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Threats?Posted Monday, October 19, 2009, at 1:45 PM
None of the second category on the DIA list, threats from nations, requires that we maintain or use a large military. We are not going to fight Russia, whatever its aspirations, any more than we did in Europe at the end of World War II or directly anywhere in the world during the Cold War.
Vietnam and Iraq show how miserably we can fail when we decide to repress forces that challenge our military dominance on their own turf and terms. Fighting these wars was not in defense of our country nor would winning them have made us safer. Losing in Vietnam did not make our country more vulnerable; the fight was simply about getting rid of, not dominating, us. Victory or even defeat in Iraq (and of course, Afghanistan) has not been adequately defined but whatever happens, the impact on our safety will be negligible. Military experts might list ascending and aspiring regional powers as threats, as General Maples did, but his assessment overlooks three important points. First, it is not the will of the American people and should not be a policy of our government to stifle the legitimate and peaceful aspirations of other countries. Have past leaders so completely misunderstood us that they believed an acceptable path to a bright American future includes holding down the rest of the world? Second, it is an amazing stretch to find that a country's ascension and its aspiration by themselves are a threat. Shrewd diplomacy and careful intelligence analysis ought to tell us when threats start to develop making it possible to act without necessarily involving military force. Third, short of even more force coupled with an edict to the countries of the world that we will not tolerate anything we see as even a possible threat, there is nothing the U.S. can do to stifle or eliminate ascending and aspiring regional powers. This is also true of evolving alliances. When he gets to Latin America, the general says, "While the United States presently faces no major military threats or challenges across Latin America, a number of concerns endure." He then goes on to list Venezuela (President Chavez' efforts to confront U.S. regional influence), Colombia (armed forces desertions and drug traffickers), Bolivia (possible destabilization of the Morales government) and Cuba (support for Raul Castro from the military and Communist Party). Maples' own words and those of his thousands of colleagues ruin his argument. The DIA found no real threats in Latin America and even those listed are diplomatic, not military, matters--Berkley Bedell. Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
Berkley Bedell--Retirement from the U.S. Congress in 1987, neither dulled my interest in the well-being of the people of the United States nor my worries about our governance. I began work in 2006 on a book outlining the country's problems and offering solutions.
Jim Frost--I share Berkley's concerns and in 2007 began the job of researching, editing and assisting with writing his book.
By early 2009, after finally weathering George W. Bush and recognizing how much the past eight wasted years have set the world back, our focus changed. We had seen no meaningful progress in the efforts to stem the threat of nuclear weapons, reverse global warming, preserve natural resources, reduce military spending, fight disease and hunger, improve health care, deal with the increasing gulf between rich people and poor people, establish a workable economic system, or clean up the political process.
For us, these three things became self-evident:
First, the problems are global; the U.S. cannot by itself control or solve them.
Second, the perfect storm of worldwide catastrophe is already upon us; what must be said cannot wait.
Third, in seeking solutions, the problems must be put before as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
This blog is the result. There will be much more. We invite you to participate.
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I would invite you to say "we failed" to the face of any of our local veterans who have served in Iraq war. Your Democratic party has been rooting for "failure" ever since the election of 2004 but the courage and fortitude of our armed forces has prevented this from happening.
It is funny how once the news is good in the Iraq War the all of the doom and gloom stories that have been the media's template for the past few years magically disappear.
Your argument that issues in Latin America such as Chavez's rise are "no real threats" to the United States is laughable at best. His alliances with sworn enemies of our country such as Iran and the terrorist FARC rebels of Columbia should raise a red flag that even the most ardent liberals such as yourself can't ignore.
The Vietnam Was is an excellent example of what happens when politicians try to run a war. Starting with Ho Chi Minn's requests to then Secretary of State Dean Rusk for help with ridding his country of French Colonial power. Kind of like we did in the 1770's. Ho Chi Minn was a Communist and we were deep into the McCarthy era when all things Communist were bad so we sided with the French, boy am I proud of that choice now. Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Secretary of Defense McNamara all tried to micromanage the conduct of the war and the result was a war that our people were not allowed to win. We didn't lose, we walked away and blamed it on the soldiers.