Bush Policy in a Nutshell?

[Orphia Nay]

Bush Policy in a Nutshell?

Maybe Bush would put it something like this:

"We've given the Iraqis freedom. Freedom to kill each other. Now we want to take that freedom away... did I say those words?"

 

[Darth Rotor]

They would be reasons if we had succeeded in them. I'll admit, we deposed Saddam. Yeah, that was worth 3000 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars and all the other costs. Maybe I should put it like this, we threw away 3000 American lives for nothing. We have gained nothing and it has cost a large fortune in every respect. That is what I mean by "for no reason".

Wilson went to war to make the world safe for democracy. Or so he said, in 1917. The world is still not safe for democracy. That does not mean he did not have a reason.

2. Implement Enlightenment, republican style governance at the point of a bayonet

My Gawd, Darth, read that out loud to yourself. Did you laugh or cry?

Makes me want to punch a hole in the sheetrock, why do you ask? See my post about LTC Greene.

Dr Adequate
He also forgot to mention WMDs, I can't think why.

Indeed I did, I was in a rush and got hasty. It should have been on the list, thanks for catching that, Dr A.

This is what happens, boys and girls, when you post in a rush: you forget to check for content and correctness.

*blushes like a schoolgirl . . . with back hair*

DR

 

[BillyJoe]

It seems even Saddam thought he had WMDs because he refused admission to the UN just in case they found them.

 

[a_unique_person]

Oops! Never mind.

Thought title was Bush - Policy from a nutcase.

My bad.

I thought it was a comment on the size of his brain.

 

[rikzilla]

It is the true mark of good writing that you can disagree completely, yet still recognize the skill of creation. Sort of what I was just telling Ziggy about columnists versus reporters.

I may (or may not) get into critiquing individual parts of your sermon later, Rik, but until then...

Nominated. Well done, you asshat.

Gee thanks man....I think.



-z

 

[rikzilla]

To all who responded to my little essay...thanks. Even if you hated my perspective you read it and I am extremely gratified by your responses. I haven't had a lot of time lately to engage the debate, but I'm going to try and find some in the near future.

But in a nutshell my core worry is not about losing Iraq or dems running the country... No, my main worry is that societal Darwinism is at work in the world. Modern technology has virtually shrunk the planet. Now here we are cheek-to-jowl with an unenlightened, medieval, repressive, and fanatically religious culture. While our own overriding impulse is to be tolerant, theirs is not. Islam has not progressed through a reformation...there has been no "enlightenment" no "age of reason". Islam may well be the ultimate death meme.

I can't remember the speaker @ last TAM...but he told a story of a microscopic parasite which invaded the "brain" of an insect causing it to climb to the top of the grass so that it would be eaten by a bird. Thus in the stomach of the bird the small parasite could multiply...simply put the death meme can be any big idea or grand cause considered to be worth self sacrifice in order to spread. Humans are just expendable vessels.

Nationalism and religions are forever sacrificing individuals to some glorious cause, but here in the west rationalism and individual freedoms have weakened these types of memes (at least among the educated). We cannot expect tolerance or rational thought from the jihadist element of Islam...and increasingly it is this segment of Islam which is the definitive "voice" of the larger religion/society. Moderate Islam may still be a majority...but it is clearly a silent majority.

Looking at the overall picture it is clear that a worldwide clash of civilizations is gathering steam. Our freedoms have clearly made us better at innovation and industry but these are just things...tools. They can be picked up and used by anyone once invented. Iran may soon have its hands on the nuclear bomb...and I simply can't see too many scenarios in which they would simply sit on it for long as a purely defensive weapon.

Sadly I do believe a nuclear exchange will occur within the next 10 years unless we are vigilant, proactive, and of course lucky. Our military adventures in the ME may be far from perfect; but without them I believe Saddam would still be on his throne and waving a big nuclear dick at the rest of the world. Pretty dangerous when you consider what the Ba'athist party is really all about. And that is just one example. In spite of our efforts at non-proliferation we already have a nuclear Indian sub-continent as well as a nuclear NK. One wonders how bad things would get if we disengaged from these areas of the world as some in this thread have seemed to suggest.

There are a lot of reasons to be frightened of the Muslim world. They have very strong religious and nationalistic death memes going for them...we clearly don't. We may consider ourselves lucky in that regard,...but what would Darwin say? Can we compete at this level? Are rationalism, enlightenment, and basic human freedoms also worth dying for?

-z

 

[Darth Rotor]

Nationalism and religions are forever sacrificing individuals to some glorious cause, but here in the west rationalism and individual freedoms have weakened these types of memes (at least among the educated). We cannot expect tolerance or rational thought from the jihadist element of Islam...and increasingly it is this segment of Islam which is the definitive "voice" of the larger religion/society. Moderate Islam may still be a majority...but it is clearly a silent majority.

Looking at the overall picture it is clear that a worldwide clash of civilizations is gathering steam. Our freedoms have clearly made us better at innovation and industry but these are just things...tools. They can be picked up and used by anyone once invented. Iran may soon have its hands on the nuclear bomb...and I simply can't see too many scenarios in which they would simply sit on it for long as a purely defensive weapon.

Sadly I do believe a nuclear exchange will occur within the next 10 years unless we are vigilant, proactive, and of course lucky. Our military adventures in the ME may be far from perfect; but without them I believe Saddam would still be on his throne and waving a big nuclear dick at the rest of the world. Pretty dangerous when you consider what the Ba'athist party is really all about.

And that is just one example. In spite of our efforts at non-proliferation we already have a nuclear Indian sub-continent as well as a nuclear NK. One wonders how bad things would get if we disengaged from these areas of the world as some in this thread have seemed to suggest.

There are a lot of reasons to be frightened of the Muslim world. They have very strong religious and nationalistic death memes going for them...we clearly don't. We may consider ourselves lucky in that regard,...but what would Darwin say? Can we compete at this level? Are rationalism, enlightenment, and basic human freedoms also worth dying for?

-z

I think you ask the wrong question, rikzilla. The core question is: are they worth killing for?

As you suggest, the death meme may be the stronger societal predilection, in the long run, than the tolerance meme. If you know what you'll die for, I suggest that you must also know what you'll kill for.

The political realm drifts toward "kill or be killed" now and again. Whose will is greater? Put another way, when push comes to shove, pacifists often die, and take with them their ideology that they are willing to die for, but not to kill for. In such cases, pacifists start to resemble very sophisticated sheep. I find that a tragedy, since I think pacifistic ideology needs preserving, as a counterpoint to the death meme that seems to crop up with consistent frequency in human culture.

DR

 

[steverino]

I heard a radio commentator this morning compare Bush with the boy who cried wolf - and it seemed to fit. No matter how resolved he is, he has no credibility. That is gone, and it is gone for good.

The boy who cried wolf DID finally spot a wolf. So the boy's credibility was questioned when he should have been taken seriosly. Turned out he was credible. That was the point.

 

[steverino]

For years, we'll hear, in the next breath after Democrats are blamed for losing Iraq, that anyone who said before the war that there were no WMDs had no way of knowing anyway, so their opinion doesn't count. Indeed, this illogic will be used to keep WMDs on the list justifications along with the retroactively supplemental justifications.

Just another case where those who were exactly right have no credibility and those were exactly wrong march on in rightiousness.

Don't worry. For years there will always be you guys to remind the rest of us suckers what "really happened" as you march on in self-rightiousness.

 

[Tricky]

The Selfish Meme

I The political realm drifts toward "kill or be killed" now and again. Whose will is greater? Put another way, when push comes to shove, pacifists often die, and take with them their ideology that they are willing to die for, but not to kill for. In such cases, pacifists start to resemble very sophisticated sheep. I find that a tragedy, since I think pacifistic ideology needs preserving, as a counterpoint to the death meme that seems to crop up with consistent frequency in human culture.

Thats an interesting suggestion DR, but I think it may be overly simplistic, just like the concept that altruism (in animals) should be genetically selected against. True, pacifists are less likely to fight (though not totally unlikely) but does this meme select for or against pacifism? After all, pacifists are also less likely to become involved in confrontations which, even if they didn't fight, would have little or no effect on their survival. In this case, non-pacifist memes are selected against.

And indeed what do you see in the modern world? Most of the really widespread fighting, conflicts that are large enough to wipe out whole "meme pools" occurs in small, often third-world nations. Those who wish to avoid fighting will try (with varying success) to get the hell out of those places, carrying their newly-reinforced pacifist memes with them. "Successful" meme pools generally do not involve themselves in conflicts which would severely deplete their population.

I would say the "pacifist meme" is relatively new because it is only in the last hundred years or so that warfare has been so powerful that both attacker and defender could be wiped out. Take a look at who are the most advanced countries in the world. Of course there's the US, but also Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Scandinavian countries and, in some ways Russia and China. Since the first atom bombs were dropped, none of those countries (even in the cold war days of split Germany) engaged in country-wide shooting wars. Larger countries, like the US and Russia may engage in regional wars, like in Chechnya and Iraq, but nothing that truly threatens their existence, even if they lose. Could the "pacifist meme" have something to do with that? It could well be.

See how in the US when we were worried about losing our "way of life" after the 9-11 attacks, most people were willing to engage in war to defend that way of life, overriding the pacifist meme. But as time goes by and people realize that our way of life can survive such attacks, the pacifist meme reasserts itself. It never really disappeared, but was temporarily suppressed.

And as always, all of my "theories" are supported by my stellar research department for which there are and will be no forthcoming links.

 

[Tricky]

The boy who cried wolf DID finally spot a wolf. So the boy's credibility was questioned when he should have been taken seriosly. Turned out he was credible. That was the point.

No, he was not credible, because credible means believable. He was not believable as a result of being wrong so often. He was (finally) right, but because of his lack of credibility, he got eaten.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Thats an interesting suggestion DR, but I think it may be overly simplistic.

Given the brevity of my post, I'd tend to agree. It was a thought, not a fully developed concept.

Your reply makes some sense, but I'll point to a few other things. The "run away" survival mode, which is the flight in a "fight or flight" response, runs into the modern problem of global population increasing, and the number of places one can run away to in order to start the micro society over, decreasing. In some cases, where large muscle logistics can support it, "run away to be taken care of by the UN Nanny State in a refugee camp," is a viable strategy, in the short term. This is where altruism, or very long term self interest, is an active meme spreading among the third party polity. Its motivation is, IMO, power, stability, and control, but perhaps that is for another time.

And indeed what do you see in the modern world?

Wars not being fought to their conclusion, but being stopped by outside forces, which breaks both of our simple little models by third party intervention. Again, the motive for that is another topic.

"Successful" meme pools generally do not involve themselves in conflicts which would severely deplete their population.

That makes sense, when that choice is actionable.

And as always, all of my "theories" are supported by my stellar research department for which there are and will be no forthcoming links.

My research team can often be found in the bottom of that bottle of Shiner over there.

DR

 

[steverino]

No, he was not credible, because credible means believable. He was not believable as a result of being wrong so often. He was (finally) right, but because of his lack of credibility, he got eaten.

Exactly. He got eaten in spite of being right. Nobody listened.

 

[BillyJoe]

Rik,

Seems I read you right.
I hope you are wrong though.
Because I hate mushrooms.

BJ

 

[fishbob]

The boy who cried wolf DID finally spot a wolf. So the boy's credibility was questioned when he should have been taken seriosly. Turned out he was credible. That was the point.

I see a great big gaping hole in your cultural awareness. I highly recommend you find watch a few of the Fractured Fairy Tales, narrated by Edward Everett Horton. Then look a what I wrote, then look at your response, and then you can have a chuckle too.

 

[fishbob]

Exactly. He got eaten in spite of being right. Nobody listened.

And it was his own damn fault. Served him right, got his just desserts, comeuppance, reaping what he sowed, hoist by his own petard, all that poetic justice kind of thing.

 

[Tricky]

I highly recommend you find watch a few of the Fractured Fairy Tales, narrated by Edward Everett Horton.

Ah yes, the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, one of the big reasons that I love puns so much.

But though Horton did narrate the "Fractured Fairy Tales", I believe the segment that had moralistic stories rewritten was "Aesop & Son".

 

[Earthborn]

We may consider ourselves lucky in that regard,...but what would Darwin say? Can we compete at this level? Are rationalism, enlightenment, and basic human freedoms also worth dying for?

Darwin would say that in order to compete, you'll have to avoid dying.

 

[geni]

But in a nutshell my core worry is not about losing Iraq or dems running the country... No, my main worry is that societal Darwinism is at work in the world. Modern technology has virtually shrunk the planet. Now here we are cheek-to-jowl with an unenlightened, medieval, repressive, and fanatically religious culture. While our own overriding impulse is to be tolerant, theirs is not. Islam has not progressed through a reformation...there has been no "enlightenment" no "age of reason". Islam may well be the ultimate death meme.

So you support saddam? He was doing a pretty good job of keeping the radical islamic lot down.

Looking at the overall picture it is clear that a worldwide clash of civilizations is gathering steam.

Nope. Still appears to be bits of the middle east and asia vs US.

Sadly I do believe a nuclear exchange will occur within the next 10 years unless we are vigilant, proactive, and of course lucky. Our military adventures in the ME may be far from perfect; but without them I believe Saddam would still be on his throne and waving a big nuclear dick at the rest of the world.

Saddam hadn't had a nuclear program in over a decade and if he had he would have been waveing it at Iran.

Pretty dangerous when you consider what the Ba'athist party is really all about.

Umm keeping saddam in power?

And that is just one example. In spite of our efforts at non-proliferation we already have a nuclear Indian sub-continent as well as a nuclear NK. One wonders how bad things would get if we disengaged from these areas of the world as some in this thread have seemed to suggest.

Japan would probably go nuclear as would SK. Other than that not much. Kim isn't sucidal and in a war against any of the sorounding countires NK would lose in the long run.

 

[rikzilla]

Darwin would say that in order to compete, you'll have to avoid dying.

This is true but we're talking macro instead of micro. Is it possible that by keeping a "manageable" war far from our shores we are safer than by leaving the battlefield to the enemy?

The problem as I see it (and of course I may be wrong, wrong, wrong) is that we do not control whether we are at war or not. We cannot merely take our ball and go home unless our enemy is willing to allow us to do so. In Vietnam the enemy was quite happy to see us go so that he could re-unify his country and get on with life. In Iraq there are many factions which would see a US withdrawal in just those terms. However, the jihadist element will see such a retreat as another battle won in the worldwide struggle for Islamic dominance.

The Dems have always faulted Bush for not looking at the bigger picture; "Sure the invasion went well but then what?"...well the same question can be asked of those who seek a quick withdrawal.

Every action or inaction has consequences. If the overarching concern is to avoid dying then a disengagement might look like the way to go, but I'm not convinced that the answer is all that simple.

-z