I Think, Therefore I Blog » War/military

For some people, I guess it was all about oil

fsherman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:52:42 +0000

A New York Times article details how Peter Galbraith—Iraq-war supporter who negotiated a Constitutional deal giving the Kurds control of new oil finds in their territory and championed that right in multiple opinion pieces—stands to make millions due to his relationship with an oil company investing in Kurdistan.
Galbraith’s own statement: “I may have had interests, but there were no conflicts.”

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For Veteran’s Day

fsherman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:19:54 +0000

From AP correspondent Hal Boyle’s D-Day fifth anniversary story:
“It is D-Day plus five years, soldier, on this sandy coast where the world hinged on what you did.
Because you did well here, your world at home as as good as it is and if it isn’t any better, why, they’ll have to blame someone else. There are some things you can do with a gun, and there are other things you can’t.”

And I also like this:
“Here lie officers and men of all colors. Rich men and poor men together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, Jews — all together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith, or despises a man because of his color. Here there are no quotas: how many of each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudice. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.
“Any among us, the living, who fail to understand that, will thereby betray those who lie here. Whoever lifts a hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in a minority, makes of their sacrifice an empty and hollow mockery. Thus, do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle that they began. Too much blood has gone into this soil for us to let it lie barren.”—Roland Gittelsohn, Iwo Jima memorial sermon

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It’s that whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing. And the torture-is-a-crime thing too

fsherman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:30:46 +0000

Scott Horton details the Italian court decision finding some of the CIA agents involved in kidnapping a suspected Arab terrorist from Italy.
I say Good for Italy. Kidnapping a guy who’s only “suspected” is bad enough, but sending him off for torture in Egypt? That’s a crime.
And let’s face it, if the UK had ever kidnapped American resident who supported the IRA back when it was a terrorist group, we’d have reacted with outrage (or any other American citizen accused of anything).
And it’s not as if the guy was going to walk away scott-free: Italian police were already on the case, but the CIA moved in before they could arrest him, as detailed in The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, their police and officials are understandably upset about American plans to capture or kill suspected drug kingpins. Honestly, don’t these people realize their country belongs to us now?

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Walter Williams, humor writer

fsherman — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:15:10 +0000

On Obama’s military policies: “If we become a military weakling, who is going to protect Europe?”
Given that we have a military budget equal to the rest of the entire world’s, has Williams any evidence Obama plans to cut it enough to make us a “weakling?”

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Ronald Reagan and Ron Hart

fsherman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:35:13 +0000

Ron Hart, in his latest column: “Ronald Reagan, who only ended the Cold War and brought down the Berlin Wall, did not win a Nobel Peace Prize.”
Now certainly ending the Cold War was an impressive accomplishment—and at a time when conservatives decried Reagan as a naive twit indulging in “appeasement” for not seeing this was a Soviet scam—and he probably deserved it as much as Gorbachev did. But Reagan’s record was hardly that of a peacemaker.
•In El Salvador he supported a dictatorship that murdered priests and nuns for teaching peasants to read (Reagan reported to Congress that the country was doing a great job preserving human rights).
•He greenlighted Saddam’s use of poison gas on Iranian soldiers. Our only reservation was that it might make it harder to condemn the use of chemical weapons when employed by sociopaths who weren’t working for us.
•He sold weapons to Iran. Funny, Hart was blasting Obama in the previous column for being naive about trusting the Iranians would make peace; apparently if Obama were selling them weapons, that would be A-OK. Well, actually not: Obama’s a Democrat, Reagan’s a Republican saint, so they can hardly be judged by the same standard.
•He funded the Afghanistanian mujahedeen as proxy soldiers against the Soviets. The people who later turned into Taliban and gave shelter to al-Qaida.
•He directed the CIA to lie to Congress about Pakistan having a nuclear program because that would have resulted in sanctions and Pakistan was our chief supply route to the mujahedeen. So now we have a nuclear-armed nation in an unstable part of the world, with government ties to Islamic extremists.
All in all, Reagan’s support for peace, democracy and freedom was non-existent any time they weren’t convenient for us.

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Obama’s Nobel

fsherman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:24:55 +0000

Blogger Matt Tabibi has the best analysis of Obama’s win, here. Tabibi’s take is that the prize doesn’t go reformers or true peacemakers unless they’re in South Africa, Myanmar or somewhere similar; the wars America and Western Europe fight or support are acceptable and just, and peace is something unAmerican. So merely by not rushing to war as enthusiastically as McCain or Bush, Obama looks good.

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Ron Hart’s parallel universe

fsherman — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:56:32 +0000

From Hart’s Saturday column: “Negotiating missile treaties with naiveté jeopardizes our security. The belief that if the United States lays down its arms, those militant countries that hate us will do the same, is folly.”

And when has Obama suggested otherwise? Heck, we’re discussing increasing the troop strength in Afghanistan; that’s hardly beating swords into plowshares.

It’s a little vague what Hart is referring to, but if he means yanking the anti-missile system from Eastern Europe, that was a good move, and hardly naive. If he means negotiating with Iran, I don’t recall anything in that about laying down our arms.

I’m not sure if he has a point he wasn’t clear about or if, as usual, he’s regurgitating Republican themes—Obama is weak! Diplomacy is bad! Nuke Iran!—without saying anything definite enough to argue with.

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Daily News letters

fsherman — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:20:41 +0000

From Wednesday, we have Mark Burch of FWB, who grumbles that Obama “only eight months into his on-the-job training, has wasted no opportunity to apologize for past American greatness and exceptionalism to any socialist, tyrant or Muslim who can fog a mirror.”

So, Mr. Burch, should I assume that you think being Muslim is as bad as being a socialist or a tyrant? And that it wouldn’t be so bad if Obama apologized to Christians?
And why do I have the feeling that if McCain were eight months in, nobody would accuse him of being untrained?
And let’s see, America’s greatness over the past eight years has involved waging a war on a nation that didn’t attack us and wasn’t a threat, locking up countless people who hadn’t committed any crimes, openly discussing the possibility of war on more nations … We’ve done some great things, but “exceptionalism” is a delusion, and an excuse to pretend that when we do bad things, it doesn’t count.

Burch again: “President Obama once again made it known the United States has no intention of exerting its influence on other nations …The primary flaw in Obama’s campaign of contrition is that, to succeed, America must be diminished.”

It’s not a bad thing not to influence other nations, since our main way of doing it is to threaten force. Maybe we should try it for a while.
Instead, of course, Obama is still hinting about sanctions on Iran, waging war in Afghanistan, etc. We’re hardly folding up our tent and going home.
Burch also complains that the one nation we are exerting influence on is Israel. Given the amount of money and arms we support Israel with, that seems reasonable to me.

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And the right-wing fringe gets more alarming still

fsherman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:28:14 +0000

Pundit John Perry on Newsmax:

” There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.

[...]

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.”

Boy, the right wing sure got over it’s conviction that even criticizing the president during wartime is a bad thing, didn’t it?

And no, there’s no such thing as a ‘civilized’ military coup–unless by civilized you mean everyone’s too terrified of being killed to speak out. And history shows that promises to overthrow an elected leader to restore some nation’s Constitution are lies.

Fortunately, I find the prospect of America’s military betraying their oath to their country and the whole civilian-command concept much less likely than Perry does.

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The threat of Iran has always been imminent

fsherman — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:28:42 +0000

A good article by Gary Sick shows how the government has been predicting Iran’s becoming a nuclear power within three to five years since 1992. Something to keep in mind when our government tells us we can’t endure the threat a moment longer.

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