The Long War: Rethinking American Options in the War on Terror

#143, {``Masadi: So I see you are now back to Rule 2 that I mentioned in #120 (encouraged no doubt with Salim`s gibberish). ``}

When this imposter can`t debate effectively, he just assumes that his opponents are uttering gibberish. He will keep quiet for a few days and then return with another ludicrous and nonsensical remark - finally establishing that in addition to being a hypocrite, a charlatan, and a bigot, he is foremost a fool.

#144, masadi {``#143, tahmed, people arent as dumb as you assume them to be. They can recognize by reading your posts that what you`re selling is dung, all dressed up to hide its ugliness.``}

Asadi Sahib,
Whether I totally agree with you or not, I must compliment you on your ability to recognize a hypocrite and a racist. In trying to ape the white man, this paindoo really believes that he owns a plantation down south full of dark-skinned people over whom he can decide in matters of life and death.

To All:

Thank you, for posting your comments to this article and though I would attempt to venture a reply to your comments, it would not be possible given the volume of comments, which have recorded. Some of you have agreed and some have disagreed and others have simply debated what they wished to discuss, irrespective of what was being suggested. Still, such is the nature of expression that one must bow before it and accept it.

The idea was not to prove a point as much as it was learn, from a perspective analysis, based on the comments on how a policy option would be greeted, where it to be implemented. The debate on this conflict, for a lack of a better defining term, cannot be limited into an intellectual niche, but it is possible and it is even a requirement given the sense of the times, to challenge the old accepted conventional wisdom behind this debate. Old orthodoxies have to be confronted and periodically asked to justify themselves, because the self-accepted truisms, which are not critically questioned and debated, often lead to a perpetuation of injustices.

Hamidm, some times it is better to be considered wrong when the end result ends in the right decision. :)

Ciao

Now that the two cowards have had their heads handed to them after having been `led away`, the yankees are crying `desecration`.



Great ...

``The United States can be successful in this war if and when it succeeds in convincing the majority of the people in the Muslim and Arab nations of the inherent superiority and universality of its ideas over those espoused by militant Islamic groups and is successful in equating its ideals of political constitutionalism and social equality, for example, with the ideals of egalitarianism, which exist within Islam, as a religion, itself. ``

That`s just it - it`s tough to convince the majority of people in this region of the ``inherent superiority and universality`` of western ideals. Many people may like Western values, but many don`t care for what they see as the ills of Westernization - a focus on the self above all else, greed as a primary virtue, the breakdown of the family unit, lack of a strong foundation of ethics, increasing societal fragmentation and alienation (just today I read an article about the increasing social fragmentation in the US), and so on.

``The greatest misfortune of the politics in the Arab and Muslim lands has been its inability to offer any leadership or a future to its people and historically speaking, there has been no leadership in the Arab-Muslim world capable of voicing the sentiments of its populations and nor has it been historically successful in realizing them in the last hundred years...Therefore, the United States should allow the Islamic world to see and experience what a tolerant, democratic and progressive society and free peoples of the world are capable of and it should let them experience this option.``

This is an argument that is commonly used to explain Islamic militantism, but I remain unconvinced of it. History is littered with examples of an oppressed people with no voice coming together when aggrieved and overthrowing the established order. What makes so many people, including the author here, so sure the Muslims in these repressive regimes are incapable of doing the same?

It`s not a popular point to make these days, but these regimes have stuck around for as long as they have because they have the tacit approval of at least a significant percentage of the population. Many people have tried to fit Muslims in the Western ideological box, and conclude that Muslims live the way they live in so many countries because they just don`t know a better way.

Many do know a better way, but prefer a more ``Islamic`` (if it may so be called) mode of existence. And that is because there *IS* a clash of civilizations, Islamic and Western cultures *are* inherently different. Not that I am claiming, however, that Arab muslims don`t want democracy, stability, peace and progress. I`m just saying that the specific variant of democracy and progress they want is very different from the Western mindset. Let`s keep in mind that the majority of the world`s muslims live in freedom - so muslims have already experienced what the ``free people of the world`` are capable of.

When President Bush arrived in Vienna for his one day Summit with Europe`s Heads of State, he faced questions from the European press he is entirely unused to receiving from the ``servile`` American press.

A European journalist asked a question about opinion polls which show that most Europeans now believe the US to be a greater menace than Iran or North Korea. ``It`s absurd, is my statement,`` Mr Bush snapped. ``We`ll defend ourselves. But we are working with our partners to spread peace and democracy around the world.`` It is well known to Europeans that the US has military bases all over the Middle East as well as all around the world. Europeans are reminded daily about the bases the US still has all over Europe. The US Armed Forces never left the Continent since D- Day on June 6, 1944 and the Europeans know this. It is in this context that we must try to understand the near spontaneous reaction by many Europeans to Mr Bush`s: ``We`ll defend ourselves.``

America`s standing has dived across Europe to post war depths. One reason for this is that the European press, including large parts of the British press, have engaged in much more in depth reporting about events in Iraq and across the broader Middle East than Americans back in the US ever get a look at. It follows from this that seeing the American President saying that the US is only defending itself would strike most Europeans as the height of absurdity.

The Departure Of The (No Longer) ``Willing``:

Japan has announced the withdrawal of its engineering troops from Iraq inside a month. Italy`s new foreign minister, Mr D`Alema, met US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice last week to discuss the Italian pullout by the end of the year, which means an end to Italian operations by September. Spain withdrew its 1,300 soldiers from Iraq back in 2004 after a change of government. The Netherlands, Ukraine, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Honduras have also pulled out. Only a few thousand coalition troops (mostly British) remain alongside some 130,000 US soldiers. Iraq is being left for the US to handle alone.

Re: # 135 zeemax {``...This army is only good for joystick bombing from the air, or shooting 2 month babies in their mother`s laps. When confronted with real `soldiers`, they`re most obliged to be `led` away rather than fight. Cowards ! ...``}


I must take very serious exception to this broad characterisation of the fighting men and women in the US military... If you had made this broad statement about the naPak fauj I would have agreed.

You know that I am a staunch critic and a vocal protester of the US imperialism, but I cannot disagree with this characterisation more.

I have known many US military people, at all levels from NCO to flag level, several of them very closely, and I can tell you that the average US military man is a far, FAR superior professional than anything you see in Pak-o-Hind or for that matter even in Western Europe. Give the devil his due. American military might is not just because of superior weaponry, its largely also superior, and I mean far superior, training and personnel development.

Having said that, I`ll grant you that the soldiers in Iraq are at a psychological disadvantage because most of them are not convinced that they are there for a just cause. This effects morale, no doubt, and its brings the worst out in people.

...SR

Professionalization that leads to impersonal/indiscriminate killing of humans in `joystick` fashion as Zeemax has suggested, is quite worthless and not at all ``superior`` in anyway judging from humanitarian criteria. The US military is part and parcel of US imperialism, you cannot condemn imperialism while singing praises of the US military.

Re: # 152 masadi {``...The US military is part and parcel of US imperialism, you cannot condemn imperialism while singing praises of the US military...``}

First, let me make it clear that no matter what other philosophic differences we may have, on the issue of ``US-based global imperialism`` we have far more commonality of ideas than we have disagreements. So any discussion I have with you on this topic is not an antagonistic one, but one amongst comrades.

I agree that the US military IS THE ULTIMATE INSTRUMENT of Global imperialism (US-baed) and therefore an integral part thereof. But my contention with zeemax was about his assertion of the US military personnel being COWARDS. All I said was that they were not cowards. And I said that their soldering ability was par excellence. Now what is soldering abaility? It is the ability to destroy the opponent with efficiency with minimal loss to self. I didn`t say they were an army saints, or holy men... no. A ``good`` soldier is not necessarily a ``good`` thing in humanitarian terms. He is a trained killer. And in terms of humanitarianism he is evil incarnate. But call them evil if you want, don`t call them cowards... because they are not.

Now we come to the question of individuals. Let`s take naPak fauj for example. Most of us will agree that the institution in its net historical effect on the country is an evil entity. Yet I know many, many individual human beings, who are (or have been) members of that (evil) organization, yet as people they are very moral, pious, honest, clean and principled. I am sure you know such individuals also. Similarly, I happen to know some individuals in the US military who, likewise, are honest and upright people. That`s all I was saying. It was a minor point, but one worth making.

...SR