posted
Lee: I'll assume you know about the history over there than I do, so I'll take your word on it. You're definitely right on Japan though. We never invaded the homeland islands. The atomic bombs probably saved both sides from a bloodbath of suicidal resistance.
Jay: not trying to overreach, looking for clarification.
Wraith: no, I wasn't making stuff up. I was asking a question about pre-WW2 policy because I didn't know if my understanding of the circumstances was correct. I was looking for clarification. Not stating facts I thought were true. The second statement was only to clarify my earlier question.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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posted
I know many on this board don't think we should invade other countries to bring them democracy, but I thought this study on political freedom and terrorism was kind of relevant. It would seem that even if you consider imposing a liberal capitalistic democracy on others immoral (an idea with which I strenuously disagree) then at least there is a case that can be made from self-interest for "imposing" democracy on others, i.e., make them democratic, drain the swamp, reduce terrorism.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm not sure anyone is going to argue against self-determintion as a general principle, and the argument about whether you can force someone to be self-determined is probably a paradoxical nightmare; the real issue, or so it seems to me, is whether this ever works as a practical policy in the real world.
Japan and Germany have been the magic words when the White House and others have talked about Iraq and the Bush Doctrine in general. (Those in favor of it, I mean.) Yet they always seem to overlook that both nations were heavily industrialized and had metabolized "Western Culture" pretty thoroughly. In both cases the source of their troubles, at least from our point of view, could be easily quantified: a select party/ideology that had taken control of the government. No one had to introduce the basic principles of a Western-style free society to the average citizen. In addition, Germany, and to a lesser extent Japan, were restored to a community they had formerly been a part of, not thrust into one with which they had had no experience and shared few ties.
In contrast, Iraq and Afghanistan (especially Afghanistan) are not wayward Western or Westernized nations that have succumbed, as if it were the latest fad, to some political philosophy at odds with our own.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by David Sands: The atomic bombs probably saved both sides from a bloodbath of suicidal resistance.
Wow. It's like you have some sort of fetish for jumping in enormous argument causing holes.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Even if we are to allow the BUsh administration to cite Germany and Japan as examples of how to rebuild a former ememy state into an ally based (loosly) on your own doctrines, it would also clearly show how we have NOT followed the example of post-WWII Germany/Japan in Afghanistan.
So far, we went in, toppled a theocracy, looked around for Bin Laden (not real throughly) nad moved on to Iraq- leaving only minimal governmental srtructure in our wake and focusing most of our attention on making IRAQ a better place to live.
If there's going to be a supposed "hotbed of terrorism" springing up, it will be from those most disenfranchised by the US- and that's NOT Iraq.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Sol: and that seems to be where the disagreement lies. Prudential judgments and practical reasons fraught with this much risk are seldom not contentious.
Liam: I've been doing some reading lately in Just War Theory and I've seen that example bandied about both ways. I personally think it's a difficult case to make according to jus in bello. Specifically, the principle of discrimination. It turns on what degree the civilians in those cities were combatants. If I remember correctly, many of those civilians were being trained in basic hand to hand combat to resist an invasion. However, even were that true, I think the case narrowly fails because there were people in those towns too old, too young, or too crippled to fight, and the law of war says those who can not resist should not be assaulted. No argument on that principle from me.
However, my statement wasn't meant as a moral endorsement of the decisions. It was meant as a statement of counterhistorical probability. My reading of what was going on in the Imperial Palace indicates that using the devices removed the will to fight of Hirohito who set in motion the surrender. It's a ongoing debate, though, whether the half million who died or were injured would have been a lower figure than the collective casualties that the two sides would have sustained in Operations Olympic and Coronet. (Estimates range from 50,000 to 2 million. But the invasions would have involved more men than Normandy for comparison.) It's counterfactual, so it's necessarily speculative. The probability weighs in favor of one side in my view, but that's why I qualified my statement with "probably." I don't know.
Jason: my response would be that they've had a peaceful election in Afghanistan, and thecountryissteadily improving. Rome wasn't built in a day. But waiting until we were completely done bringing one country up to modern industrialized standards before moving onto the next would slow the process down to a glacial pace.
Allow me to put something else out here. This article by Stanley Kurtz puts out what he think is an example more analogous to Afghanistan and Iraq than the post-WW2 reconstruction of Germany and Japan. Anyone else have opinions on it?
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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quote:Jason: my response would be that they've had a peaceful election in Afghanistan, and the country is steadily improving. Rome wasn't built in a day. But waiting until we were completely done bringing one country up to modern industrialized standards before moving onto the next would slow the process down to a glacial pace.
Slow and steady wins the race: better to have a solid- independant- ally in the region than to endlessly maintain US military presence there to keep the new government from collapsing.
Sure, we'd have had to wait for Iraq: not that it would have been a bad thing, it just would have stymied Bush's chance at what he felt would be an "easy victory".
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I have a question. I have heard many different opponents of the war complain one of two things: (1) we should not be operating in Iraq because we have not finished the job in Afghanistan, or, alternatively, (2) we should not be in Iraq because we should be taking care of North Korea and Iran also.
Which is it?
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Part of it is that I'd like to see some rhetorical consistency.
The rest because the only two other optinons I can think of, (1) the neoconservative option of bringing democracy to the rest of the world or (2) the isolationist option of pulling out of everything and creating a Fortress America, don't seem to have much support among the four I can think of. Unless you have a fifth I'm overlooking this moment.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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"Part of it is that I'd like to see some rhetorical consistency."
And we'd like to see some consistency in action. What consistency is there in invading a country on the premise that it is a potential threat (and then, incidentally, proving that it was not), but then ignoring a country that is known to be a current threat?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'll give a short response to this, though there is more that I could say. A lot of people criticize President Bush for going into Iraq when there were no WMDs. That was not the only justification, but it was the primary one. And people feel entitled to having the primary justification vindicated. However, there has never been a major governmental decision made that did not have some degree of uncertainty. Critics are judging this issue ex post when all anyone had ex ante was a probability that they were there. To hold the president to a standard of iron-clad evidence is fundamentally misguided because there is never such proof.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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I don�t see this as the dichotomy you apparently see it as.
Bringing democracy to the people of the world is a laudable goal. And yet if that goal is not pursued through a strategy of invasion, there is no reason to suggest that the only alternative is the creation of an isolationist fortress America.
As an alternative, keep in mind that American economic power and cultural influence are strong influences that have recreated the face of world culture in recent years.
The logical extension of this ideology-spreading policy is that we take self-determination away from the people of the world.
We Americans know what�s best for them. You can go all Francis Fukuyama on me and argue that liberal democracy and a free market economy is the best and there is no real progressing past it...you might believe that passionately, but who gave us the right to remake everyone else in our image?
I'm waiting for a member of the spread-democracy-by-the-sword contingent to show me the public debate where we as a nation decided this ideology-spreading policy was the thing to do.
Personally, I think of what has transpired in Iraq as the actions of the cabal that has taken over American foreign policy decision making and includes the likes of Dick Chenney and Donald Rumsfeld from the Project for the New American Century. Mr. Bush couldn�t be straight with the American people about the cost and long-term entanglements of such policy, so he talked up the WMD and Saddam is a bad man angle. Now we�re there and losing soldiers in Fallujah, its all democracy-creation-all-the-time.
I wonder when the conservatives who didn�t want us the be the policeman of the world in the 2000 election, are going to wake up and realize that this new ideology-spreading policy makes us what they didn�t want us to be.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
posted
Jay: yes, economic and cultural power can be great methods of changing the world. I think they have been instrumental to the effort in some areas (Eastern Europe) but also co-opted and perverted by others (China). Because that method is slow and fallible, I am uncomfortable limiting our efforts to only those means.
I do happen to believe that liberal democratic capitalism is the best arrangement of order and liberty that man has wrought. And I trace several of my conclusions to the work of Francis Fukuyama. I think his reading of history and the political economies of nations has been more accurate than most any other commentator on the Left. But I also take a lesson in historiographical humility from the work of Lee Harris. I think that both have taken supra-tactical views of this clash of worldviews and have put forth lasting visions that rise above the tactical criticisms that opponents of the war level. And I think that many of the paradigms we have relied upon in such a stabilized manner since WW2 ought to be questioned; those that are inadequate ought to be cast away. And I think that the crypto-pacifism (not you, Jay, necessarily) that has gripped many commentators has weakened the moral lesson of St. Augustine that war can be both an instrument of evil and good. It is a context-dependent, prudential consideration that must proceed with the moral maturity necessary lacking in many on the Left to say that sometimes a war saves lives, that it is good to wage those wars, and that we should not apologize for ignoring peaceful alternatives when those resorts are as unlikely to be availing as many have judged.
The morality from which I derive my decision to support our actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly Iran, North Korea, and Syria one day, demands a confrontation with the cultural filth that Islamofascists seek to impose upon the world. I have not forgotten the importance of the always-to-be-striven-for-never-to-be-fully-achieved effort to domesticate international norms into intrastate laws. However, given that the conditions inside those nations are unripe for such adoption, and the insidious resistance by those in power that prevents that development, I see little choice but to proceed with our strategy of instilling democratic orders before they destroy us with any number of civilizationally wrecking weapons. Such a strategy does not exhibit the metaphysical consistency of personal or societal choice like we see at the end result of a democratic order. But I am comfortable with that. Future millions will benefit more from imposed democracy than the totalitarian stasis that has survived for centuries and that shows no sign of imminent collapse. And it is an open question among theologians to what extent just wars are an extension of the drive towards Augustine's tranquillitas ordinis.
I�m not sure what ethics you use as your touchstone for formulating international policy. Perhaps, it is a species of secular humanist ethics, which I am not proficient enough to argue within. I know you, Jay, and I have not spent enough time trying to whittle down our arguments to their fundamental assumptions. However, I can sense we probably don�t share several core beliefs, so at some level, I think agreement between the two sides we represent is impossible.
With need for editing for expression, revision for clarity, and reflection for more congruent consistency than I can provide in 30 minutes, that is the snapshot reason why I think it is right to change the world to be more consistent with the image of democratic capitalism we see in North America, Europe, and East Asia.
My own views have developed over the years on past interventions. My opinions changed as a wrestled with alternative philosophies by which our nation would live in the world. At the time, I was neither enthusiastic nor opposed to our involvement in the former Yugoslavia. Part of my hesitation undoubtedly came from the difficulty I was having navigating to firm stance in between the four historical camps of American foreign policy. (They�re towards the bottom.) However, despite my arguments with tactical failures past administrations suffered in foreign policy interventions, I seldom found that the other side�s worldview was wholly meritless. Therefore, I never found critics of our actions in the Balkans completely convincing, and I am comfortable with our engaging in wide-scale nationbuilding again, especially where it�s necessary for the world�s security.
This will have to be my last post on this topic since I�ve started a new job. I�ll lurk and post once in a while, but I�m too busy until the bar exam in February to do too much online chatting. It has been enjoyable. I�ve appreciated the chance to debate. (Most especially you, Jay!) It�s refined my thinking and helped me come to grasp with many more issues than I was able to thinking alone. My thanks to everyone.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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