The Decline in America's Reputation: Why?

[Ken White]

Agree with your first two paragraphs.

...
3. The Pearl Harbor attack was based upon the mistaken assumption that the US lacked the will to fight in response.* I doubt anyone would make a similar mistake any time soon.

That may be correct but I would suggest that based on history we not bet the farm on it.

And to preempt the inevitable question, no, I don't think that Al Qaeda believed the attack would make US pack up and leave the Middle East. In fact, if I were forced to guess at what they wanted to happen, I would say they wanted the US to lash out, because eventually this would cause the sympathetic tide to turn against the US.

Agree -- but think they expected the target to be solely Afghanistan and they were prepared for that. They also thought, I believe, that an attack by us in Afghanistan would offer all the advantages you cite plus the added advantage of not disrupting the ME as the 'Stan is not in or of the ME. Our attack in Iraq caught them off balance (they recovered rapidly, they're far more agile than big bureaucratic behemoth us) but not as far off balance as it might have had not Bush delayed (IMO at Blair's request) to go back to the UN.

They knew full well the terms of American operational doctrine -- collateral damage would become a problem. They further could probably have deduced that the US would have a hard time adapting to insurgent warfare, with a fair amount of pain to civilians occurring during the lag time -- it would have required that they read one or two books on the Vietnam War.

Possibly. I suspect they realized that our ability to go heavy in Afghanistan was limited and therefor trounceable. Note that in Iraq, they (AQ et.al.) had almost as much trouble and took almost as much time getting militarily organized as we did. Saddams loyalists and the local crimianl gangs were better prepapred but were not a part of "them" (AQ et.al.). The different approach than they expected also took a toll on them in Afghanistan and I suggest that it took them longer to get organized there than it took us. As I said, they are more agile and flexible than us; therefor I think their slowness in adaptation in both theaters is a sign of some weakness. Saddam's folks just got worn down and were running low on money.

A lesson we ought to have considered prior to OIF: don't go to war based on the best case scenario of your initiating actions. And don't forget the corrollary: no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

We draw far different conclusions from the same data. One should not go to war based on any preconception of what may occur; such a decision should be based solely on a need to go to war. We did have a need -- induced by the failure of four prior Presidents to properly respond to 22 years of provocations from the ME (NOT Afghanistan, the ME, a critical distinction) -- and we went. The hopes of some politicians are broadly and certainly militarily irrelevant IMO.

The old saw that no plan survives first contact with the enemy is incorrect. It should be "Only a good plan will survive the first contact." Because that is true; the other is not.

There's also my favorite, which hasn't quite made it to aphorism: in the modern era, the side that initiates military action hasn't fared well. ("Don't cross the line of departure first," would be its pithy iteration.)

Given the fact that the initiating North got a draw out of Korea; the other initiating North effectively got a default win out of Viet Nam and that we got nominal wins after initiating the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama incursions, I'm not sure that's correct. I'd also posit a point and then ask a question re: Afghanistan and Iraq. Point; We haven't had the proverbial cake walk but it seems we're some distance from not faring well in either place.

The question; In both current cases, who crossed the LD first?

[Ken White]

check this (LINK) and remind me again why the UN deserves respect...

[J Wolfsberger]

check this (LINK) and remind me again why the UN deserves respect...

They're still POed at the US because we cut off the bribes from Saddam.

If the UN Human Rights Council had an ounce of integrity, it would recommend disbanding itself because of its threat to human rights.

[Sargent]

Ken White wrote: Possibly. I suspect they realized that our ability to go heavy in Afghanistan was limited and therefor trounceable. Note that in Iraq, they (AQ et.al.) had almost as much trouble and took almost as much time getting militarily organized as we did. Saddams loyalists and the local crimianl gangs were better prepapred but were not a part of "them" (AQ et.al.). The different approach than they expected also took a toll on them in Afghanistan and I suggest that it took them longer to get organized there than it took us. As I said, they are more agile and flexible than us; therefor I think their slowness in adaptation in both theaters is a sign of some weakness. Saddam's folks just got worn down and were running low on money.

If you want to hear my most cynical side, I would say that they were blindsided by Iraq because they could not possibly imagine the US would lob them such a gimme. I've never prayed so much in my life as I did between October 2002 and March 2003 that we would not go into Iraq. I firmly believed that it would not work out so well as we hoped it would. I remember being mocked in April, May, and even June of that year, because it seemed to be going so splendidly. But I am firm believer that Humpty Dumpty originated as a true story, a bit of military history taught to children as a nursery rhyme, and I just knew that once broken, Iraq would pose nearly insurmountable problems in its reconstruction. And these would be especially difficult problems unlike those posed by Germany and Japan, because we would not have the mandate to do as we wished as the victorious can over the bad guy aggressors. But if you really look closely at the post-war history of those two countries, at the end of the day we gave them most of what they needed and had clumsily sought in war.

I wish I had been wrong. But unfortunately I don't think I was. And I do not fear to say that the Iraq intervention was the worst mistake of American foreign policy.

There, I've bared the depths of my historian's soul.

Regards,
Jill

[Sargent]

Ken White wrote: check this (LINK) and remind me again why the UN deserves respect...

Because it's a noble idea. Furthermore, it's a noble idea that we promulgated. If it has gone awry, then we should treat it as one might his child who has lost his way.

Furthermore, even if the UN has lost its way, even if we don't think that it serves the purposes for which it was established, even if it does not serve our needs, even if it is beyond the redemption we think necessary, what we ought to recognize that the weak and many states of this globe find it valuable, and if only for that we ought to respect and support it.

Regards,
Jill

[Stevely]

Because it's a noble idea. Furthermore, it's a noble idea that we promulgated. If it has gone awry, then we should treat it as one might his child who has lost his way.

How would that work, exactly? I am not sure if that is a helpful way of thinking of the problem.

[Sargent]

Stevely wrote: How would that work, exactly? I am not sure if that is a helpful way of thinking of the problem.

It's a philosophical answer to Ken's question. If you have a child, and that child goes off the rails, do you stop loving that child? You may realize and acknowledge the errors, but you don't stop loving the child, you don't renounce him, you don't abandon him. The UN was our idea, we brought it into this world, we believed it in it, and we worked very hard to get the other states of the world to believe in it as well. It would be petty to forsake it because it hasn't become exactly what we want. If we believe it has gone wrong, then we must work to reform it. But again, even if we can't, go back and read my second paragraph - for the pragmatic reason that the small and weak states of the world believe in it it is valuable.

Regards,
Jill

[Uboat509]

I get so tired of hearing about how we should respect the UN. As far as I am concerned we have already shown more repect than the UN has earned.

Furthermore, even if the UN has lost its way, even if we don't think that it serves the purposes for which it was established, even if it does not serve our needs, even if it is beyond the redemption we think necessary, what we ought to recognize that the weak and many states of this globe find it valuable, and if only for that we ought to respect and support it.

Certainly the UN has done some fine charitable work around the world but so do Doctors without Borders and UNICEF and while I certainly appreciate the work that these organizations do I wouldn't consider subordinating US foreign policy to them. That is precisely what we are being asked to do by getting UN approval for our actions. Pardon me if I can't get behind the idea of France, China and Russia getting a vote in our foreign policy. Maybe it's the cynic in me but I just don't feel like they have our best interests at heart.

SFC W

[Ken White]

If you want to hear my most cynical side, I would say that they were blindsided by Iraq because they could not possibly imagine the US would lob them such a gimme.

That too is possible but I'm not at all sure they now look at it as a gimme. I have little doubt they'd say they do but I suspect the reality is they're still nonplussed by the Iraq incursion. They ran it out and they aren't gone but their prognosis isn't good.

I've never prayed so much in my life as I did between October 2002 and March 2003 that we would not go into Iraq.

Not being a praying type, I was merely incensed that it was being done so clumsily. I agreed with a need to do something in the ME; Iraq made strategic sense but the fumbling in the doing was apparent. He should have said nothing about Iraq, waited until his second term and gotten a better handle on things. My guess is that he feared if he did not get a second term, he was afraid his successor might not do something he thought needed doing. In any event, I wouldn't have done it the way it was done but I do believe it or something very near it was both necessary and overdue.

I firmly believed that it would not work out so well as we hoped it would.

Me too, at least as it was being touted -- I gave it a 60:40 shot at success, decided Bush was a risk taker (he's also a an inveterate smart ass and since I'm both those things, I'm a little more receptive to him than many -- even though I disagree with much he's done) and figured it'd take three or four years. After Bremer fired the Iraqi Army and Police, I upped that to five years. 2008. I also think we're up to a 70:30 shot or thereabouts. We'll see...

I just knew that once broken, Iraq would pose nearly insurmountable problems in its reconstruction. And these would be especially difficult problems unlike those posed by Germany and Japan, because we would not have the mandate to do as we wished as the victorious can over the bad guy aggressors. But if you really look closely at the post-war history of those two countries, at the end of the day we gave them most of what they needed and had clumsily sought in war.

I'm not sure one can compare the post war WW II / Iraq situations in any meaningful way for many reasons; not least that Iraq does not feel beaten; that gives a different mind set as you noted. That and the religion angle plus the interplay of other States in the Region mean a very different environment. Add in todays mass and instant communication capabilities and parallels are difficult to discern. Of course, you did not compare them, noting the difference but to even use them as a corollary or a starting point is, I think, perhaps a bit misleading to one's own thought processes.

I also think our (well, some -- not you or I, obviously and among others) initial idea of 'victory' and a democratic highly secular Iraq have run into the wall of reality. No 'victory' in insurgencies, an acceptable outcome is all that's possible (and I hope we relearned that). Still, we could leave today and most of our strategic aims will have been achieved; it'd give the opponents a propaganda scream but the myth of "America won't fight, they'll leave when it gets tough" has been sort of put to bed -- that is totally unimportant to western thought; it is extremely important in the minds of those in the ME. Very different thought processes.

I wish I had been wrong. But unfortunately I don't think I was.

Too soon to tell but I see the half full side...

And I do not fear to say that the Iraq intervention was the worst mistake of American foreign policy.

On that, I disagree; there were many blunders in the process but the strategic issue, a response to and continuing presence in the ME, was going to be necessary at one time or another. It would have been easier in 1991; not easy, just easier. It was easier in 2003 than it will be later -- and if we leave too soon and too completely or on the wrong terms; we'll be back within ten years or so and it will be harder...

There, I've bared the depths of my historian's soul.

And made sense doing it. Thank you for the good response. I understand where you're coming from, we may disagree on some issues and I'm very much aware there are probably more people who agree with thee than with me but we're all products of where we've been and age makes a difference.

My defining moment was Pearl Harbor; my wife's was the Kennedy assassination, my second son's Desert Storm (or maybe OEF/OIF, he just says the ME?), my daughter's was 9/11. "My war" was Korea, after it Laos, Viet Nam and the other places were easy. Point being that age skews your historical perception. My pick for the greatest foreign policy fiasco of my life would be Viet Nam. It cost the US more in every respect (including respect...) than have the last seven years and it still reverberates 46 years later. My belief is that Iraq will be looked much differently and more favorably in all respects in another 40 years. Again, we'll see. In any event, being a historian, I expect you to write the definitive book on it!

Thanks again for the response.

[snapperhead]

J Wolfsberger quoted:

"Not all uses of tu quoque arguments involve logical fallacy. They can be properly used to bring about awareness of inconsistency, to indirectly repeal a criticism by narrowing its scope or challenging its criteria, or to call into question the credibility of a source of knowledge."

Let us say the following claim:

(p1) "A's reputation is declining."
(p2) The counter claim is "well B, C, D, and so on are worse."

How does p2 make us aware of an inconsistency or contradiction? The original claim, and issue on the thread, was P1. P2 is irrelevant to refuting anything inherent to P1's claim. For it to show us "an awareness of inconsistency" it would need to show that P1 and P2 couldn't both be true and couldn't both be false, which is clearly wrong as they both are true. America's reputation is declining (p1) according to that report. There are also countries far, far worse than America (p2), as other posters here have pointed out. But that doesn't refute the truth of P1.

You might be able to argue that P2 narrows the scope and criteria of P1. Which I would agree with. However, that doesn't refute the original claim. It only calls into question the crappy measurements to which P1, or the report, used.

patmc said:

Snapperhead, when people run out of facts, they resort to name calling, so thanks for showing your cards.

Respectfully,
A psuedo-intellectual juggernaut

Touche. It was an ad hominem on my behalf. It won't happen again and I will strike out the offending sentence. However, I haven't run out of facts. I was calling into question the irrelevant arguments that were being presented. Facts don't win arguments when the individuals use them fallaciously.

Ken White said:

To include Fuchs' (but not snapperhead who has contributed nothing other than pseudointellectual bon mots).

Incorrect. I pointed out a species of red herring fallacy many of the posters have displayed. Refute his claims (as you have done) not address the irrelevant claim of whether or not other countries are worse than the U.S. The issue on the thread are claims about America's reputation yes? Not the reputation of other countries.

EDIT: It appears I'm either clueless at editing on this particular forum, or you can't edit old posts. Either way my preceding post, which include the ad hominem, stands for all to see as a signpost of my idiocy.

[Stan]

It appears I'm either clueless at editing on this particular forum, or you can't edit old posts. Either way my preceding post, which include the ad hominem, stands for all to see as a signpost of my idiocy.

There's a time limit of approx. two hours for editing your posts.

BTW, as time permits you, please go here and introduce yourself.

Regards, Stan

[Ken White]

...How does p2 make us aware of an inconsistency or contradiction? The original claim, and issue on the thread, was P1. P2 is irrelevant to refuting anything inherent to P1's claim. For it to show us "an awareness of inconsistency" it would need to show that P1 and P2 couldn't both be true and couldn't both be false, which is clearly wrong as they both are true.

Ahhhh

Touche. It was an ad hominem on my behalf. It won't happen again and I will strike out the offending sentence. However, I haven't run out of facts. I was calling into question the irrelevant arguments that were being presented. Facts don't win arguments when the individuals use them fallaciously.

Possibly true but how pertinent is it?

Ken White said:

Incorrect. I pointed out a species of red herring fallacy many of the posters have displayed. Refute his claims (as you have done) not address the irrelevant claim of whether or not other countries are worse than the U.S. The issue on the thread are claims about America's reputation yes? Not the reputation of other countries.

EDIT: It appears I'm either clueless at editing on this particular forum, or you can't edit old posts. Either way my preceding post, which include the ad hominem, stands for all to see as a signpost of my idiocy.

My point was that lectures on academic debate technique are pointless and add little to a discussion of the topic at hand which as you say pertain to the reputation of America.

[JQP]

First: Ken thanks for the link, the absurdity of it all made me laugh so hard that I nearly fell off of my chair.

Jill: Thank you for your informative comments- they were dead on and absolutely correct. I am afraid that I used a poor choice of words. What I was really trying to focus on was public support for US military involvement. As you have said, we were already engaged in supporting one side and American intervention would not have altered the policies of Japan or Germany. Certainly what we face today is totally different. But I must admit to some "what if" ponderings. "What if" back then the American public was exposed to the instantaneous media blitz and worldwide access to global communications that exist today? Would it have changed the any of the events?

I agree with you that the AQ 9-11 attack was a provocation. There is no doubt that AQ has waged a magnificent PR war. I would also add that just by carrying out a large successful attack on US soil, they empowered and recruited quite a few followers.

Iraq: I must confess that I never believed that WMD's were the reason we went into Iraq, I always believed it was to create a new dynamic in the ME and we know how well that went. You are right- it definitely has been a foreign policy nightmare.

That said, it seems as if we have a second chance to turn things around, stabilize Iraq and do some Foreign Policy damage control- if there is public and political support for the opportunity to do so. How can we not be encouraged when we hear that AQ is losing the battle for "hearts and minds" in Iraq (if they ever really had them to start with).

I am less hopeful about the media war/global communications blitz and how it will effect American public opinion and our willingness to engage in diplomatic or military intervention in the world.

Goodnight, Brenda