Foreign understanding

Is there anything closer to absolute zero than W’s foreign policy? Could anyone fail more miserably? Yes, yes, there was Muammar Kaddafi knuckling under, but even that strategy was started several presidents ago. Giving 43 credit for that is like saying Ronny defeated the commies because their house of cards finally collapsed on his watch.

We all remember the Axis of Evil speech that George gave. How Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were this president’s equivalent of the Evil Empire. Do you also remember that Bush thought the way to deal with the Israel/Palestine problem was to let them settle things among themselves, that Clinton was too engaged, too hands-on. Indifference was a better policy unless the two parties were really serious about peace, then he’d step in and collect a Nobel Prize or something for brokering the peace.

And do you recall the No Nation-Building plank? We would not do another Kosovo where we would spend too much money and human capital for too little gain. Indifference was the watch word.

Do you recall that prior to running for president, Bush had never visited a country outside of North America? I had heard he had not gone outside the US, but that sounds too incredulous so I assume he must have been to at least Mexico. After all he does pretty well, I think, with Spanish, for an American.

Then there was Afghanistan, where today Bush is nation-building and rescuing defeat from the jaws of victory five years later. The Taliban live there. They aren’t going away. There are not enough American or UN troops there to hang on against the onslaught of the Taliban very much longer.

The Afghans have discovered that we have no real defense for suicide bombers. Girls are afraid to return to schools. In one representative case, one of the faculty members was left beheaded hanging from a tree in front of a school with a note saying that this is what would happen to all the staff if they taught there again. No teacher showed up again. Women are returning to covering their heads and faces.

Outside of the capital there never was a sense that the war was over or that freedom of expression was more than a wisp in the dry desert air. Afghanistan could work out if we were not over-committed in Iraq to afford the resources to get the job done.

The Israelis are at loggerheads with not just the Palestinians but Hamas and Hezbollah, but George was indifferent to Arafat. He refused to meet with him, to merely show some respect to a group of people whose most fervent wish is to be respected.

He refused to sit down in bilateral discussions with North Korea. Their leader is a paranoid guy. Any event, statement could make Kim Jong Il more afraid of the US. How beneficial to relations with North Korea and Iran could it be to label three countries as evil, and to attack one of them? Does any country who feels disrespected respond well to threats? What would have been the harm of just talking? Would there have been a chance of some understanding eventually resulting? No, indifference and a nuclear bomb are better.

Remember a couple of weeks ago the leader of the free world was orchestrated to not bump into the leader of Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the UN. Indifference is better when all over the Middle East, Arabs want recognition that Palestine has legitimate concerns also. Our policy in the Middle East is unbalanced. It’s Israel first, second, and last. The Palestinians are people with legitimate concerns also.

I am not pro-Palestine at the expense of Israel. We need this important ally, our only ally, in the Middle East. But I am for a balanced policy and for sitting down and talking at anytime with any country with which we have issues. Bush yesterday said that he has learned from our mistakes of bilateral talks with North Korea during the Clinton administration. If President Bush had learned anything from our mistakes, it should have been that fighting a war far away, with a people we don’t have a clue about, for the wrong reasons or for nebulous reasons is a formula for humiliation and defeat.

We lost the war in Vietnam because it did not make sense back home. The U.S. pulled out and declared that the Vietnamization (the handing over of the war to the South Vietnamese army) was a success, that victory had been achieved, and while the last helicopter was leaving the American embassy, the North Vietnamese troops were entering the city. Saigon fell that same day. The Iraq war is likely to end similarly. We will declare that the Iraqis are fully capable of managing their own affairs. We will withdraw. Chaos and civil war will ensue.

Over all, George Bush’s foreign policies are based on gut reaction with such paraphrased statements as: “I like to follow my gut,” “I can just feel what is right,” “I looked into his soul (Putin) and saw that this was a man I could trust.”

These are the issues that Minnesota House and Senate candidates should be debating, the policies of Gut Feel and Indifference.

I find it curious that you use the Vietnam war as if we were losing it...The Vietnam war was a win for the U.S. if we would have stuck it out. If we would have allowed the troops to do their jobs. Instead, generals were tied up with bureaucractic b.s. like they are now and instead of actually being able to fight, the war is stuck in a situation of timidity where we are afraid of offending people rather than taking action.

Bush is failing in Iraq, not because we are there, not because we haven't pulled out and not because we didn't listen to John Kerry. He is failing because he is listening to the people who are calling for withdrawing, because he is listening to people who call for a troop reduction level, because he is allowing terrorists to live out comfortable lives. We need a heavy hand policy in Iraq, not the defeatist attitude the American will has shown.

I find the previous comment confusing (at best). A recent study by epidemiologists from the Lancet said that more than half a million Iraqis have died as a direct result of the war in Iraq, so who are we afraid of offending? Is that really not your definition of heavy handed policy?

Also, who are these phantom presidential advisors that the president is listening to that are calling for withdrawal? Certainly not Kissinger, he also believes Vietnam was lost at home. Recently, the president said he would stay in Iraq if Laura and his dog were the only people who still supported him. Does that sound like timidity?

The problem, I think, lies in the black and white definition of who wins and loses a war. The previous commenter insists that we could win if we just do a, b, or c, all of which are vague platitudes that rely heavily on magical thinking.

Well, I suppose if we could deploy a giant indestructible unicorn that could fight insurgents using fairy dust and rainbow wishes, then yes, the war is within our grasp. But I live in the real world, where the more likely conclusion is that nobody ever "wins" a war that reasonable people believe is not worth fighting.

So cjb, does that mean that seeing as the war is "unwinnable" by your persepctive, we are better to let the terrorists take control of a nation state? Who is a "reasonable" person in your view? It must only be people who agree with you.

Your magic unicorn is an attempt to use a lie to cover your blatently false statements. The half million is not Iiraq's that have died, but a total death toll, and even in that the way they studied it is very flawed. Using estimates and heresay instead of factual accounts and records is about as easy as saying no one making over 1 million dollars a year pays taxes because I pay taxes and it doesn't impact them like it does me.

The advisors would be those in the Democratic Party calling for withdrawal, the people running for election in the Republican Party clamoring for a gradual withdrawl. Bush has said he will stay, but we are still
"occupying" Germany by the same standard.

Ask any soldier if they would support more troops in Iraq, and most will tell you yes.

It is possible to win a war. You win when your opponent is dead. Did we win WWII? Yes, when Hitler died and gave up his troops, and the Japanese were bombed into surrender.

After reading my blog, above, my co-worker across the hall e-mailed this response:

"My gut feeling on the article is indifference. Ha Ha!
You give Bush way too much credit for Cheney’s ideas."

This is in response to Jim's article. If you want the real story about the Clinton administration's efforts in North Korea, read the 10/13/06 Op Ed page of the New York Times. There is an article written by Jimmy Carter who went to North Korea to negotiate.

"I find it curious that you use the Vietnam war as if we were losing it...The Vietnam war was a win for the U.S. if we would have stuck it out."

Ken, did you mean to say "as if we had lost it?"
I'm not sure here. The war in Vietnam is over. We got beat.

"If we would have allowed the troops to do their jobs. Instead, generals were tied up with bureaucractic b.s. like they are now. And instead of actually being able to fight, the war is stuck in a situation of timidity where we are afraid of offending people rather than taking action."

We disagree here too, Ken. In 'Nam if we had gone all out and really fought a war, such as in WWII, The Russians and/or the Chinese would have likely joined in the effort and WWIII would have resulted.

The Bush administration, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz chose to not go all out in Iraq or even kinda out because they thought that a quick-striking, flexible army would win the war (that was true) . But they did not have a clue about how to win the peace.

Remember Rumsfeld when the looting started. "Things happen....Look, these people have been restrained under a brutal dictator for decades. It's normal that they express their newfound freedom in new ways." (this is not a direct quote, but is the gist of what he said.) The looting turned into lawlessness, and that to insurgency, and into the chaos that resembles what happened in Vietnam.

Did you even look at your history books? Vietnam was easily winnable. Almost every field general agreed, we just needed a full-out assault. Also, I used "as if we were losing it..." because we were not losing and then we pulled out.

People like you who cannot stomach finishing a job are the reason for the loss. Not the troops, not the situation, but the people who do not seem to understand that war takes time.

The Bush administration did not go all out on Iraq. They launched an offensive to topple the regime and did not count on FOREIGN fighters flooding to Iraq to fight them after Saddam's capture.

Jim, I agree with your premise, but think you've missed the root cause. President Bush, as he famously observed, "doesn't do nuance." In his black & white, good vs. evil world, decisions are easy, once you categorize people as friend or enemy. He decides which countries are with us and ignores or bombs the rest.

Where this becomes a problem is in diplomacy. And I use the term to describe a give-and-take dialogue, rather than the ultimatum 'diplomacy' used with Saddam prior to the invasion. Given this inability to build consensus and broker compromises, it should be no surprise that our allies are pulling out of Iraq and the Middle East is further from peace and stability than it was six years ago.

So cjb, does that mean that seeing as the war is "unwinnable" by your persepctive, we are better to let the terrorists take control of a nation state? Who is a "reasonable" person in your view? It must only be people who agree with you.

Well, here's White House Press Secretary Tony Snow from today's briefing:

QUESTION: Just a simple question: Are we winning?

SNOW: We’re making progress. I don’t know. How do you define winning?

The WH Press Secretary is a "reasonable" person, and I doubt he agrees with me about anything.

You didn't answer my question and totally changed your statement. Snow was terribly misquoted by you. He provides a reasoned explanation to his answer, including saying that we plan to win. And then he provides his definition of winning. He didn't call the war unwinnable like you did. Let me give you the whole thing so you can see for yourself:

Q One on Iraq again. Sorry. Just the simple question: Are we winning?

MR. SNOW: We're making progress. I don't know. How do you define "winning"? The fact is, in taking on the war on terror -- let me put it this way, the President has made it obvious, we're going to win. And that means, ultimately, providing an Iraq that is safe, secure, and an ally in the war on terror. And at any given time, as you've seen in previous wars, there are going to be spikes in violence. And it is natural for Americans who have -- really are probably the most empathetic people on the face of the earth, to feel deeply the loss of those who have given their lives in battle.

In other words, Tony Snow weasels out of another one.

Now, stepping back for a moment, we have to remember that this man is the official spokesperson for the White House. He's no longer a pundit up there, sharing his opinions, he's the official voice of President Bush.

So the official White House word on whether we're winning in Iraq is "I don't know. How do you define winning?"

It strikes me as odd that the White House apparently has to ask a journalist how to define 'winning.' His answer implies that the White House hasn't thought about whether or not we are, in fact, winning. It implies that we don't have a good way of measuring whether or not we're winning.

All he has is a prediction: "We're going to win."

Frankly, its a bit disgraceful that the official White House spokesperson doesn't have a canned response to such an obvious question. He's been there long enough to have a pretty good idea of what he'll be asked, what the issues of the day are, and what the White House positions on these issues are. Yet he continues to offer non-answers and combative responses. Worse are the responses in the form of a question, like "how do you define winning?" Its amazing that the press even bother to send anyone to these briefings anymore.