Job Discussion Forums

[ohman]

John and Scot,

Didn't the activism of the sixties vis-a-vis the draft die off when the draft ended? Then we segued into the 70's, a mirror image of the sixites insofar as drugs and all that jazz go but sans any idealism.

If the US started calling up the hip hop generation, perhaps Eminem would have more on his mind than bee-atches and ho's.

I was browsing around the Wal-Mart PC game section yesterday. I saw a game on the shelves that left me shocked and awed.

"Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad" Here's how it is being marketed:
At the height of the 1991 Gulf War, 300 clicks into the heart of Iraq, you must command your squad of Special Forces operatives to strike at Iraq's evil dictator, and his fascist regime. Armed with an authentic arsenal of high-tech weapons and vehicles, your squad will face impossible odds in this battle against tyranny. Only strategy and skill will ensure your survival through frantic firefights, gut-wrenching vehicular combat, and gripping stealth operations. "The Mother of All Battles" is coming to your console in Gotham Games' Conflict: Desert Storm II � Back to Baghdad. The troops are in position, so lock and load, and get ready to GO LOUD! Gotham Games
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/conflictdesertstorm2/


How would a board game for Vietnam have been hawked (no pun intended):
It's been three months since your last Bangkok R and R, you've been humping the hills for a week. You've just dropped your last tab of purple microdot acid and you enter a village really cheesed off. Armed with an M-60, zippo lighter and a box full of HE and Willie Pete grenades, the voices in your head tell you, "it's time for a little payback."

[veiledsentiments]

The activism of the sixties didn't end until the war ended. I still remember huge demonstrations in the early 70's in Washington DC and having to drive past tanks on the street - and watching the construction workers on our site (final construction at the Watergate complex - yes, that Watergate) run out into the streets with 2x4's to beat up the 'hippies.'

John is right that we look back to that time because we were still young and --- hopeful? Mostly we have forgotten what it was really like. I recall going to a play called 'Beatlemania' (don't laugh). I thought I was going to a little nostalgia piece on my high school/college days. There were faux Beatles, but the backdrop of the play was a huge screen that played video clips of the violent protests, films of the war, on and on until I became so depressed that I just wanted to walk out. I had completely forgotten how really awful the times were outside of my relatively carefree life in a small mid-western town. I left the theater feeling sick.

Speaking of demonstrations, did you notice the non-coverage of the anti-war march last weekend?

Time to go over to NY Times site and check out Ms Dowd - love that woman's columns ---

VS

[scot47]

I am concerned about the US role in Iraq not because I am an enemy of America but because I know that country is something special. It is like watching your favourite uncle behave badly in public.

My feeling is that any analyst who knows the ME would have spotted that intervention without clear goals and an exit strategy was doomed to failure.

I work next door in the K of SA. During the military action my 19-year-old students predicted there would be resistance. If a kid in Saudi Arabia can figure that out, what happened to those overpaid "experts" in the State Department and in Langley, Virginia ?

[johnslat]

Dear scot47,
" I am concerned about the US role in Iraq not because I am an enemy of America . . ."
In my opinion, the enemies of America are delighted with the actions of the USA in Iraq. They could hardly have devised a scenario more calculated to further their interests had they come up with it themselves. The powers-that-be in Washington D.C. are, I'd say, operating from a kind of "willful ignorance", obsessed with their own fantasy agendas and unable or unwilling to see or acknowledge the "realities on the ground". It seems nothing changes much. As a Marine in Viet Nam, it took me about a week once I'd arrived there to figure out - 1. that we had no business being there; and 2. that we were never going to "win" when even our so-called allies had zero enthusiasm for the fight. Then, when I got to Iran in 1978, within a very short time it became obvious to me ( and many others there ) that the Shah's reign was on the brink of oblivion. The "assessment " being sent back by the US ambassador at that time,
however, was that all was fine, that the "Shah is a rock". It's hard - for me, anyway - to believe that such theoretically intelligent, well-educated and well-trained people could be so blind, but my experiences over the years have shown me that's all too often the case.
Regards,
John

[ohman]

What, if anything, is the Gulf Cooperation Council saying about this mess? Why would it be impractical to ask the GCC to contribute company level advisors and translators?

The US has to get out asap, but somebody (anybody but the Turks) will have replace the US.

What are the pros and cons of GCC "blue helmets?" taking over?

[johnslat]

Dear ohman,
From what I've seen, the "Gulf Cooperation Council" is an oxymoron - what cooperation? There may be a more useless organization ( the OIC?,
the League of Arab States? ) but it's a close call. The "blue helmets" taking over? Well, that's probably the best ( of all bad ) solutions to this mess ( I'd say, now that the "genie is out of the bottle", there aren't any "good" solutions ), but - 1. wouldn't that mean Dubya would have to do a low crawl to get the UN to commit to such as thankless task; and 2.
why would the UN want to get invloved, when the terrorist are already blowing up "neutral sites" such as the UN itself and the Red Cross? And would some members on the UN Security Council that may be experiencing a certain amount of schadenfreude at the USA's predicament ( such as, say, France and Germany ) be all that eager to help extracate Dubya and Co. from the hash they've gotten themselves into?
Regards,
John

[johnslat]

I just came across a rather interesting "test"; a link to it was featured on my My Yahoo page:

http://americanchoices.org/

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

Hi John,

As I think I said before, the only way that we will ever get any assistance in fixing the current mess is get the current group of leaders out. A Democrat would be able to ask for help without the groveling that would be apropro for the current group to get any help.

And Scot, think about how we Americans who can see (saw) the error of their ways and the way this current group is defecating on every principle that we 'thought' was supposed to represent our country feel -- embarrassment, nausea, disgust---

I want my Constitution back!!

VS

[guest of Japan]

A Democrat would be able to do that, but I think it unlikely they would. The government learned all the wrong lessons from Vietnam and its aftermath.

[ohman]

I suppose one of the problems with the blue helmets is precedent and experience. UN peace keepers have had some measures of success in countries where they come between two or more parties who are going at each others' throats.

Realistically, the only way the Bush/Rumsfeld doctrine can be achieved is if the US musters millions of soldiers for the duration, makes most of them grunts ala WWII and basically takes control of 1/3 or more of the world's population. I am not advocating this in the slightest. I only mention it to illustrate the futility of the current operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and to a lesser degree the Philippines--where the US has troops and/or advisors now.

Has anyone read Huntington's book "Clash of Civilizations"?

[johnslat]

Dear ohman,
"Has anyone read Huntington's book "Clash of Civilizations"?
Oh, now you've gone and done it - you got me started. I "review" Huntington's book in my Islam course:
A Clash of Civilizations
The first major theory of the post-Cold War era to receive widespread attention was the Clash of Civilizations. Probably the best known proponent of this view has been Samuel P. Huntington whose article �The Clash of Civilizations?� appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs (although historian Bernard Lewis had suggested a very similar idea in 1990). Three years later, Simon and Schuster released Huntington�s ominously titled book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order".
In it, Huntington contends that conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or economic, but that the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. He asserts that the fault lines between the seven or eight major world civilizations will become the battle lines of the future, particularly between the Islamic and Western civilizations. In Huntington�s view, these civilizations have �different values on the relations between God and man, the individual and group, the citizen and state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy.�
He sees Islamic (possibly allied with Confucian) and Western civilizations as being the most likely to clash because Islam is the only other civilization that espouses universalistic values and poses a significant challenge to the West.
Huntington goes on to suggest that as a reaction to this inevitable conflict, the U.S. should, on the domestic front, tighten immigration and aggressively assimilate immigrants, abandoning multiculturalism and pursuing a policy of Americanization. This to prevent what he calls a �cleft country.� On the international front, Huntington recommends maintaining Western technological and military superiority over other civilizations, enhancing Western unity by pursuing stronger ties between the United States and Europe and limiting the expansion of the Islamic-Confucian states� military and economic power and exploiting differences between these states.
The Clash of Civilizations idea has a simplicity (or some might say simple-mindedness) to it that can be very appealing. Although it purports to be a new way of viewing the world, it is really just an extension of Cold War ideas, which frame the world into us and them, good guys and bad guys, with the U.S. of course continuing to wear the white hat in this new scenario. No one who seriously studies the Cold War is likely to lend much validity to the simplistic notion that it was reducible to a conflict of good versus evil, capitalism versus communism, dictatorship versus democracy. in this �new� paradigm, proposed by Huntington and Lewis, there is once again a reduction of complex world issues to the level of black and white sides in a seemingly clear cut conflict, essentially foreclosing any real chance of understanding the motivations of individuals and nations. Even more dangerously, it is used as a justification for total war against them. In this context, the �other� becomes Islam or �Islamic extremists.� The Clash of Civilizations' model precludes any serious analysis of the role �we� may have played in helping to perpetuate violence and political unrest in the Middle East. The metaphor demands that we forget all of that and fall back on the comforting notion that �they� are simply bad and �we� are simply good. This does nothing to explain how such bad individuals attract so many followers among otherwise rational human beings, or how we in our goodness have managed to generate so much antipathy.
Much like the Cold War, however, the so-called War on Terror may indeed create a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who beat the drums of war between civilizations. When both the United States and Soviet Union became locked into a mindset where all nations must fall in the sphere of control of one or the other, they increasingly created a situation in which that very thing happened.
A country that felt threatened by the United States might well ally itself with the Soviets, not for ideological purposes but rather for simple Machiavellian self-interest, and the reverse was true, as well. This was further exacerbated when, if one of the major players couldn�t gain control of the government, they allied with whomever was rebelling against that government. One need only look to the recent bloody history of Latin America to see how this process spiraled out of control. The bipolar model of international relations didn�t just happen, it was a result of conscious choices to view the world through a particular lens.
Furthermore, many of the bloodiest conflicts arose in regions with great social and political complexities. When we tried to force conflicts in regions such as Southeast Asia into the overly simplistic us-against-them model of Cold War thinking, it frequently exploded in our face.
If the United States continues to wage war against the Muslim world, we are in dire danger of repeating the mistakes of the past. Just as America helped create the climate that led to the disastrous conflicts of the Cold War, we may now help give birth to the very clash of civilizations that Huntington envisions.
Polls conducted in recent months show a precipitous decline in regard for the United States and its policies across the globe. The trend is particularly sharp in predominantly Muslim nations from Indonesia to Turkey to Egypt. Not some small cadre of extremists, but rather everyday people within those nations increasingly view American military aggression as being directed against their religion, their culture and their way of life.
The growth of anti-Americanism is not related to the nature of some particular civilization (especially considering it has become widespread among the population of Western, predominantly Christian, Europe) but is primarily about the United States� Mideast policy � its uneven handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, its support for repressive regimes in the region and now its policies in Iraq. It is U.S. hegemony and unilateralism, not our �values� that create distrust and resentment.
If, as we are told, the goal is really to combat terrorism, then the wisest course would be one in which we enlist the aid of people in the cultures from which it springs, not one in which we engage in a frontal assault on that culture. To do this requires abandoning simplistic notions about who �we� and �they� are and taking a starkly realistic look at how our own actions help to create the reality where terrorism can flourish.
Of perhaps greatest value in this effort is realizing just how much our respective civilizations have in common, including the desire for peace, security and democracy. Research has discovered that �similar attitudes toward democracy are found in the West and the Islamic world. Support for democracy is surprisingly widespread among Muslims, even among those who live in authoritarian societies. This would suggest that any claim of a clash of civilizations, especially of fundamentally different political values held by Western and Islamic societies, represents an oversimplification of the evidence. Across many political dimensions both Islamic and Western societies are similar in their positive orientation toward democratic ideals.
The idea of a Clash of Civilizations is of little value in understanding the political and cultural realities under which people live, or in combating the root causes of terrorism. Instead it has become a tool of justification for war and empire. We are unlikely to live with either peace or security if we allow such thinking to prevail.

Regards,
John
P.S. Stop me before I do it again.

[ohman]

John,

Well said. In a word, Huntington is full of 'it. Unfortunately for civilization he has had a profound influence on the neo-cons.

The paleo-cons used to wink and use the phrase "welfare queens" to capture the good old boy vote. Everyone knew which non-white segment of society to which Reagan was referring.

Years later, this sort of code speak encouraged a card carrying neo-Nazi, David Duke, to make a serious run for governor (he'd already won a state house seat promising to things like mandatory birth control implants for "welfare recipients".

Now, the neo-cons say "evil doers". But we all know who they mean.

[johnslat]

Iraq - welcome to the jungle

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/international/middleeast/01RECR.html?th


Regards,
John

[Mark100]

Well if there is one postitive to come out of the whole Iraq mess it is that the neo cons should by all rights be badly diminshed by the their whole misunderstanding of the ME situation. As a consequence their power base should be sorely eroded and with any sort of luck Bush will go the way of his namesake as a one term president.

[titanicman]

If the Coalition does leave Iraq, wouldn't that cause greater problems later on down the road? Terrorists would be able to brag they drove a superpower out of "their" country. The terrorists would get bolder and confront the US somewhere else (like East Africa or other parts of the Middle East). The coalition must stay and come up with a solution.

BTW, does anyone have copies of the NY Times articles that were quoted at the beginning of this thread (in their computer (IE History, etc.?)? I just accessed those links and free access to the articles has vanished.

Thanks. Titanicman