A Conservative Framing Coup - Threat Assessment Posted by Marc Grinberg

I was recently discussing the North Korea nuclear test with a fellow liberal friend.  I noted that the prospect of a nuclear North Korea was somewhat unnerving, given Kim Jong-Il's personality and the country's development of ICBMs.  "Do you really think we should bomb North Korea?" he responded.

Excuse me?  From where in the statement "a nuclear North Korea makes me nervous" did he infer that I was advocating military action?

While his response was out of left field, his reaction was not entirely uncommon.  I recently co-authored a political article titled "A Progressive Battle Plan for National Security" for The Democratic Strategist.  Among the critiques we received was that our message proposal for Iran was a call for "bombs away."

Our (partial) messaging proposal for Iran was as follows:

"If any issue should arouse the passion of Democrats, it is the spread of nuclear weapons to a radical Iranian government. Iran is a nation that stones women, publicly executes homosexuals, suppresses its minorities, and has violated the most basic human rights we fight for as Democrats. Allowing Iran to build a nuclear weapon would strengthen this government's hand against their own people. And nuclear proliferation--which would spread from Iran to the rest of the region--poses the greatest human rights abuse of all: threatening to destroy millions of lives in a war or a nuclear accident."

Can someone please tell me where in that paragraph we advocated military action against Iran?  I'll give you a hint - nowhere.  What we did do was spend a paragraph listing just some of the reasons why liberals should oppose Iranian nuclear proliferation.

What concerns me is the increasing tendency among liberals (of all stripes) to confuse taking a security threat (or a moral travesty) seriously, with advocating an armed response to that threat.  The Bush Administration has already stolen democracy promotion and a moral foreign policy from liberals.  Has it now taken ownership of the ability to assess threats to American security?  If so, conservatives have succeeded in defining the terms of the national security debate to a degree I never thought possible. 

Liberals are, after all, the ones that understand that addressing the challenges America faces requires us to use all the tools in our toolkit.  If even the most hardcore of us now intuitively think that those who address threats are advocating military action, then the Republicans have succeeded framing the debate - in convincing the public that the use of force is the only legitimate response to security threats.  This was, of course, always their goal.  If they could get Americans to think like this, then liberal policies would never be seen as credible.

Instead of questioning the existence (or, at least, seriousness) of threats, liberals need to change the way the American people think about national security policy: the military shouldn't be the only thing that comes to mind - economic development, education, democracy, diplomacy and countless other tools are, in most situations, more powerful than our armed forces.  I'm preaching to the choir, of course, you all know this.

And yet the trend has not been to advocate for smarter uses of American power, but to deny the reality of threats to American security.  Not only is this dangerous (there are serious threats out there), but it is also a political dead-end.  Even if the public agrees with us on policy, they will never trust us with their security if they do not believe we understand their fears.

As much as we oppose the Bush Administration's tendency to take the debate directly from security threat to military response, it should not blind us of the fact that there are real security (and moral) threats in the world.  If we are to change the way the American public sees national security, we have to do it by convincing them that our approach to threats is the better one, not by denying the existence of these threats altogether.

Comments

[Lane Brody]

Warmest wishes and best regards in that endeavor. That there are real national security threats that the nation needs to be prepared for militarily is not something many on the left will accept. To echo your remarks note that being prepared militarily is not the same as advocating the use of force.

It is often forgotten that weakness can be provocative and in some cases extremely dangerous. In any case the nation desperately needs a long discussion and consensus on what kind of military it needs.

In a sense the debate every year over certain weapon systems and other spending issues is a debate over the size, role, and missions the military must be prepared for. It is in fact extremely expensive to have this discussion every year.

[Dan Kervick]

Marc, you only quote one part of your report's discussion of Iran. The actual policy proposal is outlined here:

War with Iran would be entirely counterproductive. But nuclear weapons in Iran would be a real threat to our national security. So our policy turns on finding ways to use covert action to disrupt the nuclear program, building solidarity with Europe to force Iran to change course through economic sanctions (Europe's economic power in Iran is crucial to that effort), and mounting a public relations campaign aimed at the Iranian people to convince them that their energy needs can be met without a nuclear weapon--and that their leaders are gambling their economic futures in pursuit of nuclear arms. As Senator Hart rightly notes, if all these fail, any use of American military force should entail honest and open public debate--precisely what our country failed to ask for in the lead up to Iraq.

The military force option is contemplated in the the final sentence. Now, I believe that one reason some critics might believe that this propasal, if followed, would lead in the end to armed conflict is that the policy outline frankly lacks seriousness, and seems more concerned with political positioning than taking practical and truly efficacious steps to protect American lives and security. In fact, it seems so unserious that one has to wonder whether it is designed to fail, and designed to lay down a pretext for ultimate military action.

The most unserious aspect of the report is that it advocates a convoluted approach to the problem of Iran based on pretending that the Iranian government doesn't exist, and pins all its hopes on a somewhat mysterious end run around that government to the Iranian people themselves. Yet the tactics discussed for influencing these people seem weirdly incompatible with the desired effect. Somehow you expect to build support among the Iraniam public for the US position by impoverishing them through sanctions and sabotaging their domestic nuclear power program. These actions will only intensify Iranian nationalism and build resentment - not win us supporters. Iranians will only be reminded of Mossadegh, and other heavily resented US interventions in their domestic affairs.

And even if your longshot propaganda and covert action strategy somehow did convince most of the Iranian public to back the US position, you nowhere explain how that shift in public opinion is to produce any effect on the Iranian government, which is only quasi-democratic.

One suspects you have bought into the neoconservative myth about a supposedly pro-American, regime-hating Iranian public that is poised for a revolutionary overthrow of their government, if only we give them a little "push".

Do you expect to produce an Iranian revolution? Aside from the fact that such a revolution appears unlikely, I would point out that a revolution (i) would produce a lot of dead Iranians and (ii) has an unpredictable outcome and could just as easily result in a worse government than a better government.

Our best option at this point is direct talks with the Iranian government. We have many things they want, and they have things we want. So, we should at least explore the possibility of a deal. Yet your report never so much as mentions that option, even to point out your reasons for rejecting it. However you must know very well that many prominent US leaders with long national security experience have in recent months advocated direct talks with Iran.

Why the weird silence about the most direct and obvious option?

[Cal]

Dan's right. When you fail to mention the possibility of negotiating with the Iranian gov't, you raise the suspicion that your real objective is regime change, and not non-proliferation (just like the neocons). And when you go on to tell us how morally repulsive the Iranian regime is, you can't really blame people for not trusting you.

(Yes the Iranian gov't is despicable, but it's much better than the Saudi monarchy, and we have no scruples about dealing with them.)

We've heard this song before. War is the last option, but we don't want the smoking gun to be a muchroom cloud.

[Marc Grinberg]

Dan, the paragraph you posted was in our response article. The criticism we received was after the original article was published, which included just the text I put in my post.

I would agree with you both that we should push for direct talks with the Iranian regime. However, I think it would be irresponsible to think that talks alone will stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons - we need a multi-pronged strategy that will aim to stop Iran from developing the weapons, build up a containment regime (in case they do) and work to liberalize the Iranian government.

However, I am concerned with your moral relativism Cal. I never said I have no scruples about dealing with Saudi Arabia (I never even mentioned Saudi Arabia). Just because Iran isn't the worst of the worst doesn't mean we should ignore the oppression of homosexuals, women and minorities in the country. Saudi Arabia is a tricky case because they are (in some ways) our ally in current anti-terrorism operations (though they are certainly part of the long term problem). That doesn't mean I excuse oppression and the lack of political freedoms there. Figuring out how to deal with these "ugly allies" is a key issue liberals are debating. In terms of my objectives, non-proliferation is by far (really far) the first priority. But of course regime change is one of my other (long term) objectives in regards to Iran. Given the religious conservative, dictatorial nature of the government, my liberal conscience wouldn't let me think any other way.

[Zathras]

I don't agree that the equation of action with military action is an "increasing tendency" among some liberals.

There have always been substantial numbers of Americans disinclined to take an active interest in foreign affairs, let alone how other countries manage their internal politics. For generations that disinterest represented "mainstream" American political thought -- and the turn away from it in the first half of the last century was anchored by the American entry into two world wars and the decision to confront Soviet Communism with American forces deployed in Europe.

With respect to liberal Democrats in particular, Vietnam threw into bold relief the idea that foreign engagement meant military action. This was especially true after the 1968 election, when the Democratic administration that had gotten America into Vietnam was safely out of office and the whole mess could be blamed on Republicans. While some Democrats maintained an active interest in national security affairs and foreign policy, a substantial group of liberals came to see "the whole mess" as including not merely American policy toward Indochina but the American military -- a province of Republicans, and of Republicans only.

It is not uncommon to hear this phenomenon described in terms of liberal hostility to the military, but that's a mischaracterization. What we've actually seen is liberal disinterest in national security affairs, a disinterest that became well established by the 1990s. The military and intelligence services were, it is true, objects of suspicion for some liberals, especially those on the far left -- but more liberals simply didn't care about the whole subject. None of their organized constituencies care very much about whether the military was wasting huge amounts of money on gold-plated weapons systems or how well the intelligence services were adapting to a world without the Soviet threat; their interests were directed at domestic issues, and so consequently were the interests of Democratic politicians. (A footnote to this is that one foreign policy position that did have an organized constituency behind it -- support of Israel -- retained the enthusiastic interest and sympathy of most Democratic politicians, and does to this day). It is hard to imagine a modern Republican President even considering a Democrat to be his Secretary of Defense, but President Clinton felt he had to have a Republican at the Pentagon.

So the tendency among some liberals to equate an affirmative foreign policy with one based on military action has deep historic roots. And in the present day it is not wholly removed from the real situation. It is a fact that American military power is, and has been for many years, a major component of America's overseas position. American generals and admirals sometimes have better contacts in foreign countries than American ambassadors do, and countries from the Gulf States to Japan continue to rely on the American military as an alternative to acquiring military power of their own -- which is a good thing, incidentally. Military power isn't worth much if no one thinks you will ever use it, so the possibility of American military action in certain situations is, and will continue to be, an essential element in foreign and national security policy.

This is, as Grinberg rightly suggests, a long way from saying that the appropriate response to a specific foreign policy problem is to send the military into action. But to act on this truism other tools must be available. This is going to require that Democrats (and Republicans) face up to the dramatic weakening of the non-military foreign and national security institutions that took place on Bill Clinton's watch and continued on George Bush's, and to the fact that repairing the damage done is going to require resources that will have to come from somewhere. This is one of several reasons why liberals will need to shed their boredom with the defense budget, and stop regarding national security affairs as an area real liberals can't work in without betraying their deepest principles.

[William Hallowell]

The real question, now that the Democrats have gained control of Congress by focusing on foreign policy, is "what now?" And that's going to be tough, because opinion surveys show the public doesn't have a lot of confidence in any of the strategies on the table. This Public Agenda survey found only two options, better intelligence gathering and reducing dependence on foreign energy, get any real support from the public.
http://www.publicagenda.org/foreignpolicy/foreignpolicy_energy.htm

[Don Bacon]

Even if the public agrees with us on policy, they will never trust us with their security if they do not believe we understand their fears.

Any "fears" that the public have have been created by the government in its military actions abroad which have stirred feelings of universal resentment, animosity and retribution. Fears have also been stoked directly by government propanda directed at Americans about the crazy "war on terror" which of course requires military action. The government has pursued such policies because there's a lot of money in it, and that being the American way there is little hope in sight.

Do other countries have a "war on terror?" Do they invade other countries? Do they have huge military forces designed to attack other countries? Have other countries abrogated international law as we have?

The idea that American military power is not the solution to any world problems is a good one--just extend that thought to the idea that America is not the solution to world problems. We should be more concerned for the persecution of American homosexuals, women and minorities than any Iranian persecution. I'm not advocationg isolationism but world fraternalism through diplomacy. The reason we're in trouble (so we think) in North Korea and Iran is because we have refused to talk to them, and have threatened them. So they react, just as we would do.

The United States is not militarily threatened by any country at the present time, in fact hasn't been for years. Somebody needs to say that, and question our wasting of a billion and a half dollars per day on corporate welfare. But it won't be said because the Pentagon budget has permeated our economy in each and every congressional district and influenced the representatives in all districts to support the military option. Match this fact with the government actions noted above to get the reasons for your friend saying "Do you really think we should bomb North Korea?"

[J Thomas]

I would agree with you both that we should push for direct talks with the Iranian regime. However, I think it would be irresponsible to think that talks alone will stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons

This is a fundamental problem for US negotiations in general.

When you negotiate with somebody you have to accept that they get to make their own choices, and you make your choices, and the intention is to get something that's better e for both parties than their best alternatives to a negotiated settlement.

When we go into a negotiation with the idea that we will get what w want no matter what, and we will only negotiate if we know our negotiating partner will do what we want quicker and easier than if we do a military attack to enforce our will ... well, it sort of gives the discussion an unhealthy tone.

Look, if we want nonproliferation we need to persuade every country that doubts it that they do better without nukes. It's *risky* to try to persuade them they do better not to try for nukes because if they try we'll destroy them before they succeed. That makes us the bad cop with no good cop for them to turn to. They need some other reason to think they do better without nukes.

[Dan Kervick]

However, I think it would be irresponsible to think that talks alone will stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons - we need a multi-pronged strategy that will aim to stop Iran from developing the weapons, build up a containment regime (in case they do) and work to liberalize the Iranian government.

Sure, talks alone won't do the job. But the question is whether the talks will lead to a negotiated agreement that gives us an outcome we can live with, and includes whatever inspection guarantees are necessary to enforce the agreement. There is a lot we can dangle at Iran: restoration of normal diplomatic relations, an end to US trade sanctions, unfreezing their assets frozen in 1979, security or nonaggression guarantees, the use of America's good offices in facilitating a regional security pact with our existing allies.

What we need from Iran are verifiable guarantees that its nuclear program is peaceful, and recognition of Israel along with nonaggression commitments.

And both countries could benefit greatly from a coordinated approach to Iraq.

If we sit down with Iran and offer this kind of deal, and Iran balks either because it is not prepared to recognize Israel or to guarantee a peaceful nuke program, then it will brand itself a rogue state and the global perception of Iran's posture will change quite a bit in our favor.

However, there is no hope of a negotiated solution if we remain committed to a policy of regime change. No government is going to make a deal with us while we are at the same time committed to overthrowing that government.

The effort vis-a-vis Iran should be part of a broader renewal of the global non-proliferation movement, a renewal which would be assisted tremendously by some substantive gesture on the part of the US regarding our own nuclear program. That will create additional pressure on Iran.

[J Thomas]

There is a lot we can dangle at Iran: restoration of normal diplomatic relations, an end to US trade sanctions, unfreezing their assets frozen in 1979, security or nonaggression guarantees, the use of America's good offices in facilitating a regional security pact with our existing allies.

Also, making the whole middle-east a nuclear-free zone. Why should we consider letting israel keep nuclear weapons? They are one of the more aggressive nations in the region. Also, we could offer inspections of israel's biological and chemical weapons programs. Give the IAEA free reign in israel. There's no reason to accept WMDs in any nation in the middle east.

[Don Bacon]

JT and Dan,
You got it right, very right. Talkin' beats shootin' every time. I was a hawk myself when I went to 'Nam. There I became less stupid. As a careerist I was sort of lonely.

Why do they hate us? Why do they react to our threats with counter-threats? Why do they react to our brutal military occupations with IEDs and fatal sniper shots? Because they don't differ from us all that much. It's just ordinary Iraqis shooting at us, President Bush said so. The same basic impulses. Go to New Hampshire. You'll have to go there, because few of them ever leave. Understandably. Nice place. Look at the bottom of their license plates (I hope this is still true). LIVE FREE OR DIE. That's it. Universal.

POP QUIZ: Name three countries that have successfully invaded and occupied other countries in the last hundred years. Heck, name one.

[Don Bacon]

I have trouble with links on this site. Here's the URL for the cite:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051130-2.html

[Dan Kervick]

That reminds me: Happy veterans day, Don.

[Don Bacon]

Thanks Dan, same to everyone else who qualifies.

Let's determine that the kids now still alive in Iraq and Afghanistan will be able to celebrate Veterans Day next year by bringing them home. Personally, I'm tired of reading the bios of dead young heroes.

[J Thomas]

POP QUIZ: Name three countries that have successfully invaded and occupied other countries in the last hundred years. Heck, name one.

USA. Successfully invaded and occupied panama, nicaragua, dominican republic, cuba, germany, japan, greece, and many others. Successful occupation of philippines was slightly more than 100 years ago.

USSR. Successfully invaded and occupied estonia, latvia, rumania, poland, czechoslovakia, east germany, etc.

China. Successfully invaded and occupied tibet.

Nationalist china. Successfully occupied formosa.

Iraq. Successfully invaded and occupied kuwait, for a year or so.

Kenya. Successfully invaded and briefly occupied uganda. Drove out Idi Amin. One of the more successful cases, considering.

Israel. Repeatedly invaded and occupied sinai, palestine, and bits of lebanon and syria. Parts of palestine (all that are now considered palestine except gaza, which was part of egypt) were considered part of jordan when they were first invaded and occupied. Lebanese occupation was eventually considered unsuccessful.

Germany. Occupied czechoslovakia, poland, norway, france, greece, ukraine, etc etc. Ultimately unsuccessful, but for a few years they did OK.

How do we define a successful occupation, anyway?

[Don Bacon]

JT,
I think--and should have written--that a "successful occupation" should be defined in the same sort terms that Bush is using--to create a new democratic political society after an unprovoked invasion. Our "New Security Strategy." So this exercise is in relation to our Iraq objectives--has this ever been done before? Some are proposing that we apply it to Iran next. Possibly others. Invade, occupy and democratize their societies just because "we can." The Zionist program for the Middle East.

Given that, I suggest that none of the WWII examples apply--they were provoked and thus were not "invasions" plus I call the eastern Europe occupations unsuccessful (no democracy). The Central American and Philippines examples were not "successful" because they were not occupations and resulted in more repressive regimes. Tibet (arguably) and Taiwan (unarguably) are parts of China. Palestine (unfortunately) is not a country. Kenya is unfamiliar to me. The other examples were not successful as you note.

Hey, history is not really my field. I am just wondering if "Iraq" has ever been done before.

[J Thomas]

Don, I would consider the philippines as as very good analogy.

We wanted the naval bases, but we said we were bringing them democracy. It wasn't exactly an unprovoked invasion, we took the area from the spanish. A local revolution had not quite succeeded in independence but was a giant help in freeing the country from the spanish. Our role was a little bit like that of the french in our own revolution. That's 1896. But we needed the bases, and after the spanish were gone we didn't leave. We set up a puppet government that recognised our bases. The revolt against us dragged on for some years, our marines spent some time "under the starry flag, civilizing them with a Krag". We had trouble finding the guerrillas but broke the revolution through atrocities against the civilian population -- they couldn't defend their wives and children and cousins and nephews and nieces etc, and so they surrendered.

Minor revolt simmered for 40 years or so. When the japanese invaded, the people who had collaborated with us immediately collaborated with the japanese. The insurgents in the hills who'd been attacking us went after the japanese too. We gave them arms and training and promised them democracy. After the japanese left, we put the collaborators back in power and the revolutionaries went back to the hills. In 1972 Marcos gave up many of the trappings of democracy but kept some. The US government kept good relations with him. Finally in 1986 Marcos was overthrown despite US support and they established an actual democracy.

This might be considered a success of the sort we're planning for iraq. The official occupation lasted 39 to 44 years, depending on how you count. Real democracy came almost exactly 90 years after the invasion.

History is not really my field either. You might find some other examples in latin america. We have repeatedly brought democracy to haiti, the dominican republic, honduras, guatemala, el salvador, nicaragua, etc. Continuing attempts to bring democracy to cuba have not yet succeeded. Panama is another special case that has required us to bring them democracy many times.

[Don Bacon]

JT,
Well, we differ. I think all the examples you mention are economic and political "basket cases" as the result of our interventions, particularly the Philippines, and that our intentions were never to democratize but to control and exploit. But then I feel that Noam Chomsky should be invited onto a TV panel show once in a while too, as a token nod to freedom of speech, so you know where I come from. By the way Chomsky compares Taiwan under Japanese occupation to the Philippines under American occupation, with Taiwan achieving much higher economic growth prior to WWII because we colonize to exploit and the Japanese to develop. But the Japanese were brutal too.

I think that Haiti is a particular tragedy and has been many times. We supported the Haitian military and dictators for two hundred years, and then in 1990 Aristide came along and we got rid of him.

So many people have died in Central America because of our interventions against popular governments and our support for repressive ones (Colombia and El Salvador), to the benefit of United Fruit, oil companies etc. The "banana wars" were US interventions by the Marine Corps which led USMC General Smedley Butler later to renounce war.

In Panama we prevented the Panamanians from controlling a central strip in their own country until Jimmy Carter stood up and did the right thing. Bush 41 killed a lot of Panamanians in capturing Noriega, one of our government drug runners that got out of line, hardly a case of bringing them democracy. How have we brought them democracy many times?

While I said a hundred years, a factor in these deals is that times have changed and so have the capabilities of people to resist. Sure, we can still beat up on a the little poor places--Grenada, Afghanistan, and we can aerial bomb places like Belgrade, but more and more it seems that we will be successfully resisted, like in Vietnam and Iraq (where after over three years of war the capital city is uncontrolled), and surprise! even in Afghanistan where, after five years of war, the Taliban controls eighty per cent of the country.

We have traditionally invaded and occupied countries for economic exploitation because a return must always be realized from an investment. National economics 101. War is a racket.

[Don Bacon]

Please indulge me (again) and allow me to go off-topic. It's Veterans' Day (Remembrance Day in Canada) and we honor the veterans, but my mind is on the people who haven't survived war to become veterans. One such has caught me--her story follows.

ALYSSA PETERSON:

One of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation methods used on prisoners.

She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a “non-hostile weapons discharge.”

Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003.

The Arizona Republic: “Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages.

“Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001.

“With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents.”

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed."

She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” the documents disclose.

AND A POEM--"THOSE GENTLE HEROES"

If you are able, save them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have left and what they have taught you
with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes you left behind.

This poem written by Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, on January 1, 1970 in Dak To 2 months before his death. Major O'Donnell was a helicopter commander with the 170th Aviation Company, 17th Aviation Group, 52nd Aviation Batallion, 1st Aviation Brigade. He and his crew were shot down on 24 March, 1970 while performing an extraction operation.

Major O'Donnell's remains were never found.

[J Thomas]

Don, I'm afraid my over-literal reading has gotten in the way again.

Perhaps some of my wording was too ironic.

The question you asked was "I am just wondering if "Iraq" has ever been done before."

I think the philippines is a very good example of us doing iraq before. We needed the bases. We said we were giving them democracy. It took around 40 years of occupation and 50 years of puppet government before they managed to kick us out and establish a democracy. During the initial occupation we took about 4300 casualties while filipino civilian casualties were somewhere between 250,000 and a million. There was a issue of torture ("water cure", about the same as now). We killed off some villages and put people in concentration camps. American public opinion was a big deal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

Sounds sort of familiar?

[Don Bacon]

JT,
Yes, yes. A good example of what Iraq has turned out to be as opposed to what the government purports it to be. We might call Iraq: The Phiippines with oil.

The US Army adoption of the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol as a standard sidearm (in place of the .38) derived from the need to stop fanatic filipino attacks on US army units at close range. Part of the 250,000+ killed in the "minor revolt." Just like the Iraqis, they didn't like the US military on their soil.

I've spent a little time in the Philippines, traveling around. A physically beautiful place, with three main island groups, the people all speaking different dialects. I once met a filipino couple who came from different parts--they had to speak English to communicate! Filipinos are great people (who isn't?) but they have been supressed so long. When I was in the service I visited the central island of Cebu on holiday. Met a local tire salesman who kindly took me on his rounds, including a huge open-pit copper mine up in the hills. When the mine supervisor learned that I was in the army he asked me if I could get him some rifles. So later I did (just kidding).

Getting back to Iraq, with Rumsfeld out, the Dems in and Baker's study group perhaps suggesting some common sense, the US government must decide on (A) more troops, more money and more US deaths to safeguard "our" oil (the Philippines model) or (B) declare victory, get out and deal with a disruptive Islamic state alined with Iran. I bet they'll make the wrong choice--they always do.

And thanks for engaging. Enjoy it.