posted on February 13, 2004 01:34:20 PM new
The Boston Globe -- the respected, liberal newspaper owned by the New York Times (another liberal newspaper)-- ran an article last week that Bush critics might wish to read carefully.
It is a report on a new book that argues that President Bush has developed and is ably implementing only the third American grand strategy in our history.
The author of this book, "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience"
(Harvard Press),(another liberal publishing house) which is to be released in March, is John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett professor of military and naval history at Yale University. The Boston Globe describes Professor Gaddis as "the dean of Cold War studies and one of the nation's most eminent diplomatic historians." In other words, this is not some put up job by an obscure right-wing author. This comes from the pinnacle of the liberal Ivy League academic establishment.
b]The Boston Globe describes Mr. Gaddis as "the dean of Cold War studies and one of the nation's most eminent diplomatic historians." In other words, this is not some put-up job by an obscure right-wing author. This comes from the pinnacle of the liberal Ivy League academic establishment.[/b]
If you hate George W. Bush, you will hate this Boston Globe story because it makes a strong case that Mr. Bush stands in a select category with presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and James Monroe (as guided by his secretary of state, John Q. Adams) in implementing one of only three grand strategies of American foreign policy in our two-century history.
As the Globe article describes in an interview with Mr. Gaddis: "Grand strategy is the blueprint from which policy follows. It envisions a country's mission, defines its interests, and sets its priorities. Part of grand strategy's grandeur lies in its durability: A single grand strategy can shape decades, even centuries of policy."
According to this analysis, the first grand strategy by Monroe/Adams followed the British invasion of Washington and the burning of the White House in 1814. They responded to that threat by developing a policy of gaining future security through territorial expansion — filling power vacuums with American pioneers before hostile powers could get in. That strategy lasted throughout the 19th and the early 20th centuries, and accounts for our continental size and historic security.
FDR's plans for the post-World War II period were the second grand strategy and gained American security by establishing free markets and self-determination in Europe as a safeguard against future European wars, while creating the United Nations and related agencies to help us manage the rest of the world and contain the Soviets. The end of the Cold War changed that and led, according to Mr. Gaddis, to President Clinton's assumption that a new grand strategy was not needed because globalization and democratization were inevitable. "Clinton said as much at one point. I think that was shallow. I think they were asleep at the switch," Mr. Gaddis observed.
That brings the professor to George W. Bush, who he describes as undergoing "one of the most surprising transformations of an underrated national leader since Prince Hal became Henry V." Clearly, Mr. Gaddis has not been a long-time admirer of Mr. Bush. But he is now.
He observes that Mr. Bush "undertook a decisive and courageous reassessment of American grand strategy following the shock of the 9/11 attacks. At his doctrine's center, Bush placed the democratization of the Middle East and the urgent need to prevent terrorists and rogue states from getting nuclear weapons. Bush also boldly rejected the constraints of an outmoded international system that was really nothing more that a snapshot of the configuration of power that existed in 1945."
It is worth noting that John Kerry and the other Democrats' central criticism of Mr. Bush — the prosaic argument that he should have taken no action without U.N. approval — is rejected by Mr. Gaddis as being a proposed policy that would be constrained by an "outmoded international system."
In assessing Mr. Bush's progress to date, the Boston Globe quotes Mr. Gaddis: "So far the military action in Iraq has produced a modest improvement in American and global economic conditions; an intensified dialogue within the Arab world about political reform; a withdrawal of American forces from Saudi Arabia; and an increasing nervousness on the part of the Syrian and Iranian governments as they contemplated the consequences of being surrounded by American clients or surrogates. The United States has emerged as a more powerful and purposeful actor within the international system than it had been on September 11, 2001."
In another recent article, written before the Iraqi war, Mr. Gaddis wrote: "[Bush's] grand strategy is actually looking toward the culmination of the Wilsonian project of a world safe for Democracy, even in the Middle East. And this long-term dimension of it, it seems to me, goes beyond what we've seen in the thinking of more recent administrations. It is more characteristic of the kind of thinking, say, that the Truman administration was doing at the beginning of the Cold War."
Is Mr. Bush becoming an historic world leader in the same category as FDR, as the eminent Ivy League professor argues? Or is he just a lying nitwit, as the eminent Democratic Party Chairman and Clinton fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe argues? I suspect that as this election year progresses, that may end up being the decisive debate. You can put me on the side of the professor.
posted on February 13, 2004 02:03:49 PM new
LOL! Another Hundred Years War!
Then, the War of the Roses! Yeah, Henry V was a wanker, and his military gains (completely lost by 1450 except for Calais) left his country worse off, and ripe for the civil war of York vs Lancaster that followed.
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on February 13, 2004 02:27:50 PM new "Is Mr. Bush becoming an historic world leader in the same category as FDR, as the eminent Ivy League professor argues? Or is he just a lying nitwit, as the eminent Democratic Party Chairman and Clinton fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe argues? I suspect that as this election year progresses, that may end up being the decisive debate."
The answer is "just a lying nitwit". Over half of the American people have made that decision already.
posted on February 13, 2004 03:25:37 PM new
Interview <snipped and bolded by me> with Professor Gaddis in January, 2003.
Frontline: The Bush administration's National Security Strategyrepresents an evolution of thinking.Describe how we got this doctrine, where it came from.
Professor Gaddis: I think the history of this particular doctrine does goback to one particular individual. This is Paul Wolfowitz in his service in the first Bush administration and the defense review that was taking place in the last years of the first Bush administration, which Wolfowitz basically authored -- adoctrine of American hegemony; adoctrine in which the United States would seek to maintain a position that it came out of the Cold War with, in which there were no obviousor plausible challengers to the United States.
That was considered quite shocking in1992; so shocking, in fact, that the firstBush administration disavowed it. But I think that indeed it did become the basis of that administration's thinking. I think tacitly it was the basis of the Clinton administration's thinking. I think ever since then, there has been either explicitly or implicitly the sense that we have to hang on to this remarkable position of preeminence that we have in the world. So that's one strain that has given rise to the Bush strategy here.
Keep reading. Professor Gaddis says some really optimistic things about the Bush Administration:
Frontline: Let's focus on Iraq. How does a war with Iraq fit into the war against terrorism?
Professor Gaddis: Well, the argument that the administration is making about Iraq behind the scenes -- because it seems to me, here you've got to read between the lines -- is basically this: that if, in fact, the United States can find the appropriate occasion for military intervention in Iraq and go in with United Nations' support and multilateral support -- perhaps, in the view of some people in the administration, even if the United States goes in without these things -- [it] is going to set off a reaction in Iraq very similar to what happened in Afghanistan.
And that is that we will be cheered and not shot at; that there is a sufficient level of resentment and fear and frustration with the Saddam Hussein regime that the Iraqi people are just waiting for somebody to come in and topple it.
That then creates the possibility for a reconstruction of Iraq, the administration is saying, along democratic lines. And I think they are serious in what they are saying. I think that they are thinking about the reconstruction along the lines of what we did with Germany and Japan at the end of World War II. How realistic that prospect is in that country is something else. But I think that they are serious in thinking like that.
I think they are further serious -- and again this is not going to be said in public -- [that] what they have in mind as a long-term strategy is actually a kind of domino theory in the Middle East; that if, in fact, you could get a functioning democracy in a place like Iraq, that truly would have an effect next door in Iran. That's perfectly plausible; it might well have an effect elsewhere in the Middle East.
And in my own view -- definitely not something the administration is saying for publication -- this is a strategy that's ultimately targeted at the Saudis and at the Egyptians and at the Pakistanis; these authoritarian regimes that, in fact, have been the biggest breeders of terrorism in recent years. Iraq has not been; Saudi Arabia actually was. And I think the administration is thinking over the long term about that problem, too. And properly so; they should be thinking about that.
Frontline: Why wouldn't they be able to talk about that in public?
Professor Gaddis: Well, you can't talk about this in public as long as you want the Saudis as your allies and as long as you want to use Saudi bases for the war against Iraq and as long as you are relying on Saudi oil. But, of course, if they can pull off Iraq, if they can accomplish this as successfully as many people in the administration think they can, then they have less need for Saudi bases and they have less need for Saudi oil. And so the two parts of it fit together.
*********
The thing is, Professor Gaddis has pointedly ignored America's history of not establishing real democracies when it has conquered other countries, specifically in Central America. The "democracies" we install usually come with a well-armed dictator who will look out for America's corporate interests in his country using force against the very people we "liberated" -- the ones who are supposed to be free to elect their own government. That's not democracy, and that's exactly why I'm opposed to this orchestrated world-wide gangbang, no matter how altruistic and palatable learned Professor Gaddis makes it sound.
posted on February 13, 2004 04:29:43 PM new
Is it just me or do others find the habit of bolding to be condescending? There are at least three posters that have done this in the past few days and I'm just curious why you think that readers are unable to get the point of an article without the benefit of having it pointed out in bold?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 13, 2004 04:53:17 PM new
Don't think it'smeant that way--they merely bold something to emphasize it.
BTW, over the past year or so I've been noticing that many conservatives seem to have a speech impediment. I've noticed it in conservative radio talk show hosts, posts by conservatives here & elsewhere, and listening to conservatives on the street. They can't speak correctly & this also affects their spelling. Words are bizarrely twisted.
Perhaps this impediment is caused by the pettiness, anger & downright hatred inside them distorting their mouths so much they have trouble speaking.
But on second thought, it is more likely a pathetic attempt at being insulting by unfortunates who mentally never left grade school.
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 13, 2004 05:13:40 PM new
Heck, Bunnicula, our own President says "NUKULER". I just figured most conservatives spell/construct sentences so poorly because they're idiots through-and-through...
posted on February 13, 2004 05:20:12 PM new
No, Bush is in a class of his own. It's not a speech impediment on his part. Nor childishness. The plain fact of the matter is that the man is an idiot. Literally as well as figuratively.
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 13, 2004 05:28:56 PM new
You're not going to get any argument from me on that.
Here at Vendio, I don't know what the conservatives would do without LindaK; even though she grows shrill at times, and espouses some of the most convoluted logic I've ever read, she's at least able to construct a sentence. The rest of them, egad. I almost prefer it when they vomit reams of articles they've lifted from the Internet; Lord knows anyone could state a neocon case better than Twelvepole...
posted on February 14, 2004 03:09:12 PM new
Speaking in a telephone interview with students and academics attending a Thomas College journalism class Thursday, former CBS news icon Walter Cronkite made the following remarks about the war in Iraq, comparing it to America's experience in Viet Nam:
"I see a very close parallel," he said. "I don't find any real substance in the argument that there's no parallel, which is what the administration would like. They don't want to have us believe that there is some kind of maelstrom. I'm not saying Iraq is hopeless, but at the present moment, we are facing an intensifying guerrilla war, and it is taking a great deal of our people and treasury."
KKKampers, when even the conservative Cronk is voicing doubts, it's time to rethink your support of this "grand strategy" we've undertaken in the Middle East...
posted on February 14, 2004 05:20:00 PM new
Hahaha, Bear, you really don't get around much, do you?
In just one example of his conservative, party-line stance, The Cronk scrambled after the HSCA declared that JFK had probably died as the result of a conspiracy to be the mouthpiece for an hour-long bilge program in which the (now totally debunked)Warren Commission findings were upheld.
But you go right ahead and think of him as anything but conservative if it eases your mind...
posted on February 14, 2004 05:41:11 PM new
bear....hope that gave you as good a laugh as I had. LOL Oh yes.....
Walter Cronkite Endorses World Government
Walter Cronkite, the longtime liberal anchorman for the CBS Evening News, has given a speech before the World Federalist Assocation in which he has openly called for the establishment of world government.
Cronkite's association with the World Federalists has been known for years, but in this speech he discloses that he was asked 50 years ago to be a Washington lobbyist for the group. "I chose instead to continue in the world of journalism," Cronkite said. "For many years, I did my best to report on the issues of the day in as objective a manner as possible. when I had my own strong opinions, as I often did, I tried not to communicate them to my audience."
That's a big laugh. His liberalism was especially apparent in his coverage of foreign policy issues, such as the Vietnam War and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Cronkite urged U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and his newscast was documented to have a pronounced bias against those who favored greater defense spending to contain the Soviets.
Claiming that his circumstances had changed, a reference to him leaving journalism, Cronkite went on to say that he was going to speak his mind. He told his audience that we must strengthen the United Nations "as a first step toward world government," with a police force able to "enforce its international laws and keep the peace." Cronkite called for the ratification of several U.N. treaties, including one that would create a criminal court to arrest and prosecute Americans. He urged revision of the veto in the Security Council, which is the only safeguard the U.S. has to prevent the main U.N. body was imposing economic sanctions or using foreign troops against America.
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton also delivered remarks to the group, hailing Cronkite for "inspiring all of us to build a more peaceful and just world." Hillary said that Cronkite's receipt of the World Federalist Association's Global Governance Award was well-deserved.
Several years ago the award was given to Clinton Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who, as a columnist for Time magazine, had written about a world in which nation-states would disappear and people would become world citizens. On that occasion, President Clinton sent a note to the gathering wishing them "future success."
Cronkite said we would achieve world government by giving up "some of our sovereignty." He said, "That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order." Cronkite called for the approximately 220 sovereignties in the world -- the 200 nations -- to be part of a "global village." He said he and others who favor world government are not "impractical dreamers."
That may be the case, but we are not prepared to believe that Cronkite kept his views in the closet during the entire time that he served as the anchorman of the CBS Evening News. He was always clearly on the liberal-left side of the political spectrum. We now wonder how many other world government advocates are working at the networks.
posted on February 14, 2004 05:46:41 PM new
Interesting question, Gravid -- really.
Consider the pedestals we place celebrities upon; notice how we worship them. They have fulfilled the role in America of kings and queens, far more than any president. For some reason, most people need idols -- in everything from religion to cereal boxes (Tony the Tiger, The Trix Rabbit, etc.) .
It's always weird when you're the one raising these points, because you'd've been that kid who said, "Hey, the emperor has no clothes!"
But I'd bet my bottom dollar that many people would welcome the seeming security that "Empire" (and its attendant, "Emperor" ) suggests.
How difficult do you think it would be to get the two-term limit off the books?
posted on February 14, 2004 05:59:33 PM new
Let's look at the "worst" president and mismanagement claims.
FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.
Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.
John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.
Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.
Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberate two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.
Worst president in history? Come on!
And Kerry, has stated he wants to turn complete control of the U.S. military to the U.N.
posted on February 14, 2004 06:09:53 PM new
Quote from Walter Chronkite:
Basically I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, but those who rabidly support those positions will be more often disappointed in my views than otherwise.
[i]I believe that most of us reporters are liberal, but not because we consciously have chosen that particular color in the political spectrum. More likely it is because most of us served our journalistic apprenticeships as reporters covering the seamier side of our cities - the crimes, the tenement fires, the homeless and the hungry, the underclothed and undereducated.
We reached our intellectual adulthood with daily close-ups of the inequality in a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. So we are inclined to side with the powerless rather than the powerful. If that is what makes us liberals so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism - that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased. That clearly doesn't apply when one deserts the front page for the editorial page and the columns to which opinion should be isolated.[/i]
posted on February 14, 2004 06:17:50 PM new
Forget about The Cronk for a minute, Papa Bear. (Really, you've dismissed him in your mind as a liberal and I've dismissed him in my mind as a hack, so it's a wash.)
But I'd really like to know if you, as a Vet, as someone who probably has had a great interest in reading about all facets of the Viet Nam War, truly believe this statement you just made:
"John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us."
posted on February 14, 2004 10:41:02 PM new
Well, Bear, it looks like you're not going to reply to my request so I'll go ahead and fill in the blanks you raised with that erroneous statement about JFK.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the encyclopedic volume written by William Blum (published in 1995) titled, "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II" ? Or President Eisenhower's determined interest (in the form of funding and military 'training' support) in Vietnam during his administrations? And his acceptance of the "Domino Theory" ? ( -Now oddly being promulgated in reverse by the Bush administration in the Middle East.) And the almost universally-held belief that if we (U.S.A.) didn't 'get in there first' the U.S.S.R. would overrun small countries such as Vietnam?
While Kennedy certainly escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam, he did not originate it, (we were there 'advising' the French in their war against the Vietnamese in the early 1950's, during Truman's presidency) and by the time Kennedy was undemocratically eliminated from the equation he'd already decided that the 'conflict' in Vietnam was unwinnable, and had signed executive orders to begin the withdrawal of our troops and get us completely out of there.
Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids didja kill today ( -the failure formerly known as President Johnson) you can fault all you like, just so long as you remember to include Tricky Dick I am not a crook 'Peace With Honor' ( -the charlatan formerly known as the only president ever to resign, Nixon) in your spanking...
posted on February 15, 2004 04:34:23 PM new
As I have stated before the RT doesn't consume my life as it does for some. But to answer you , read the following:
The Eisenhower years til 1960:
Advisory 1946-60
# US supported French in 1st Indochinese War 1946-54, the start of the "10,000 Day War"
# US aid to the French reached $1 billion by 1954, 80% of the cost of the war
# Ike refused military intervention, no Op. Vulture to relieve siege of Dienbienphu in 1954, captured by Vietminh May 8, 1954
# Ike and Dulles not satisfied with the 1954 Geneva Conference that divided the country at the 17th parallel with elections planned for 1956
# Ike included South Vietnam in SEATO Sept. 8, 1954
# Ike pledged US support in letter to Ngo Dinh Diem Oct. 1, 1954, and his Catholic Saigon government imposed on 6 million Buddhists
# Ho Chi Minh began the 2nd Indochinese War 1956-75 against Diem and the Americans
# Ike supported Diem's opposition to elections, reunification, infiltration of communists from North Vietnam to assist southern National Liberation Front (NLF f. 1960)
Kennedy in 1961 sought partnership with Diem, increased US advisors to 16,000, developed methods of a flexible response using counterinsurgency and defoliation and strategic hamlets
JFK & Vietnam
1961
* Ngo Dinh Diem anti-communist, pro-U.S. in south; Ho Chi Minh pro-USSR in north - map 1954
* National Liberation Front organized in south Dec. 20, 1960, by anti-Diem groups
* infiltration from north began 1961, communist People's Revolutionary Party gained leadership of NLF by 1962
* JFK sought "limited partnership" with Diem, flexible response, counterinsurgency, nation-building, reform without revolution
* CIA recruited Meo (Hmong) tribesmen in Laos, Montagnards in Central Highlands to fight Pathet Lao and Viet Minh
* Maxwell Taylor and Green Berets May 1961 - article by Joseph Kraft - uniforms and training and languages
* Operation Ranch Hand Nov. 1961 - 18m gals herbicides (2/3 was agnt Orange) on 8% land area by 1971
1962
* MAAG (Truman's Military Advisory and Assistance Group) replaced by MACV (Military Assistnce Command, Vietnam) Feb. 12, 1962, under Gen. Paul Harkins and Project Beef-Up - 11300 advisors sent during 1962, with 300 aircraft, automatic rifles, napalm, penicillim - 16000 advisors by Nov. 1963
* Operation Sunrise - strategic hamlet program - 6800 built by Nov. 1963
* Texas group awarded $2b to construct bases at Saigon, Danang, Cam Ranh Bay, Qui Nonh
1963
* Battle of Ap Bac Jan. 2, 1963 in Mekong Delta - map - 350 VC attacked by 2 ARVN battalions with 5 new HU-1 Iroquois helicopters, but ARVN reluctant to fight, all helicopters shot down, 3 U.S. pilots killed - Lt. Col. John Vann led 13 M113 armored personnel carriers into vilage after ARVN refused to advance - battle revealed weakness of popular support for the Diem Catholic urban mercantile elite government that had abolished the village electoral system in 1956, failed to implement land reform, followed anti-Buddhist repression
* JFK State of Union speech Jan. 14 declared that "aggression blunted in Vietnam"
* JCS sent investigation team Jan. 18 - Joe Mendenhall said VC getting stronger
* infiltration from NV grew from 850 per month to 1700 per month, with new Russian heavy weapons imported by fishing boats - 81mm mortars with 2-mile range, 75mm recoiless rifle - launched major offensive in Delta that destroyed strategic hamlets and captured 200,000 U.S. weapons by Nov.
* Buddhist riots May 8 led by Tri Quang - Diem's troops fired into Buddhist crowd and killed 8 - immolation suicide of Quang Duc June 11
* Diem assault on Buddhist pagodas Aug. 20 - martial law - 1400 arrested
* JFK feared that the U.S. would "lose" Vietnam like Truman lost China in '49 - replaced Nolting with new ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in Aug. - Rusk cable to Lodge Aug. 24 to encourage SV generals planning coup to overthrow Diem - JFK approved on Oct 5 the selective suspension of aid to Diem - Rusk cable to Lodge Oct. 6 "while we do not wish to stimulate a coup," the U.S. would support a more popular government - Diem assassinated Nov. 2
* JFK approved on Nov 20 McNamara's Plan 34A, covert operations in NV including commando raids, kidnapping, mercenaries, parachute sabotage teams, U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering DeSoto patrols
* JFK killed in Dallas Nov. 22
posted on February 15, 2004 04:44:18 PM new
"So apparently during Kennedys administration US military forces were greatly increased."
As I acknowledged in my post, Bear. And an important fact to remember (or learn) is that Kennedy perceived the miasma Vietnam would become (already had become) and signed executive orders just a few days before his assassination to begin troop withdrawals.
By the way, our financial expenditures in Vietnam, as of 1954, amounted to some 2.4 billion dollars...
