The Quagmire War -- the Vietnam of our Era

The Vietnam of our era...

George Friedman, the principal of STRATFOR, a major international strategic consulting firm, has been meticulously dissecting the reasons for - and future prospects of - our nine year quagmire in Afghanistan. Here he gets to a point I have been talking about for years:

"While acts of transnational terrorism target civilians, they are not attacks — have not been and are not evolving into attacks — that endanger the territorial integrity of the United States or the way of life of the American people. They are dangerous and must be defended against, but transnational terrorism is and remains a tactical problem that for nearly a decade has been treated as if it were the pre-eminent strategic threat to the United States....

"Nietzsche wrote that, “The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place.” The stated U.S. goal in Afghanistan was the destruction of al Qaeda. While al Qaeda as it existed in 2001 has certainly been disrupted and degraded, al Qaeda’s evolution and migration means that disrupting and degrading it — to say nothing of destroying it — can no longer be achieved by waging a war in Afghanistan…. 

"As al Qaeda has fled Afghanistan, the overall political goal for the United States in the country has evolved to include the creation of a democratic and uncorrupt Afghanistan. It is not clear that anyone knows how to do this, particularly given that most Afghans consider the ruling government of President Hamid Karzai — with which the United States is allied — as the heart of the corruption problem, and beyond Kabul most Afghans do not regard their way of making political and social arrangements to be corrupt."

I would go much farther than George.  Because I have no doubt that the principal goal that Osama bin Laden had in mind, in perpetrating the crimes of 9/11, was to lure America into an extended, interminable quagmire of attrition in the "land where empires go to die."  While this may seem a bold statement that cannot be proved, it is consistent with three major facts:

1) American had to react.  It was predictable where we would have to strike.

2) Osama's salad days were spent humbling one superpower in the same mountains.

3) If you were a foe of the United States, you would study which past errors almost destroyed America.  Those two were Civil War and a land war of attrition in Asia.  (In fact, since 9/11, it appears we've been rapidly plunged into both.)

Where we surprised Osama was in the rapidly skillful way by which we allied with local enemies of the Taliban and crushed Osama's allies, in days.  Had we shown the in-and-out agility that we demonstrated in the Balkans Intervention - (and if we had chosen sane and sensible ways to eliminate Saddam Hussein, instead of doing everything there in all the worst possible ways) - America would now be seen as the toughest MF bastards around.  And we would be Three Trillion Dollars richer.

And if the Taliban re-established themselves after we left? Well, we could do it again. An enemy with actual assets, fixed locations an a nation to run is far more vulnerable than a guerilla force.

As George Friedman points out, the 9/11 attacks did not harm America at a deeply structural level. But our clumsy reaction to it has.

George goes on to suggest a solution: The Pakistanization of the War. Or allowing Afghanistan to fall into the Pakistani orbit, with them also taking on the burdens of dealing with the guerilla movements. But there are problems:

"The Taliban phenomenon has extended into Pakistan in ways that seriously complicate Pakistani efforts to regain their bearing in Afghanistan. It has created a major security problem for Islamabad, which, coupled with the severe deterioration of the country’s economy and now the floods, has weakened the Pakistanis’ ability to manage Afghanistan. In other words, the moment that the Pakistanis have been waiting for — American agreement and support for the Pakistanization of the war — has come at a time when the Pakistanis are not in an ideal position to capitalize on it."

Still, he foresees Pakistan brokering a peace deal... like the Paris Talks that ended the Vietnam War.  Here I think he is making up a bit of a story.  If this actually happens, I'll buy him a dinner.

=== The Faux Equivalence ===

One of the tricks mastered by the Murdochs (envision the Morlochs of HG Wells's The Time Machine!) is to create an impression of false equivalence.  We are seeing this here in California.  Every time GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman is accused of favoring never-ending tax largesse for the uber-rich, she responds by calling her opponent, former governor Jerry Brown, of being in the clutches of Big Unions.

It frustrates me that she is never given the ultimate rebuttal. "Even if this is true, the unions have been plummetting in power, for decades, while the super-rich have been skyrocketing. So which should we fear?"  What social force, in fact, did nearly ALL of our ancestors fear? What group ever came close to oppressing liberty, open competition, social mobility or free markets, more than oligarchy?  Whether they called themselves feudal lords or commie nomenklatura, or captains of the crony-CEO caste?

We older folk grew up in an America with the flattest social strata (for white males) in the history of the world, yet that did not prevent a vibrant capitalism!  In contrast, over the last two decades, the fraction of the total national income going to the top 1% doubled; the fraction going to the top one tenth of a percent tripled; the fraction going to the top 1% of 1% quadrupled - and capitalism is floundering. Can anybody parse cause and effect here?

 Do the Murdochs actually believe they can prevent the chivvied and harassed and cornered middle class from noticing this trend... forever?  How about when this disparity doubles? And doubles again? And again?  Is there a limit where the oligarchs will conceivably say "enough"?  Any limit at all?

 History doubts it.  Insatiable oligarchies are unable to stop, even in their own long term self-interest.  But don't take my word for it.  Pick a random decade and continent. Try reading history.

=== The Lords of Discipline ===

I wrote to my cousin, a speechwriter in the White House, with this suggestion:

Express  grudging (and ironic) admiration for how UNIFORM and DISCIPLINED the Republicans are, hewing absolutely to a rigid party line. In sharp contrast to the democrats' perpetual disorganization. (Many recall the 1930s humorist Will Rogers said: "I'm not a member of an organized political party -- I'm a democrat.")

Heck, this portrays democrats in a way most people find endearing! (Or at least unthreatening.) As eager, well-meaning, a bit scatterbrained and unable to be tyrants, even if they wanted to.  Meanwhile, the image of a tightly disciplined, collectively lockstep-obedient party on the other side is one that most Americans find instinctively chilling.

Note, all of this can be conveyed, without actually dissing anyone openly! Indeed, by praising (in ironic tones) the other side's discipline, you never have to mention other parties that were known for their discipline (e.g.fascists or communists).  Your tone can be amiable and tongue-in-cheek envious!  But the message will get across.

=== And Tidbits ===

With the exception of Mitt Romney, Fox now employs every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office. With Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee all making moves indicating they may run for president, their common employer is facing a question that hasn’t been asked before: How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll?  (C-SPAN Political Editor Steve Scully said that when C-SPAN tried to have Palin on for an interview, he was told he had to first get Fox’s permission — which the network, citing her contract, ultimately denied. Producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC all report similar experiences.)

I mean, what on Earth would some Bizarro Anti-Fox make of such suspicious goings-on?  Okay, there's MSNBC. But their viewers tend to be the wishy-washy types who THINK about attending Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity... and who shrug aside conspiracy theories (and probably don't wind up going, after all!) So don't say "MSNBC" at me.

For example: Why is Rupert Murdoch buying and promoting games made by the despotic government of North Korea? Dang!

Meanwhile, those darned academics and scientists are at it again:   "In this paper, we use the Moody’s Analytics model of the U.S. economy—adjusted to accommodate some recent financial-market policies—to simulate the macroeconomic effects of the government’s total policy response. We find that its effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0. For example, we estimate that, without the government’s response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8 million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation."

It would be an interesting item worthy of cautious consideration and engagement in the politics of the day.  If today's politics had anything, whatsoever, to do with evidence, or even intelligent speculation.

=== and finally... ===

Kent Pitman writes: "There was discussion just this evening by someone on MSNBC about the fact (I think they said it was a fact—I think the alluded to some study or another—but what do I know?) that there is lately a trend toward people admiring people who don’t compromise. But that the trend is biased, with more republicans admiring this than democrats. Then they noted that if you get a bunch of compromisers together with a bunch of non-compromisers, it’s little wonder things drift in the direction of the non-compromisers. Alas. What a dilemma—to become stubborn as a self-defense against being rolled over?"

I don't think it is fundamentally about "compromise." The root is deeper... it is addiction. I have been trying to draw attention to this matter for years.  I even was invited to speak about it at the National Institutes on Drugs and Addiction. See my paper: An Open Letter to Researchers of Addiction, Brain Chemistry, and Social Psychology.

I believe the most powerful act of social politics that could take place, today, would be to scientifically verify and publicize the fact that self-righteous indignation is as powerful a self-doped addictive state as gambling, thrill-seeking or rage.   And much of our culture war would start to dissipate, if the indignantly outraged were viewed the way we do the pitiable (and contemptible) people who wallow in heroin and cocaine.

THIS is what Obama should be saying, right now.  It should be shouted at Jon Stewart's rally.  And I would be happy to do so, in tones of ringing (if ironic) righteousness.

Then There is the T Word!

Last time, I weighed in about the missing "V Word"... asking why even opponents to the Iraq Mess aren't mentioning the greatest American mistake of the 20th Century, our misguided and disastrous intervention in Vietnam.

Yes, there are differences aplenty. Still, the similarities are so numberous; they imply that at least we ought to be considering what went wrong then... and what mistakes we might be repeating now. The budget-busting, inflation-spurring, readiness-diminishing, alliance rupturing, World-popularity-destroying, and internally-nation-dividing effects are all too similar to blithely dismiss.

Nor should the hypocrisies go unchallenged. For three decades we heard ninnies declare that we "lost Vietnam because politicians interfered in military affairs"... only to see professional military judgements trampled beyond belief in Iraq, by a clade of draft-dodging preppies who always know-better and can never acknowledge a mistake.

Both land wars of attrition in Asia showed diametrically opposite decision-making skills from the agile, quick-effective methodologies used in the Balkans... methodologies that were refined by the US Officer Corps - in collaboration with allies - in direct effort to AVOID quagmires like Vietnam.

Only now, with newspapers mentioning "ink-blot counterinsurgency tactics"... while never mentioning where the technique was last tried (!!) we appear to see an almost psychotic "V Avoidance" from not only the Messopotamia's defenders, but its critics, as well.

Now bear with me while we veer from the "V Word" over to another ghost at the banquet, that nobody seems inclined to mention...

... the "T Word."

I'm talking about Tobacco.

For a while now, I've been trying to picture the some kind of parallel to the jibbering dance-of-distraction that we are seeing from the "it's not proved yet" anti-global warming crowd. Their frantic need to discredit the entire scientific community. Michael Crichton's astonishing claim that "consensus has no meaning" in science. (So a political party that wins questionable elections by slim pluralities somehow has a huge "mandate"... but a belief shared by 90% of reputable scientists can be dismissed out of hand?)

Yes, we have seen this kind of frenetic holding-onto obsolete and reactionary opinions, before. Racism and sexism, for example. In fact (here Brin goes again!) the left has its own loony shiboleths and hypocrisies, aplenty! Though usually less harmful ones.

Then it struck me when we last saw the closest parallel. TOBACCO AND CANCER!

Recall how the behavior on the part of elite "suits" could only be called identical!

Hypocrites and self interested liars would BOTH claim that "there is not enough evidence, WHILE strenuously blocking the research that would get the evidence!

The same anti-science maneuvering, while chest-thumping that science has no such thing as "consensus." The same relentless refusal to see any public good... or the blatantly obvious truth, that some things are so dangerous that better-safe-than-sorry is a reasonable proposition.

In other words, those who say that it is perfectly okay to go about fouling our own nest should be the ones with a burden of proof, called upon to offer evidence, instead of the other way around.

Um, duh? I find myself often wondering... "what would Cotton Mather think?" Or Silas Marner, or the other founding Puritans? Yes, they might not like tolerance of gays... or tolerance of any kind. But let's put that part of it aside. There were other values. Other aspects of conservatism in the American sense. Aspects that conservatives still claim to support... and get away with the claim only because people let them!

Prudence.
Pay-as-you go refusal to go into debt.
Waste-not, Want-not.
A stitch in time, saves nine.
Mind your own business.
It takes a Village.

I could go on and on, but this is another topic. ("How the hell did Democrats become the party of puritan conservative values?")

Getting back to the issue at hand... let's consider the T Word... and whether these dipso-kleptos really are as smart as they think they are.

One the one hand: it is clear to any sensible person what they are doing. They aren't idiots. They KNOW the climate is changing and there will be huge disruptions. Watch land purchases and shifts in the stock market. These guys have a LOT of equities that will be dogs in the new era. they need time to dump them and reposition! That's got to be the core reason for the delaying tactics.

On the other hand,will this really work? Just look at tobacco! The precendents must be terrifying. Because the Tobacco industry stonewalled, they were later judged at fault for billions in liability claims. Today, the entire industry backpedals like mad, spewing warnings about health risks... too late for millions.

Don't these anti-climate-change people realize that this precedent WILL apply to them? Has it even occurred to them that the civilization that's been harmed by their shuffle and delay act may want... well... compensation when the heat hits the fan? Indeed, when the damage looks vastly greater than that from tobacco, can they really trust their lawyers’ assurances that they are personally insulated?

As in tobacco, is this liability thing that may cause a turnaround? A change in attitude, suddely seeing-the-light?

The likelihood, looking ever-greater in this heat wave, that The People may not LET them sit on their new, reconfigured portfolios?

Not when the rivers run dry and the sands begin to blow.

------

And now for something Completely Different....

An appeal from a bright young writer, Jeff Carlson. (We’re working together on a project!) Jeff doesn’t have my vast coterie of pre-readers, savvy and picky and oh so good at CITOKATE! Hence, I am passing on this request for him:

A Call For Genius !

I am paying a small shot at fame and a free autographed copy of my first novel… for the name of my first novel… Yes, does that make sense?

My editor tells me the marketing dept. at Ace/Berkley feels that the title we’ve been using all this time is a bit “soft” and instead they’d prefer something grabby, evocative and amazing. Well, right.

Oof. To me, it’s always been THE INVISIBLE SEA. Briefly, the book is about a medical nanotech prototype that gets loose and devours all warm-blooded life below 10,000 feet elevation. No mammals. No birds. Entire nations throw on top of each other as they fight for land. Loads of action, intrigue, surprise twists, our heroes running around at great personal risk, you know the drill. And of course it's impossible to see the machine plague covering the entire world except for a few high islands because the nanos are microscopic. Hence the title. But apparently it’s too artsy.

Here’s what my agent had to say:

>> Very likely they are anticipating how major accounts (esp. Barnes & Noble) will react and order. B&N and a handful of other chains are 50% of book sales. If these few key buyers don't like the title, think it's too "soft", or whatever, well, then you're screwed. They want to be sure that B&N will place a healthy order. To an extent, I see their point. What B&N wants, they tend to get. It is possible that early feelers even have been put out. That happens. In any event, sales and marketing people are very twitchy about things like titles since it makes such a difference to whether they can "sell in" or not.

And my editor:

>> The concern is it doesn't convey the content of the book. Obviously, once you start reading it's apparent how the title relates, but the book needs to attract people from the cover and title alone--otherwise they won't even open the book and find out what "the invisible sea" is. I think something that indicates the nanotech plague / post-apocalyptic / survivalist nature of the book would be ideal.

Sadly, the best I’ve been able to come up with so far are substitutes like THE KILLING SEA or cheesy clunkers that sound like made-for-tv-movies such as NANO PLAGUE or WORLD OF DEATH. Or, when I’m feeling despondent, great stuff like THE TOTALLY COOL GLOBAL MUTHAFUCKA.

I think what they’re really looking for is something broadly commercial like SURVIVOR or even HIGHLANDER, but of course those have been done.

Heeeeeeeeelp! Help me! Aieeeee! Ug! Ohhhh. AYAAAIEEEEEEE!

I think I'd rather re-name our kids...

Jeff
jeffcarlson@astound.net

Lies... and urban myth/conspiracy lies

How we wage war:

Similar to Vietnam? "The differences are so notable that it would take too long to list them," Def Sec Donald Rumsfeld remarked. Administration officials blanch at comparisons with Vietnam. And yet, the similarity in wording of presidential assurances can take on a creepy tone.

"America is committed to the defense of South Vietnam until an honorable peace can be negotiated," Johnson told the Tennessee Legislature on March 15, 1967. Despite the obstacles to victory, the president said, "We shall stay the course."

After fourteen Marines died in a roadside bombing on Aug. 3, Bush declared: "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. And the job is this: We'll help the Iraqis develop a democracy."

Still, though Truthout and others leap upon such similarities, I haven’t noticed anyone pick up on the two biggest ironies.

(1) The Right has long diagnosed failure in Vietnam as due to “politician meddling in military matters” (deeply underplaying Vietnamese Nationalist will & tenacity). Yet no war in American history has featured so much meddlesome fiddling by complete amateurs, over-ruling professional soldiers, than this intervention in Iraq.

(2) The guy who supervised our final humiliation in Vietnam was... Donald Rumsfeld.

And finally...a good old blog-style rant!

We all have pet peeves. One of my own came up recently in the form of an urban legend conspiracy theory. (Feel free to clip the following and use it whenever you see this old chestnut raised.)

Now, mind you, I know I sometimes come across as a conspiracy theory fetishist. I’m not, really, but some of the things I say about who might really be calling the shots in this current administration do seem to wind up leading us toward a pretty darn conspiratorial scenario! (Hey, real world conspiracies can happen!)

Still, most conspiracy theories revolve around one central motive... helping to make the theorist feel romantically cool and smart and much more in-the-know than his fellow citizens, or historians, or anyone else among the benighted masses. Conspiracies swarm through Third World bazaars causing no end of grief. One is responsible for a huge outbreak of polio in many Muslim countries, just as the World Health Organization seemed on the verge of wiping out that scourge, forever.

Busting these piles of nonsense is the job of any true modernist... hence the jazz one has to get from the “Myth Busters” TV show! Indeed, this is one of the strongest reasons to fight for a relatively transparent world.

All right then. Here I go. The "FDR Knew About Pearl Harbor" myth is the biggest piece of utter lying insane hogwash in circulation today. It is utter malarkey and drivel of the first water.

Yes, FDR was driving Japan against the wall in order to get them to commit a casus belli. That’s no secret. The oil and resource embargo against Japan, heroically assisted by the Dutch colonial government in Indonesia (despite threats against their families by the Nazis controlling Holland) was what succeeded in forcing Japan to attack. (Of course, the outrages in China more than justified an embargo.)

On the other hand... Think. will you? Yes, he wanted them to attack... and expected them to attack the Philippines. That’s what historians, FDR, and George Marshall (arguably the greatest man of the 20th Century) all said.

No, FDR did not want to enter the war with the Pacific Fleet destroyed! What insane doggy poo!

THINK! If they knew the Japanese were coming to Pearl, fine. Wouldn't they, thereupon, have wanted to win that battle? What’s even better than the enemy starting a war when you want it started? Why, having them start it and lose!

If the Japanese come 4,000 miles, stick their necks out, start a war... and LOSE... that frees FDR to send almost all US resources to what he considered the "real" fight... against Hitler. If he knew they were coming, he'd order an ambush! At LEAST he would have had Halsey's carriers ready to pounce. All the subs would sortie and stake-out along the northern approaches. Torpedo nets would be up. For freaking sakes, PLANES would take off, ready to make the attacker pay as soon as they legally start war by crossing Hawaiian air space.

This piece of arrant nonsense proves that cynics can be the biggest fools of all.

See also Conspiracies and Wishful Thinking: How to tell the difference.

==

News flash from David Brin - (Repeats an earlier announcement, but pass it on.)

Along with authors Stephen King, Amy Tan, Peter Straub and others, I have joined a fundraising auction to help the First Amendment Project, http://stores.ebay.com/AuctionCause an online campaign to support free speech.

Most of my peers are offering the highest bidder a chance to have naming rights for a character in a coming novel... or to be "killed" (in Stephen King's case). To be different, I’m auctioning the right to have your name given to either an alien race, to a garish building, or to a uniquely gruesome and inexplicable disease. Hey, it's for a good cause. Bidding opens Thursday Sept. 15, and runs through Sept. 25.

(Oh, finally, we won't see a "space elevator" above Earth in our lifetimes. Even if it would work, the liability insurance, in case the thing broke, would be staggering. The lower half would strike Earth at hypersonic speeds, paining a charred "equator line" all the way around!)