hserse said:
Counter points to Mr. Schrodinger
1. The U.S. will gain something, the spoil of WAR, maybe not much as they had originally intended. The U.S will not come out empty handed. The troops will eventually be pulled out; however, strategic military base operations will be maintained over there. In term of militarily counter strategic operation, this would be a major accomplishment for the U.S- that is in itself is one of the neo/conservative agenda in going to IRAQ war. However, the U.S. has to overcome the psychological warfare game as the Russian were unable to in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and all other nationalistic extremists- it has been and will be the waiting game and time (at the moment) is on their side.
This is actually wishful thinking, If you mean,when troops leave it will erupt into intense civil war, on top of what it has already created a fractured middle East an increased terrorism and this will be balanced by a real advantage to the US, I'm afraid I think you are dreaming.
2. You are correct “enough time you can assume victory” in the aspect of the Cold War. Personally, I believe the US knew it already won the Cold war strategy decade prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. US knew Soviet could not keep up with technological advance and other strategic advantageous that US have- economic, trade, technology, location, location, location.
What did you win and end to the threat of MAD, did you defeat communism or as most people know, was it an idea that was dying since soon after its instigation and would of done regardless. Communism killed itself because it is impractical, it was simply evolution, survival of the fittest, democracy didn't triumph over it at all, any system lives or dies on practicality, communism wasn't thus it was doomed to failure from the start. The US and Russia did little in the cold war except create a stale mate, a lack of progress and for the first time ever the fear of total annihilation .
3. As far a Vietnam, if you’re saying U.S. has nothing to do with it, you are wrong. Military no, but U.S. has absolutely almost everything else to do with it. If the US has the ability to bring about the change to the head of Communists states (USSR, China) into accepting mixed democratic ideas and practice- imagine VIETNAM. These strategic ideological maneuvers don’t have to be in public forum. You should know already, our government or any other governments will allow its citizens to know only what they want its citizens to know. You may think this is conspiracy thinking, but we authorized them when we vote them (or fraudulently vote themselves) into offices.
Same answer as above really.
This is just delusion really, you appear to be making unsubstantiated claims, that China has been massively influenced by the US, now if you said by the West maybe, but your assuming glorious triumph of a country that makes up a minority of the Western world. And China is the biggest economic threat to the US since the EU. Not that the US has achieved nothing but talk about blowing your own trumpet. This strategy you suggest is simply the events in the world that have by no precise active agent caused the world to unfold as it has. Again your assuming things that weren't bound to happen any way are somehow part of some secret agency in the US, this is a bit fanciful and sounds like a conspiracy theory, replace US with Illuminati methinks. Are you a neo-con by any chance, sounds like their fairy stories?
I thought even they'd given up their ideology?
4. As far as Afghanistan (or other any other less developed nations which we were/currently involved), we created the original of mess because we wanted to win the Cold War against the Communists nations. We supply arms in the name of democratic and independence, but what the Afghan didn’t know is that they were just a wasted pawn (when things got rough) for the Queen in strategic game. Unfortunately, the pawn realized it was being used; it turned against its master. Now you have all these extremists (we labeled them) or nationalists fighters. No one wants to get used and abused. Now were going back there to clean up in the pretense of “fighting terrorism,” and installing US backed (corrupted) government (those people who helped got us into the IRAQ war).
On chessboard, Russian are great, in the real game, the US still hold the title-maybe it’s the arrogance that we now is the most hated countries (by Arabs at least) so much in the world and the reason we are in this mess.
The world is a mess precisely because of yours and the Wests foreign policies.
Afghanistan will end the same for us as it did for the Russians. The situations are so similar as to be almost identical, the difference is instead of say the US supplying insurgents with training and weapons, it's Iran and Pakistan.
5. Legislation passed by House or Senate is just to satisfy American people and the rest of the world that we practice democratic process. They don’t care about the hundreds thousands of lives lost and the US soldiers (that is in itself terrorism and mass destruction), if they did they would have follow the UN guidelines and able to get all the Arabs countries involved. This is the Information age (not Industrial Age or colonial era) everyone seems to know except the U.S. especially the politicians of how this war started, but the media (indirectly controlled by ELITE) made the spin out of it. Believe me, it doesn’t matter who’s getting into the White House or which party is in power- more or less US forces will be there, they have plans to establish IRAQ as a strategic counter offense military base (not so much against terrorists like they’re advertising). Vice versa Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt all know the moves and they’ll just let the extremists, insurgents, and Al Qaeda do the bidding. It’s almost like the US wants to place strategic defense (or leverage for future negotiations) system in Poland against rogue nations, or is it. In terms of strategic thinking, every nation is a rogue nation. Do you think Russia or China agrees, less likely, they’re thinking the same thing. Let Russia or China install a missile defense system (assume if they have the technology) in California or close to the US to deter North Korea- I wonder how the US react. It’s only a defense from rogue nations!
Note: For every actions and there’s always an equal and opposite reaction- this doesn’t just apply to just physics it’s a natural force to balance itself (YING/YANG) - including human events.
You're an optimist, not a realist I see, you look at the past with rose tinted spectacles and thus expect the future to be rosy.
I genuinely think you're reading too much into situations, but if you have proof for some of these musings I'd like to see it, frankly most of it sounds a little far fetched.
If you ask me your views are symptomatic of the problem, you and people like you are still reading victory into American foreign policy for the last 50 years where as most other people are seeing not total failure but certainly not a good result of it's political machinations. In fact I think, had the US done nothing in the last 50 years, that communism would have collapsed anyway, as it was, no single war between communism and the West achieved any measure of success, if that was the only criteria we were looking at if anything it prolonged the existence of communism.
Whilst I don't think US foreign policy has been a total disaster, or indeed Western foreign policy, you have to be a pretty optimistic or delusional character to try and claim the last 50 years as any sort of victory overall or that somehow there will be one. As I said you can either go on persuading yourself despite a history replete with failures - that eventually some good is going to happen and then cherry pick that good event as evidence of success on a sea of failure- or you can accept that the latter half of the 20th century was generally a mess of shockingly inept or over zealous foreign policy, that has lead not to a safer more stable planet, but to heights of terrorism and instability not seen in the history of the world.
I think it's time to move on, time to alter foreign policy and time to accept the cock ups and change our direction, I think wishful thinking will get more pain and failed ventures frankly. I at least have history to point at and say look where that failed, look where it is failing now. What you outline seems little more than hope and speculation.
My only hope is that we are beginning to learn from our mistakes, that my view of accepting the limitations of our actions in the past is common place. I'd like to believe your dreams obviously, but they are I think just that.
I do wish to add though, that I think doing nothing is even more foolish than trying to enforce will on countries that do not want it, but diplomacy is better handled through talking these days than by military extension, this to me seems much more evident. Look at North Korea, willing to abandon it's nuclear program in return for aid. Libya willing to change from rogue state in return for diplomatic concessions. The world has changed and war or military activity is evidently not the most viable means of achieving positive benefit in most situations.
Reading further down that article -