as to how many senseless deaths of others prevented before you believe some level of negative consequences to the US becomes acceptable. For example, would you be okay with a million dollar expenditure by the US if it would result in preventing a million senseless deaths of others? What is your realistic preference?
And here the obvious assumptions is that our own inevitable fuck-ups will be worse for us that the inevitable fuck-ups of others. I don't see any basis for that assumption in a nuclear world and a world so economically interconnected - unless one makes 'fanciful scenarios' that those two things don't really matter or eventually will not after a rather brief and nearly pain free hick-up. .
Shit does happen; but I rather be dealing with my own than what someone else has decided to shat upon me.
And right now I feel like shit from typing during this train ride. Blah! Bye!
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
I agree on that last score; but I'm not sure that giving the monsters another reason to castigate us, absolves us from responding (in a multi-lateral way and as helpers, not fighters, of course) to these monsters-- the IS and Assad. I think more should have been done to handle Rwanda too. And what NATO did in Bosnia/Kosovo, and how the Allies responded to the Nazis, were good things too.
This has nothing to do with our behavior in the region that has contributed to this mess; which it has. Those behaviors include our support for Israel and our invasion of Iraq.
Senseless deaths have been happening in Syria and Iraq for years. They have been happening in Libya. By intervening we can prevent some senseless deaths, but this comes at a cost: We become responsible for future senseless deaths: both the innocents we kill as collateral damage and those who die as an unforeseen consequence of our actions.
In the aftermath of the Gulf War we imposed a no-fly zone and embargo on Iraq in an effort to force a coup against Saddam. Doing the first required a US presence in Iraq, which we knew would inflame the passions of radical orthodox Muslims. The second amounted to using the Iraqi people as a whipping boy.
The Iraq situation needed resolution, as the Arab street was getting very upset. In the AQ declaration of war, these two things were given as the first two pretext for war. I recall a pre-911 conversation with a student who had lived in Jordan for a period in the 1990's and who told us that there was intense anger against the US for inflicting this suffering on Iraq. So Clinton administration officials knew the mood in the street was turning very anti-American.
The newly elected Bush administration resolved to complete the unfinished business from the Gulf War by getting rid of the mass-murderer Saddam. With his gone, future deaths at his hands and deaths caused by the embargo would be prevented, and many innocent lives saved. When 911 happened, this goal developed a new urgency. My first thought about response to 911 was Afghanistan noooooooo. Let's do Iraq, bump off Saddam and replace him with a Sunni general more to our liking--an Iraqi Pinochet. That's what I thought the war was about. But then they pulled out Garner and sent in Bremer and it now meant civil war and a huge number of deaths. In order to prevent some senseless deaths we ended up producing a lot more.
The situation is the same with ISIS. If stability is your goal, then time to act was when the first stirrings of the Arab spring occurred. We should have stood with the dictators and stamp out the democrats like we did in Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973. But we could not do that after spending trillions to try to promote democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we cannot back the right-win dictators like we used to back in mid-20th century, then any action we do will destabilize those regions. There is nothing we can do. Let's get down to brass tacks. We don't really know how societies develop legitimate governments that both provide order and prosperity while permitting a fair amount of freedom for ordinary people. We have such a government, although we have no idea why we do or how we have it. There is some reason to be concerned that we could be losing this government. if we don't even know how to maintain an existing democracy, how in the hell can we "help" others to create one from scratch? We cannot, it is beyond our power, and so when we meddle, there is always a probability of very serious negative consequences.
Doing nothing would prevent the senseless deaths that WE inflict with out weapons. And it will prevent the senseless deaths that will come from unforeseen consequences of our involvement. You cannot know whether the deaths at the hands of ISIS we prevent in our initial stages of conflict will outweigh those we cause and which arise because of blowback from our presence.It stands to reason then that you believe Obama's alternative of involvement means little in the way of preventing those senseless deaths
What are the negative consequences of doing nothing for Americans here at home. Balance that against the deaths we cause in our bombing, and the blowback. Suppose out efforts in Iraq persuade ISIS to retreat into Syria and move more directly against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Suppose they come to a secret arrangement with Israel to coordinate efforts at eradicating the Shia presence in the Levant (something like the Russian-German pact to split Poland). Once Hezbollah has been defeated, Israel will turn against ISIS and can count on unquestioned loyalty from their American bitch. I am not sure Bibi has the stones for this, but I don't think we can rule it. Israel has never been able to defeat Hezbollah, mostly because they could not get away with the required brutality. But ISIS has brutality to spare.and much in terms of negative consequences for the US.
I doubt they would try something like this if America wasn't already engaged in the region.
I'll reverse the question. Would you be OK with a million dollar expenditure to prevent a million senseless deaths that has a side effect of causing a different 0-3 million deaths, where the probability distribution is unknown?For example, would you be okay with a million dollar expenditure by the US if it would result in preventing a million senseless deaths of others? What is your realistic preference?
Your scenario is unrealistic. We are not gods. We cannot just wave away possible side effects. We had a simply version of this in Libya. There was a specific number of people threatened, and an advancing force that promised to kill them. We chose in intervene, that force was stopped and those particularly people did not die then. Out intervention led to the fall of the Libyan dictator and the country has been in turmoil. Had there been no intervention, it was thought that the dictator would prevail. Those people in his path that we saved would then have died, but the war would then end. On balance have all the deaths post-Gaddafi more or less than those we did save in our initial intervention. I supported that intervention because it seemed the numbers to be save were clearly there, and our involvement could be short (it was) and the aftermath was unknown, but did not have to be super bad. As I said I haven't really looked into it to see if Libya ended up as a CF or not.
We already acted to save those people on the mountain. And we stopped them from invading Kurdistan again without going to war against ISIS. Both of these are defensive actions. They invade a space we considered feasible to defend, at least temporarily protect so we kicking them in the teeth. There are no such spaces in the Sunni areas. There we would be on the offensive, bombing a population who doesn't really want us to be dropping bombs, even though they fear ISIS.
You are responsible for your fuckups so they are always worse.And here the obvious assumptions is that our own inevitable fuck-ups will be worse for us that the inevitable fuck-ups of others.
We cannot stop countries from getting nukes. All we can do it change the motive for getting nukes. Nukes don't change anything for small countries. They have always existed in a world where they lack the power to ensure their continued independence. But they do exist and many have thrived. Large countries that don't have nukes like Japan or Brazil, are in the same situation as small countries. Their continued survival is dependent on restraint from the powers will nukes. These countries could get nukes. They have chosen not to. You can say they rely on the US nuclear umbrella, but that umbrella doesn't protect them from the country with the most nukes and the only one to have ever used them on civilians. So maybe they aren't hiding under some umbrella, but rather they believe that the US isn't going to nuke them because it has no reason to. Neither does Iran and so I suspect they would not be bothered by Iranian nukes either.I don't see any basis for that assumption in a nuclear world and a world so economically interconnected
As for the interconnected world. If this world is so vulnerable to normal geopolitical unrest, then perhaps were should be less connected. Maybe free trade is too risky.
We know how to do it; it's a question of having the right people in office here in the USA, so that we "know how" to do it.
It is backing tyrants as we did in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973 that ruins our reputation and destablizes society in the long run.
We should have backed the moderate Syrian rebels from the outset; this would have prevented this whole mess.
I don't see any of the restraints by Israel that you see.Doing nothing would prevent the senseless deaths that WE inflict with out weapons. And it will prevent the senseless deaths that will come from unforeseen consequences of our involvement. You cannot know whether the deaths at the hands of ISIS we prevent in our initial stages of conflict will outweigh those we cause and which arise because of blowback from our presence.
What are the negative consequences of doing nothing for Americans here at home. Balance that against the deaths we cause in our bombing, and the blowback. Suppose our efforts in Iraq persuade ISIS to retreat into Syria and move more directly against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Suppose they come to a secret arrangement with Israel to coordinate efforts at eradicating the Shia presence in the Levant (something like the Russian-German pact to split Poland). Once Hezbollah has been defeated, Israel will turn against ISIS and can count on unquestioned loyalty from their American bitch. I am not sure Bibi has the stones for this, but I don't think we can rule it out. Israel has never been able to defeat Hezbollah, mostly because they could not get away with the required brutality. But ISIS has brutality to spare.
I doubt they would try something like this if America wasn't already engaged in the region.
I think the IS militants would attack Hezbollah, and anyone else that stands in the way of an all-Arab, all-Muslim caliphate; including Israel and the USA. That's exactly why they need to be stopped, in Iraq and Syria both. I understand the reluctance, but we now have to correct the effects both of our over-involvement in Iraq and our under-involvement in Syria. We need a balance of involvement and pacifism. We disagree on where to draw that line. I'm not sure where the correct line is; I only have my opinion.
We should have kept some troops in Libya in coordination with the UN to help them stabilize their country. We should have anticipated the problem of helping a revolution against a dictator, when his absence meant there would be no government or civil infrastructure.Your scenario is unrealistic. We are not gods. We cannot just wave away possible side effects. We had a simple version of this in Libya. There was a specific number of people threatened, and an advancing force that promised to kill them. We chose in intervene, that force was stopped and those particularly people did not die then. Out intervention led to the fall of the Libyan dictator and the country has been in turmoil. Had there been no intervention, it was thought that the dictator would prevail. Those people in his path that we saved would then have died, but the war would then end. On balance have all the deaths post-Gaddafi more or less than those we did save in our initial intervention. I supported that intervention because it seemed the numbers to be save were clearly there, and our involvement could be short (it was) and the aftermath was unknown, but did not have to be super bad. As I said I haven't really looked into it to see if Libya ended up as a CF or not.
Having defended the Kurds, we have now irrevocably made ourselves the enemy and the obstacle of the IS to its ambitions. We are now helping the Iraqis to defend their country against genocidal terrorists, and Syrians to defend themselves against two sets of genocidal terrorists.We already acted to save those people on the mountain. And we stopped them from invading Kurdistan again without going to war against ISIS. Both of these are defensive actions. They invade a space we considered feasible to defend, at least temporarily protect so we kicking them in the teeth. There are no such spaces in the Sunni areas. There we would be on the offensive, bombing a population who doesn't really want us to be dropping bombs, even though they fear ISIS.
You are responsible for your fuckups so they are always worse.
Just to take stock -
We are no longer debating whether the game should be played - you have presented too many game plays (e.g., helping the Kurds, teaming up with allies in Libya) of your own.
We differ on the decline of US hegemony only in that it is your preference and mine as a prediction (with a generalized road map).
I think where we are left with is the question of whether or not Obama's current interventionist approach to ISIL is acceptable game play relative to some unspecified non-interventionist approach.
With that, I will now note that it is a rather easy argument for you when the interventionist approach is underway - any negative consequence (even simply reports of bombing without information on any actual causalities, any one who spits out the name America remains in the world, etc.) can be claimed as proof. I, on the other hand, am forced into the fallacy of logic of argument from ignorance - what would be the negative consequences if a non-interventionist approach had instead been pursued (you've done this very well by the way.)
Given the imbalance in the argument, I believe it would be fair for you to lay out what exactly would be the threshold below which you would accept Obama's interventionist approach as being acceptable game play. With that, we could first see if your threshold is reasonable or more in the realm of magic pony land and we can break into a rousing rendition of Kumbayu. If, on the other hand, a reasonable benchmark is established, then we will certainly be observing it being tested in the coming days, months, years.
Now granted, this will not prove what the consequences of an unspecified non-intervention would be (I see them as dire, but I can put that aside), but at least we can bring the hyperbole of one side of the argument back to earth (and I will, in turn, put a check on mine as well).
What say you?
Last edited by playwrite; 09-18-2014 at 10:39 PM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
Mike, you'll need to set those benchmarks pretty quick. It seems -Just to take stock -
We are no longer debating whether the game should be played - you have presented too many game plays (e.g., helping the Kurds, teaming up with allies in Libya) of your own.
We differ on the decline of US hegemony only in that it is your preference and mine as a prediction (with a generalized road map).
I think where we are left with is the question of whether or not Obama's current interventionist approach to ISIL is acceptable game play relative to some unspecified non-interventionist approach.
With that, I will now note that it is a rather easy argument for you when the interventionist approach is underway - any negative consequence (even simply reports of bombing without information on any actual causalities, any one who spits out the name America remains in the world, etc.) can be claimed as proof. I, on the other hand, am forced into the fallacy of logic of argument from ignorance - what would be the negative consequences if a non-interventionist approach had instead been pursued (- you've done this very well by the way.
Given the imbalance in the argument, I believe it would be fair for you to lay out what exactly would be the threshold below which you would accept Obama's interventionist approach as being acceptable game play. With that, we could first see if your threshold is reasonable or more in the realm of magic pony land and we can break into a rousing rendition of Kumbayu. If, on the other hand, a reasonable benchmark is established, then we will certainly be observing it being tested in the coming days, months, years.
Now granted, this will not prove what the consequences of an unspecified non-intervention would be (I see them as dire, but I can put that aside), but at least we can bring the hyperbole of one side of the argument back to earth (and I will, in turn, put a check on mine as well).
What say you?
Massacre of Kurds -
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102013841
andMassacre warnings signal now is the time to attack ISIL
attacks on close allies' homelands -
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...aids/15811021/
are both already off the table as a "delta" to measure the consequences of Obama's intervention.Australian police thwart ISIL beheading plot
Unless you want to claim these ISIL actions would not have happen without Obama's pledged intervention and the ramp-up to date. You could also state that this level of negative consequences are acceptable and it will be some order of magnitude more that will occur, once full intervention is underway, that will be unacceptable.
Last edited by playwrite; 09-18-2014 at 10:41 PM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
The Libya thing was an example to show that Iraq like stuff has been done by Obama too. I also used it as an example of how my views have evolved. I supported the Gulf War (strongly), Afghanistan (resolutely) Iraq (briefly and tepidly) and Libya (tepidly). I would support none today. So I have to ask myself why did I support them in the first place?
Just as with the above four examples, I cannot put my finger on anything specifically bad about Obama's present interventional against ISIS, I simply oppose it because I have now decided to blanket-oppose everything. It's analogous to selling. In 2007 I saw a business cycle that was shorter that the previous two cycles, and a market that had barely returned to its prior peak. I could see no specific reason why the market would be going down in late summer 2007 and so I did not exit. Later I wished I had.I think where we are left with is the question of whether or not Obama's current interventionist approach to ISIL is acceptable game play relative to some unspecified non-interventionist approach.
Last year, with a business cycle one year short of its prior length and a market that had already advanced beyond the two previous peaks and at a record level, there was again no reason to sell. But this time I did because I had resolved in 2009 to sell in the 1600 region on the S&P500 period. When the time came, I felt the same as in 2007, there was no reason to see, the business cycle should run longer and the market should go higher. But I sold anyways because that was what I had resolved to do. And this time I was right, there was no reason to sell, the market has advanced 20% in the next year and the recession could still be years away. I think Y. Berra noted that it is hard to make predictions, particularly about the future.
Obama's approach towards Syria until recently was to stay cool and avoid being pushed into rash action.
If the US wanted to get involved in Syria the time was several years ago. Obama chose not to, and I strongly supported that. And I still think it was the right move.
I could not think of any specific reason NOT to aid the Iraqi Kurds during the recent ISIS offensive. But I thought the same thing about the Gulf War and Libya and staying invested in 2007, and I was wrong then. Obviously I am incapable for determine in advance when to intervene (stay invested) and when not to intervene (exit the market).
Maintaining army/air force bases in Eurasia and Africa is playing the game. Maintaining a carrier fleet and a large airlift capacity is unacceptable game playing to me. But the existence of these things creates facts on the ground that create a barrier to not acting. For example those people who were going to get slaughtered by Gaddafi. If the US had not intervened, the world media would say America "let" those people die. They would not say Brazil or Italy even let those people die. Why not? Neither country lifted a finger. The answer would be they couldn't, while the US could. So as long as we have this ability we are screwed. We will have to act sometimes because it simply looks too bad not too (e.g. those people on the mountaintop).Given the imbalance in the argument, I believe it would be fair for you to lay out what exactly would be the threshold below which you would accept Obama's interventionist approach as being acceptable game play.
And since bad results are worse than good results are better, the net result of this is negative. Empire is a losing game today, and that is why nobody wants to play emperor (except the US who is stuck with it).
You make the claim that there are benefits that accrue to the US from being hegemon. I used to think so.
If this is true, I ask myself, why was the US unwilling to take on the role after 1918? Why are China and India so quiescent today? China is roughly where Britain and France were in the late 18th century, America in the 1880's, Germany in the early 1900's, and the Soviet Union after WW II, but they sure aren't acting like they want to make a future bid for hegemon, as these other countries acted.
We should repel with military force any invasions of the United states or its territories. I also support the US to pursue any war outside of the US provided a formal declaration of war has been made.
We should use our navy to pursue pirates who attack ships of American shipping companies that who pay US taxes, and so are authorized to fly the US flag. If they do anything to avoid paying taxes, they lose the right to fly the US flag. If we catch a ship flying the US flag without authorization, we sink them.
That's all I think is always justified. Ideally, we should not even help the Kurds.
But, at present since we have the empire, we are always playing the game. Where I differ from you and Obama is I no longer believe that is possible to play the game well. As long as we have the ability to intervene I believe we will always be in a situation in which we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. And since I do not know how a hegemon can stop being one w/o somebody else pushing us out, we might not be able to give it up until it destroys us like it did Spain.
You state there are benefits, but none of the ones you have offered make any sense. You just state Israel "won't let" Iran get a bomb. But there is nothing Israel is going to do that can stop them.
Your view is patronistic. You call Iran and NK "cultic". Well the Soviet Union was cultic too, and most Americans simply assumed that if somebody was going to start a nuclear war, it would be the Russians. it would never be the US, despite the fact that (1) the US is the only country to actually have used nukes on civilian populations (2) the US always left open the option of starting a nuke war; the Soviets had rejected this and (3) in the 1980's the US proposed and then built what looked like a first-strike nuclear weapon.
Last edited by Mikebert; 09-22-2014 at 08:20 AM.
I'm not sure its valid to suggest that China's or anyone else's lack of building empire is due to a preference or to a calculation sans the fact that the US already holds the position of hegemon. I'm sure you're aware of the relative military expenditures of the US vis-a-vis everyone else and the risks, up to and including possible nuclear exchange, of trying to knock the hegmon from its perch. Also, while there are benefits to being the hegemon, there are also benefits (e.g. free rider) of not being the hegemon - each country will weigh its objectives, capacities and benefit/risks. And finally, maybe the desired type of hegemony differs - is it really about territory or even energy/resources controls or is it now more about financials and cyberspace?
That's one of the reasons I find broad conceptual discussions of geopolitics and hegemony to be rather academic and too generalized - often just reflecting the extent one has become fatigue with the human condition at the international level. The real issues are the specific challenges that arise and how those we hold responsible weight our national objectives, capacities and benefits/risks to make decisions of our involvement including non-involvement.
Given the context, I'm okay with Obama's current approach to ISIL; within somewhat limited parameters (i.e prevent a Taliban-like refuge for those that would strike the homeland, mitigating genocide as much as possible), I believe it presents the greatest likelihood of success - to a much greater degree of certainty than a non-interventionist approach. I'm also okay with the current context (i.e., hegemon) that makes possible the option he is pursuing.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
The US did wait until WWII to take on the role of England in the world, but I don’t think that England gave up this role voluntarily. They had no choice after the war.
There is an interesting article about China in the Economist.
Perhaps China is just more subtle in its approach and is waiting for the China economy to grow.
China is trying to build a new world order, starting in Asia
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/2...pe%2Fpaxsinica
…"The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) groups six countries—China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan—and aims to be the dominant security institution in its region; but its origin and purposes are largely Chinese. So it looks rather worrying from a Western point of view that the group has agreed to expand and that India, Pakistan and Iran are all keen to join: the rise of a kind of China-led NATO to which even America’s friends, such as India and Pakistan, seem drawn. Yet that is to misunderstand the sort of organisation the SCO aspires to be. It does indeed pose a challenge to the American-led world order, but a much more subtle one….
…"China is not just challenging the existing world order. Slowly, messily and, apparently with no clear end in view, it is building a new one."
There's little to gain from empire... and huge cost in life and ultimate risk to the leadership. Saddam Hussein, who may have been at the start of an effort to unite the Arab world around his despotic rule, serves as an example. So if one is talking about the country with the eighth-largest military power, that one knows that it has the most powerful (US), second-most powerful (China), and third-most powerful (Russia), and fourth-most powerful (India) entities hemming it in. Tough luck, Yushio Mishima -- you died for nothing.
The danger is that economic elites may seek a new fascism as a means of imposing monopolistic prices and driving wages down (which maximizes profits at the cost of mass suffering) and then show some missionary zeal to spread their nasty order where it is unwelcome especially since war is profitable for those who wield economic power even if it is only the 'little people' who suffer. How much confidence do we have in our economic elites?
This Crisis can still go badly for America, especially if the most ruthless and rapacious elites in America get their way.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
True, but as you colorfully mentioned once Pb - the most rapacious and unrepentant minds hide their iron fist (claws?) beneath the soft but false veneer of a velvet glove.
The elites saw fit to furnish the crooked (and therefore easy to manipulate) secular nationalist Saddam with some pretty nasty items, because he was willing to send young men to fight against something the elites feared much more: the mass movement of principled theocratic socialism (whatever its archaicisms) represented by Khomeini.
Unprincipled despots are a dime a dozen. Principled movements are much more versatile, because they do not solely depend on any leader. Plutocrats, who prefer to rule by opportunistic peer networks that hide from the light of day, hate that the common people might see their real practices.
Good law protects the common people, by setting out mutual duties and standards that apply to the rich and poor alike. The well connected and those who find themselves alone. Law is the great equalizer.
Long ago, money changers paid a share of their financial gains to the Temple. A physical structure that represented the Idea of unity and self sacrifice for the good of the whole. Not leveling the high, but bringing their assets to positive use for the evolution of the species.
Some people still remember that. Poor people need goals and ideals to look up to. Not just bread for the day. Ideals. Good role models willing to sacrifice for the greater good.
Last edited by Anc' Mariner; 09-19-2014 at 11:06 AM.
But there are no Iraqi Kurds - any more than there were German, Russian, or Austrian Poles 150 years ago.
And this should have been our policy all along. What a laugh that the voice crying out in the wilderness turned out to be that of Joe Biden.
But maybe if the putative Robin Hoods stopped trying to take from law-abiding citizens and give to criminals, take from men and give to women, take from believers and give to anti-believers, take from citizens and give to "undocumented" immigrants, and take from heterosexuals and give to homosexuals, they might have a lot more success in taking from the rich and giving to everyone else.
Don't blame me - I'm a Baby Buster!
