Sad but True

[room5047]

bunk22 - thanks for an intelligent reply to my queries, sir. i can see your points, but it's dangerous "slippery slope" thinking. firstly, if every "thorn in our side" were treated as a clear and present threat to our domestic security, then it'd be my country against the world. except, as i said, korea, china, and the ussr, against whom we always employed diplomatic or covert means of coercion and never had to resort to violence, even though the threat (like saddam's) was always presumed to be imminent. so who decides which threats are the biggest, most actionable ones? apparently consulting with the UN isn't part of the process, nor is consulting with the US public in any great measure. men in back rooms, admittedly many paygrades above me and hopefully with much fresher intel, are making the decisions. Perhaps they're right, but we should all be a little skeptical in a democracy.

Secondly, our policy of pre-emption, which strikes much of the rest of the world as neo-colonialism and a ploy for US domination, may in fact create a lot more thorns in our side than now exist. The fact that we are now charged with waging a "terror war" with no obvious victory objective - just TRY putting it in a five paragraph warning order - means that our natural drive to "win" at all costs will make enemies out of people who were ambivalent toward and ignorant of us in the first place. it's called "threat construction", and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. when you tell everybody to either be "for you" or "against you", don't be surprised when otherwise reasonable states and peoples end up choosing the latter.

the fact is, yes, there are a good number of people who desire our annihilation out there, and yes, there's only one way to deal with them. saddam hussein, who really just seemed to love ruling over his little fiefdom with an iron fist, and probably was already quaking in his boots on the evening of 11 september, did not even register on the radar screen before that day. there seemd to be - then and now - more readily identifiable (and PROVABLE) threats to the lives of our families, and i don't feel that we as citizens, and as servicepeople asked to sacrifice, have been sufficiently briefed as to how our current national security apparatus prioritizes. my personal opinion is that ideology seems to precede analysis at the top levels, and the appearance of that possibility concerns me greatly. all i'd like is for that to be disproven.

or else we should go ahead and blast every perceived "threat" without illusions. perhaps it could be the beginning of a beautiful 1,000 year American Reich.

show me your WAARRRR face!

 

[spsiratt]

First off, bunk22... bless ya. I've flown both OSW and ONW and we finally did what we should have done years ago.

room, you don't really believe that national level decision makers are sending our men and women into combat at the protest of practically the rest of the world based solely on the possibility that Iraq might have, at some point, been a threat? Do you? I'm asking sincerely because that is an absurd assumption. The government holds vast amounts of intelligence from the American public for many reasons. I really wish I could get into some of those reasons with you so perhaps you could understand. However, all I can really say to you is put a little more faith in our government. Believe it or not, they're not just a bunch of half-wits sitting around a table trying to decide who we should bomb next. Facts are, they have the whole picture, you don't. Somewhere along the line people got the idea that we should all know everything the government knows or that the government has some explaining to do. Though the people may not like it, good decisions are being made. A little more public support for those decisions by our own people woule probably counter some of that bad image that some of the world opinion has of us. Maybe we wouldn't look like such tools sometimes.

I ask you this... just how "imminent" does a threat have to be before we should take action? Should it be when we know WMD's have been obtained? Perhaps when mass production starts? Should we wait until they've brought one into our country? I suppose as long as they don't detonate it everything will be just fine. We don't act on guesses. CNN says our president lied, so our president must be a liar. Right? Rubbish.

Oh, and I can assure you that Saddam "registered on the radar screen" long before 9/11. This did not suddenly happen because of the tragedy. I'm still confused as to why WMD are the focus now anyway. Maybe we should have just invaded to stop the slaughter of innocents. Then again, what's 80,000 kurds and 300,000 shi'ites? Genocide isn't a good enough reason for military action anymore? Hitler may have fared much better were that the case 60 years ago. And don't even ask why we didn't get involved in Algeria and Rwanda and others on the genocide token. That's a whole other discussion. My point is, WMD are not the only reason this whole thing happened. It is a big one, but not the only one. The media has made it the sole reason for the invasion and that's the public's main intelligence source. More often than not, the news is filled with stories of how our government screwed something up again. Don't believe everything you read, that what got us here in the first place.

 

[room5047]

spsiratt-

you're focusing too closely on some aspects of the issue at the expense of others, just as you might accuse me of doing. first, refer to my earlier posts. don't tell us we should have intervened in iraq because saddam was a genocidal maniac. that he was. and he was that back when we were enlisting his help for covert action against iran. if humanitarian intervention really WERE that important to us, we wouldn't have been yanked out of beirut, bosnia, somalia, haiti, etc. and we wouldn't have stayed out of rwanda, liberia, aw hell all of africa, etc. to say nothing of the fact that we never came to real loggerheads with stalin, pol pot, or any of the real baddies since hitler. to say nothing MORE of the bloody tyrants we've counted as friends over the years (look at the gulf region or indonesia, to name but a few). fact is, members of both political parties rool out this "humanitarian intervention" paradigm when it's convenient, and stomp on it when it's not. let's not forget that most of the senators who bankrolled intervention in iraq were first in line to pull the Marines and rangers out of mogadishu, to leave the balkans crumbling, and to ignore every instance of genocide on the "dark continent" through the 90's. so don't tell me we had to go to iraq to save foreign lives, that's a bunch of revisionist whitewash. if it is true, then let's put our money where our mouth is and be the policeman that the world wants us to be. see how long that lasts before the american public poo-poos it.

and the media did not make WMD's the case for going to war. the administration DID: before the UN, when pressing for action because iraq violated HR 1441, before the Congress, in that state of the union address, and on sunday morning talk shows. secretary wolfowitz even admitted in an interview that the administration had other reasons for going to iraq, but utilized the WMD charges because they were perceived as being most broadly appealing (no doubt, given the general air of paranoia and insecurity since 9/11).

and yes, defining "clear and present" or "imminent" danger is an art, not as science - which is PRECISELY why oversight and consensus is needed. even the congressional intel committees, who are a part of the decisionmaking process (at least in an advisory/oversight capacity) feel like there's been an end-around on this one.

do we have to wait until wmd's are produced.. hmm... well, if we do, then why in hell aren't we invading north korea, pakistan, iran, and all the rest? and if we DON'T, why stop at iraq? clearly, the only way to be sure that a nation doesn't pose a clear threat is to invade and install a benevolent government. hey, it worked for hitler and stalin. let's do it! we can call this program "lebensraum."

as for us not acting on guesses... no, our leaders have, on occasion, acted on worse than guesses: they've acted on ideological assumptions about "evil empires" in the ignorance of intelligence to the contrary. how about tonkin gulf, operation phoenix, operation chaos, iran-contra, et cetera ad absurdum. i suggest you read woodward's "veil", timburg's "the nightingale's song", or any of loch johnson's books on the US intel community, particularly "secret agencies".

not that i would presume to know more about the workings of us intel better than you, as you so brusquely intimated. clearly it's your job (tho it'll be mine soon enough too), but my concern isn't what you know - it's what you believe. governments are made up of people, not of procedures alone. even if our information is 100% good, we are fallible in how we use it - or don't use it. a government administration that does not admit this possibility will always arouse greater suspicion in me. and this administration, as i say, is not even trying to get beyond the rhetoric of "trust us".

bottom line? if i'm called, and this administration says "go", i'll go. plain and simple. but don't tell the american citizenry that they can't ask some questions and still be patriotic. it IS important that we put up a unified front to the rest of the world, but i think you're confused. we're not supposed to all agree to the same policies; we're supposed to agree to equality and justice under the laws. disagreement is part of the process.

show me your WAARRRR face!

 

[spsiratt]

room, you make some very good points and you've earned some respect from me as a true thinker. I used to think very much like you and really adjusted my opinions in the past several years while working in the intel community. I would not suggest that you would agree with me after you've been in the business for a while, but I will propose that much of your ideology will change. In fact most of it. Seeing things from a different angle than the general public can really make you appreciate how and why some decisions are made. Your questioning attitude is great and in all honesty, I think it would make you a pretty good intel officer. Just be careful where those questions are directed, keep them in context, and try to understand that many questions you will never get an answer to even though the answer is out there.

Best of luck to you.

 

[bunk22]

Room,

Let me explain "thorn in our side." In 1991, the US and its allies defeated the military forces of Iraq. With that defeat, they agreed to follow certain resolutions. For the last 12 years, the US has been a dominant force in the region to enforce those resolutions. Thus we have been in constant conflict with Iraq since 91. They were not just a blip on the map prior to 9/11. Bombing campaigns, air-to-air engagements, as well as air-to-ground enagements happened on many occasions. On my 99 WESTPAC, AIRWING 2 engaged in a sustained 3 day bombing campaing against several Iraqi military sites. There was even an F-14 vs Mig-23 engagement (the Mig outran the missile). So regardless of N. Korea, China, etc, we were already engaged in hostilities against a leader who simply thumbed his nose at our forces. Sure, we could have left, leaving the local area to deal with Iraq. Yet, they signed an agreement to follow certain rules at the end of hostilities in the Gulf War. To the victor goes the spoils. If 9/11 had never happened, perhaps OSW and ONW would still be ongoing, I don't know. The administration had to rethink its position and take a stand on the Iraqi situtation. Don't think for a moment if North Korea were to start firing on our aircraft or engage us on the ground, that our forces will not respond and perhaps in a rather devasting way. Ever been to the border is Seoul? I have. Our forces and the forces of S. Korea are ready to rock at a moments notice.

I'm also part of the America first crowd. I understand how we are often viewed in the world, I've been to many countries during my adventures in the Navy. However, after 9/11, I truly believe in the with us or agianst us slogan. The war against terror will and has been a very chaotic type of warfare. Victory will be tough to measure in the end, I agree. However, as bad as it seems, an American soldier fighting abroad against terrorist and their supporters hopefully keeps the terrorist away from US soil and doing any harm to our homeland.

As far as not trusting the government 100% is probably a good idea though there is flip side to that coin. Distrusting the government 100% is a bad idea as well. I try to put some faith in the decision makers and leaders of this nation when it comes to international policy and protecting the country. I'm for one not a believer in the UN. It's made of many third world nations with not so nice intentions towards the US. Who's supposed to make the right decisions for our country? The UN or the United States government? IMHO, we must look out for number one, the good ol US of A.



VAW-120 FRS Flight Instructor

 

[FrogFly]

Hey Bunk, I was on that deployment in '99 too! Man, I thought we were at war, considering all the ordnance that was in the hangar bay on a daily basis. I didn't get to see what all the air crew did, but I remember the mig engagement and all those days they shut down the email because you were out blowing stuff up! Those were the days. Sorry gentlemen, I just had to break the political monotony for a moment. "So sorry to interrupt, PROCEED..."

 

[bunk22]

Originally posted by FrogFly
Hey Bunk, I was on that deployment in '99 too! Man, I thought we were at war, considering all the ordnance that was in the hangar bay on a daily basis. I didn't get to see what all the air crew did, but I remember the mig engagement and all those days they shut down the email because you were out blowing stuff up! Those were the days. Sorry gentlemen, I just had to break the political monotony for a moment. "So sorry to interrupt, PROCEED..."

Sweet. What was you job on the ship/airwing? I was one of the VRC-30 Det pilots so unfortunetly, I didn't get to blow up anything

VAW-120 FRS Flight Instructor

 

[FrogFly]

I was ship's company, working in AIMD. I did all the avionics work (65B), but we didn't get much from VRC-30. VS-38 kept us plenty busy, though so I'm glad ya'll gave us a break. Thanks for all the parts I needed and for delivering all those packages from home. I appreciated that! Ya'll also gave me a ride one time when I came off leave during work-ups. Man, I kinda miss those days. Thanks for the reminder, bro. Maybe I'll bump into ya when I get back to the fleet next year.

 

[room5047]

spsiratt, thanks for the kind words. i'm absolutely certain my perspective will change from the inside -- and don't worry, i'll take care to know when and where to ask the right questions.

congrats on your snfo billet, btw! do you have a report date yet? maybe we'll pass each other in p'cola.

show me your WAARRRR face!