Tag: foreign policy

Amid the Chinese government stepping up claims that the Dalai Lama wants to foment a violent uprising in Tibet – including allegations today that they discovered an arms cache in a Tibetan monestary (link: http://www.reuters.com/article… ), the Dalai Lama gave a forceful reply last Friday.

He didn’t call them the Evil Empire. He didn’t say they were members of the Axis of Evil.

He said, “we are not anti-Chinese”.

The full interview can be found at MSNBC’s website here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…

His anyone read this story?  It seems that there is NO exit from Iraq.  The plan is temporary, but will the next president honor it?

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked “secret” and “sensitive”, is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security” without time limit.

The authorisation is described as “temporary” and the agreement says the US “does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq”. But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces – including the British – in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

It will be interesting to see if this is addressed by the candidates on their stump speeches about Iraq.

One of my favorite quotes from Mahatma Ghandi equates violence with evil:

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

The war in Afghanistan proves Ghandi’s point. Seven years of war under Bush and Cheney dislodged the Taliban from power, but has failed to bring peace, rebuild the war-torn infrastructure, foster human rights, or create a viable economy. To date, 491 American and 295 NATO soldiers have given their life in Afghanistan. The civilian and military toll among the Afghanis is uncounted. The American taxpayer is now paying 100 million dollars a day in Afghanistan. The only viable economic options in Afghanistan are growing opium and carrying a gun for the Taliban or a war lord. Education and health care are non-existent. In fact, Iraq is more stable than Afghanistan, a clear sign of failure.

A recent article in the Guardian shows why the American neocons cannot win a war and create a lasting peace with the most powerful military force in the world. Bush and friends live by the following credo:

I love violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the opportunities for corruption and exploitation are endless.

The following is a short discussion, abit of a long read, by two Vietnam Veterans, on a VFP/VVAW, group board. The first post is a copy of a question asked and answered by another Vietnam Veteran. The two posts following that are a reply to the original than an answer to that reply.

I would hope that it might help our present Brothers and Sisters, serving in Theaters of War and when they return from, to help find the answers to any questions that may be.

With the Mutiple Tours, Extended Tours, ever Changing Reasons For, and the initial ignorance of what type of Conflict they were led into, as this countries military had already had a long running battle with Guerilla/Insurgent warfare and those lessons still aren’t being applied, there will be many more questions that need answering than even we ‘Nam vets have been seeking answers for, to the closed ears of our Government and the People of this Country.

Historical analogies that rely for strength upon generally-held assumptions – often exemplified by a folksy appeal to authority in the form of the phrase, “they say” – carry with them both advantage and disadvantage.  The recognition of human nature (“power tends to corrupt…”) does make for convenient shorthand, but as with all generalizations, these little chestnuts also run the risk of imprecision when the discussion goes beyond the super-broad.  “They” say, for example, that those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them, which for an historioranter raises a few interesting questions: What if the circumstances of the times have few, if any, precedent?  What if leaders of narrow vision had at their disposal technology that could kill on a scale that had theretofore been unimaginable?  What if ideology replaced common sense as a guiding political force?

Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll look at the origins of the last war to be called “Great.”  Along the way, we’ll encounter nations which based policy around the concept of their peoples’ historical destiny, some guys with great facial hair, and analogies that may fall apart on the micro scale, but get damn scary when looked at through a wider-angle lens.

Maybe, just maybe, George W. Bush is more clever than we realize.  Let’s start with how we got into the so-called “war on terror.”  Protected by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and his associates promised and plotted to attack America.  After receiving an ominous Presidential Daily Briefing (“bin Laden determined to attack in the U.S.”) on August 6, 2001, Bush went on vacation.  On September 11, four passenger jets were hijacked and used as guided missiles, bringing down both towers of the World Trade Center and punching a hole in the Pentagon.  During the attack, Bush sat comfortably in a planned photo opportunity, reading “My Pet Goat” to grade school children in Florida.  The destruction and loss of life took the breath out of every American.  On September 20, Bush appeared before a joint session of Congress to deliver an ultimatum to the Taliban and request military authorization to attack Afghanistan if certain conditions were not met.  On Oct 7, airstrikes on Afghanistan began in an effort to dislodge the Taliban and al Qaeda from Afghanistan.  I assume nothing in this thumbnail history is news to anyone.