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On Bacevich, Part I
The last time I saw Andrew Bacevich was a month or so ago, and he chastised me for not responding to this piece he wrote on the New Republic's website. I explained that I had been busy finishing a draft of my dissertation but that I would give it some thought and would respond. I have been thinking a lot about morality and foreign policy since, so Part II of this will be a response to what Prof. Bacevich wrote.
This post, though, is a brief review of Bacevich's new book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War. Overall, I enjoyed the book -- though not as much as his earlier one, The Limits of Power
The Good:
1. The strongest sections of this book were the beginning and the end, where Bacevich diagnoses what he sees as the central delusion ailing U.S. foreign policy and then provides an alternative. As he sees it, we Americans are bound by a foolish and sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, the configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionalism."
Bacevich suggests, by way of an alternative, that we should replace this trinity with another: "First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests. ... Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America. ... Third, consistent with Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense."
Bacevich complains loudly and frequently in Washington Rules that people who suggest things such as this are often denounced with the inevitably pejorative term "isolationist", but if I comb back through the political science literature on what some called "Middle Western Isolationism" or "Midwestern Isolationism" (Billington, 1945; Smuckler, 1953; Rieselbach and Russett, 1960), it's possible to see in Bacevich, a Midwesterner, an inheritor of this tradition -- at least in terms of his preferences for how big the U.S. military should be and where it should be based and employed. If I were him, I would just own the term "isolationist" and let the haters hate. Instead of preemptively denouncing those who would accuse him of isolationism, it might have born more fruit had Bacevich instead asked his readers, in light of what you have seen in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan ... why is isolationism so bad?
2. The sections on Allen Dulles and Curtis LeMay make for fun, revisionist history. And again, I mean that word revisionist in a non-pejorative way.
3. I linked to these clownish anti-war demontrators on my Twitter account the other day and bemoaned what passes for the anti-war left in America these days. I spoke too soon. On the one hand, although you're more likely to see Bacevich on Democracy Now! these days than in the pages of the National Review, Bacevich's criticisms of U.S. foreign and defense policy are more rooted in his conservativism than in any common cause with the Left. On the other hand, I still think Andrew Bacevich is the most eloquent anti-war voice in America these days on either the Left or the Right. This book is a very positive contribution to the national conversation about how we maintain and use our military.
The Bad:
1. The sections on counterinsurgency, Iraq and Afghanistan are sloppy. Bacevich sometimes engages with those with whom he disagrees with an impressive degree of seriousness -- combing through David Petraeus's doctoral dissertation, for example, and carefully studying the speeches of Clinton Era officials. Other times he picks out individual voices and holds them up to be emblematic of larger trends. My boss, for example, has written about “global counterinsurgency”, a concept for which few other counterinsurgency theorists have much enthusiasm but Bacevich uses like the bogey man to scare his readers about the future of U.S. policy. In Bacevich’s book, counterinsurgency theorists are like the Borg: we all think the same, and none of us is trying to devise pragmatic operational solutions to disastrous situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, we are part of some larger project, trying to protect a foolish concept of American power and power projection because we are rewarded with the glittering riches that come with think tank fellowships.
Elsewhere, Bacevich makes assertions without backing them up in facts. He says, for example, that counterinsurgency theorists and military analysts are loathe to acknowledge factors other than U.S. military operations might have led to the drop in violence in Iraq in 2007. But I heard Steve Biddle give a public lecture about the variety of factors he felt led to the drop in violence as early as the summer of 2008, and I have heard and read many other counterinsurgency theorists say and write as much since.
This third fourth of the book was maddening to read because it struck me as disingenuous. Bacevich was not trying to preach to the unconverted or admit that some of those with whom he disagrees might be onto something. He was simply presenting his own simplistic versions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter other, earlier simplistic readings of the wars.
2. For Bacevich, "Washington" is not just the 202 area code or the federal government, but "think tanks ... interest groups ... lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, former officials ... retired military officers ... big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors and major corporations, television networks ... The New York Times ... the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government."
This is all so similar to one of the mistakes John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt made with their book about "The Israel Lobby
3. I also feel Bacevich has traded in one set of assumptions -- the challenges to which he says he resisted for years -- for another set. I fear Bacevich is on some kind of crusade at this point that is less about engaging with the other side in reasoned debate or considering the political realities facing policy-makers and more about scoring polemical points. "A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable," he writes. This is certainly true. Equally true is that "better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice." I worry Bacevich has not become more open minded through his "education" but rather just as close minded as before -- but on another end of the ideological spectrum.
The Ugly:
1. The thing I dislike most about Bacevich’s writing is when he talks about the personal failings of his antagonists as if they somehow lend extra ammunition to Bacevich’s arguments concerning the policies those antagonists promoted. So Allen Dulles's alleged womanizing is brought up in this book, as was James Forrestal's personal failings in Bacevich's last book. (Although you will note the policies of neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama get any added credit for the principals being devoted family men and good parents.) For a guy who writes about "the intractability of the human condition," you would think Bacevich would understand that all of the actors in U.S. foreign policy -- "good" and "bad" -- are as sinful and broken as the rest of us. Have a little mercy on them, eh?
For Bacevich, "Washington"
For Bacevich, "Washington" is not just the 202 area code or the federal government, but "think tanks ... interest groups ... lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, former officials ... retired military officers ... big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors and major corporations, television networks ... The New York Times ... the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government."
[Sounds like a precisely apt description of the foreign policy establishment to me. The reason people like you pooh-pooh this description as "conspiracy talk" is because when conspiracy prospers it is no longer a "conspiracy" but becomes the establishment.]
Professor Bacevich: "think
Professor Bacevich:
"think tanks ... interest groups ... lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, former officials ... retired military officers ... big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors and major corporations, television networks ... The New York Times ... the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government."
Exum:
This is all so similar to one of the mistakes John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt made with their book about "The Israel Lobby." Had they confined their field of inquiry to the activities and effects of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, they might have written an interesting and probably dull article. Instead, they constructed a massive conspiracy "lobby" including everyone from think tanks to professors to -- you guess it! -- the New York Times. I do not think casting such a wide net helped their cause, and I do not think it helps that of Bacevich either.
Translation of Exum:
The NYT, the CFR and Harvard: too big to fail.
Or, if you prefer: too big to fsck with. (And certainly, no one could describe AIPAC as either.) Because what else could I do not think casting such a wide net helped their cause mean? Does it mean "there is no Establishment"? Do the NYT, the CFR and the KSG not exist? Do they not matter? That would be news to a lot of people, including those who work there.
Now, I think what Exum thinks he means is that this Establishment is catholic - that is, in the strict English sense of the word. Ie, its consensus is universal - contains all ideas worth hearing. Thus, to a 14th-century Catholic, Catholicism is Christianity. The idea that there could be a religion that was Christian, but not Catholic, is comical.
And indeed, it is a fact that there is no organized body of foreign-policy expertise outside this Church. Unless you count lewrockwell.com. How does one become a bishop of lewrockwell.com? I don't know, but it surely doesn't involve six years of exacting study at a master's hand, plus a gorgeously-engraved piece of lambskin. It also doesn't involve any grants, emoluments, etc, from the remains of great 19th-century fortunes.
However, the proposition that there are no foreign-policy philosophies outside the Church is... well, it's more than just comical. It is an outright denial of history - an obscurantist crime against scholarship. As five minutes in Google Books will show you (start here), the political philosophy of Harvard, the CFR, etc, while culturally mainstream in the 20th century and indeed universal since 1945, looks bizarre, marginal, messianic and extreme when the views of all historical epochs are weighted equally. The Church is a cult. It's just a very successful cult.
Here is Professor Bacevich's own scholarly crime, which Exum hits him hard and fairly on. A book called "America's Path to Perpetual War," in which the query "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" returns no hits, is - again - a crime against scholarship. If everyone you know is an alchemist, and you've been an alchemist all your life, and suddenly you realize that chemistry is where it's at, you have two choices. One: proclaim that you've just invented chemistry. Two: open up Google and see if anyone else has invented chemistry first.
It is not simply Professor Bacevich's requirement to "own it" and proclaim himself an isolationist. It is his requirement to read - and cite - the isolationist literature. It is also his requirement to observe that it is the isolationist, not the internationalist, thinkers of the 20th-century whose views are most consistent with the principles of the law of nations going back to Grotius. The isolationist writing of the 20th century diminishes sharply in quality with time, and requires renovation in many points. Nonetheless, it is arguably the only tradition which has not been intellectually discredited by events.
Sovereignty is conserved. Someone is always sovereign. 20th-century "internationalism" is and always has been a fancy excuse for world government by Washington - ie, by the State Department, as steered by the CFR, Harvard, the Times, etc. If this Establishment were to disappear, the world would most definitely become a very different place. The net is wide, indeed. It needs to be wide. But really spread that net, and you won't pull it back in empty.
One of the main things that pisses me off about Professor Bacevich and his ilk is his tendency to stress the "red side" of American global sovereignty - the projection of security and authority. In fact, the projection of security and authority has been one of the few benefits of the American Century. But as empires go, ours is remarkably weak in the projection of authority. And getting weaker.
What America really excels at is not the imposition of order, but its destruction. The story of the American Century is the story of exported revolution - chaos, disorder and crime - in the name of aid and/or progress. Destroying all genuinely independent sources of authority is the bread and butter of "internationalist" diplomacy. Don't cry for Grenada - cry for Rhodesia.
American diplomacy will engage with the most brutal of thugs, so long as those thugs originated as clients of our exported revolution. It loves, absolutely itches, to change a Batista for a Castro, a Nicholas II for a Lenin, a Pahlavi for a Khomeini, a Smith for a Mugabe, a Chiang for a Mao. Worse, it exhibits mens rea - it knows this game is wrong, never stops playing it, and hates nothing more than getting caught in the act.
Indeed, the American people bear substantial national guilt for allowing this diplomatic establishment to operate in our name and with our resources. Military leaders are also to blame, for accepting its direction - for instance, for fighting the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and now Afghanistan under rules which it knows perfectly well preclude victory. After MacArthur was fired, no honorable officer should have been willing to accept his position. And no honorable officer should be asking soldiers to die for the ridiculous pseudo-war in Afghanistan - exactly as with Vietnam.
Professor Bacevich gets this right. But it's no good for a scholar to get the right results for the wrong reasons.
AM: "If I were him, I would
AM: "If I were him, I would just own the term "isolationist" and let the haters hate."
But "isolationist" is simply not the right term here. Or are most other countries isolationist because they do not intervene elsewhere militarily? Labeling someone isolationist solely because of their stand on military issues ignores all the other ways a country can interact with the world. Bacevich is not arguing the the US should withdraw from all international contacts and trade.
Fair point, visitor537
Fair point, visitor537This is all so similar to
This is all so similar to one of the mistakes John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt made with their book about "The Israel Lobby." Had they confined their field of inquiry to the activities and effects of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, they might have written an interesting and probably dull article. Instead, they constructed a massive conspiracy "lobby" including everyone from think tanks to professors to -- you guess it! -- the New York Times
You did read Walt's book, right? At no point does he claim that these groups are all part of some broad, organized conspiracy. Rather, they're a bunch of groups with similar goals who act in such a way as to perpetuate the status quo between the US and Israel. They're a lobby, in other words, as Walt and Meirsheimer point out.
I didn't particularly enjoy this book, and it's definitely not one of Bacevich's best. I think The New American Militarism was much better.
I think the New American
I think the New American Militarism was very good. Probably his best. And also the least polemic. Note the correlation.How about a post focused on
How about a post focused on his chapter Countefeit COIN?
Point by point discussion.
1) It's interesting that
1) It's interesting that Mearsheimer and Bacevich are both West Pointers of the same generation (I think). Should one deem them isolationists, perhaps Vietnam was the formative experience that drives their isolationism, rather than Bosnia et al?
2a) It'd also be interesting if somehow that shared experience drives their same conception of the foreign policy elite (should one use that label for that amalgamation of institutions and people listed which and who - ostensibly - "drive" foreign policy).
2b) If one reads Bacevich's first op-ed (I think) about the death of his son, its argument resembles Mearsheimer and Walt's argument to a fair degree. To utilize selective quotation:
"Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought."
I don't know about big business and big oil, but the latter two actors in sentence three figure in M&W's work.
http://www.truth-out.org/article/andrew-j-bacevich-i-lost-my-son-a-war-i...
ADTS
"I explained that I had been
"I explained that I had been busy finishing a draft of my dissertation"
Yes, we know already
I cannot comment on
I cannot comment on Bacevich's book, because I haven't read it. However, while counterinsurgency theorists, analysts, disciples and whatever have often advanced a nuanced hypothesis about the reduction in Iraqi civil strife from 2007 to late 2008, they are not the dominant voices in Washington or anything close to it.
Among former Bush administration officials and Republicans in Congress, the surge worked. Period. This line of reasoning was persuasive enough in the Obama White House to produce an Afghan war policy with many similarities to the one employed earlier in Iraq (including, at length, the same commanding general).
I do not blame anyone who has studied counterinsurgency carefully for feeling slighted that some critics of counterinsurgency often respond to the interpretation of the surge in Iraq that is most influential in driving Afghan policy, as opposed to addressing the best, most sophisticated arguments for counterinsurgency with which they are familiar. However, it may be that an individual like Bacevich is most interested in challenging the basic arguments supporting policy with which he disagrees, rather than battling analysts about details of greater interest to them, perhaps, than to people with significant influence over policy.
Don't forget Bacevich can
Don't forget Bacevich can still kick your ass.
I received 10 free copies of
I received 10 free copies of the Holy Koran from a local mosque today (told them I had a big family wanting to convert).
I'm ready for the 9/11, we will never forget vigil/burning. Are you? Film it and put it on youtube, let's piss them all off.
9/11: Yeah, good plan, why
9/11: Yeah, good plan, why dont you throw some faeces at your local troops while you are at it? Because they are the ones who will have to face the folks you piss off.
Exum's beef with Bacevich
Exum's beef with Bacevich may be a mild form of anti-Catholicism.
Exum is a hardcore southern Protestant who daily atones for his ancestors sins against the black man with his enduring love of the half-East African Obama, a man whose ancestors never picked cotton or toiled otherwise in our former peculiar institution.
But the last form of acceptable prejudice is anti-Catholicism, and an aware man like Exum is definitely wary of papists like Bacevich. In Exum's mind Bacevich is just another Father Coughlin or Pat Buchanan, albeit with a Croatian surname (scratch the surface and dig deeper, find out if Bacevich's mother was a Fenian or better yet, maybe Bacevich's mother listened to the radio priest while nursing her babe in Illinois?)
True Catholic Conservatism is a real drag while one is trying to bring democracy (via invasion) to third world peoples. There's always some asshole like Bacevich who shits in the sandbox.
Let's see: Feces :
Let's see:
Feces : 5.56mm
Feces : M79
Feces : 9mm
I gotta feeling our troops can handle feces. It's our liberal gov't going all Muslim on them, that they can't handle. If Obama likes to pray in the Mosque do it in Saudi Arabia, not the good ole' U.S. of A.
Isolationism is when you
Isolationism is when you stand back watching someone attack your friends.
It is not the belief that your non-vital security interests justify invading or bombing other states. It is not being against building an empire. It is not for having a defense budget that has some rationale relationship to the actual threat.
Rather than isolationism these ideas should be described as conservatism which unfortunately has come to be the label for one of the sides in the fight for control of big government and the empire.
It would be funny if it was
It would be funny if it was not sad how closely the new anti-islam guttertalk mirrors that of the Weimar republic. Except then it was jews, of course. Why do these americans hqate their troops so much?
"Labeling someone
"Labeling someone isolationist solely because of their stand on military issues ignores all the other ways a country can interact with the world. Bacevich is not arguing the the US should withdraw from all international contacts and trade."
The "original" pre-1945 isolationists did not argue that, either. "International contacts and trade", sans entangling political connections, are precisely what Washington and Jefferson advised.
Well Andrew I do appreciate
Well Andrew I do appreciate your articulate and thorough review of Bacevich's new book, even though I disagree with much of what you say about it. I actually thought that the section on Counterinsurgency was the better part of the book; "sloppy"? Come on, Coin IS like the Borg or Matrix. Want proof? I just attended an international conference on military history in Amsterdam last week and the topic for the conference was Counterinsurgency. Almost every defense analyst and scholar from various European countries were falling all over themselves to restate in multiple ways the "classic principles" of population centric Coin and how to apply them in Afghanistan, or to use the Surge in Iraq as proof that the principles work in practice. In a set of concluding remarks at the end of the conference one leading European scholar who summarized many of the panels at the conference concluded that in ANY Counterinsurgency the "population must be the priority" and that they must be protected. This was the dominant theme that he saw come out of the conference.
It is the borg, man, and it is the establishment. Coin dominates the intellectual framework of European and American defense circles.
gian
"...The world will continue
"...The world will continue demanding our responses, both kinetic and non-kinetic, in the years ahead. The sirens of isolationism will argue otherwise, as will those who dream of fantastically big wars against fabulously armed opponents..."
Gap Shrinker TPM Barnett's recent WPR stash makes a far better case for hyper puissance ala Great Satan - instead of any wishful return to 1910, realpolitik as isolationism (like Dr Walt), or 'sissylationism' like the anti war (any war) 'left'
CoUrTnEy
http://textminingthequran.com
http://textminingthequran.com/wiki/Makki_and_Madani_Surahs
Is there a movement in the Islamic world to re-edit the Qur'an and do away with the Madani (suras from Medina) Suras? If so, who is spear heading this movement? And what is your opinion on this?
If I'm not mistaken, the count is 87 Mecca surahs to 26 Medina surah.
"Isolationism is when you
"Isolationism is when you stand back watching someone attack your friends."
It is?
In the age of the great Anglo-French struggle before 1815, which empire was our "friend" -- Britain, the nation that was impressing our sailors, attacking our ships, and ultimately burning our cities, or France, the nation who turned their privateers loose against our shipping?
In the age of European imperialism from 1815 to 1914, which European empire was our "friend"? How was this friendship demonstrated in a practical sense? Why was the basis of our foreign policy (the Monroe Doctrine) to keep such "friends" at arms length?
Who was our "friend" from 1914 to 1918, and why? It is not immediately obvious why our "friends" should have been Britain, France, and Russia, since their main goal was to ensure that the US supported their national and imperial aggrandizement. Good friends always want to borrow money and guns so they can beat the crap out of their neighbors...
Who was our "friend" from 1939 to 1941? The Soviet Union? The alliance of this "friend" with our "enemy" from 1939 to 1941 is a little inconvenient for that theory. Britain and France? Funny how we spent the rest of the war, and then the postwar period, impoverishing these "friends" and stripping them of their empires.
Isolationism is when you
Isolationism is when you stay in your room, masturbate to free porn and play HALO online all day long, in your parents' house.
Will you burn a Koran this
Will you burn a Koran this Saturday?
Why isn't anyone looking
Why isn't anyone looking into the Quran and their legal justification for stoning an adulteress?
Didn't Christ say, "Let he who has no sins, cast the first stone"?
How did the Jews stop stoning their adulterers and incorrigible children as prescribed in their books?
"If I were him, I would just
"If I were him, I would just own the term "isolationist" and let the haters hate."
I have to agree with you here. But, I believe the "isolationists" of WWII (e.g. Charles Lindbergh, Robinson Jeffers, etc) had the better part of the argument but were trashed unfairly (at the time, and continuing today).
"The New York Times" as part of "Washington' conspiracy/lobby?
Sure, last year I had first hand experience with the NYT Pentagon reporter Thom Shanker carrying water for the COIN establishment, "exonerating" Gen. McChrystal of all wrong-doing in the Pat Tillman case (and AM contributed a bit as well with his WP review last year derriding Krakauer's book as full of "conspiracy" theories). If your readers want to read more, take a look at "The [Untold] Tillman Story" -- President Obama & the Bipartisan Whitewash of Gen. Stanley McChrystal at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com
"A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable,"
If the shoe fits, wear it. To further your education, I'd suggest viewing "The Tillman Story" which is now showing in DC. I'd love to see your review of that film (which your father refuses to watch because he "knows" it's wrong without even watching it!; perhaps the old aren't much better at being educable? Hopefully not a genetic trait that runs in your family).
Ex has a point that Bacevich
Ex has a point that Bacevich is almost certainly advocating for what, in debates over US foreign policy, would count as an isolationist position.
I hope Glenn Beck burns a
I hope Glenn Beck burns a Koran, that would definitely restore some honour.
Your utterly gratuitous &
Your utterly gratuitous & irrelevant swipe at W&M is yet more evidence that The Lobby has indeed infested the circles of influence where the machers rule and the ambitious hoping to gain their favor hold sway.
Kneejerky cheap shots of this nature are such an easy and safe way to accumulate brownie points in your pay-it-forward favor bank account. Nevermind that it makes no damn sense, is utter bull pucky and perpetuates the CW fantasist garbage that continues to underpin our failed and failing policies in the regions under the present command of Dennis Ross.
The "original" pre-1945
The "original" pre-1945 isolationists did not argue that, either. "International contacts and trade", sans entangling political connections, are precisely what Washington and Jefferson advised.
Sure. "Isolationism," historically, is a slanderous pejorative. What "isolationists" from Washington to Taft advised was no more than proper neutrality under classical international law.
In fact, the fact that Washington had to make a big speech (actually written by Hamilton) suggesting that... gasp... the US behave as a normal country under international law, did not bode well for the future. Then only 30 years later we get the Monroe Doctrine, the first hint of messianic liberal-imperialist foreign policy.
Keep the neutrality for Europe, President Monroe (a ventriloquist's dummy for John Quincy Adams, himself reciting the prayers of George Canning) says; but first, we'll product-test our exported republicanism on Latin America. How's that 200 years of revolution workin' out for ya, Latin America? Got that brotherhood of man all goin' and shit, Venezuela? Are you walking the shining path of liberty, equality and fraternity, Peru? Then, in '45, the Monroe Doctrine goes global. Now all hemispheres of the planet can share the glorious experience of Third World government. And boy, do they.
So how do you shut down a messianic liberal world empire? Perhaps genuine isolationism, Tokugawa style, is what the doctor ordered. Sometimes when nasty people call you names, that's a sign that you should own it. It'd be pretty cool if the only way to get to America was by boat. It'd be even cooler if you couldn't even take a boat.
I feel a real, no-excuses, 200-proof balls-to-the-wall isolationism, especially if imitated worldwide, would result in a pretty quick end to "globalization" and "soft power." Within a few short years, America would be much more American, France would be much more French, and Somalia would be much more Somalian. How can a good multiculturalist object? How else do you say sorry for two centuries of international subversion?
As for trade - in case you hadn't noticed, the US runs a trillion-dollar trade deficit. That's a trillion dollars of net stimulus, right there, if foreign trade is cut to zero. Juche America - now, with actual industries. Hey, it worked for Hitler. Besides, everyone in the 202 area code will need something to do. When you go from negotiating the Middle East peace process to carving handmade children's toys out of wood, does your quality of life go down? Really?
Pastor Terry Jones for
Pastor Terry Jones for President
Who's Pastor Terry Jones?
Who's Pastor Terry Jones?
"In fact, the fact that
"In fact, the fact that Washington had to make a big speech (actually written by Hamilton) suggesting that... gasp... the US behave as a normal country under international law, did not bode well for the future."
The specific context of the Farewell Address is that of the French Revolutionary War. The issue at hand was not whether the United States should export its revolution abroad, but whether or not the US should take sides in the ongoing European struggle. A reminder that taking sides conferred dangers as well as advantages was entirely necessary and appropriate.
"Then only 30 years later we get the Monroe Doctrine, the first hint of messianic liberal-imperialist foreign policy."
Again, context is important. As the Holy Alliance authorized military incursions to re-establish Bourbon rule over Spain and its colonies, and the Ukase of 1821 proclaimed Russian territorial sovereignty over Alaska, the Monroe Doctrine seems more of a defensive measure than a hint of nascent messianic imperialism (not least because US power in 1823 would not support a policy of messianic liberalism).
"how do you shut down a messianic liberal world empire?"
Military defeat and replacement by another empire are the traditional methods.
"I feel a real, no-excuses, 200-proof balls-to-the-wall isolationism, especially if imitated worldwide, would result in a pretty quick end to "globalization" and "soft power." Within a few short years, America would be much more American, France would be much more French, and Somalia would be much more Somalian."
Unless Somalia, and the rest of Africa, became much more Chinese or Russian. But, to paraphrase Dave Barry, someone's got to do *something* with those people. Good luck to the Peoples’ Friendship University class of 2014!
@www.irshadmaji.com: How did
@www.irshadmaji.com: How did the Jews stop stoning their adulterers and incorrigible children as prescribed in their books?
Whoever you are hiding behind that handle, could you stick to talking about what you know? While the Torah does decree that adulterers shall be killed, but with the exception of a priest's daughter, does not specify a method of execution (even then the method is not stoning). According to the Mishna, a death sentence which is not specified is to be done by strangulation (Sanhedrin, ch. 9).
As for "incorrigible children," it is true that there is a designation for a son such that he would be put to death by stoning. However, included in that specification is that he has to be a glutton and a drunkard. The definition of those terms is specified in the Talmud as eating an amount of meat and drinking an amount of wine that no person could possibly pass the threshold. The Talmud continues with a discussion as to whether anyone was ever executed as a wayward son.
It should be added that any capital punishment requires two witnesses who actually witnessed the act (not witnesses who deduced the violator performed the act from other observations) and who warned the perpetrator that doing so would carry the death penalty. Then the witnesses have to present their testimony to a sanhedrin and convince them that they witnessed what they claim (Sanhedrin, ch. 5).
A final end to the Jewish practice of capital punishment is the destruction of Jewish political autonomy and thus the lack of an authority to carry out any such sentence.
I'm personally going to burn
I'm personally going to burn two books this Saturday, that's the Holy Koran and "This Man's Army".
Do they still stone people
Do they still stone people in Israel? Ain't that 'political autonomy'?
By this, I do not mean Arabs throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.
@ Scott: Leviticus 21:9 "And
@ Scott:
Leviticus 21:9 "And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire."
Deuteronomy 25:11-12 "If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."
Gospel of John 8:1-7:
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
Does the Quran or its
Does the Quran or its Haddiths, really punish adultery by stoning? Or do they have stringent requirements like the Jews?
morality and foreign
morality and foreign policy
I'm really looking forward to the second post. I think this is where Andrew's work has had the largest impact on my thinking.
The specific context of the
The specific context of the Farewell Address is that of the French Revolutionary War. The issue at hand was not whether the United States should export its revolution abroad, but whether or not the US should take sides in the ongoing European struggle. A reminder that taking sides conferred dangers as well as advantages was entirely necessary and appropriate.
Yeah - but you're removing the ideological context of the decision. The question of "whether the US should take sides in the ongoing European struggle" is really the question: "should the US side with the French revolutionary power as part of a global democratic jihad"? You no doubt are familiar with the name "Citizen Genet."
Again, context is important. As the Holy Alliance authorized military incursions to re-establish Bourbon rule over Spain and its colonies, and the Ukase of 1821 proclaimed Russian territorial sovereignty over Alaska, the Monroe Doctrine seems more of a defensive measure than a hint of nascent messianic imperialism (not least because US power in 1823 would not support a policy of messianic liberalism).
Context is indeed important. The Monroe Doctrine was indeed sold as a defensive measure. But the idea that the evil Papist reactionary powers of the Holy Alliance were slavering to, after suppressing the Latin American republics which had absconded with their independence while the Bourbons were otherwise occupied, conquer Massachusetts and establish the Inquisition in Boston, though a proposition credible to the same people who thought Hitler was about to invade Brazil in 1940, cannot be expected to delude the serious student of history.
The actual political context of the Monroe Doctrine is the decision by Great Britain, which we should not forget was the fire from which the first spark blew into France (you are no doubt familiar with the name "Richard Price"), to return to its bad habit of (as Cobden put it) being "a friend to every rebel but its own," and thus declaring that its crusade to defeat Napoleon was not in fact fought to restore the legitimate Westphalian order to Europe, but actually just because Britain wanted to conquer the same world as Napoleon. Needless to say, this did not make Metternich happy.
In pursuit of this Whig foreign policy, the first step was to divest Spain of her empire, establishing British protection over the toy republics of South America. Even this was a bit incendiary for the time, in which "revolution" was a dirty word to all decent people. Moreover, Britain had just purportedly fought a war for the national rights of Spain.
So Canning, with the complicity of Adams and Monroe, foisted the nominal protectorate over these tinpot client states on the revolutionary democracy of America. The United States, a backwater itself, did not actually have the military power to protect the stolen colonies from their enraged mother. Spain was still a real country at that point. But the rude Americans (which, let's not forget, had just spent a few years fighting on the side of Napoleon) had a plausible ideological motive, and were also known to be crazy and dangerous. And in practice, the matter could be easily enforced by the British Navy. In short, the gambit was a perfect opening move for the next two centuries of crafty, byzantine Anglo-American diplomacy.
None of this, by the way, is even close to controversial history. It is acknowledged, just not much emphasized. It's also why the British were absolutely shocked when the Americans decided to enforce the Monroe Doctrine against them, in the Venezuela border dispute. Who lives by the stiletto can expect stabbing back pains.
Military defeat and
Military defeat and replacement by another empire are the traditional methods.
Well, yeah. I would sort of hope to avoid that. I'm not entirely unpatriotic.
Although it occurs to me: if the British, the French or the Germans suddenly and without warning grew a national pair of balls, and decided to withdraw from the EU, restore their monarchy, and reconquer their slice of Africa or whatever, there's really not a hell of a lot that the USG of 2010 would have the testicles to do about it.
In fact, the same could be said for Israel. What would Foggy Bottom really do if Moshe Feiglin seized power, declared himself King of the Jews, and conquered Saudi Arabia? Whine a lot, I suspect. And shit, it beats China or Iran. You know, it's really a pity Smithy and Verwoerd couldn't hold out for another few decades. Suddenly, they'd find life as an outcast power getting easier, not harder. No empire is forever - they just all seem that way at first.
Think we have all heard
Think we have all heard about the planned Quran burning day....9/11
As far as I know, no Qurans. have been burned.
But US flags have been burned in the Middle East time and time again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mjqCYinXbw
Muslims are pissed about Abu Ghraib and we watched beheadings on TV.
Muslims call the west evil, but they enjoy a good fugde packing now and then.
Muslims complain about poor treatment at Gitmo and they beat their women.
Joe Plumber is the bad guy here....???????? Go figure.
Please remind me why I a crippling my economy by pissing off a tillion of my tax dollars? Why am I giving foreign aid to Pakistan to help these people?
Time to leave. Leave so all they have is themselves to blame.
Stop all VISAs. H1B....all
Stop all VISAs. H1B....all of them.
Let them stay home and solve the problems rather than give them a free ticket out.
Visitor 1146: The US fought
Visitor 1146: The US fought in both world wars. I know this is obvious but it shows that not having a world wide empire of bases doesn't preclude getting involved when your "friends"- the Brits and French for bettter or worse- are in serious trouble.
Isolationism used to mean not getting involved in European wars but has become a throw away insult used by the supporters of big government- huge defence- to discredit anyone on the right who would prefer less of both.
I just went out and robbed
I just went out and robbed some old lady. Shows that not having a job doesn't preclude a bit of robbery when you want some money.
I'm not sure this is as
I'm not sure this is as complicated as many others think it is. Bacevich, like many academics, looks out at the world and does not see a lot of threats to the United States. He also sees what he regards as a militaristic US foreign policy that wastes resources, etc., etc. So he, like many other security studies academics of a particular generation, is now advocating for a foreign policy described as neo-isolationist/withdrawal/pick your term.
If we implement Bacevich's
If we implement Bacevich's suggestions, many of us won't have jobs in the "solutions" sector and think tanks anymore. Many of us nerds know we can't make it in the real job market, where we'll have to do the daily grind. It behooves us to piss on Bacevich as much as possible so we keep milking this golden cow call national security which always needs advisors and experts of sorts.
Bacevich is just sick and
Bacevich is just sick and tired of think tank and "solutions" types who have profited from all this. As are many of us. Pull out from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rest of you go get real jobs.
1. It is perfectly ok to
1. It is perfectly ok to build a huge mosque directly across the street from where over 3000 people died at the hands of muslims whose religion was not a mere ancillary fact to thier acts. Because, you know, the first amendment and all.
2. However, it is an absolute tragedy for a small time cracker preacher to burn a koran. Because, you know, the first amendment doesn't apply to cracker preachers.
I say we all burn "This
I say we all burn "This Man's Army", that book sucks!
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