Remembering Pearl Harbor
[Please see this post on forgetting Pearl Harbor.]
We’ve all learned about Pearl Harbor, but here are some details that I found especially interesting in light of 9/11. Despite having a lot of information that a Japanese attack was coming somewhere, some time soon, the military and the government really couldn’t pin down the specifics. This made preparedness very difficult. Sound familiar? It seems to be the nature of the beast.
From Wiki:
U.S. signals intelligence, through the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service and the Office of Naval Intelligence’s OP-20-G unit, had intercepted and decrypted considerable Japanese diplomatic and naval [citation needed] cipher traffic, though none of those decrypted carried significant tactical military information. Decryption and distribution of this intelligence was capricious and sporadic, and has been blamed on lack of manpower. At best, the information was fragmentary, contradictory, or insufficiently distributed. It was also incompletely understood by decision makers, and poorly unanalyzed. Nothing pointed directly to an attack at Pearl Harbor, and lack of awareness of the Imperial Navy’s capabilities led to an underlying belief Pearl Harbor was safely out of harm’s way. Only one Hawaiian message (6 December 1941), in a consular cipher, included mention of an attack on Pearl, and it was not decrypted until 8 December 1941.
I hadn’t realized–although it stands to reason–that a good many casualties were from friendly fire. This is one of the sad and inevitable ironies of war:
Ninety minutes after it began, the attack was over. 2,403 Americans died (68 were civilians, many killed by American anti-aircraft shrapnel and shells landing in civilian areas, including Honolulu)…
My elderly mother was an adult at the time of Pearl Harbor. She’d always been interested in history (her major in college). Later, she often reminisced with me about historical events she’d lived through. In fact, her earliest memory was of booming guns going off in New York Harbor to celebrate the end of WWI–they frightened her, but the adults chuckled and told her not to fear, the war was over.
In fact, all war was over–it was “the war to end all wars.” My mother recalled being taught in her early teens that her generation was the luckiest on earth. Why? because the Kellogg-Briand Pact had just outlawed war.
Well, that’ll teach you to listen to your teachers. Because, of course, her generation faced World War II not all that many years later. And, because my mother lived to see 9/11, she was able to tell me that this would be worse than Pearl Harbor and World War II.
It remains to be seen whether she was correct. Both of us would like to think she wasn’t.
The problem in this case is that the enemy is amorphous.
In the case of then, the Japanese bombing of Pearl was part of a series of coordinated assaults that put most of the South Pacific in their laps.
So, putting it in reverse, the challenge was to neutralize Japan’s military might, which we did. And won the war.
But how do you fight a war with terrorist groups that swim like fish in the surrounding sea of civilians? (to use Mao’s famous metaphor.)
You can do it by establishing a kind of police-state presence, I suppose. But that is very labor intensive activity. If the President wants that, it’s up to him to tell us that he needs national sacrifice, enlistments, the draft, etc. etc. to get enough people to pacify Iraq and secure the borders.
But he hasn’t done that.
What people mostly argue around here, is, kill a bunch of people indiscriminately, and then the rest will obey (whatever that means, I guess it means they will “turn in” the terrorists.) Whatever.
Steve, I think the President HAS talked about “sacrifice”. Many times. It’s just that nobody has listened. And yes, this administration has been woefully lacking in the enforcement of our borders. We don’t need a draft; the volunteer armed forces are doing just fine. What we need is to be the “awakened giant” that it’s possible we can become…but unfortunately, many of us are all too willing to pay more attention to Britney Spears’ lack of undergarments and whether BranJolie are adopting another child, rather than address the dangers facing us.
Stumbley: I was thinking about the borders in Iraq, and we clearly don’t have enough people to do that.
But I also agree that our inability to control our own borders is a joke.
What people mostly argue around here, is, kill a bunch of people indiscriminately, and then the rest will obey (whatever that means, I guess it means they will “turn in” the terrorists.) Whatever.
Steve | 12.07.06 – 3:24 pm | #
Maybe if we just talk to them, Steve, they’ll just turn around as you often suggest. You’re often first to post and with quite a lot of words, but I don’t think that amounts to a solution. And I also reject your straw men that “what is argued here” is indiscriminantly killing people.
If your answer is there is no way to fight civilians, then that is tantamount to saying we simply give up all effort at survival. In any event, way to hijack the thread once more.
How ironic that on a day we’re remembering that horrible attack, America is preparing to duck worse threats, walk from its responsibility in Iraq, and belly up to a table to negotiate with terrorist regimes. What happened?
The main difference as far as I can tell is that we now have a very strong worldwide media which confers legitimacy on American presidents and their use of military power. Like it or not, if the media’s not in your court, your screwed. Such is the world we occupy.
If your answer is there is no way to fight civilians, then that is tantamount to saying we simply give up all effort at survival.
First, I’d like you to tell me how our survival as Americans is at stake. I mean, really.
Second, I’d be interested in hearing how you think we should be fighting civilians. Third, I’d like to know how fighting civilians is going to help us in the short or long term.
We don’t have enough people in uniform to fight any of these wars (Aghanistan, Iraq, WOT) properly. I’m not happy about that, because it’s basically wasting American lives and money.
Hi neo,
I’m in Honolulu and I was raised here. One of my very first memories was being held by my father as we both watched “Japanese Zeroes” on an attack run over the island. I put it in quotes because actually they were filming Tora Tora Tora. I well remember my father hastening to tell me not to worry, it wasn’t real. And, young as I was, I remmber being a bit puzzled by that. Because of course it wasn’t real. It wasn’t until 9/11 that I really understood why he felt the need to reassure me.
“First, I’d like you to tell me how our survival as Americans is at stake. I mean, really.”
Steve, I think many in the world are like the frogs in a cookpot; they don’t notice the heat until the boiling kills them. If you’re not paying attention to France, Thailand, the Phillipines, Sudan, Spain, Pakistan, etc., etc., etc., I can’t help you. It’s not JUST a matter of survival of Americans, it’s a matter of the survival of the West, of Western ideals. Radical Islam—the fastest growing religion in the world, as well as the fastest growing demographic—is bent on the submission of the non-believer.
Now, you might ask, is that not “surviving”, simply being dominated, not killed? Ask Winston Smith. It wouldn’t be my choice, and frankly, I *would* rather die than live under shari’a.
When we appease them in *any* way, we’re just feeding the crocodile, hoping it eats us last.
Stumbley wrote:
“Steve, I think the President HAS talked about “sacrifice”. Many times. It’s just that nobody has listened.”
Can you post some links to examples of concrete ways Bush has said we should sacrifice, please? I remember once he said we should all go shopping to help the economy, but that’s about it.
UB:
do the work yourself, if you’re interested.
Yes, I don’t see how unchecked international terrorism could possibly end our way of life- I mean, 9/11 barely affected us. It was only 3,000 lives and frankly more than 10x that die on our highways each year and yet we continue to live normal lives. And I don’t think that such regimes which sponsor this terrorism and create psychotic death cult societies could possibly do anything wrong once they have weapons of mass destruction. In fact, it’s pure conjecture that they would even desire these weapons but for the fact that we have them. We’ll just let Islamist Jihadist regimes continue to operate as they see fit to run their sovereign countries, even as they influence other sovereign nations. So, yes, Steve, I’m inclined to agree with you now that I’ve taken my hallucinigenic mushrooms.
And to actually tie it into this thread- up until the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kimmel and the rest of our leadership were just certain there would be no attack. And it’s not that not thinking there will be an attack means there will be an attack. It’s that, like the fascist Japanese, the Islamists continue to tell us who they are and what their aims are and we continue to ignore them. Well, mostly you do that.
My dad knew John Finn, Medal of Honer winner a Pearl Harbor:
http://www.homeofheroes.com/pearlharbor/pearl_2finn.html
I have a USN pistol belt he gave me when I was about 11 years old.
William Tecumsah Sherman was right – to win, your enemy has to suffer through and through at all levels of society. As he demonstrated on his long march through the South, it’s best to be devastatingly brutal so to end a war quickly. Unfortunately, the American people have shown the rest of the world that we have no stomach for for making the tough moral decisions and prefer to preen ourselves in the luxury of our moral vanities. That is why this war will be long, brutal and bloody the world over until we finally realize that there are worse things in life than putting panties on the heads of captured enemy terrorists. As Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis recently put it (via Mark Steyn), American is showing itself to be harmless to its enemies and treacherous to its friends.
Says Steve: We don’t have enough people in uniform to fight any of these wars (Aghanistan, Iraq, WOT) properly.
Which, he says, he’s “not happy” about.
But he’s also scornful of the idea that “our survival as Americans is at stake” in “any of these wars”: “I mean, really.”
Earlier, he says that the only way to defeat terrorists is with a very “labor intensive” police state presence — and if the President wants that “it’s up to him to tell us that he needs national sacrifice”, blah, blah. Get that — if the President wants that! What’s “that” — to defeat terrorists?! What about what you want? What about what we want, or should want? What’s with this crying about “the President”??
Ya think maybe Steve’s repeated calls for “more troops” are phony? That, at the best, Steve thinks this might just be a way of adding to a general air of defeatism around Iraq? That his early and repeated comments along the same lines, and his distortion of others’ arguments, fit the simple pattern of the troll, albeit one who’s learned to stay polite?
I dont know that Steve is being a troll at all on this thread. I dont agree with him at all, but I dont think he is intentionally hijacking the thread. Its just how he views the subject matter as to how it relates to Iraq.
The “we just want to kill everybody” meme is lame and tired and doesnt represent anyone’s view here, (excepting maybe Yarmar…something or other), but his posts have been mostly rational compared to most.
harry–I agree that Steve, so far, pretty much fits the description of a person who disagrees but is no troll.
First, I’d like you to tell me how our survival as Americans is at stake. I mean, really.
Steve, since you don’t think America is at danger of a fatal accident, then why do you keep yapping on as if you actually have a dog in this war? You don’t, by your own admission.
For a guy that thinks terrorism is no big existential threat, you sure like moving the chess pieces around in Iraq in terms of living up your pet theory of more troops for steve.
Look, people, steve is just conflicted. If you guys were here when he first came on to this site to comment, as I was, then you would probably get a better understanding. First of all, he once advocated that US troops stay inside their bases and not patrol in Iraq because the IEDs were killing the trools like helpless dogs or kittens or whatever helpless animal analogy he used. He couldn’t stand that. How anybody can fight a war and go cringy at the very thought of IEDs, is rather interesting. But the greater point is that the media no longer is reporting much about IEDs that kill Americans as they did 2 or 1 year ago. So this alleviates some of the pressure off steve. Now the media reports that Iraqis are dying. So I guess, putting more troops means more people to fight the enemy in uniforms or something. Or whatever. That’s the extent of the look see.
If you think I’m in favor of killing everyone, then you should go ready Froggy and Grim over at blackfive and repeat your claims there to them.
Much of the military specifics and military expediency questions have been covered before. I don’t choose to repeat the arguments here, because haloscan is word limited and because it is better discussed in a military blog like blackfive than a blog with a psychological theme. The only thing I would talk about in detail are psychological wars, but that has nothing to do with the claims of “kill all and see” strategy steve is refering to. So no gold there.
Oliver just did one of his war stories on pearl harbor, Neo. Did you catch that?
I caught it, for the most part, and it detailed a very tightly wrong storyline of what lead up to Pearl Harbor. Conspiracy theories included. Everybody loves conspiracy theories, especially people like me who run through the scenarios and see if they are plausible with the known data.
In short. Kimmel thought that the Army guys had a wing of far range recon planes up. The Army guys thought that Kimmel had far flung naval patrols and planes up. Well, neither was true. There was “nothing” patrolling Pearl Harbor external defenses. That is why they call it a surprise attack. No warning.
Admiral Y always knew this was a long shot. But because he had once been a naval attache to the US, he knew the logistical might of the US. So he knew that he had to beat the US in a very short term before the industries start cranking out too many warships. He almost succeded too, if not for the fact that the 4 carriers were somehow not in dock.
Neo: I agree that Steve, so far, pretty much fits the description of a person who disagrees but is no troll.
My point, just to be clear, is that, regardless of whether he’s a “troll” or not, Steve’s announced opinions ring false — he’s not really in favor of “more troops”, since he’s scornful of the idea that anything important is at stake in “any of these wars” in the first place. He seems more concerned about whether or not “the President” has called for sacrifice than about any actual threat presented by terrorists. And his “disagreements”, regardless of the thread, are simple repetitions, reiterated early and frequently, and often appear to be deliberate distortions of others’ opinions. All of these features are more characteristic of people who are interested in obstructing rather than contributing to a discussion — i.e, if it walks like a duck, etc.
aqualung,
Don’t let the door… etc.
You can go back to Sitting on a park bench —
eyeing ittle girls with bad intent. Aqualung
So, many trolls that it sometimes resembles a WWF tag team bout.The only thing you can rely on is shape shifting Conned, his scatological obsessions and Limey rage.
Yes Stumbley, I am interrested, so you got it.
Let’s hear it straight from Bush:
WILLIAMS: The folks who say you should have asked for some sort of sacrifice from all of us after 9/11, do they have a case looking back on it?
BUSH: Americans are sacrificing. I mean, we are. You know, we pay a lot of taxes. America sacrificed when they, you know, when the economy went into the tank. Americans sacrificed when, you know, air travel was disrupted. American taxpayers have paid a lot to help this nation recover. I think Americans have sacrificed.
— NBC, 29 Aug 2006
Sounds to me like the thinks we’ve all done our bit.
Sally, please get a grip and try to read more carefully.
Steve wrote:
“But how do you fight a war with terrorist groups that swim like fish in the surrounding sea of civilians? (to use Mao’s famous metaphor.)
You can do it by establishing a kind of police-state presence, I suppose.”
“I suppose.”
Steve *never* offered as his own opinion or desire the statement that Bush should send in more troops.
He was merely offering a speculative response to a question he had posed here, the premise of which is undeniably valid, directly related to Neo’s post (Holmes), and yet remains unanswered by anyone, except maybe Yammer, who is permitted to blithely talk again and again about bombing Iraq back to the stone age, and repeatedly indulge in other video-game fantasy talk, without any challenge whatsoever.
Unk, you are so far behind the curve that you are disappearing behind the black hole horizon.
I know that steve and unk are prima donas too interested in the flare of spotlight rather than the dirt of actual accomplishments. This is known. However, this war has gone for quite a bit of time, and if people haven’t realized yet that ruthless action must be taken, then they are simple impediments to progress.
I’ll do you a favor, Unk. I’ll tell you how to kill children, the real deal, and maybe it will help you get out of the suck.
Kill Children
Conscientious people in this war, know how to argue. This is the right way to argue, and steve/unk’s way is the wrong way. No ambiguity here for me. Not at all
Whoa. Well, after Holmes hurt my feelings by accusing me of “hijacking threads”, I figured I’d go outside and drink and smoke. Little did I know what was being said inside …..
Okay, Sally, I will respond to you, because your comment sums up the position of many.
My point, just to be clear, is that, regardless of whether he’s a “troll” or not, Steve’s announced opinions ring false — he’s not really in favor of “more troops”, since he’s scornful of the idea that anything important is at stake in “any of these wars” in the first place.
My announced opinions ring false? Why? I have always maintained — and well before I discovered this blog in February ’06 — that the armed forces of the United States are way too small. I have, in fact, advocated the draft ever since Bill Clinton was elected. Unlike you, I do not believe that talking about our obvious personnel shortfalls is defeatism.
A few random observations:
Does the US have an interests in controlling international terrorism? Of course it does. Are we going about it the right way? I don’t think so. I thought deposing Saddam was a bad idea precisely because I foresaw what has happened in the last 3.5 years (and so did many others.) One thing I consider certain, however, now 5 years after 9/11: we don’t have the number of people in uniform to do any of this right.
Do I think we should send more troops to Iraq NOW? I think it’s too late. We removed Saddam and the WMD threat. We aren’t going to be able to make the Iraqis sit down and be nice to each other at this point.
Does International Terrorism and the War in Iraq threaten our “very survival”? Well, no. Not yet. However, if someone thinks our very survival is threatened, I would hope that they would understand why we need to increase the size of our armed forces.
I am not ashamed of being upset whenever I hear about Americans being killed, or having their legs blown off, in Iraq. If someone thinks that’s a big joke, or who thinks the appropriate remedy is just to slaughter a bunch of people in retaliation, that’s their business.
I think it’s strange that respectful dissent raises so many hackles. I try to counterpoint what Neo writes. If she was a lefty, and I read her blog, I’d probably counterpoint the other way. Not just for argument’s sake. Just to keep it interesting, and maybe learn something.
I will try not to post so much, so as to not make anyone unhappy.
Oh, brother. Now I see we’re getting blog rationales for killing kids. What a world, what a world …..
Grim wrote that post a long time ago, steve. Where have you been, at a cocktail party all these years of war?
I would have respected real honesty, the Republican isolationist viewpoint that the world doesn’t matter. It is wrong, but at least it is honest. But for a lot of Americans and most of the world, people take positions because they think it will benefit them personally. This kind of shortsightedness and selfishness is both dishonest as well as abhorrent.
Ymar: If I really cared, I too could lecture you on your moral shortcomings. Assuming, that is, that you had any.
Oh please, that doesn’t even scratch the skin.
You don’t do your research, steve, you don’t read the links, steve, and you don’t do independent analysis using logic, steve. What do you do except have fun?
The substantiate complaints, summarized, is that after steve made a false statement about the positions of people here, he was rebuffed and given counter-arguments. Which he then ignored. Then he went on to accuse other people of belittling or being hostile to ‘dissent’.
His last response to a simple explanation of which dissent is respected and which isn’t, is simply another rope a dope attack that diverts attention from the real deals.
Everything isn’t about you steve, although it probably looks that way to you.
Neo,
I was 12 Years old 12/7/41 and remember it like it was 9/11/01.
I have some awesome rarely seen still pics on web site — referenced from my Blog.
Remember Pearl Harbor and Remember 9/11.
ExP (Jack)
Says Steve: I thought deposing Saddam was a bad idea precisely because I foresaw what has happened in the last 3.5 years (and so did many others.)
And, of course, had Saddam remained in power the last 3.5 years, no doubt Steve and his fellow crystal-ball gazers would have foreseen world peace — always nice to be a prophet after the fact, or for an alternative reality. Nevertheless, if he was against deposing Saddam, and thinks that we’re not “controlling international terrorism” (as he likes to put it) in the “right way”, then you kind of have to wonder just why he’s so consistently and persistently in favor of increasing “the size of our armed forces”? (Try to keep up, UB.) We “don’t have the number of people in uniform,” he says, “to do any of this right” — but what is “any of this” in his mind? It sure can’t be Iraq. We need a massive troop build up just to “control” international terrorism?
No, people who honestly advocate a large increase in armed forces, particularly including a draft, are generally people who are possessed of either some kind of imperial delusion or of a great concern over a serious existential threat to their nation, values, or way of life. Steve really doesn’t seem to fall into either category — which is why I think he’s a fake. There are some on the left so lost in nostalgia for the good ol’ days of the 60’s, that they’ll grasp at anything that might resurrect those faded dreams of riots in the streets — including, believe it or not, the draft. Seems to me there’s a better than even chance that Steve is one of those sad cases.
Mind you, he’s right about one thing: “Does International Terrorism and the War in Iraq threaten our “very survival”? Well, no. Not yet.” The reason we need to win the war, in all its phases, with or without a troop build-up, is in order not to wait until it does.
Steve, your initial post would have been better suited for the previous thread rather than one in which Neo is writing about her Grandma’s recollections of Pearl Harbor. That’s why I wrote you were hijacking this thread. But whatev. I’m used to people now drifting back to Iraq in every conversation these days.
I do agree that you are a contrarian because, as I’ve pointed out briefly, your positions are often contradictory…of your other positions. That’s not wrong in and of itself as we work through these questions, but it would be nice to at least admit and recognize it.
Holmes: If it appears contradictory then it’s because either I’m not expressing myself clearly enough, or you aren’t understanding what I write. I’ll keep at it.
Steve really doesn’t seem to fall into either category — which is why I think he’s a fake.
I don’t think you are a fake, and it’s just plain rude to make accusations like that. I have long advocated increasing the size of the armed forces, sorry you weren’t around when I was advocating it. If we had had proper force levels we would be in a better position in Iraq, and we would be in a better position to project our power to Iraq’s neighbors. FINALLY, as I have also said several times, ultimately at some point we are going to need large numbers of troops to control the oil, which is at least a CONCRETE and therefore more clearly observable threat than rhetorical overkill about our “survival.” And we don’t have those troops.
I never advocated “world peace”. The key is to advocate what works for the US. Saddam was a tyrant, he was also a secular tyrant. And he ran a fairly efficient police state. In the short term, that’s perfectly adequate.
By invading Iraq, and by failing to install an efficient, powerful government, we have in effect turned Iraq in a terrorist’s playground. Anyone who wasn’t deluded by the flower-tossing crowds for the US cum President George Washington Chalabi could have seen what was going to happen: sectarian strife dominated by an Islamic theocracy in the Shi’ite parts of the country, with a natural affinity and ally in Iran.
So now we have a situation where 30 odd Americans have been blasted to bits in the past week, for no clear reason because they have no clear mission. After 3.5 years. Great.
Steve: If we had had proper force levels we would be in a better position in Iraq, and we would be in a better position to project our power to Iraq’s neighbors.
But we wouldn’t even be in Iraq, according to you. So what do you want all those troops for?? Controlling the oil now?! So we’ll need millions of troops to be ready to … what? Invade Saudi Arabia? Venezuela? Is that what you want us to get ready for? Cards on the table, Steve. Your bluff has been called.
Steve: Saddam was a tyrant, he was also a secular tyrant.
Oh, secular — well, doesn’t that make all the difference!
Let’s see: he was a secular tyrant but one of the leaders of an Islamic version of the “National Socialist” movements of Europe — a secular tyrant who used his immense oil wealth to build up the forth largest armed force on the planet, and twice invaded neighbors in an attempt to become the dominant power in the most strategically and economically significant region on earth, who hated the US for thwarting those ambitions, who never shrank from using WMD, even against his own people, who would plainly have attempted to acquire nuclear weapons the minute the world’s fickle attention was diverted, who personally supported terrorists and their families, and who provided protected space for numerous terrorist groups and their training grounds. But yeah, other than that, and a few dozen other things, there was no reason to worry about him. Especially not for someone who’s all “realist” about “controlling” the oil.
Half of our combat battalions are here in the states training or in Korea, Japan, and Germany. It has nothing to do with “Force” levels, but rather that troop deployments aren’t prioritized for Iraq. The soldiers are used to buy off steve’s allies, the price of allies, people. They want the money that the US soldiers bring into their economy, they will never accept a redeployment of US occupation forces to Iraq. Both Korea and Germany scream their little heads off whenever that arises. Of course, they scream just as loudly about anti-Americanism and anti-Imperialism, but what do you expect from spoiled children except temper tantrums?
By invading Iraq, and by failing to install an efficient, powerful government, we have in effect turned Iraq in a terrorist’s playground. Anyone who wasn’t deluded by the flower-tossing crowds for the US cum President George Washington Chalabi could have seen what was going to happen: sectarian strife dominated by an Islamic theocracy in the Shi’ite parts of the country, with a natural affinity and ally in Iran.
This comes from someone who said don’t shoot the looters, let the Iraqis do their own police state dang. I’ve heard this before. Steve’s powerful Iraqi state, was simply another model of Saddam’s police state. He favored keeping all the Sunni Baathists and just letting them run things. Steve really doesn’t want to upset the status quo for some reason.
For more info on American military expenditures as opposed to the world, and why the world really are spoiled children that resent the protection that they accrue under the US, go here and read.
Link
Steve: Saddam was a tyrant, he was also a secular tyrant.
Oh, secular — well, doesn’t that make all the difference!
Let’s see: he was a secular tyrant but one of the leaders of an Islamic version of the “National Socialist” movements of Europe [catalog of Iraqi misdeeds.]
Sally: As was shown in our invasion, we in fact had no clear and present danger from Iraq. It would have been better to let Saddam stay in charge of Iraq while we went after the people who attacked us on 9/11, it seems to me. Nor was Iraq — thanks to being a police state — a hotbed of theocratic terrorists. However, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and some others clearly were. So those other countries should have had priority over Iraq, if in fact we wanted to make the US more secure.
Five years on, we have an unraveling situation in Afghanistan (in case you missed it), and we have added Iraq to the roster of states that serve as breeding grounds for theocratic terrorists.
Steve: If we had had proper force levels we would be in a better position in Iraq, and we would be in a better position to project our power to Iraq’s neighbors.
But we wouldn’t even be in Iraq, according to you. So what do you want all those troops for?? Controlling the oil now?! So we’ll need millions of troops to be ready to … what? Invade Saudi Arabia? Venezuela? Is that what you want us to get ready for? Cards on the table, Steve. Your bluff has been called.
If we had a larger ground force we could have secured the borders to Iraq, thus preventing the smuggling of terrorists and weapons into that country. We also could have prevented the looting, which helped the terrorists acquire stockpiles. We could have pacified the streets of the big towns before the terrorists were able to regroup, and we would still be able to MAINTAIN such pacification. All of those things would have given us a better chance in Iraq.
As a matter of fact I think there’s a good likelihood that we will have to fight a war to control the Persian Gulf, in the next 20-30 years (I doubt less.) We should have a large force presence in the area both to facilitate our efforts in such as war as well as to serve as a deterrent. A series of camps along the Iraq-Iran border would suit me fine.
That’s like saying if the US had the National Guard, we could secure the US borders. We already had the forces in Iraq to secure the borders, just like we have it here in the US. What is lacking is the political will, political will steve, that you are grinding down bit by bit.
Armies without orders can’t plug up any border. The Turkish had fewer troops than we do, but they keep their borders sealed. The Mexicans have crap police and military guys, and they keep their borders sealed to the South. It is about will, not numbers.
The entire Iraq is a logistics camp. A logistics camp that wouldn’t even be there if we had listened to the Cold War folks.
The only pacification I’m interested in is Grim and Froggy’s. But you wouldn’t like them, so.
Well, at least you’ve let go of the “bring back the draft” mantra for the duration of a comment. Let’s take this one seriously, then, and look at the problems with it:
– First, it’s not “theocratic terrorists” that we have a problem with, it’s islamist terrorists, and these come in a variety of flavors, from secular fascist to religious fundamentalist; those flavors can occasionally be in conflict with one another, but they can just as easily blend, particularly when there’s a prospect of striking a blow at their common enemy, Western civilization, as represented by the US.
– Second, the danger represented by the Saddam regime may not have been immediate, but it was quite clear, and would have needed to be addressed sooner or later, with delay merely adding to the danger. Sanctions were failing, and in any case hurt only the Iraqi people not the regime — and Saddam was ready and waiting to restart the gamut of WMD development the moment they were lifted and the world’s back was turned.
– Third, the geographical locus of the problem isn’t simply Iraq, or Afghanistan, but the entire Middle East, to which Afghanistan is but an outlier, and Iraq is the keystone. The focus was never — or certainly never should have been — on Iraq alone, but rather on Iraq as a lever with which to reform the entire region.
That this hasn’t, so far, happened, represents, so far, a failure alright, but a failure of nerve or political will. It isn’t the first such failure for us, and, sadly, won’t be the last, but each such failure costs us more in the long run than we think we gain in the short. In this case, however, there still remains a glimmer of hope that we will hold onto enough nerve or will long enough to rescue the situation, notwithstanding the determined assaults of the defeatists and ideological collaborationists among us.
Steve: If we had a larger ground force we could have secured the borders to Iraq,
But you were opposed to our ever being in Iraq, weren’t you? Aren’t you? How could we have “secured the borders to Iraq” if we weren’t in Iraq? And if you don’t and didn’t want us to be in Iraq, then what do you want more troops for?
Sally: Sorry I didn’t mention the draft. I am still for it.
Sally: One more time. I accept the need for a US presence in the Gulf region, the probability of our needing to fight there. I also did NOT oppose (and do NOT oppose) the Iraq war in principle, I objected to it because of the clearly inadequate force levels, and the clearly moronic prognostications of what would happen when we invaded, namely: instant peace, flower tossing crowds, President Chalabi, war paying for itself, most US troops out in three months. If there had been honesty and/or at minimum clear thinking from the top, I would have supported the invasion and still support our mission, but there has never been either (I frankly don’t know if this administration is dishonest or just stupid).
The main problems with the Iraq war, to me, is a catastrophic failure of leadership from the POTUS, and the damaging lack of ground forces. And I’m afraid it’s a little too late to salvage the operation.
Gotta go.
More like, a severe lack of air forces that blew up Iraq in a high way of death like Gulf War 1.