Actually, it's not
It's a great deal of sense that is counter to the nonsensical delusion of those that would have the US flitting about the globe fixing things others screw up. We have puttered around with that, generally not done it very well -- there are a few exceptions -- and all it gets us is folks like you carping about not doing it your way.Originally Posted by JMA
Most of the carpers do not understand the US, how it works and that Americans almost all left somewhere else because they didn't want to be there and didn't want to live by the rules of their former nation. Then they find that many of their nominally educated elite want to copy the mores and attitudes of other nations. All our attitudes and processes predicated on those of other nations are generally flawed -- they do not mesh with the psyches of those who left those other places for something different. So we are now copying the mores and attitudes of Europe -- just as Europe is undergoing major changes and casting those social democratic ideas aside as they discovered what they though they wanted to do was unaffordable.
That's the point of this rant. Unaffordable. You advocate a lot of muscular US involvement in petty machinations here and there. Easy to do from your armchair with no responsibility for the execution or the funding of those neat little adventures. We've done numerous interventions for most of my adult life -- and we could not afford to do it the way we did it. We took a marginally trained force and, too often, sent it to a job that was not possible for that force structure. That we did as well as we did is a tribute to the Troops who went and gave it a shot.
That they were sent to do things they should not have been sent to do -- in the form and manner they were sent -- is a lick on the Politicians who sent them and the senior officers who allowed it to happen. There are a lot of factors that contributed to all that and there's plenty of blame for many people and entities but any way you look at it, the force was too often sent to do really dumb and generally unnecessary things. Most of the carpers are unaware of details in those interventions, they just cue in on the big items and the after glow which buries most of the foulups.
All that cost money. Aside from wasted lives and general stupidity, it was terribly expensive. So we now have an affordability problem of massive proportions. Quite simply, we cannot afford to go gallivanting around the world fixing stupidity -- we have enough of our own in any event...
That's the point of the aside on America's fetish with copying Europe in a better late than never mode. We may come from the European hearth but we are not European and trying to copy them has put us in the fix we are in. So we're now trying to do more dumb stuff -- dumb stuff we can't afford -- that's why we need to stop trying to play Mr. Fixit. At least until we get our own act together...
No, those two statements are not nonsense. The nonsense comes from those who do not understand all they know about what they advocate and believe that every minor eruption or festering sore must be fixed and Uncle Sugar must do it.
I'll just repeat Dayuhan's comments as some may have misread or misunderstood them:
""Our principles as a nation apply to us. There is nothing in those principles that requires or recommends their export to or imposition on others...
...We are neither the cause of nor the solution to these problems. We didn't break it and we can't fix it. They will sort it out their own way, and we will cope. it's not about us. It affects us, but we are not in control of it. (emphasis added / kw)""
Your stated objections to our interference in Rhodesia back in the day are supported by that first item. We were exporting and attempting to impose our principles some place they weren't appropriate and we really had no business doing that. So you objected then -- properly so IMO -- but now you think it would be good if we exported...
The second item isn't totally correct, we did in fact cause some of those problems by our previous muddled and poor attempts to export and impose (as you have pointed out elsewhere and I have agreed). So that meddling is part of the reason we need to back off the meddling. However, the rest is pretty well correct -- we did not really break most things into pieces (Iraq is another story...) -- but we certainly cannot fix other nations. We can help, but not to the extent that we have over the past 60 years. We literally have broken our own bank; FDR deliberately drove Britain to bankruptcy, the last few US Presidents have stupidly driven their own nation to bankruptcy. And you advocate we continue running around trying to export and impose. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to bankrupt us or something...
Sorry, that is just not smart. We really need to quit that.
I acknowledge that we could do more and better but it will really require a significant rethink (and political will I'm not sure is available) and retooling if it is to be effective and truly accomplish some good things.
So, to properly do the things you and the other idealists want, we need to reorient the force, buy different equipment sets, significantly improve our training, completely re-do our personnel policies and find some testicular fortitude in the political and military leadership here plus get some money without borrowing it...
I suspect the only thing you can contribute to that is advice in the training arena which I'm sure will be very freely given. Well and perhaps some money. You can just hit this LINK.
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