2008-05-04
End Game Tactics
I'd like to comment on two comments from the last comment section. Another case of the left-wing unable to see the forest for the trees, while to the right-wing the forest is so damn obvious they wonder if the left are faking an inability to see.
Represent the left, we have Proff, with "should we bring the whole world to civilised thought even if by doing so we loose our own sense of humanity in the process? Becasue to me it's seems like you're already half way there".
From the right, we have Batman, with "Al Qaeda and Sadr have been a major hurdle for getting Iraqi democracy off the ground, but their limited reigns of terror have been a tremendous boost in the longer term ideological war between democratic self-rule and Islamic clerical rule, in Iraq and throughout the entire ME. I have read a number of reports about growing numbers rejecting Islam altogether as a result of their shame of self-proclaimed religious leaders."
Actually, admittedly these plays are too subtle for most on the right-wing too. Many/most on the right were extremely upset about withdrawals from Fallujah and Najaf not being able to see past the "bomb them all". And when the numbskull Iraqis voted for religious dictatorship, I'm not sure they have a plan for that. They going to bomb a democracy? Who in the democracy? Everyone? That's actually the biggest threat the US faces - what to do about a hostile democracy. You have to impose a government on the people (bit like imposing a government on Nazi Germany), and I have seen very few Americans proposing that that should be done if required.
Basically, it's all a case of not being able to think very far ahead.
The end-game is a world where every country in the world is a clone of Taiwan (as Finland, US etc already are (or are close to, anyway - I consider Taiwan to be number 1 - the crime rate keeps the other countries down)). The only thing that changes is the skin colour(s), language and total population of the various countries.
If you dispute this end-goal, and would prefer instead to see sadistic dictators like Saddam abusing people so that you can satisfy your bondage fantasies (at other people's expense), then we have nothing to debate. We will meet on the battlefield (both of us via our respective proxies no doubt - the US military is my main proxy, so you're going to lose so long as we can get the battle initiated with the current respective OOBs).
Now we need to get from here (half the world with sadistic dictators) to there (Taiwan writ large). There are a number of paths to get from here to there. One of those paths would take about 10 minutes (nuke all dictators off the planet, and allow dictators with nukes to nuke a good portion of the free world in the process - but in the end, whoever survived would be living under more-or-less identical laws to Taiwan.
Another one of those paths could take 1000 years. Maybe after 30 generations of a dictator's family, they'll end up with someone like Gorbachev who frees the country.
Alternatively, the dictators may end up finding a way to reverse their fortunes and the end state would be permanent dictatorship, and that whole democracy thing will be seen as an abberation in world history (much like the last time it was tried).
So which of these paths do we take? The 1000 year one, with no guarantees, requires the least effort from us. We simply do nothing and "pray to God to sort it out" (nevermind when God does try to sort it out, you end up opposing him, so in reality you don't want it sorted out at all).
To me the answer has always been obvious - you take the LEAST WORST OPTION. You consider the worldwide cost of dictatorship (thinking about Uday raping women and the victim not being able to ring the police), plus all those mass grave things. You think about the cost of war (limbs being blown off - but at least not deliberately), and you weigh all these things up and make a stab at the best solution. It is totally impossible to guarantee that you've found the best path, as there are so many errors on the way. How much is institutionalized rape worth? How much is a limb worth? In some cases, such as Iraq, it's pretty easy, as Saddam was already murdering people, so even the accidental deaths from war would be offset by his deliberate murders. But in some cases, like China, the state isn't actually murdering anyone, and the cost of war is extremely high. And this is only one set of errors. We have an additional problem that we can't rerun history to find out the cost of an alernate path.
An anti-war person once asked what would have to happen for me to declare Iraq a mistake. There is such a circumstance. If Iraq prevents Iran from being toppled, and we end up with a Democrat who allows Iran to develop nukes, and half the free world disappears, then Iraq would be a mistake. We should have done Iraq after Iran.
Now back to the lefty confused by trees. Apparently by choosing the least-worst option to spread Taiwan's ideology (equal rights for women, freedom of speech, rape not allowed, tongue-chopping not allowed etc etc) across the globe, I am apparently half way to losing my humanity. Quite frankly I'd be half way to losing my humanity by doing anything OTHER than choosing the least-worst option! That is what these anti-war types fail to understand. That by choosing something other than the least-worst option, ie by choosing a path that ensures that Saddam gets to chop out tongues for longer, as seen on the video on my blog, THEY have lost their humanity. So long as it is other people's tongues being cut out, there's no sense of urgency.
Also, this extends to tactics. If we have to allow a dictator like Suharto to overrun East Timor during the Cold War, or we have to send weapons to Stalin during WWII, SO BE IT! We can't solve every problem at the same time. We have no way of rerunning history to find out if the sacrifice of East Timor was necessary or not. All we know is that we did prevail in the end. Even if we could rerun history and prove definitively that East Timor didn't matter, that still doesn't prove that we were at fault. Because the decision that was made at the time was made without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. War is a difficult environment. And no decision is made with perfect information. Even "scientific facts" which are infinitely observable, such as the fact that the sun goes around the earth (look up in the sky if you don't believe me), can turn out to be wrong. What we do know is that then, as now, we are making decisions with good intentions, with imperfect information, and we are succeeding a hell of a lot of the time. The good guys have been winning most wars for centuries now. And that is great. Iraq is the latest feather in the cap. Well done people of the free world. Keep up the good work, and use whatever tactics are required to win the war. And also be willing to use the same tactics as the enemy, if that is what is required to win. Because losing is very very unlikely to be the least worst option.
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Represent the left, we have Proff, with "should we bring the whole world to civilised thought even if by doing so we loose our own sense of humanity in the process? Becasue to me it's seems like you're already half way there".
From the right, we have Batman, with "Al Qaeda and Sadr have been a major hurdle for getting Iraqi democracy off the ground, but their limited reigns of terror have been a tremendous boost in the longer term ideological war between democratic self-rule and Islamic clerical rule, in Iraq and throughout the entire ME. I have read a number of reports about growing numbers rejecting Islam altogether as a result of their shame of self-proclaimed religious leaders."
Actually, admittedly these plays are too subtle for most on the right-wing too. Many/most on the right were extremely upset about withdrawals from Fallujah and Najaf not being able to see past the "bomb them all". And when the numbskull Iraqis voted for religious dictatorship, I'm not sure they have a plan for that. They going to bomb a democracy? Who in the democracy? Everyone? That's actually the biggest threat the US faces - what to do about a hostile democracy. You have to impose a government on the people (bit like imposing a government on Nazi Germany), and I have seen very few Americans proposing that that should be done if required.
Basically, it's all a case of not being able to think very far ahead.
The end-game is a world where every country in the world is a clone of Taiwan (as Finland, US etc already are (or are close to, anyway - I consider Taiwan to be number 1 - the crime rate keeps the other countries down)). The only thing that changes is the skin colour(s), language and total population of the various countries.
If you dispute this end-goal, and would prefer instead to see sadistic dictators like Saddam abusing people so that you can satisfy your bondage fantasies (at other people's expense), then we have nothing to debate. We will meet on the battlefield (both of us via our respective proxies no doubt - the US military is my main proxy, so you're going to lose so long as we can get the battle initiated with the current respective OOBs).
Now we need to get from here (half the world with sadistic dictators) to there (Taiwan writ large). There are a number of paths to get from here to there. One of those paths would take about 10 minutes (nuke all dictators off the planet, and allow dictators with nukes to nuke a good portion of the free world in the process - but in the end, whoever survived would be living under more-or-less identical laws to Taiwan.
Another one of those paths could take 1000 years. Maybe after 30 generations of a dictator's family, they'll end up with someone like Gorbachev who frees the country.
Alternatively, the dictators may end up finding a way to reverse their fortunes and the end state would be permanent dictatorship, and that whole democracy thing will be seen as an abberation in world history (much like the last time it was tried).
So which of these paths do we take? The 1000 year one, with no guarantees, requires the least effort from us. We simply do nothing and "pray to God to sort it out" (nevermind when God does try to sort it out, you end up opposing him, so in reality you don't want it sorted out at all).
To me the answer has always been obvious - you take the LEAST WORST OPTION. You consider the worldwide cost of dictatorship (thinking about Uday raping women and the victim not being able to ring the police), plus all those mass grave things. You think about the cost of war (limbs being blown off - but at least not deliberately), and you weigh all these things up and make a stab at the best solution. It is totally impossible to guarantee that you've found the best path, as there are so many errors on the way. How much is institutionalized rape worth? How much is a limb worth? In some cases, such as Iraq, it's pretty easy, as Saddam was already murdering people, so even the accidental deaths from war would be offset by his deliberate murders. But in some cases, like China, the state isn't actually murdering anyone, and the cost of war is extremely high. And this is only one set of errors. We have an additional problem that we can't rerun history to find out the cost of an alernate path.
An anti-war person once asked what would have to happen for me to declare Iraq a mistake. There is such a circumstance. If Iraq prevents Iran from being toppled, and we end up with a Democrat who allows Iran to develop nukes, and half the free world disappears, then Iraq would be a mistake. We should have done Iraq after Iran.
Now back to the lefty confused by trees. Apparently by choosing the least-worst option to spread Taiwan's ideology (equal rights for women, freedom of speech, rape not allowed, tongue-chopping not allowed etc etc) across the globe, I am apparently half way to losing my humanity. Quite frankly I'd be half way to losing my humanity by doing anything OTHER than choosing the least-worst option! That is what these anti-war types fail to understand. That by choosing something other than the least-worst option, ie by choosing a path that ensures that Saddam gets to chop out tongues for longer, as seen on the video on my blog, THEY have lost their humanity. So long as it is other people's tongues being cut out, there's no sense of urgency.
Also, this extends to tactics. If we have to allow a dictator like Suharto to overrun East Timor during the Cold War, or we have to send weapons to Stalin during WWII, SO BE IT! We can't solve every problem at the same time. We have no way of rerunning history to find out if the sacrifice of East Timor was necessary or not. All we know is that we did prevail in the end. Even if we could rerun history and prove definitively that East Timor didn't matter, that still doesn't prove that we were at fault. Because the decision that was made at the time was made without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. War is a difficult environment. And no decision is made with perfect information. Even "scientific facts" which are infinitely observable, such as the fact that the sun goes around the earth (look up in the sky if you don't believe me), can turn out to be wrong. What we do know is that then, as now, we are making decisions with good intentions, with imperfect information, and we are succeeding a hell of a lot of the time. The good guys have been winning most wars for centuries now. And that is great. Iraq is the latest feather in the cap. Well done people of the free world. Keep up the good work, and use whatever tactics are required to win the war. And also be willing to use the same tactics as the enemy, if that is what is required to win. Because losing is very very unlikely to be the least worst option.
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 14:24 
