Turn Left At The Adult Bookstore

That Bruce guy is a frequent contributor to the Chattanoogan Opinion page. He often writes lengthy arguments against some "liberal" institution or policy which he rarely understands. I like to think of him as Chattanooga's po-dunk policy specialist.

Incidentally, the term 'blowback' was popularized by the 2000 book of the same name. The book was written by Chalmers Johnson and pretty much changed the way I view the world. You or anyone interested should check it out.

I think Ron Paul put it on his 'reading list to Rudy Giuliani' last year.

Mason,

I think your analogy is flawed. In the case of Osama bin Laden, his problem was primarily with U.S.-controlled bases in Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure this would qualify as taking "... any action in the internal affairs of another country" or that were encroaching on that country's sovereignty since we were invited there by the Saudis. They asked us to build the bases in the 80's and they asked us to come defend them when they realized that they might not be able to fend off the menace that Saddam Hussain posed.

To compare the bases in Saudi to a base in Rossville isn't really a very good analogy unless you assume 1) we (the U.S.) invited the Chinese to set up a base (that we would own) 2) the U.S. and the Chinese were allies and 3) the Chinese provided protection or services that we needed, but could not provide ourselves. Assuming these three things were true about this hypothetical Chinese base built in Rossville, I'm sure you would agree that this would not justify me going and killing thousands of Chinese civilians (because I know you aren't trying to justify what Bin Laden did). To follow your analogy though, you'd have to assume that if this happened (assuming my 3 conditions) that the Chinese government would have to consider that there was a chance that an expat American might kill thousands of their people. Of course, by not helping out their ally couldn't another expat American decide that this was an affront that could not be borne and kill thousands of their people? What should they do? Blowback can happen because of actions you don't take just as well as those we do.

I'm not disputing unintended consequences occur. I'm actually very aware of that and understand that very well. What I'm saying is that choosing not to act is just action in a different direction. It can have just as much blowback as active intervention and sometimes more. For example, if we had gotten more involved in Europe in the 1930's instead of what we actually did (refraining to tell other countries how to run their affairs, as you suggest above) might not history have turned out a bit different? By not becoming involved and staying out of the conflict, we ensured the deaths of millions more and allowed the Holocaust to continue beyond where it might have had Hitler been stopped earlier. Perhaps the millions in eastern Europe wouldn't have had to grow up behind the Iron Curtain. Or maybe something more terrible would have happened had we gotten involved, but when historians look at what might have happened had we not been so isolationist in the 1930's the general consensus is that an awful lot of people would have lived longer. Of course, we'll never know.

I'm also concerned about how much deference your view seems to give to Bin Laden. I'm not sure we should even consider blowback from individuals like Bin Ladin. Should Theo van Gogh have considered the blowback his film "Submission" would have? I guess the answer is yes because it cost him his life, but does that mean he shouldn't have spoken out? Where does it end? He was not murdered because he had placed a base in a foreign country. He was murdered because of he exercised his free speech in his very own country to his very own countrymen. What about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed? There was certainly a lot of blowback from those. People died. People were threatened. People lost their jobs. Should free speech be silenced because of blowback? I don't think so. Even though the riots and deaths were foreseeable consequences of publishing the cartoons, the publications who published them had an absolute right to their free speech. If some people react irrationally and cause unintended consequences, there's only so much you can do about it.

The phrase, "they hate us because we're free" is not a particularly good one. I believe that the real phrase should be "they hate us because we're alive and do not acknowledge Muhammad". The irony of that phrase is that it is said the awkward way because the real thing is something that must not be said for fear of blowback. This is also something that will be true regardless of where we have bases around the world. There are dangerous people in this world who hate us because of what we are not. We cannot change this - not even through nonintervention.

Nonintervention is a dangerous mistress particularly for a country who is the world's most powerful nation. It seduces because of the hope that we can go back to September 10, 2001. It whispers in people's ears that it will solve our problems and keep us safe. It tells us that we have no responsibilities to our fellow men. This may even be true for a while. Of course as soon as genocides occur and people around the world start believing that we could (and should) do something to help them and we don't maybe they'll start thinking that we're just a bunch of selfish, self centered bigots who believe that we're too important to be bothered helping them out. Maybe to get our attention they'll do something that people will eventually consider the blowback of our nonintervention. The problem is that nonintervention is not live and let live. It is by its definition live and let die (cue the Wings song). It means that for us to live, we're willing to let a lot of other people die. We don't want to get involved. There might be blowback. So go ahead Sudan - kill the Darfurians. Go ahead Slobodan Milosevic - kill the Kosovo Albanians. Go ahead Hutus - kill the Tutsis. We wouldn't want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. We certainly wouldn't want to enchroach on your sovereignty. We must not become involved. There might be blowback.

First off, I am touched that anyone would take so much time to respond to my blog entry. I've obviously hit a nerve, and I really thank you for putting so much thought into what you've written. I don't think I've ever gotten such a long comment, and I feel I ought to put at least as much thought into my own response back. I understand your points, and I'd like to respond to each of them.

You talk about the dangers of not getting involved in some situations, specifically mentioning various modern genocides and also WWII. These are really 2 different things - interfering in a civil war versus an emerging war between world powers. I support a more non-interventionist approach in both cases, but for very different reasons.

The way I see it, if there is going to be intervention in a civil war, such as in Darfur, it should be spear-headed by the neighboring countries - the ones with an obvious stake in the outcome. If there was a huge civil war in Canada and a real possibility of millions of refugees pouring across our border, then sure, we would probably need to get involved.

In the case of Sudan, it is entirely appropriate for other countries within Africa to pitch in with a peacekeeping force. For individual charity and aid groups here in the US, sending food and medicine to the hardest-hit areas is commendable and praise-worthy. But I think it is unwise to commit our military to such a cause. Our individual sympathies may lie with the innocent victims, but our military and our treasury must be conserved for our own country's welfare and security.

Involving ourselves in every conflict where civilians might die is a nice idea in the abstract sense perhaps, but to get down to the nitty-gritty of it all, we just can't afford it. Our means are not up to the task.

Now, looking at the other case, a war between world powers, I think you have to remember just how dangerous it is to become involved in that. You really don't want to enter a war you might lose. In the case of WWII, Hitler was an evil man with a huge appetite for conquest, and the Nazi forces were a deadly menace to all free people, so I agree with you there. But the US did not have the resources to get involved in a major war before 1941. Our military was too small and ill-equipped to take on a task like that.

If we had gone to war before we'd been attacked, it would have been extremely difficult to get the entire country's industry turned to the effort, and it would have been extremely difficult to convince people to sacrifice so deeply the way they ultimately did. Try to remember that winning the second world war was HARD, and by no means guaranteed. We lost a lot of people, and in fact, had to change our entire way of thinking (remember Rosie the Riveter?).

As it was, Pearl Harbor was the flash point that invigorated the entire country. Our unity and resolve proved equal to the challenge. But had we not gone into the war in defense-mode, had we seen it as simply defending our allies in Europe once more, had we lacked the resolve that only a crisis can invoke, we very possibly would have lost. Let the historians say what they will, I for one think we were right to stay out as long as we did.

You also mention the fact that we are hated by some simply for not acknowledging Islam, and I agree that there are certainly plenty of people who will always hate us simply because we're not like them. I'm not saying we live in a safe world, but then again, what generation has? I just don't think our ideal response is to make ourselves into a more visible target by taking actions that actually lower peoples' standards of living. When the radical imam tries to pin some kid's anger on America, it's a much easier task if we've actually supplied the bombs that blew up his cousin's house.

What I think is that we need a strong military ready to defend our homeland, a secure border where we can control who comes and goes, and we need to spend less time worrying so much about which countries allow free speech and fair elections.

Let China do as China does. If the international community is willing to put pressure on Sudan, then it's fine to join them in voicing our dissatisfaction as well. I really do think sanctions, so long as they are multilateral and not unilateral, can be effective. But we need to reserve our military just for fighting threats to our own country and that's all.

I really don't think nonintervention is going to make us less safe, just as I don't think that our current interventionist foreign policy can make us more safe. Personally, I think it goes back to the idea that "where there's a will, there's a way". If we provide strong enough motivation for someone to attack us, eventually they'll succeed. The simplest way to protect ourselves is to make friends, play nice, and if we get involved anywhere militarily (aside from self-defense), it ought to be in disaster recovery and relief.

You're definitely right that it touches a nerve. My issue is that the Ron Paul's of the world functionally believe that we should consider the views of Bin Laden and those like him before we consider the requests of our allies and friends. I'm sure Ron Paul would deny that he believes that Bin Ladin should have that sort of power and while I believe him, I'm looking at the effective result that his views have. This will leave us with few friends and fewer allies. When Saudi Arabia invites us to help them, should we not help them? The only answer is that not only should we pull all of our troops from overseas, we should end any and all alliances since we have quite a few allies in this world and those alliances might cause blowback themsleves or drag us into situations that might damage us.

I agree we cannot engage everywhere in the world where people suffer, and it sure is a nice thought that people should solve their own problems. For example perhaps the countries around Sudan should intervene, but they can't and generally won't. They are poor and Sudan doesn't want its neighbors to intervene. Heck, they don't want anyone to intevene - they just want to keep killing people. The African Union forces that are actually involved have a history of predation on children, rape, graft, theft and incompitence that they are nearly as bad as whoever they're trying to protect people from. If we were to send in forces to Darfur, they would be better trained, less subject to attack, better able to provide care and relief to people and less likely to prey on the people they were protecting (see Bosnia for an example of how good we are at this).

Regarding sanctions, they have their place, but the international sanctions on Iraq were also mentioned as by Bin Laden in his list of offences, so sanctions themselves can have blowback. Unintended consequnces follow everything in life. If you let them become your only concern, it will paralyze you. Which will, in an ironic twist, have unintended consequences.

While we'd like to believe that it's fine whatever China does internally, it just so happens that it murders its own citizens who ask for freedom, does its best to undermine our security and threatens the assets of the United States and its citizens (not to mention our allies). We live in an interconnected world and like it or not, we live in the most interconnected nation in that world. If we're not willing to protect our citizens and their assets then we will lose the prosperity that that brings - at that point we are failing to protect our nation.

As far as World War II goes, Pearl Harbor was clearly what galvanized American opinion. There's no arguement from me on that. And in the late 1930's, during the depression, joining Britain and France in fighting Germany would have (at least initially) been deeply unpopular. But should we allow threats to become direct before we act? If you believe ultimately in a completely selfish foreign policy - that we should take our ball and go home and only respond to direct attacks - in the end (if history is any guide) you're more likely to cost more to America in both blood and treasure. If we had taken the money in the 1930's that we put into WPA and other job creation attempts and just put it into the armed forces we would have been much stronger and able to attack much sooner. Had we gotten involved early enough to just keep Germany out of France surely the war would have come to a much swifter conclusion with a much lower loss of American life (not to mention European) and a lower loss of American treasure as well.

You say "if we provide strong enough motivation for someone to attack us, eventually they'll succeed". You are absolutely correct. We provide that motivation every day to some people by our lack of acknowledgement of a certain creed. We provide that motivation every day to other people because of our vast wealth. We provide that motivation every day to still other people because of the freedoms we provide to our people. Our very existence condemns us in their eyes. The United States provided all of our freedoms to Timothy McVeigh, yet he killed 168 Americans because in his mind, we provided a strong motivation for attack.

You conclude by saying, "the simplest way to protect ourselves is to make friends, play nice...". How does one make friends with someone who feeds his own people into wood chippers, tortures and kills thousands and takes money and supplies meant to help children and build palaces? How does one play nice with someone who enslaves his people, starves them, threatens his neighbors (who are our allies?), denies his people every civil right, makes attempts to undermine our currency through counterfeiting and regularly threatens to attack the United States? Making friends and playing nice might be the simplest way, but it's not the right way either. It's the Rodney King school of foreign relations - "can't we all just get along?" The answer to that is no.

I understand the desire to go back in time and unring the bell that is globalization. I understand the attraction of isolationism. It sounds good. It makes some rational sense, but the last time the United States took an isolationist foreign policy, the result was World War II. The time before that, we wound up involved in World War I. There are bad people in this world. People who would like nothing better than to rule the world, including the United States. Some of these people are not rational. They can never be dealt with rationally. They can never be trusted to get along and play nice. In the 1990's, after the Soviet Union had pulled out of Afghanistan, we allowed that backwater country to go its own way. We allowed the Taliban to take control of the country and detroy it, killing and maiming people at will, frankly, we left Afganistan to do as Afghanistan does. The end result was September 11, but before that, the results were the first World Trade Center bombings, then the murder of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, then the 1998 bombings of embassies in east Africa, then the U.S.S. Cole was attacked in Yemen, just to name the bigger ones. Sure, a couple times we fired some cruise missles at them in retaliation, but we essentially allowed them to "do as they do". Non-intervention didn't turn out so well in the end. It seems foolish to believe that somehow though it didn't work in the past that we'll get it right somehow this time.

Sorry - I accidentally trimmed the last sentence of the first paragraph (I guess I should have previewed) - it should read, "The only answer is that not only should we pull all of our troops from overseas, we should end any and all alliances since we have quite a few allies in this world and those alliances might cause blowback themsleves or drag us into situations that might damage us."

I think it's time to end our debate. I don't think I'm going to persuade you to my way of thinking, and you certainly aren't about to change mine. China choosing to detain and execute its own people has never been any of my business. But if you've made it yours, then I suggest you don't buy anything made in China. I'm much more concerned about the possibility of ending up at war with China than I am over the possibility that Taiwan will become Chinese. For one thing, while I'd never want to live under the restrictions that ordinary Chinese citizens must accept, I also have to admit that China's continued ability to raise its level of affluence is extremely impressive. How they manage to keep 1.3 billion people in jobs and enjoying a steady year-over-year rise in their standards of living is nothing short of amazing. I'd rather be wealthy and not allowed to criticize my leaders than poor, unemployed, and able to say whatever I pleased (after all, who would listen?).

As for Sudan, we can sympathize and send food and medical aid, but it is not in the best interests of the US to send our military into Darfur. It's not a situation with a clear solution if we go, and I don't want our troops in harm's way unless they're defending our country. Sorry if that seems heartless, but it's not fair to our soldiers to force them into danger for any other reason.

I don't think the US should completely retire from the world stage, just that our military ought to be reserved for defense. In my mind, the reason we got attacked on 9/11 was less to do with a hands-off foreign policy in Afghanistan, and more to do with lax counter-terrorism during the start of Bush's presidency (Richard Clark has already made that case, so I'm not going to expound further). There's probably always going to be insane people in caves dreaming about destroying America. By striking a less militaristic profile around the world there's just going to be less of them.

Add to this the fact that our economy is in melt-down mode, our currency in free-fall, and our national debt sailing toward 14 figures, and the question of whether it is in our national interest to commit our military to further foreign campaigns becomes far less important than how can we afford to pay for them. To me it's less a question of "whether" we're going to bring our troops home than "when". Our empire is crumbling, and I'd rather have it withdraw gracefully than in one great and sudden collapse.

I wouldn't say its a debate so much as a discussion, but that's fine. I would like to know how counter-terrorism is to be conducted without the military or getting involved in other people's affairs though. Also in your last paragraph, unemployment is lower than during the Clinton administration's boom years, our currency's value has fluctuated, but isn't exactly freefalling (Gold's value is still 1/3 that of its peak in 1980). National debt, you're right on about though, but that's just a money issue. It can be dealt with.

I guess I don't see America as being in a crumbling mode. I've heard that kind of stuff for years (decades, really), yet somehow it never seems to happen. If indeed, these are the last days of America, then maybe we're in a situation where we need to pull everything back and not care about anything but ourselves, I just don't see that. Selfishness isn't a good trait in individuals and it's just as bad in a country.

Yes, our currency has "fluctuated"... to record lows. A dollar is now worth less than a looney. When did that become normal? So perhaps gold isn't quite so over-priced as it was in 1980, but I happen to be much more interested in the price of oil, personally.

But even despite that, I actually would have been willing to simply allow you the last word if not for the last sentence you wrote: "Selfishness isn't a good trait in individuals and it's just as bad in a country."

Puh-leeze! That statement was a deliberate appeal to emotion without reason, and I don't appreciate having my views distorted that way. Isolationism is not the same as non-interventionism. I think we should still be pitching in to help with worldwide disaster relief, and we should still be trying to relieve hunger and poverty both through existing government programs as well as private charities. I'm not an isolationist.

What I oppose is training our military against any enemy that is not threatening our own citizens. That's not selfish, just a proper respect for the role of our military. Those soldiers took an oath to defend their country, not to fight in a police action in Africa, or build a democracy in the Middle East.

By the way - do we know each other? I'm just trying to remember the different Ed's I met in Chattanooga - not many. You've never left your email address, otherwise I'd ask you that way.

I've been reading this discussion for a while (yes I think it's still a discussion) and you both have points - though I lean more toward Ed's direction on this set of topics.

To clarify where I seen "selfishness" in the discussion is that many (not particularly you Mason) tend to use pacifism and isolationism as a guise for apathy and down right greed. It's easy to stay out of a fight when all I have to loose is blood and all I have to gain is a bruise. Yes, staying out just to let two folks settle their own score can be fine but we have many analogies we could drudge up to point the other way as well.

The hard part about this discussion is that both "sides" tend to conjure up the extreme examples, and to be honest, it's easier to visualize those examples when RP is talking. He's a solid, but extreme fellow and to date some of his stances I think are cool while some scare the crap out of me.