Is Israel planning the forcible removal of thousands of Gazans?

by Miriam Mon Jan 19, 2009 02:54

http://palestinian.ning.com/forum/topics/dealing-with-e...44450

by Larmee Mon Jan 19, 2009 04:13

Gaza
Gaza

Gaza

by Mr Man Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:34

More likely they are trying not to repeat the previous incident where the border was breached and people could freely move into and out of Egypt. Would you prefer that Palestinians stay and get killed or be allowed to enter Egypt while fighting is ongoing? Are you angry that Egypt is being thoughtful and putting preparations in place for refugees? Would you prefer them to reinforce the border and shoot anyone who tries to escape to Egypt?

by Mr Woman Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:58

Putting refugee's structures in place is what happens in many border disputes, earthquake zones
and tsunamis etc. Miriam is indulging herself again, which realy does point to a complete
lack of neutrality and is off-putting. i have gone back to Mainstream for actual neutral reported
news. Thanks.

by Dave Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:25

These two companies both have Irish connections, Cement Roadstone Holdings is intimately linked with the Irish establishment.
They are also both involved in the occupation of Palestine. CRH supply cement to build the wall and caterpillar supply machines to demolish Palestinian homes.
The only grouping that I have heard mentioning them since the latest assault began is the Socialist Party. They deserve a bit more attention under the circumstances, No?

Caterpillar have a premises at Tivoli in Cork. the following link gives all their addresses round the country
http://www.mccormickmacnaughton.com/cat_rental_store/ab...t.asp
CRH are registered in Ireland.
http://www.crh.ie

The delicious and elegant thing about taking on these two is that they are both also responsible for their fair share of damage to the Irish landscape and social fabric

by Miriam Mon Jan 19, 2009 13:30

Since when has this attack on Gaza been reinvented as a border dispute??!!!???

You're right John, this is definitely not the arid, asinine, fact-fictionalising phenomenon otherwise known as 'neutral reporting'. You are welcome to it. You certainly won't find anything there to cause you to realise that the world is a different place in reality to the place governments and big business want us to believe it is. This is not a neutral war. Palestine is in the same situation as a person who gets mugged by a gang of thieves in their own home, brutally been up and then foricibly kept in one room for the rest of their lives, while negibours and friends wring their hands without doing anything to help. Meanwhile, the muggers and their friends move in and violently attack the friends and family of their victim. And to labour the analogy further, the victim is now about to be thrown out of the house entirely.

But you don't have to take my word for this. Here is David Ben Gurion, whom I never tire of quoting on this subject. He was one of the principal architects of the Zionist project and first Prime Minister of Israel:

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves...politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country...".

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

So you see, there is nothing neutral about it at all. Israel is in the wrong and it has always known it is in the wrong -that is why it is so aggressive and fearful. Anything calling itself balanced reporting, if it has weighed up the facts honestly, should be unequivocal about this. You go and swim in that ocean of blandishment aka the mainstream media and lull yourself back to sleep. Nighty night.

To get back to yesterday's developments though, no wonder Hamas was not invited to the Egyptian summit and other negotiations! They didn't want word getting out that the ethnic cleansing is to be completed by removing huge numbers of the population from their own country.

As Robert Fisk pointed out yesterday, on the 18th January 1919 - exactly 90 years ago to the very day - another gang of foreign murderers and thieves met to discuss the Middle East and in the process created the appaling mess which the people of the ME having been living with ever since. As with 1919, the Europeans are there again - the British, the French, the Germans - only this time, Fisk said, they were there to try to wash their hands of the blood which stains them while presiding over another carve up of the ME which can only result in unprecedent levels of anger and injustice. Witness the rage in Pakistan alone yesterday. History repeating itself in all its glorious and violent stupidity all over again. That's 'governments' for you.

by Gino Kenny Mon Jan 19, 2009 15:14 ginokenny at hotmail dot com 7211574 085

Yes your right about CRH, They have a 25% stake in the Meshev cement group in Israel. A few years ago we highlighted the issue of there role in building the partition wall along the West bank. We had a good protest outside there AGM in Ballsbridge.We definitely should start some awareness campaign again in view of the boycott campaign in Ireland.

by Get Really Mon Jan 19, 2009 19:28

U say that Israel is going to rid Gaza of the Gazans.Really .

Then why is Egypt setting this camp up.Isnt it better they do this.

Camps were set up in Jordan during the Iraqi war in case they were needed.

Its called HELPING PEOPLE.Some of us were brought up with the belief its nice to be nice.And help those that need help.Also try to see the best in people.

Maybe you should call on Lebannon and Syria to help the 3rd Generation Palestinan Refugees who still live in refugee camps.Most in those camps want to stay and work.But cant as they have no rights to.So instead they have to live off hand outs.
Help the Palestinans trapped in Arab lands with no rights.But of course you think all of them want to return to Palestine.

by Contrarian Mon Jan 19, 2009 20:02

So you never tire of quoting Ben Gurion, eh? He must have been a very silly man to leave all those incriminating quotes around then. Or, did he?

The first quote appears to be from a Noam Chomsky book (so no possible anti-Israeli bias there then) which quotes an earlier book which quotes a speech allegedly given by Ben Gurion in 1938. Not exactly 100% reliable provenance.

The second appearsto be from a book by a chap called Goldman in which he recollects some musings by Ben Gurion 20 years earlier. Not a public speech, just a conversation and could quite possibly be merely Ben Gurion's analysis of Arab views and not his agreement with them.

The internet is full of fake quotes attributed to Ben Gurion, Moshe Dyan and others.

Interesting things, quotes. Here's one from Wikipedia, attributed to Zuheir Mohsen of the PLO, in a 1978 interview to a Dutch newspaper. [No, I have no idea whether its true or not - I just found it on the internet.]
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

by Miriam Tue Jan 20, 2009 05:49

Noam Chomsky is Jewish. He grew up in a Zionist home during the period when Israel was being established and has spent a lot of time in Israel. As an academic and political writer Chomsky has, if nothing else, been committed throughout his life to the principle of ascertainable fact and accuracy. If I have to choose between an anonymous internet poster defending the slaughter of Palestinians in the name of a rabid form of Zionism - and one of the most accomplished intellectuals of the last century, there really is no contest. Not even Chomsky's critics, the intelligent ones at least , would make such a stupid statement about Chomsky as you have. Ben Gurion did say those things.

Zionism is at most a notion invented roughly 130 years ago - a socio-political construct of 19th century Jewish thinkers who fancied the idea that Jewish people deserved a nation state in a territory inhabited mainly by Arabs for as long as any Jewish people had come and gone there themselves. The obstacle to the plan was the Arabs - greater in number and with a very tangible and justified claim to the land on which they lived. Zionism has taken different forms and was opposed by many Jewish people themselves for a variety of reasons. Many Jewish people still do oppose it. Israel is now run by people within an ideology that was disliked as much by many of the original socialist Zionist Israeli settlers in Palestine as by the Arabs. Ben Gurion was honest enough to admit what he was up to in Palestine though it didn’t stop him from doing it. The problem with Israel is that it conflates religion with national identity - moreover a national identity that Jewish people from all over the world, with separate ethnic origins and histories do not share - nor do many want to think they share the same origins - though quite a few are happy to exploit the idea anyway. Jewish people are as varied as Christians in their origins and histories.

The writer (and musician) Gilad Atzmon writes in an article 'The Wandering Who?':

“In case you ...happen to ask yourself, “when was the Jewish People invented?” Sand’s answer is rather simple. “At a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people ‘retrospectively,’ out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people.” [2]

Accordingly, the ‘Jewish people’ is a ‘made up’ notion consisting of a fictional and imaginary past with very little to back it up forensically, historically or textually. Furthermore, Sand - who elaborated on early sources of antiquity - comes to the conclusion that Jewish exile is also a myth, and that the present-day Palestinians are far more likely to be the descendants of the ancient Semitic people in Judea/Canaan than the current predominantly Khazarian-origin Ashkenazi crowd to which he himself admittedly belongs.Khalid Amayreh and many others regard as the “Nazis of our time”. Astonishingly enough, in spite of the fact that Sand manages to dismantle the notion of ‘Jewish people’, crush the notion of ‘Jewish collective past’ and ridicule the Jewish chauvinist national impetus, his book is a best seller in Israel. This fact alone may suggest that those who call themselves ‘people of the book’ are now starting to learn about the misleading and devastating philosophies and ideologies that made them into what Khalid Amayreh and many others regard as the “Nazis of our time”. “

Full article here - which is a review of Professor Shlomo Sand's book about the history of Jewish people and which shows that the claims made by Zionists are baseless: http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/09/02/gilad-atzmon-t...-who/

An interview with Chomsky from 1988 in which he describes how rational thinking about Israel is suppressed – his observations as valid today as they were then:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/198805--.htm

A brief history of Zionism: http://www.mideastweb.org/zionism.htm

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:21

Has anyone noticed that those who attempt to defend Israeli terrorism here rarely have the courage to put their names to their sophistry? They may, quite understandably, be embarrased to own up to their defence of the indefensible. But how are we to know that they are not Zionist volunteers? If anyone doubts that such an organized campaign exists, see the following irrefutable evidence:

Israel recruits 'army of bloggers' to combat anti-Zionist Web sites
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056648.html

EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9474.shtml

I suggest that unless someone has the guts to put their name to their contributions, we should not waste precious time and energy trying to refute them. Let their own words expose them for what they are - either fools or deceivers, or both.

by Mr Man Wed Jan 21, 2009 13:52

"But how are we to know that they are not Zionist volunteers?"

Oh I'm sure Ireland's ultra left (and some ultra right) are big worries for Israel. I'm sure there is a list somewhere in Israel with "indymedia.ie" on the top of it with asterisk. Indymedia is good for getting stories before newspapers pick them up or stuff that doesn't make it into newspapers but a big driver of public opinion it is not.

by Miriam Thu Jan 22, 2009 01:34

Jonathan Miller travels the length of Gaza, shocked by the extent and nature of the carnage

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9hjyq2FzRBo

by George F. Ryan Thu Jan 22, 2009 03:10

Yea, thats what happens when a greenhorn sees a war. There was nothing there much different than any other war. Wars are simply a part of human history and there will always be war, just as there will always be history. The Arabs of Gaza were caught up in this offensive when Hamas decided to take refuge amongst their own people.

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Thu Jan 22, 2009 08:22

Mr. Ryan,

Where did you get your history of Palestine? From Zionists apologists like Eoghan Harris and Ian O'Doherty in The Irish Independent, perhaps? I got mine from more reputable and informed sources such as Prof. Avi Schlaim's The Iron Wall, Prof. Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Prof. Noam Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle, Prof. Norman Finkelstein's Image and Reality of the Palestine Conflict, and Prof. Israel Shahak's many excellent books and articles. Only two of the above respected academics could be described as Marxist, three are Israeli, and all are Jewish. But if you're not prepared to read some of the best scholarship on the subject, at least you could read the Israeli press such as Ha'aretz and the Jerusalem Post which give a far more candid description of the reality in Palestine than the timid or biased international media.

Apart from reading all this and much more, I've been to Israel and seen the humiliating occupation of the West Bank. Have you, Mr. Ryan?

For your information, neither the Palestinians or the Jews are a race. As Alfred Lilienthal, an anti-Zionist American Jew, wrote in What Price Israel?: "There is no reputable anthropologist who will not agree that Jewish racialism is as much poppycock as Ayran racialism."

Furthermore, most Jews living in Israel have no more claim to Palestine than you or me. As Schlomo Sand, an Israeli historian, shows in his recent book, When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?, even the early colonists knew this: "Most of the early Zionist leaders, including David Ben Gurion believed that the Palestinians were the descendants of the area's original Jews. They believed the Jews had later converted to Islam."

Most Jews, possibly up to 90 percent, are Ashkenazim, the descendents of Khazars who converted to Judaism in the 8th century (see Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe), so they might feel more at home in Georgia, another supposedly "besieged democracy," whose belligerent George Soros-sponsored government includes at least two Israeli citizens.

If you truly believe that the Israelis are merely defending themselves from Arab aggression, read Israel Shahak's "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East," which is a translation of Israeli strategist Oded Yinon's "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zion...t.pdf

As Shahak points out:

The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel's satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.

You may have noticed that the Zionist plan seems to be going quite well with the "neocon" (Ziocon might be more appropriate) invasion of Iraq (supposedly to remove the threat posed by its non-existent WMDs) leading to civil war (with a little help from the SAS and others) and subsequent calls for the division of the country into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia states. Now, we're supposed to believe that Iran (with its non-existent nuclear weapons) is the greatest threat to world peace. Or is it Pakistan, Zionist lackey Obama's preferred next target in the so-called "war on terror"?

Mr. Ryan and other misguided defenders of Israel's "right to exist" as an ethno-religious apartheid state, please do some research before we are all engulfed in World War III (or World War IV, as Norman Podhoretz and other neocons like to call it). The neocon bogey of "Islamofascism" is not the enemy. The greatest enemy of mankind is an imperialistic Zionism. And the Palestinians are our first line of defence in this struggle.

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:15

Here's the correct link for the important essay by Israel Shahak mentioned in the title:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zion...t.pdf

by mars - mother daughter sister Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:41

a reminder that tonight at 11.05pm Channel 4 will broadcast a Dispatches special, Unseen Gaza

by George F. Ryan Thu Jan 22, 2009 13:38

Get my knowledge from the Irish Independent? Hardly, I do not live in Ireland, nor do I have any particular respect for journalists or their profession. Newspapers slant everything based on the whims of their editors, while journalists compete to have the most sensationalist copy. They can be interesting to read, but they are not particularly valuable sources of analysis.

I have been to Israel and the West Bank briefly (though I admit not Gaza), as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just because the authors are Jewish does not mean a thing. Americans greatly helped and facilitated the Viet Minh propaganda machine during the Vietnam War. At least two of your 'reputable' sources are memebers of the New Historians group, which is not exactly uncontroversial. Two are Marxists, and if your idea of reputable scholarship is Israel Shahak, I'm afraid that that says it all. All of these sources are heavily biased. Impartial sources are necessary for any sound historical study.

Shahak's 'study', if you will, is almost thirty years old. Israel's foreign policy is no more inflexible than that of any other country. Therefore, the study is obsolete in the first place. It was published around the time of the Second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and considering that Israel had fought seven wars (or seven campaigns in the same war, more accurately) between 1948 and 1982 might have made the prospect of Israeli expansion plausible. Since 1982 Israel has conducted little military action save for occasional forays into Lebanon and counter-insurgency at home. The fact that Israel voluntarily withdrew from Sinai twice tells against Israeli expansionism.

Seeing that Israel and the Arab world are effectively in a constant state of hostilities, an Israeli divide-and-conquer strategy would be quite sensible. The fact that this has not been pursued is evidence that the plan as a factual document is garbage. Shahak admitted that this article was 'his opinion' of Zionist aims, and that much of the plan was pure fantasy. It still factors the Soviet Union into the strategic equation. It is no longer relevant, particularly given that there is precious little evidence of any progress or attempt to pursue the plan in recent decades. To call that nonsense the best scholarship on the subject is a simple sign that you don't have anything to do with scholarship that doesn't support your worldview. It also shows that you accept this trash at face value, and lack either the ability or the inclination to independently analyze it, which is essential to any historian (if that is how you would describe yourself).

I am aware of the Khazar theory, and I believe that it is plausible, if still unproven. However it doesn't change anything. If you are going to trace back to what races belong where, you will find that the Arab tribes invaded and conquered Palestine from the Eastern Roman Empire in 636 A.D. It is no more their native land than it is that of the Israelis. Ultimately, territory is controlled by whoever is victorious in war. In this case, it is Israel.

As to your waffle on the Iraq war, if you wish to open a thread on that feel free. I am inclined to focus on the Palestinian issue for now. However, you should perhaps note that Iraq has been established as a single federalist state, and one that is doing quite well. If you don't believe that Iran is aiming to acquire nuclear weapons or that it is a threat to world peace then you seriously need to think about taking up a different field of interest. Your conclusions that imperialistic Zionism is the greatest threat to mankind is utterly ludicrous and not even worth the Indymedia space it occupies (which says a lot).

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Thu Jan 22, 2009 16:06

Thank you, Mr. Ryan, for pointing out so eloquently how ignorant I am of Middle Eastern history and politics. So, would you be so kind as to share with me and the other misinformed souls on Indymedia which historians and political scientists you think are unbiased and "uncontroversial"? Could you also tell us why on earth you think Iran would want to provoke the devastating wrath of the U.S. military? And one more thing, I am right in assuming that your extensive travels around the Middle East were in connection with work for the U.S. government?

by George F. Ryan Fri Jan 23, 2009 01:50

In asking me to point about specific historians and political scientists who are unbiased you are missing the fundamentals of historical research. There is a difference between different types of sources. Any Leaving Certificate History student learns about the three types of sources; primary, secondary and tertiary.

Primary sources are eyewitness accounts. They are universally biased by the perceptions of their authors.
Secondary sources are studies made using primary sources. Tertiary sources are research compilations based on extensive analysis of primary and secondary, and often other tertiary sources.

Unbiased works tend to belong to the realm of historical research rather than political science. An unbiased source will encompass sources from all sides, attempting to piece together the true course of events by detective work. Most importantly they do not try to prove a point. A book with a title along the lines of 'What Price Israel' is a biased tertiary source. It is setting out to prove a point, and in doing so it brings bias and perception into its work. A compilation of this nature, in trying to prove its point, carefully crafts and manipulates the available evidence to 'prove' its point of view. A book with a title like: 'A History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict 1948-2000' would be more likely to be an unbiased source, aiming to impartially piece together the facts of an issue, to explain a historical event. Again, you can not always tell a book by its cover, but it should be pretty clear whether a source is partial or impartial without going into too much detail. Junior and Leaving Cert history students learn to classify a source as biased or unbiased, reliable or unreliable, with a fair degree of competency.

When learning about current affairs issues, I would advise building a strong foundation of historical knowledge on the actual course of events from unbiased, historically inclined, scholarly studies. This enables one to look at any current geopolitical issue and put into context with other historical events, weighing all of its merits equally and impartially from all sides. Biased works can be interesting to read and sometimes have some interesting points or arguments. But an experienced historian will always while reading such works be able to handle them with a grain of salt, identify valid, defensible arguments from empty rhetoric and manipulation of available evidence, and weigh up the merits for themselves. Such sources should be if anything a secondary diversion to study of the simple historical aspects, and if one is to study such sources one should study those from both sides to truly understand the issue.

As to your question on Iran, the answer is that they are banking on avoiding decisive U.S. action by their use of assymetrical tactics. By actively supporting Shi'ite militias in Southern and Central Iraq, as well as guerrillas in Afghanistan, they hope to tie down the U.S. long enough and to wear down its strength enough that it will be incapable of intervening in Iran's nuclear program until presented with a fait accompli. Relations with other major powers, including Russia and China, and the United Nations are being skillfully manipulated to deter aggression or even effective action, while a concerted propaganda campaign is also being run. An Israeli strike on Iran would also probably play into Iranian hands by gaining them support in the greater Islamic world which they do not have. It is perhaps important to realize that Iran is an expansionism inclined nation, feared by its Arab neighbors more than any other power. It is truly a power in the Middle East with imperialist designs.

As to my own experience; my trip to the Israel was a personal trip. My more extensive time in Iraq and Afghanistan was in the service of the United States of America: I am a member of the U.S. military.

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Fri Jan 23, 2009 08:49

I appreciate you taking the time to elucidate the fundamentals of historical research for me and any others who might be reading this exchange. In my case, however, there really was no need. For what it's worth, I got an A in Leaving Cert history many years ago and went on to study with some of Ireland's finest historians - Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, Nicholas Canny and Kevin Whelan among others. I don't claim to be an expert in history but I'm no ignoramus either.

I'd also like to think that I recognise bias when I see it. For example, your proud service in the U.S. military colours your view of the world as surely as my lifelong opposition to militarism, particularly of the imperialistic variety, does. That said, I assume we both endeavour to establish the truth as honestly as we are able. But at least now everyone knows where we're both coming from.

As for Iran having imperialistic designs, I'm sure you're right. But are we to assume that the good ol' U.S. of A. does not? Its military is over there in Afghanistan, Iraq and countless other countries all over the world purely out of altruistic concern for those oppressed peoples? Well, of course, that's only part of it. You're over there defending America from those evil terrorists. Get them over there before they strike us in the Homeland, right? Although that's what Wall Street, the military-industrial-intelligence complex, corporate America, its controlled media and its bought-and-paid-for politicians would like Americans to believe, isn't "War a Racket," as General Smedley Butler long ago came to realise, and aren't you and your fellow servicemen and women unwitting "gangsters for capitalism"? And Gen. Butler surely wasn't another one of those biased Marxists, was he? You might remember that his patriotism saved America from a corporate fascist takeover plot in the 1930s, in which your previous president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was involved.

Getting back to Iran, for a more scholarly and balanced treatment of the Iranian "threat," I highly recommend Trita Parsi's Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S." It's an eye-opening exploration of the complexities of the relationship between these three powers.

I would also recommend you read the speech given by another great American patriot in Des Moines in 1941 before FDR's scheming with Churchill brought America into World War II (see John Toland's Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath and Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit: The Truth about Pearl Harbor and FDR). In that speech, Charles Lindbergh warned Americans:

"It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict.

"That effort has been carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that, today, our country stands on the verge of war."

As we now stand on the verge of World War III, if Lindbergh were still around today he could pretty much make the same speech with few changes. (And let's hope we don't soon have yet another "new Pearl Harbor" that will immediately drown out such voices of reason today.)

The power of the Israel lobby over U.S. foreign policy (as Stephen Walt and John J. Mearscheimer and others have shown) is now so great, however, that there are few voices in American politics with the courage to say now what Lindbergh said back then. The handful who have spoken out - Paul Findley, Jim Moran, and Cynthia McKinney and a few others - soon feel the wrath and financial power of the Israel-firsters and quickly find themselves out of a job and vilified by the media.

As former CIA analyst and author of Imperial Hubris Michael Scheuer says:

"The American people should be livid...with their bipartisan political elite and the Israel-firsters at Commentary, the New York Times, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Washington Post, as well as that hive of anti-American U.S. citizens that fund and lead AIPAC, for involving them in this barbarous mess. At some point down the road, every U.S.-taxpayer-funded bomb, artillery shell, and bullet aimed at the Palestinians will yield Americans killed at the hands of al-Qaeda, its allies, or those it inspires in attacks launched in response to U.S. support for Israel. Those Americans will be killed because their political and media leaders – corrupted to the bone by AIPAC – have involved them in a religious war that threatens nothing vital to their country's principles or national security, their personal economic well-being, or their children's lives."

Are you livid?

And as an American serviceman, are you also livid about the deliberate Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 in which they killed 34 Americans and injured 174 more, which to this day has been covered up by the U.S. government? Here is the official site of the survivors: http://www.gtr5.com/

And if Iran, or any other supposed enemy of America, were to perpetrate such an atrocity on the U.S. military, what are the chances that they too would get off scot-free?

by Gavan Gray Fri Jan 23, 2009 10:50

Apologies for a slight aside but Mr. Ryan's comment on people reactions being attributable to their naivety of the nature of war struck me as being far too patronising to let slide. I can't imagine that anyone reading here would contend that the threat of war will not always be with us as a species and no matter how much of a realist you may consider yourself Mr Ryan, or how pessimistic your view of human nature, I can assure you that you are certainly not the holder of some alien viewpoint impenetrable to lesser minds.

Of course ‘wars’ do not change, they will always equal barbarism, horror and dead babies. We as a people are changing though. Our familiarity with and understanding of this barbarism grows deeper every generation. Not simply in the ability of technology to reveal to people the true effects of war but in our understanding of its ultimate cost.

This is not to say that our attitudes are changing, that we are any better or more virtuous than our forebears. It is realizations of the economic cost, especially as global markets become intertwined, that cause self-interested governments to wonder what might have be done in Iraq if the $720 million per day invested in the US invasion had instead been funneled into rebuilding the countries infrastructure, making it a place to live in which continued comfort involved maintaining harmonious relations with the global market.

Again, it is not necessarily virtue but self-interest that brought about the ongoing restrictions on the open-ended nature of war. From ancient Rome where the differentiation between ‘bellum justum’ and ‘bellum injustum’ was merely a declaration of hostile intent and the days of Machiavelli in which broad necessity alone was sufficient justification, we have moved through an era of Hague Conventions, Geneva Protocols and Nuremberg Judgments each seeking to limit the occurrence of wars and restrict the scope of those which do break out.

Institutions such as the League of Nations and United Nations (flawed though they were and are in many regards) and ongoing globalization have seen a dramatic reduction in the amount and severity of conflict in the world. The international legal system and web of treaties that exist to govern rules of engagement, themselves alone, serve to differentiate modern warfare from its antecedents. It may be human nature to relieve your bladder when you feel the need but should a visitor urinate in your living room its unlikely that arguments of ‘human nature’ or ‘historical precedent’ are likely to save him. If one found that incidents of rape or familial violence where far higher in ancient times it would be equally unlikely that an appeal to tradition would constitute a strong defense. Similarly warfare is forced to respond to the pressures of the societies it breeds within and in recent decades these have displayed increasing desires to safeguard civilian populaces.

This is why when people see evidence of chemical weapons being used on built up civilian areas (and I know wiley-pete is book legal for screening purposes), or the field testing in the same areas of highly carcinogenic DIME munitions or blatant evidence of war crimes, they will react with the anger and revulsion that you see fit to glibly write off as their being “greenhorns”.

There is a certain type of military ‘professional’ who seems to revel in the carnage of war in the manner of teenagers viewing the most gratuitously violent movies they can unearth. As though they believe they are more worldly, or masculine because of the perversity of the horrors they actively seek out. William James wrote eloquently about the base desire most men have for such visceral thrills and wondered how they might be better channeled. I can’t help but feel that those men who feel the yearning for such thrills but wonder as James did about the moral consequences of satisfying it, will conclude that selling one’s service to political masters of absolute amorality might not be the best way to achieve peace of mind (I'm sure at least that I am not the only one who made such a choice).

Deriding the views of such people as the results of some form of inexperience with or unawareness of the 'harsh realities' of war is meaningless name calling. I could as easily say that those who choose non-vital military service must then seek what peace of mind they can from striving to find justifications for every kind of excessive horror or crime of war they and their allies are a party to. I can accept that such a statement is not-applicable across the board though so perhaps you can step away from the seemingly common belief among servicemen that they have a greater awareness of wars 'reality' than other people.

by Gavan Gray Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:19

I forget to extend my applause to your excellent evasion of alternate historical sources requested above. Additionally, by claiming not to judge a book by its cover in the same breath as comparing book titles, as well as denouncing Mr. O'Cathail's sources at the same time as saying good history requires a balancing of all points of views, you have displayed a dexterity that would be the envy of any defense attorney.

I'm sure Mr. O'Cathail would be willing to accept that the truth may lie somewhere between the authors he has listed and whatever tomes you prefer but you do not seem to be arguing in good faith, more the familiar spirit of "what's mine is mine, what's yours we can compromise on".

You can either sneer at his sources or state that a balance of opposing views is optimal but to do both strikes me as contradictory.

Also, I can assure you that most Junior or Leaving cert students in Ireland wouldn't recognise a biased source if it jumped out of their books and bit them. Like most young students around the world they are trained to memorize and regurgitate facts and figures with far too little analysis.

by George F. Ryan Fri Jan 23, 2009 22:44

The only soldiers fighting for Israel are the Israelis.

It appears my explanation of sources was necessary as you cited as 'reputable and informed sources' a list of books with the legitimacy and historical validity of the Da Vinci Code. Those books were written to prove a point or further ideological motives, not to study the Middle East situation from a simple historical point of view. They are as overtly slanted as a John Pilger 'documentary'. I felt it was urgent to emphasize the difference between what was history and what was spin.

My allegiances and values affect my personal beliefs. But as a historian they do not impact my study of history. I am neither pro-Israeli nor anti-Palestinian. I believe that both sides are fighting in a brutal war, a clash of civilizations, that began in 1948. As this site is host to mostly anti-Israeli propaganda I feel duty bound as a historian to dispel much of the nonsense that is circulating. I do not seek out historians that support my world-view, but rather study the history involved. There is no black and white in international relations. Every country places its national interest above any other considerations. This is not a 'right or wrong' equation, it is simple necessity.

I would say that the United States of America was an imperialist state around the period of the Spanish American War and Philippine-American War, at the turn of the last century. I would say that any argument of the United States being an imperial power today is a little shaky. The old 'War for Oil' argument is not particularly valid, given that it was nearly three years before major production at Iraq's oil fields recommenced. If the US had been desperate to extract oil they could have done it within a few months. Indeed many were beginning to wonder why Iraq's oil production had not been re-instated with any sign of urgency. The oilfields have remained under Iraqi occupation since the immediate post war period. America has not controlled that oil. Yes, America does have bases around the world, much like the coaling stations which supported 19th century European navies. They are not strongholds from which American forces control the surrounding region. American forces do not leave their bases without the permission of local forces, and are escorted by them when leaving to take part in exercises, etc. They are restricted to their bases, which are guaranteed by their host country.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that imperialism is necessarily a bad thing. If it were not for imperialism most of the world would be empty and its sparse populations still living in the stone age. Some civilizations are stronger than others, and those that conquer flourish, while those civilizations that were weaker ceased to exist. No civilization has ever endured by isolationism. The world as we know it today, and our civilization, are the direct products of imperialistic war.

A basic principle of war is that offense is the best form of defense. No army can win a war without holding the initiative. By staying on the defensive a warring nation cedes the initiative to the enemy. That is what happened in Vietnam, where the U.S. military, while victorious in every battle, was unable to win because the enemy was able to regain the initiative in every battle, due to the fact that the U.S. military was not allowed to fight the war to a successful conclusion. In the eight years since 9/11 there has not been a single successful terrorist operation in the United States. Al Qaeda has suffered severe setbacks, and Iraq has gone from being a hostile dictatorship to a federal democracy with wide popular support for the Allies against Islamist forces. It was local support swinging from the enemy to us that enabled us to turn the tide in the insurgency in 2007.

Sun Tzu was the first person that we know of to recognize that where there is war there will be fat cats waiting to exploit that for their personal gain. This is an ugly fact of war, and soldiers despise these shirkers and cowards at home much more than they hate their enemies who have the guts to fight them in the field. It does not make any war less necessary or less just. No modern wars have as their root cause, their raison d'etre, the increase in wealth of the few. War is good for the economy, yes, but that alone does not cause wars. The harping on about western soldiers being gangsters for capitalism, and the assumption that everything in the west is determined simply in financial terms smacks of the ubiquitous Marxist misrepresentation of reality.

I have read Trita Parsi's book, and it is a good one. But nothing in it changes the core realities of the issue.

Yes, I have always been disgusted about the U.S.S. Liberty incident. It was an assault on my country and shoul have been handled far more strongly. However, one must remember that as almost the entire Arab world was under Soviet influence, the United States was very short of allies in the region and ultimately needed to continue to support Israel. If such an incident had taken place in the 40's or 50's, when Israel and the United States were not very closely linked, it would have resulted in retaliation, and rightly so.

Michael Scheuer was a very competent CIA agent. I agree with some of what he has said. Most of the newspapers mentioned, and the media in general, are among the worst enemies of our war effort and of conservatives. Many of our politicians are corrupt (but whose aren't?), and there are many anti-American U.S. citizens who aren't worthy of U.S. citizenship, although most of them aren't supporters of AIPAC. However his statement that this war threatens nothing is garbage, as the forces of Jihad aim to establish a global caliphate, and in order to seize control in the Islamic world they need to defeat America.. Regardless the United States will not abandon its allies simply because it would be convenient to.

As to your comment on Prescott Bush, he served our country as a field artillery captain in World War One, and faced enemy fire. He is not simply a war-profiteering businessman; he has faced death for his country. His aim was too overthrow FDR, whom many saw as at the very least a socialist, if not a communist. MGen. Butler as an honorable officer refused to assist him but I do not believe that Bush's motive was simple greed.

I am opposed to many of FDR's policies and I am well aware that he stabbed his Navy in the back to achieve his policy aims. He should have been put up against a wall and shot. Nevertheless, do you believe that the United States should not have entered World War Two? I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to prove by this. And Lindbergh's speech is not relevant to the present War on Terror.

The United States is not a perfect country. But it is a great country, and one worth dying for. The West's freedom largely depends on America's continued primacy. If America were to fall, Europe would fall with it. And the Jihad that has been declared against the West will be waged until one side or the other is utterly defeated. There is no short term solution, no possibility of negotiated peace.

If you are anti-war, that is your choice, even if I can not comprehend it. But that simply does not mean that every anti-war or anti-American publication is valid, just as not every pro-war publication is valid. A historian must be able to sift bias from fact, which I am afraid that you failed to do in 'A History Lesson'. I am not necessarily trying to change your mind, but I will try to make you aware that there is more to history than Noam Chomsky and his ilk.

by Gavan Gray Sat Jan 24, 2009 02:43

It's fascinating how many Americans there seem to be that admire Israel not because of political, strategic or ethnic reasons, but because Israel’s sheer violence appeals to them as what they feel the USA should do on the world stage. Simply bomb any dissent to their Imperialism off the face of the planet and enforce their worldview with an iron fist.

You actually seem to believe that “conquering” is what allows civilizations to flourish. Let us set aside the fact that there is no single ‘civilization’ that has not built itself upon fundamental elements borrowed from its predecessors or contingent neighbors. The Venetian Empire was built upon finance and intelligence The Dutch Empire was built on shipping and trade rather than direct military power. La Serenissima, the Venetian Republic whose influence lasted over a thousand years was an Empire of financial power built upon business and intelligence. Overtly military Empires (Rome, Spain, England) hollow out their homelands the more they expand. Or perhaps you feel America is socially and economically stable at present? The economic benefits of war never match the expenses involved and necessitates overwhelming strategic need to justify aggressive policies.

To argue that such a strategy exists as a form of defense is in no way following a “basic principle” of war. Never mind the opinions of Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz or historical glory-hunters such as Alexander, military history itself has proven defense to have been at least the equal of offensive strategies. England’s rise to Imperial status was built upon the collapse of Spain’s following a clash of aggressive Spanish and defensive English strategies. Certainly, where Napoleon or Hitler here to comment they might caution against a policy of extreme offensive campaigns (especially to the East). The Swiss too, would probably have something to say on the benefits of a defensive policy. Or we might wonder what Xerxes considered about his offensive expansion against the Greek city states and the debacle at Thermopylae. The morale element alone, of fighting over land to which one has a connection has been a crucial factor (both positive and negative) throughout history and its negative influence upon public opinion was arguably a greater factor than military concerns in ending US action in Vietnam. Economically it is far more cost effective, with the lessons learnt by King Pyrrhus of Epirus standing the test of time. Even tactically it can be used in an active fashion such as Napoleon’s baited right flank at Austerlitz. Various factors determine the most applicable strategy, grand or operational, and depending upon these factors defensive strategies or hit and run tactics can often prove superior to all out offense. It is hard for me to imagine that a military man or historian could possibly believe otherwise, though the indoctrination of an American upbringing might offer an explanation.

Such indoctrination is the only reason I can think of for your belief that American policy in Iraq has been a success and has actually accomplished its ludicrous goal of coupling “shock and awe” with “winning hearts and minds”. Given that you do believe it is possible to win over Muslim minds through sheer aggression why do you also feel that further clashes with the Muslim world are unavoidable. Surely if you just keep bombing them into submission the entire Muslim world will come to love America?

Iraqi fundamentalists do not need to defeat America to take over the Muslim world as you claim. They exist as a reaction to American (and English and French) intervention in their region, more than a century of manipulations, usurpations and criminal activity. To imply that the Muslim world (another ridiculous statement in itself given wide number of nations and cultures such a hodge-podge would need to include) is hell-bent on an aggressive war to establish a global Caliphate is ludicrous and suggests both a deep-seated paranoia and xenophobia. The extremists exist as a reaction to the West and they are miniscule in their numbers. They have been, and will always remain, a criminal rather than military threat. Aside from which they have nothing to do with the issue of insurgent fighter in Iraq or Palestinian activities in the Occupied Territories which are based upon ethnic and national identities far more than religious differences..

Finally, should we take your defense of Prescott Bush based upon the fact that he faced fire for his country to equate to a similar admiration for the numerous dictators and genocidal leaders who similarly served with distinction for their nations? You state that war is not fought to increase the wealth of a few (meaning either it is not fought for wealth or that the wealth that is secured is shared fairly among the domestic population) and thus the existence of profiteers does not “make any war less necessary or less just”. I don’t think it was suggested that it was solely the influence of profiteers that rendered so many wars unjust but rather the fact that the “necessity” has very rarely been proven in any war of aggression. One of the strongest contenders might be Japan’s attack on the US in WWII but I imagine you’d place others higher.

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Sat Jan 24, 2009 09:01

"The only soldiers fighting for Israel are the Israelis." Really?

Consider the following:

Jonathan Steele, "Israel puts pressure on US to strike Iraq," Guardian, August 17, 2002.

Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose," Ranaan Gissin, a senior Sharon adviser told the Associated Press yesterday. "It will only give Saddam Hussein more of an opportunity to accelerate his programme of weapons of mass destruction."

Israeli intelligence officials had new evidence that Iraq was speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons, he added.

Michael Kinsley, "What Bush Isn't Saying About Iraq," Slate Magazine, October 24, 2002.

The lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of “President Bush” is easier to understand, but weird nevertheless. It is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it. The reason is obvious and admirable: Neither supporters nor opponents of a war against Iraq wish to evoke the classic anti-Semitic image of the king’s Jewish advisers whispering poison into his ear and betraying the country to foreign interests.

Joe Klein, "How Israel is Wrapped up in Iraq," Time Magazine, February 5, 2003.

A stronger Israel is very much embedded in the rationale for war with Iraq. It is a part of the argument that dare not speak its name, a fantasy quietly cherished by the neo-conservative faction in the Bush Administration and by many leaders of the American Jewish community.

The fantasy involves a domino theory. The destruction of Saddam’s Iraq will not only remove an enemy of long-standing but will also change the basic power equation in the region. It will send a message to Syria and Iran about the perils of support for Islamic terrorists. It will send a message to the Palestinians too: Democratize and make peace on Israeli terms, or forget about a state of your own.

Ari Shavit, "White Man's Burden." Haaretz, April 5, 2003.

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history.

In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town (Washington): the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history.

James Rosen, "Why We're At War With Iraq," The Sacramento Bee, April 6, 2003.

In 1996, as Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to take office, eight Jewish neoconservative leaders sent him a six-page memo outlining an aggressive vision of government. At the top of their list was overthrowing Saddam and replacing him with a monarch under the control of Jordan.

The neoconservatives sketched out a kind of domino theory in which the governments of Syria and other Arab countries might later fall or be replaced in the wake of Saddam’s ouster. They urged Netanyahu to spurn the Oslo peace accords and to stop making concessions to the Palestinians.

Lead writer of the memo was Perle. Other signatories were Feith, now undersecretary of defense, and Wurmser, a senior adviser to John Bolton, undersecretary of state.

Fred Donner, a professor of Near Eastern history at the University of Chicago, said he was struck by the similarities between the ideas in the memo and ideas now at the forefront of Bush’s foreign policy.

...

And now that Iraq has been sorted out at the loss of 4,000 Americans and over a million Iraqis, next stop, Iran...

Mark Glenn, "Israel Warns America Yet Again–There’s “Hell To Pay” For Not Attacking Iran," American Free Press, 2008.

Speaking recently at a conference at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, Israel’s Minister of Defense Ehud Barak sternly warned his audience (and the world at large) that “If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it could try to attack the United States,” specifying that if the Islamic Republic built “even a primitive nuclear weapon” similar to the one used in “destroying Hiroshima” that she would “not hesitate to load it on a ship, arm it with a detonator operated by GPS and sail it into a vital port on the east coast of North America.

...

Sound familiar?

But since you don't have much time for journalists, I suggest the following books which make the same point, namely: Americans have been (neo-) conned into killing Muslims as proxies for Israel.

Stephen Sniegowski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932528172/ref=n...iv-20

James Bamford, A Pretext For War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/02/clean-b....html

Jeff Gates, Guilt By Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America To War
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Supplements/Guilt_by_a...n.pdf

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:13

By the way, FDR wasn't the only one guilty of treason. Perhaps, after reading the following, you might agree that Prescott Bush too should have been taken out and shot against a wall?

"How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power," Guardian, Sept. 25, 2004.

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondw...ldwar

Strangely, that great pursuer of "anti-semites" everywhere, the ADL, quickly came to the defence of the Bushes, just as AIPAC, last year gave a standing ovation to the fake Christian Pastor John Hagee for pledging American allegiance to Israel, while at the same time he tells his misguided flock that two-thirds of Israelis must die in an "inevitable Holocaust."

Strange old world, isn't it?

by George F. Ryan Thu Jan 29, 2009 22:09

Firstly, your Venetian and Dutch examples of civilizations are flawed, as neither of these nations were separate civilizations. Secondly, they both made prolific use of offensive military, particularly naval power to further their interests. Thirdly, their trading empires collapsed when they proved unable to militarily defend their overseas interests, as in the case of Venice with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and with the Dutch loss of overseas territories to England. The inability of trading empires to maintain themselves without military power was amply evidenced by the Ming Dynasty's destruction of Dutch trading posts on Formosa (modern Taiwan). Lastly, none of them were above using military expeditions to further their interests. Both of these empires were perenially vulnerable to foreign military threats due to their inability to defend their overseas interests.

Your lecture on the art of war is an amusing example of sketchy knowledge and poor understanding of military affairs. Your narrow view of offensive and defensive strategies limits your ability to discuss the issue. To call England's strategy defensive and Spain's offensive is to miss the big picture of the war as a whole. England held the initiative for decades with a ruthless guerre de course campaign, raiding Spanish commerce and disrupting their transatlantic lines of communication, as well as raiding Spanish possesions in the New World. England also sent troops to fight in the Spanish Netherlands in the second half of the 16th Century. Sir Francis Drake's raid on the Spanish fleet in Cadiz and his temporary disruption of Hapsburg invasion plans is a classic example that defense is the best form of offense, and that England held the initiative. When the Spanish fleet entered the channel theatre of operations in 1588 it was the English fleet that sallied out to do battle. The Spanish were the ones who failed to impede the English before they could organize through a singular defensive mentality, allowing the English fleet to seize the weather gauge and do battle. It was the English fleet that continued to attack the Spanish fleet, even when it was in harbour, and continued to maul the Spaniards until they headed for home. While the Spanish took the offensive in 1588 it was the far more agressive English who seized and held the initiative, destroying the Spanish fleet. And the collapse of the Spanish Empire was not the result of their defeat at sea in 1588. It was Spain's defeat on the continent in the Thirty Years War that sealed its decline.

Neither the defeats of Hitler nor Napoleon in the East were because they invaded Russia. Napoleon's demise became inevitable when he gave up the initiative and retreated. The Russian's prevented him from marching by a warmer southern route, which had not been subject to the Russian's scorched earth policy, manoeuvering the Grande Armee into the colder Northern wastes and engaging him on their own terms. The Deutsche Wehrmacht only faced annihalation when the OKW ordered them to go over to the defensive, which gave the Soviets the initiative, and to hold a continuous defensive line across the entire Russian Front. These mighty armies were defeated because they lost the initiative; because they ceased to attack. As to the Swiss, are you talking about medieval or modern Switzerland?

The weakness of the home front was indeed a greater factor in ending US military intervention in Vietnam, but it was not a factor that prevented America from achieving military victory. Yet again, it was the Athenian seizure of the initiative at Salamis that defeated the Persian invasion, not the heroic stand at Thermopylae. Economically it may not be more cost-effective when a nation is actually under attack, unless they are actually capable of rapidly defeating the invasion. Otherwise the enemy can continue to regroup and regain the initiative again and again, which will greatly wear down the defender's capacity to resist (first and second Punic Wars, Vietnam, etc.). Austerlitz yet again validates the necessity of seizing the initiative. Napoleon lured the enemy to a battlefield of his choosing, forced the enemy to deploy in exactly the way he wanted. The joint Austrian and Russian army was not defeated or crushed by Davout's or Soult's neat defensive actions, but by the counter-attack in the center which cut the enemy army in half. Napoleon continued to hold the initiative during the entire initiative, controlling the pace of the engagement. As Sun Tzu would note, his defensive actions were, paradoxically, offensive. In war the side that loses the initiative will lose. You are absolutely right when you state "Various factors determine the most applicable strategy, grand or operational, and depending upon these factors defensive strategies or hit and run tactics can often prove superior to all out offense." All-out offense, yes. Fighting to gain the initiative, no.

The United States' invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are thus part of an active-defense strategy. Your statement about American strategy in the War on Terror merely displays that you are clueless. Firstly, you have obviously not been to Iraq recently, if at all. U.S. casualties and the level of violence are a fraction of what they once were, central Iraq is virtually pacified, Sunni extremists have been pushed back to Mosul, and the Shi'ite factions are talking peace. This is 2009, not 2006. You obvioulsy don't know of how bravely and with what determination Iraqi soldiers are fighting and have fought, or of the support the Coalition forces now have from the Iraqi people. Three years ago most Iraqi civilians would be afraid to have anything to do with us. Today, we have close relations with the local populace, which has enabled us to root out the violent elements which have been massacring their own people since the start of the insurgency. Your belief that Americans think that we can just bomb people into loving us is false: you obviously know nothing about the priority which is placed on understanding and respecting local culture, and on establishing relations with the local polulace in the U.S. military, nor about the often excessive Rules of Engagement under which we are forced to operate. If we really operated as you seem to imply there would be no one left alive in Iraq right now.

You also defeat yourself when you claim that the Islamic fundamentalists do not need to defeat us, yet at the same time implying that we are neck-deep in Middle Eastern affairs. Yes they would have to defeat us (drive us out, not destroy us) in order to establish theocratic governance across the Muslim world. I never implied that the Muslim world was hell-bent on establishing a global caliphate, that is a fine example of a distortion to suit one's own point of view. The nucleus of Islamic extremists may be relatively miniscule, just like the nucleus of the NSDAP, but their supporters are not so sparse. The muslim world can be regarded as a geopolitical entity, and I can assure you that Islamic extremists regard it so. Throwing around words like xenophobia and paranoia can be equally countered by throwing around words like ignorant and imbecile; it won't change the facts either way. If you deny that the ultimate aim of Islamic extremism is to establish a global caliphate then you are utterly ignorant of the entire issue and/or have never read the Koran. And when these groups enjoy state support they cease to be a mere police threat. And both Hamas and most Iraqi resistance groups have religion as a core motivation, not a peripheral one.

Commercial interests can influence the balance between war and peace but it is rarely a sole deciding factor. Japan's Pacific offensives were probably the Empire's only chance to maintain itself, for to withdraw from China would have led to revolution. But they did not have to bring the United States into the war at that stage, as they were not capable of defeating the United States. It doesn't change the fact that Japan had no choice but to commence hostilities. A patriot's interests are aligned with those of his country, and wars are generally fought to further a country's interests. They are thus 'necessary' if they are in defense of the national interest. Every responsible country will act in its national interest.

by George F. Ryan Fri Jan 30, 2009 00:19

Obviously the interests of the United States and Israel in the Middle East are for the most part aligned; they are allies. Allies tend to fight on the same side in a war. Would Britain's defense of Belgium in 1914, or of Portugal in the Peninsular War be fighting for Belgium or Portugal's interests respectively? Yes, in the sense that they're fighting with a common interest, but the British soldiers were still fighting for Britain, and Britain's foreign policy, not that of Belgium or Portugal determined the parameters of their involvement. They are still separate nations who both follow their own foreign policy interests. You will note that in early 2008 Israel asked the United States three times for bunker-busting bombs, aerial refuelling support and permission to cross Iraqi airspace for a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The first two requests were deflected and the last refused.

Its also interesting to note that in your first post to me you criticized me from getting my opinions from some presumably conservative Irish newspapers. You are now throwing at me some other rags like they hold divine revelation. I don't lean to newspapers either way. And conspiracy theories a) don't change anything and b) are not even established fact.

The books you advise me to read are cut from the same mold. Titles with phrases like 'Cabal', 'Abuse', 'Guilt', 'Deception' and 'Self-Deceit' in relation to international affairs are perhaps not dedicated to placing the truth before forwarding an overtly biased agenda. The websites listed, 'neoconzionistthreat' and 'americanfreepress' would appear to be slanted in their aims, as I am sure you will acknowledge.

Its also interesting how there seems to be a sudden focus on Prescott Bush. I am not a particular fan of the man, and in mentioning his service I was trying to show that he was not merely a stay-at-home fat cat, and that he had served in the trenches, whereas MGen Butler was speaking out against war profiteers who had never undergone the soldier's lot. Prescott Bush is an irrelevancy to this issue. Harping on about 1930's fascist conspiracies is a pointless pursuit on this thread. Instead of sniping at every little problem America has, why don't you all actually look at the Middle Eastern state of affairs with at least a hint of objectivity?

Let's face it; the Palestinians can either negotiate with Israel for a state of their own or they can defeat or conquer Israel. Otherwise there will be no Palestinian state. That's just the fact of the matter. And considering how the Palestinian state was run from 1948 to 1967, there is no guarantee that the Palestinian state would succeed in maintaining stability or bringing prosperity. And would it not be natural for Israel to want to see the end of Saddam Hussein, who was an avowed enemy and bombarded their towns in 1990-1991. Jordan was and is one of the most stable states in the Middle East. I should think that that would be an obvious solution. However, the United States has decided to make Iraq a democracy, of, by and for the people of Iraq.

by Gavan Gray Fri Jan 30, 2009 03:38

I was referring to neither the Dutch nor the Venetians as civilizations but Empires. The idea that civilizations rather than dominant and cannibalizing Empires within them, are what thrive is a wholly different argument (people such as V.D. Hanson have done as well as can be with it but still come up sorely lacking). Making use of offensive military power is a given in any large Empire. To equate it with reliance upon it as a dominant strategy is ridiculous. Equally so to say they collapsed due to a lack of military power. All Empires eventually fall, the Venetian republic stood for more than a millennia against a variety of threats and its strength was undeniably its financial rather than military prowess. Obviously greater focus upon trade leaves a nation vulnerable to military weakness just as much as excessive focus upon military power weakens both the domestic and foreign trade policies of others.

“Your lecture on the art of war is an amusing example of sketchy knowledge and poor understanding of military affairs.”

Really? That “lecture” was an offhand comment delivered in the midst of breakfast by someone, unlike you, claiming neither to be a historian nor a military expert. Yet after a weeks absence your 'expert' response seems repeatedly and blatantly ignorant of basic military principles and common historical knowledge and full of contradictions. Your comments on England’s guerilla naval campaign against the Spanish is at odds with your view that the military dominant powers triumph over the weaker and also puncture your claim that trading powers are defenseless against superior military forces.

“Some civilizations are stronger than others, and those that conquer flourish, while those civilizations that were weaker ceased to exist.”

The English nation of the Elizabethan era was by no stretch of the imagination engaged in an offensive campaign against Spain. Their strategy was based primarily upon the guerilla tactics employed by Drake and others and the intelligence network of Francis Walshingham. Again, no empire makes use entirely of purely offensive or defensive strategy, a mixture of both is inevitable throughout any campaign though one can clearly be dominant. England at this time was, by far, more defensive in its use of military force. To suggest that the sally of the British fleet and its use of fire-ships is an offensive strategy rather than an offensive tactic within an overall defensive plan misses the distinction. In praising the English fleets aggressive character you are doing nothing other than praising their triumph. Had the Spanish been victorious you would no doubt have used them as champions of the spirit of aggression.

Guerre de course and guerilla war are both strategies employed by militarily weaker foes and are particularly effective as strategies against aggressive military expansion. They are precisely what crippled Napoleon in both the Iberian Peninsula and the east and the idea that both he Hitler failed to triumph simply due to a failure to fully commit to their campaigns shows the extent of the indoctrination you seem to have received in modern American foreign policy.

Throughout your post you repeatedly refer to “seizing the initiative”, an utterly vague use of hindsight to praise success of almost any kind. Countless victorious commanders “seized the initiative” by knowing when to strike, when to feint, when to switch from defensive to offensive tactics, or vice versa. It is a tactical level process irrelevant to the larger grand strategy of aggression or defense.

At least you return to the issue at hand when you speak of the US’ “active defense” strategy. Was this defense against WMDs? Not the threat to your resources naturally as you previously stated that was not a key determining factor in the Iraq invasion. But now you are actually in territory of which I have some knowledge and the idea that you might actually believe the Iraqi populace has begun to turn pro-USA speaks volumes to the power of emotional desire letting one see what one wants. Of course the reduction in violence is because the American strategy was the right one all along. Not at all due to the fact that the people have been bombed and brutalized into a state of trauma, a generation of fighting age men has been decimated, the –foreign- fighters targeting the civilian population have been forced out and the US are gradually reducing their previous levels of violent interaction with and presence among the people.

“If we really operated as you seem to imply there would be no one left alive in Iraq right now.”

Echoes of Sammy Smooha’s view of Israel as an ethnic democracy in which its abuse of the Arab minority is justified as being “better than genocide”.

Keep believing these people like you and your country. The smiles on their faces as you pass by are definitely much better evidence of their deepest feelings than the things you do not see, the countless graves of family and friends, the memories of fear, violence and humiliation.

The Iraqi government is now being brow-beaten into accepting a SOFA that will permit construction of US military bases and jails within Iraq, a development utterly at odds with any respect for the nation’s sovereignty and in breach of all standards of international law governing principles of justifiable intervention. Recently Masoud Barzani, the US’ Kurdish lapdog, stated that should Iraq refuse he would provide a haven for the US military and Iraq would be in danger of erupting in a civil war. He is perfectly right, if they US was denied a pliant puppet government there is no question that civil war to install one would not be forthcoming, which brings us back to Palestine.

“Yes they would have to defeat us (drive us out, not destroy us) in order to establish theocratic governance across the Muslim world.”

Are you at all aware of the push the US made to have the Palestinians hold truly democratic elections? You do realize the comments you make and the US reaction to the democratic victory of such theocrats do not occupy the same reality?

Again you manage to lump a diverse group together under the heading of ‘Islamic extremists’. That you have little knowledge of the diverse aims and ultimate goals of such groups is not surprising though you do yourself a disservice by claiming insight into something you are understandably poorly informed on. Even in journals dedicated to the study of terrorism it is very rare to find authors with any interest in analyzing the (unpopular and unprofitable) issue of division among and misrepresentation of such extremists. Natasha Hamilton Hart wrote a good critique of the prevailing practice of classifying all Muslim groups opposed to US foreign policy as radicals or extremists and highlighted the very common practice of quotes by even the most extreme of such people being cherry-picked to highlight conflict with the West while willfully hiding (not through ignorance but an active desire to deceive) comments by the same people regarding the possibility of the Muslim world and non-believers dwelling in peace.

I don’t expect you to believe any of the above, in fact I do believe you will dismiss it out of hand in favor of the comfort of not challenging your own carefully bulwarked worldview. It will be easy for you to do, these are not ‘facts’ that will be spoon-fed to you by the military that gives you such a comfortable sense of purpose and rightness but are instead uncomfortable truths that you would have to actively seek out and would, in the end, make your life far less easy and self-satisfying.

An aside: Your view that Japan was incapable of inflicting enough damage on the US to justify her Eastern campaign shows little awareness of how important cryptography was to the campaign and how tenuous the US success in this field was. The decision to attack, even if the wrong one to have made, was by no means guaranteed to result in utter defeat.

“A patriot's interests are aligned with those of his country, and wars are generally fought to further a country's interests.”

Once believed there was no distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Then for a while I believed that nationalism was a backwards belief. Something espoused by racial and cultural supremacists that had no place in a ‘modern’ world moving towards integration of global institutions. It takes a while to realize that patriotism is merely adherence to the institutions of statehood, the flag, the army, the government rather than the interests of the people, i.e. the nation, itself. The USA is the one nation in which the idea of nationalism (one all-inclusive of race, religion) should have grown strong. Unfortunately, the propaganda that serves those who do profit from wars, the miniscule political and business elite, is evidently far too strong for those exposed at an early age to later overcome.

I used to be intolerant of those with strong religious views, disdaining their lack of logic or rational argument. Ultimately though I believe we all, certainly I myself, hold to beliefs of the way the world should be that are at heart emotional rather than rational considerations. Sheer pragmatism will (with awareness that Utilitarian thought argues the issue several ways) seek to justify the slaughter of an infant to spare the lives of a greater number. On an emotional level though it is not something I am willing to accept. I recognise it may be illogical but I choose to live in with a worldview in which what is right is governed by emotional as much as logical influences. As such I can understand fully why the instilled beliefs of patriotism give people a sense of comfort and purpose. These illusions are not, however, something that can be defended with logical arguments.

You feel that wars are necessary in defense of the national interest butI think you could more honestly say that you believe war is justified when it promotes the national interest. Define for yourself this interest and ask who really benefits, in either short or long term. There is the possibility it is a class to which you already belong but that would leave you in the minority and presumably not a fan of people such as John Rawls.

by George F. Ryan Fri Jan 30, 2009 22:40

Of course nations and empires are separate, but one can not forget that Western Christian civilization was an entity, and, if it is no longer recognized as Christian, western European civilization is still recognizable as a separate civilization. A civilization social organization, military prowess, etc. is overall largely common in the empires or nations which are part of that civilization as a whole, and affects the rise and fall, to some extent of the nations which make up that civilization. Athens and Sparta were separate 'nations' or geopolitical entities, but were of the same civilization, and their fortunes largely rose and fell within the Classical Greek civilization of which they were a part.

Venetian strength was in commerce. It declined due to its inability to repulse the Ottoman threat. The Venetian Empire was at its height during the High Middle Ages, when crusading armies held off Islamic powers to the East, which greatly facilitated Venetian trade routes. The Venetians also were able to use the crusader armies for their own gain, for example with the sacking of Constantinople in 1204. It was their inability to militarily defend their empire, and the success of other European navies in opening other, more lucrative trade-routes which started Venice's decline. Its terminal decline was the result of successive military failures in largely defensive fighting against the Ottoman Turks. It was Venice's and western europe's military reverses against the Turks that led to the downfall of Venice's economy and empire. Trade and commerce are all very important, but military weakness will lead to the demise of these advantages.

As I am sure that you are capable of gathering, 'lecture' was a term used in a satirical fashion. It was of course clearly an offhand comment, and as offhand comment generally are, was highly inaccurate and uninsightful. As to my taking a week to respond, I do not work a 'nine-to-five' job, nor do I have a great deal of free-time. That little which I have is not devoted to surfing Indymedia, so you will forgive me. It is ironic that you attempt to conceal your lack of comprehension of the basics of military strategy by putting up examples that contradict your own arguments.

You are flawed in believing that military dominance or power is based on numbers or equipment. Yes, trading powers are vulnerable when faced by superior military forces, just as non-trading powers are. And yet again you fudge offense and defense. Guerrilla warfare is by its very nature offensive, and the English naval operations as well as land operations in Holland prior to 1588 indicate a strategy and mentality of taking the fight to the enemy. Spain was not particularly agressive in its operations against England prior to the 1588 campaign. The English were victorious at both the tactical and strategic level because they ceased the initiative, and therefore largely fought the war on their terms (hence the guerre de course campaign and choosing to distract the enemy in the Netherlands by supporting the Dutch rebels). When the Spanish launched an all-out offensive the English regained the initiative and eventually succeeded by attacking. Their fighting the batttle on their terms is not by its nature defensive, and its strategy is not defensive simply because the English did not march on Madrid. Its military campaigning was prudent given the imbalance of force. And England's victory is a good example that a commerce-based nation can defend its interests as well as its own country by military power, when well used.

Your hilarious comments on the initiative in war sum up once and for all your inability to comprehend that critical, determining factor. 'It is a tactical level process irrelevant to the larger grand strategy of aggression or defense.' This is truly the icing on the cake. Your definition of the initiative as simple success simply shows that you have no idea what it is. Initiative is a vital factor at every level of warfare, from tactics all the way up to the policy level. Initiative is the essence of strategy, operations and tactics. War is an art, not a science, and there are no precise rules. General von Schlieffen once held that the art of war is incomprehensible to the layman. I am increasingly becoming inclined to agree.

Neither guerre de course nor guerrilla warfare are necessarily used by weaker combatants (Special forces units operate as guerrillas), nor are they very effective at combating aggressive military expansion. Guerrilla warfare is only useful for evading stronger forces or for fighting an army that is on the strategic defensive. Well over half of guerrilla campaigns in the twentieth century have failed to defeat conventional forces. Guerrilla warfare did not cripple Napoleon in the East and it weakened his forces in Iberia because the French forces had gone over to the defensive, dispersing in garrisons which were easy to isolate, and supply convoys which were easy to ambush. The guerrilla campaign became effective when the French gave up the initiative. The guerrilla campaign did not defeat the agression, it fought against the occupation. To say that Hitler and Napoleon did not fully commit to their campaigns is false. The enemy gained the initiative and both the Grande Armee and the Wehrmacht were forced to react to their opponent's movements, which led to their defeat.

"Indoctrination in American foreign policy". That doesn't make any sense. How can one be indoctrinated in policy? The foreign policy of the United States of America is far more subtle than you give it credit for.

Now lets get one thing perfectly straight: I am not an apologist for everything the United States has ever done, any more than you are an apologist for the actions of every Irish government.

'Was this defense against WMD's?'. Partially. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons en masse against the Iranians and his own people. He had tried in the past to build a nuclear reactor and had developed biological weapons. Whether he still had them in 2003 is unclear. Hans Blix admitted in 2002 that the Iraqis were being evasive and were not admitting everything. A number of Iraqi Air Force generals when interrogated in isolation in the immediate aftermath of the war declared that Iraq's remaining arsenal had been moved in truck convoys and by civlian airliners in February 2003 to Syria, the only other Ba'ath state in the Middle East, which may explain why Syria's WMD arsenals have increased four-fold since 2003. In several isolated IED incidents insurgents attempted to use mustard gas in 2006. As we have not recovered WMD's nothing can be proved for sure. But nevertheless Saddam Hussein proved both his ability to acquire WMD's and his willingness to use them, and 9/11 made the United States aware of the possibility of their use by non-state actors. The United States could not afford to allow the enemy to potentially make use of these weapons. Hence the need to engage in an active-defense.

You obviously don't seem to have a great deal of knowledge about Iraq as you claim. The anti-war crowd often forget that we were greeted by throngs of Iraqi people in 2003 which can only be described as jubilant. "Of course the reduction in violence is because the American strategy was the right one all along. Not at all due to the fact that the people have been bombed and brutalized into a state of trauma, a generation of fighting age men has been decimated, the –foreign- fighters targeting the civilian population have been forced out and the US are gradually reducing their previous levels of violent interaction with and presence among the people." The American strategy was correct, the tactics were problematic for several years. The fact that the foreign (and Iraqi) fighters have been forced almost out of Iraq is the whole point. You forget that it was insurgent car bombs which were exploding by the dozen daily in Iraq's markets and on its roads, amongst its own people far more than our troops.

"Keep believing these people like you and your country. The smiles on their faces as you pass by are definitely much better evidence of their deepest feelings than the things you do not see, the countless graves of family and friends, the memories of fear, violence and humiliation." A nonsense statement. You obviously have not had your boots on the ground recently, and are utterly ignorant of U.S. strategy, tactics and the entire hearts-and-minds doctrine, which is not jut for the headlines. It actually works, as evidenced in Malaya in the 1950's, from whence we adopted the policy. It is not a matter of smiles. It is a matter of being invited into their houses to eat. Of playing soccer with their kids, of fighting shoulder to shoulder with their menfolk against insurgent attacks, and of them weeping with you when they hear of a soldier or marine they knew who has fallen. But you would know nothing of this, just as you would know nothing of the reality of life in insurgent dominated settlements, of which the most distinctive feature is civlians with bullet-holes in their heads lying on the roads, rotting, with the fatal shot being fired from so close the powder burn singed their skin.

As to a pliant Iraqi government, that is again an image divorced from reality. The Iraqi government is actually quite vocal in its demands, including its demand that U.S. servicemen should be answerable to Iraqi law. An interesting question: where were the outspoken protests of humanitiarian and anti-war groups to the massacres and oppression of the Kurds, or to their wish for autonomy and a nation-state of their own? I fail to recall any particularly noticeable opposition from the usually over-vocal peacenik crowd to Saddam Hussein's murderous regime. Yet when the United States actually does something about him the peaceniks rise to voice their wrath at America's attacks on a peaceful, sovereign country, utterly ignoring the actual views of the Iraqi people on Saddam Hussein and the invasion. What is the difference between the Kurds and the Palestinians? Why the condemnation of Israel which supposedly opposes the Palestinians national aspirations, yet condemnation of the United States which is actually giving the Kurds a degree of autonomy and self-determination that they have not had since ancient times? Perhaps you could enlighten me on that contradiction?

As to the U.S. pressure to give the Palestinians elections, I am quite aware of that. I am also aware that they chose Hamas, a group whose charter states that the only answer to the Palestine question is Jihad. It is therefore an enemy of both Israel and the United States. They have had free elections, and they are now living with the results. When they exercised their rights by choosing a jihadist organization already at war with Israel they effectively accepted war with Israel.

Actually I have quite extensively studied Islamist groups as well as non-islamist groups in the Arab World, and I am quite well aware that not all of them have particularly far reaching goals. I am also quite well acquainted with the fact that they are often extremely divided, have no common aim and are not a unified group. I am not talking about every Islamic group, but those that follow Islamist ideology, which yes does exist. I am also aware of muslim views towards 'people of the book'. The islamists do not necessarily aim to convert the world to islam, but they do require a caliphate governed by Islamic law.

As to your aside, once again it leaves me amazed. The ignorance of the difference between limited and total war, of the actual state of the Imperial Japanese Navy and its poor grasp of strategy, and the ignorance of the differences between tactics, operations and strategy, and your unawareness of the actual course and nature of events are colossal in scale. Japan could have one a limited war, perhaps, but could not have defeated the United States.

'The religion of the patriot' as a post is an amazing testament to the result of utter ignorance matched to pretentious arrogance. The flaws in your arguments and in your understanding of history and warfare, as well as your inability to analyze are truly exceptional. A post combining a sparse smattering of random, poorly applied book knowledge to an incredible attempt at intellectual insight is a monument to human foolishness and self-conceit. I guess that it really goes to verify the true ignorance of war among those who have not seen it. And the ideological and emotional rant which finishes that misadventure is not worth the space it occupies. If you think that you have any grasp of history, particularly military history or geopolitics you seriously need to think entering another field.

by Gavan Gray Sat Jan 31, 2009 05:11

Feel free to hold on to your idea of civilizational purity, that Europe is a distinct entity rather than a historical hodge-podge of tribes, cultures, religions and political systems. That the Moorish influence in Spain had no impact on western science, art or architecture, that Russia was either wholly within or without this gestalt, that the pre-Christian Celts did not mix with and influence the Roman, Saxons, Norse and Norman. Presumably in your mind’s eye there is a direct line from the ancient Greeks through Rome through Europe leaving their descendants the new champions of Western civilization. Never mind the countless deviations such as Alexander’s Hellenistic mongrel empire.

You seem to think that my view of “initiative” is erroneous and yet I was referring to your use of “seizing the initiative” as a gambit. I am aware that initiative is a factor at all levels, it was my contention that ‘seizing it’ and superseding the enemies use of it is not applicable on the operational and strategic timescales and where used on the tactical level is overused. I fear though that we are using completely different conceptions of what constitutes offensive and defensive military strategy.

“Guerrilla warfare is by its very nature offensive”

This is simply wrong, and the only reason I can think of why you could state this is that this is the way it is taught to the American military with examples thrown in of using Green berets to coordinate insurgent movements. Obviously, as a tactical unit any guerilla force performs aggressively but your statement is just utterly wrong as to its general overall application in the majority of wars, even supporters of ‘decisive battles’ such as von Clausewitz and his comments on ‘the people in arms’ highlight their role as a highly effective force to be used against encroachers on the home territories.

This though seems to be the mindset of the American military. The US war in Iraq is in fact a defensive strategy, while the insurgents are offensive…….I would suggest that you are confusing you operational and strategic levels but you seem happier with your current view and would hardly expect you to discomfort yourself.

Your comments about Venice simply illustrate the fact that for centuries the Republic used its financial and intelligence networks to manipulate other states into safeguarding it. Again, the fact that it eventually succumbed to external aggression is meaningless. It thrived far longer on, primarily, non-military policies than practically any other state.

To state that trade and commerce are safeguarded by military strength is to completely miss the zero-sum element by which investment by a nation in one automatically reduces the resources to sustain the other. The question of ‘guns vs butter’ and the fallacy of the broken window are hardly esoteric in nature. There is not even a need to frame the question in moral terms as Bastiat did with the question of ‘production or theft’. As far back as the 18th century figures such as Adam Smith were highlighting the fact that the cost of militarily controlling England’s overseas holdings was bankrupting the Empire. The relinquishing of colonial holdings came about not through any burgeoning of morality but from the increasingly obvious profitability of using trade rather than force to establish a foothold in these areas. Such trade links, once secured, are the strongest defense against aggression and the integration of the global market, which allows tiny states such as Singapore, with no significant military force, to rank among the worlds top exporters. The clearest deterrent to hostilities between the US and China is the devastation it would cause to both economies.

Perhaps you would highlight the safeguarding of dwindling resources as the major justification for an overseas military presence and there are few people who would argue against the need for major states to maintain sufficient power to safeguard overseas trade interests. The US military has not, throughout its long history, been used to safeguard against threats to open trade but rather to seize complete control of resources and markets. As the decades pass this has become increasingly less justifiable to an international community relying more and more upon trade, diplomacy and international law to maintain harmonious relations. Look at the economic crisis costing working and middle class families jobs and homes in the states and consider the $3 trillion or more pumped into Iraq. Who was it who benefited?

The Iraqi people? Please don’t attempt to claim, not with a straight face, that the USA uses its power to promote open democracy.

The American people? Putting a new face on the brand will do a lot to mitigate negative world opinion but the economic drain of the overseas military juggernaut is still hemorrhaging funds from an anemic budget.

The Israeli people? Still living in a war zone, nothing much changed for them.

The American and Israeli political elite? Well, lets see, the CEO of the major defense contractors saw pay raises of up to 700 percent in the years following the invasion. Cheney made sure Halliburton profited from a series of no-bid contracts (as he had done with Root&Brown during the Persian Gulf and Halliburton in Serbia), Richard Perle accepting payment to manipulate Pentagon opinion and joining conference calls advising Goldman Sachs on how to profit from the war, etc.

Agnell raised the question of why such profiteers are able to manipulate their people to such an extent. Human nature ensures that medical companies would equally try to profit from an outbreak of disease but they would never be able to make people as blasé about an outbreak of smallpox as they have become in many Western states about the outbreak of wars that will result in as many deaths and far more destruction. Their influence has grown to the point were people will in fact hoot and holler for war to be declared so some ‘ass kicking’ can begin. Not only is it not feared or abhorred, people feel that it is noble, that they have a duty to participate in the wholly avoidable carnage.

Fear of the other and a sense of superiority in your own ‘civilization’ are the emotional vulnerabilities that allow such acceptance of policies which have no legitimate logical basis. The humanitarian excuse is laughable, future resource wars prophesized by people like Klare are simple neo-Imperialism and ignore the realities of recent global market integration, even those supporting geo-econoic strategies of aggression, such as Luttwak, are essentially advocating a zero-sum game of primacy and subordination that equally fails to attend to the superior success of those competing for absolute gains.

Spare me your further appeals to personal authority on the matter, even were this not an anonymous forum there is no way your recollections of common plight with the Iraqi people could in any way counterbalance the equally graphic mountain of anti-American views and recollections available from first hand sources.

American strategy, not simply its tactical application, was flawed from the outset. This doesn’t mean that a viable military strategy could not have been used to achieve regime change and maintain popular support. Steven Pressfield wrote an insightful article on the nature of Middle eastern tribalism and the failure of the US military to properly harness it that argued that it was the effort to mix “winning hearts and minds” with the brute force of the “shock and awe” policy that failed. After the first successes the US lost respect because it was unable to impose order on the society had they been more brutal in suppressing disorder, looting, etc. the general populace would have been more stable. Not that this makes such a strategy any more legal or more moral, just more effective. It also explains why you encounter some Iraqis who support the US. There are many tribal groups who have allied themselves to the new ‘big man’. My advice to you would be to try not to confuse their acting for pragmatic gain with any deeper sense of loyalty or brotherhood. And yes, I expect you to immediately sneer at my suggestions.

You see condemnation of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as inconsistent with US treatment of the Kurds? Unless this is an admission that Israel is acting immorally you’re shooting yourself in the foot. If you however believe that opposing policies can, given the context, be equally moral or immoral, your comment is pointless. In any case the shared problem that renders them both immoral is the rendering of freedom by an occupying force that offers such freedom only when the puppet government capitulates to its every whim.

”They have had free elections, and they are now living with the results.”
Yes, democracy US-style. The results of that election and the efforts of the US and Israel to scupper –any- form of government by the democratically elected Hamas were clearly laid out in a recent issue of Vanity Fair (of all places). You don’t seem to have read it.

Regarding Japan:
”The ignorance of….yadda, yadda…..are colossal in scale.”

I believe I said Japan’s decision was “by no means guaranteed to result in utter defeat” and you admit that “Japan could have one a limited war, perhaps”. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard it said that the goal of Japan was anything other than to scupper the American fleet, seize pacific territory, and reach a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible. But apparently you think its likely that people might argue that Japan’s intent was to crush the United States?

Finally: “'The religion of the patriot' as a post is an amazing testament to the result of utter ignorance matched to pretentious arrogance.” And so on ad nauseum.

I haven’t claimed to be an expert upon the military issues discussed above but I’m certainly not utterly ignorant. I am at least familiar enough to recognize that your grasp of the intricacies of the topic is no stronger than my own and your application of it in a logical manner seems clouded far more by emotional ties to one point of view than my own. Hence the title of my penultimate post, I am (….lets say ‘was’) honestly curious how you feel your rational analysis has been influenced by emotional elements of upbringing, cultural propaganda and military and academic indoctrination. You seem reasonably well-educated, despite your utter conviction in your beliefs and lack of self-doubt, and no doubt believe you are leading a virtuous life. Unfortunately, this level of ‘conviction’ makes discussion pointless. I appreciate the opportunity to gain some insight into how a certain type of mind processes these issues. I’ve actually gained a little from the exchange, however, given the tone of your posts whether or not you can say the same is no longer of any interest to me.

by Maidhc Ó Cathail Sat Jan 31, 2009 17:23

I'd love to stay and learn more about how you're saving "the West" from "Islamo-fascism" in the "Clash of Civilizations," but I'm not really into Zionist-sponsored myths.

But here's some final reading suggestions for one who seems to have read everything worth reading. However, since you seem to have read so much, it's such a pity that you are so curiously coy about sharing that information with your lessers.

Anyway, good luck in your never-ending "war of terror." I'm sure the Muslims, if you leave any of them alive, will love you for it! The Israelis too will no doubt be eternally grateful for your valiant service in advancing their strategic goals. But don't expect any gratitude from the American people if they ever figure out how they've been conned into World War III by Israel-firsters.

Here's your final reading assignment:

A new book by John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed ought to have a profound and transforming influence on Americans' view of their government's confrontation with Islam. The book, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, presents the results of six years of Gallup polling in the Muslim world between 2001 and 2007. "With the random sampling method that Gallup used," the authors explain, "results are statistically valid with a plus or minus 3-point margin of error. In totality, we surveyed a sample representing more than 90% of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, making this the largest, most comprehensive study of contemporary Muslims ever done" (xi). Based on this data, Esposito and Mogahed have determined that Washington's conflict with Islam is "more about policy than principle" (xi). The pivotal findings of this massive study for U.S. national security pertain to the motivation of the Muslims who oppose the United States and the authors' claim that "[o]ne of the most important insights provided by Gallup's data is that the issues that drive radicals are also issues for moderates" (93).

"As we have seen in the [Gallup] data, resentment against the West comes from what Muslims perceive as the West's hatred and denigration of Islam; the Western belief that Arabs and Muslim are inferior; and their [Muslims'] fear of Western intervention, domination, or occupation" (141).

"As our [Gallup's] data has demonstrated, the primary cause of broad-based anger and anti-Americanism is not a clash of civilizations but the perceived effect of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world" (156).

"[The Gallup data shows that] contrary to what the 'They Hate Our Freedom' thesis might predict, Muslims do not recommend or insist upon changes to Western culture or social norms as the path to better [Western-Muslim] relations. … Rather they call on the West to show greater respect for Islam, and they emphasize policy-related issues [U.S. interventionism; unqualified support for Israel; and protection for authoritarian Arab regimes]" (159).

http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=12576

Professor Robert A. Pape explains the research behind his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, why Rep. Ron Paul is correct that groups who engage in suicide terrorism can only recruit in the name of fighting against foreign occupation – rather than devotion to any religion, promises of virgins in Heaven or a plot to take over the world – and why our government’s denial of this fact and its policy of regime change puts Americans in greater danger.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/01/06/robert-a-pape-3/

by Michael - Human League Sat Jan 31, 2009 18:30

Nicely slotted Educational Programme shown this after noon on B.B.C. 2 .

''The World At War '' , Narrated By Laurence Olivier ,Depicting The Rise And Fall Of Adolph Hitler And Lots Of Political Horrors .

The B.B.C. recently would not broadcast a programme ( of help required ) on behalf of the palastinians........ Peculiar goings on at the B.B.C.