Re: Pakistan launches offensive on top Taliban leader

In article <d3lfm.1172$nh2.866@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter Cole <peter_cole@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tim McNamara wrote:
In article <C2efm.1110$nh2.38@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter Cole <peter_cole@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Your post appeared to conflate standing US military deployment in
bases around the world following WWII with deployment created since
the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There has been no change except expansion.

Well, as mentioned previously, the hard data contradicts this belief.

There has been no "standing down" after the collapse of out #1
enemy (USSR), or the change of our #2 (PRC) into our trading
partner and investor.

In case you have forgotten, the various nations that made up the
USSR have not stood down and most are not yet allies. Most also
retain possession of a much larger total nuclear arsenal than our
own, a situation perpetuated by the Republicans scuttling treaties
based (ironically) on Ronald Reagan's goal of elimination of
nuclear weapons.

NATO has expanded to now include: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania,
Croatia and Albania. Membership is also planned for Macedonia,
Ukraine and Georgia. An air defense system for Poland and the Czech
Republic is also in the works. NATO spends 70% of the world budget
for military activities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Nu
clear_ar senal_of_Russia

"Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a number of
Soviet-era nuclear warheads remained on the territories of Belarus,
Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Under the terms of the Lisbon Protocol to
the NPT, and following the 1995 Trilateral Agreement between Russia,
Belarus, and the USA, these were transferred to Russia, leaving
Russia as the sole inheritor of the Soviet nuclear arsenal."

Optimistic, given that the former satellite states were thought to lack
the ability to secure their nuclear weapons adequately. The US
purchased and destroyed a number of those weapons and three countries-
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine having transferred their weapons back to
the USSR. The USSR is thought to have 30% more nuclear weapons than the
US.

No decline in budget, only a continued expansion of US military
presence around the world.

The facts differ. There was a 20% troop reduction during the GHW
Bush administration and a further 19% reduction in troop strength
under Clinton.

As a percentage of the federal budget, defense spending is exactly
where it was when the Berlin wall fell.

The numbers contradict that statement up to 2003, at least:

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php#gdp-graph

In 1989 the defense budget was 5.6% of the GDP; for 2008 it was about
4.4% of GDP.

Of course, conceptualizing the defense budget as a percentage of GDP is
not helpful since the GDP is not invariant- GDP in 2008 was much larger
than GDP in 1989. It would be better to use inflation-corrected dollars.

Expansion of NATO into former SSR's? Why? Why isn't NATO being
disbanded rather than expanded? It was, after all, supposed to be
a cold war institution.

NATO has become primarily a way to diplomatically tie nations
together into a common cause.

Which is?

Mutual cooperation and non-hostility, which in turn tends to lead
towards free trade.

Expanding it into former Soviet satellite states is a "divide and
conquer" strategy aimied at maintaining isolation of Russia, which
still has aims of regaining its superpower status.

It is a violation of the agreement reached with Gorbachev over the
reunification of Germany.

And which still has a large military, many nuclear weapons and a
generally aggressive attitude among its politicians.

Who is really being "aggressive"? Who is trying to continue the cold
war?

Putin, for one, as his brutal actions in Chechnya showed. But you
misunderstand me if you think I was talking about trying to continue the
Cold War. For Russia the issue is one of regaining prestige and
influence in world affairs, which diminished considerably in the rubble
of the USSR.

US troop presence isn't popular almost everywhere they're
stationed. Don't forget, the explanation given for the 9-11
attacks was the presence of US bases in Saudi Arabia.

Military bases always result in mixed feelings in the surrounding
areas. The economic benefits are appreciated, but the often rowdy
behavior of young men and women can be annoying. It's not much
different than how most neighborhoods around colleges feel.

Those bases were installed as part of the first gulf war, but once
the US moves in, they never leave.

Well, that last part is not literally true since we have closed
military bases in other countries.

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/empir
e-of-bas es

"According to the Pentagon's own list, the answer is around 865, but
if you include the new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan it is over a
thousand. These thousand bases constitute 95 percent of all the
military bases any country in the world maintains on any other
country's territory."

"the United States has 227 bases in Germany"

"It is also inevitable that, from time to time, U.S. soldiers--often
drunk--commit crimes. The resentment these crimes cause is only
exacerbated by the U.S. government's frequent insistence that such
crimes not be prosecuted in local courts. In 2002, two U.S. soldiers
killed two teenage girls in Korea as they walked to a birthday party.
Korean campaigners claim this was one of 52,000 crimes committed by
U.S. soldiers in Korea between 1967 and 2002. The two U.S. soldiers
were immediately repatriated to the United States so they could
escape prosecution in Korea. In 1998, a marine pilot sliced through
the cable of a ski gondola in Italy, killing 20 people, but U.S.
officials slapped him on the wrist and refused to allow Italian
authorities to try him."

While there have been closures of U.S. bases in Ecuador, Puerto Rico,
and Kyrgyzstan, many more new bases have also opened.

Manned with fewer US soldiers than ever before, on average. The US has
been cutting the size of its standing army for years, reducing the
personnel assigned to bases around the world, and moving towards a
flexible personnel model utilizing reserves as a "safety valve" in the
event of mobilization being necessary.

Here, let's continue to play dueling citations:

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=48426

Your rhetoric has steered strongly towards "America is an evil
empire" in this thread. My comment that "Reflexive hatred of one's
own race, country, religion, etc. is also arrogant" was a general
one and not intended to attribute the issues of race or religion to
you; that was unclear and I apologize for it. However, you seemed
to be indulging in a reflexive hatred of your country in your
language.

What I hate is jingoism and imperialism. I don't think those two
things define my country.

I certainly hope not.

What was typically American, up until the post WWII era, was a
strong streak of pacifism, non-interventionism, isolationism, and
distrust of the military. The US, unlike many other industrial
nations, had a very small military up until that time.

Indeed, it was those very qualities that helped allow Hitler to
gain the foothold in Europe that he did. WWII raged in Europe for
over two years before we bestirred ourselves to help directly
(initially with the Lend-Lease Act in 1941 supplying was material
to England and militarily in North Africa in 1942, IIRC).
Afterwards it became known that Hitler had drawn up plans for the
invasion and conquest of America once Europe was conquered.

We didn't enter WWII until Pearl Harbor (12/41). There was a strong
non-interventionist mood in the US, as I said.

We were involved in WWII six months prior to Pearl Harbor through the
Lend-Lease Act, but we did not commit troops until war was declared on
12/8/41. We deployed troops to Africa, entering the European theater,
in 1942.

Even WWII has a much more complicated history for those who care
to study it.

Indeed. But what WWII had was a clear, unquestionable ending.
Japan surrendered unconditionally. Germany and Italy were utterly
defeated. In subsequent wars (e.g., Korea, Viet Nam, the Gulf War,
etc.) the endings have been "ragged" without decisive victory and
unconditional surrender. The PNAC saw this as a blow to American
military prestige and wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein in order
to clean up the "ragged ending" of the first Gulf War. They were
urging this long before 9/11; the various UN resolutions and 9/11
became just a pretext.

Immediately after WWII ended, our enemies became our allies and our
allies our enemies. What does that say? WWII awoke American ambitions
for empire and global economic dominance. It was sold as "defense",
but it was offense -- economic offense backed up with military
aggression.

Take virtually any issue: bank bailouts, Middle East peace, health
care, the war in Iraq, and you'll see polled opinion way left of
policy.

Depends on who's doing the polling and how the questions are
phrased. It's very easy to shape responses in polls to push the
trend one way or another.

It's also easy to lie and spread propaganda. "Death tax" and
"socialized medicine" to name a couple.

Of course. Lies and propaganda are one of the fundamental tools of
politics.

Apply that to Iraq and health care. You think the majority of
Americans still want to be in Iraq and don't want a national health
care policy?

Debate in the media is inevitably between centrists and the
radical right -- that's known as "balance".

Debate in some media, not all. But I agree that there is a strong
conservative bias that has crept into many of the information
channels available to most Americans (e.g., newspapers and TV
news).

Because they're owned by conglomerates. There was a huge amount of
consolidation in those industries in the last decade or so.

And unwisely so. Americans now get all the news that Rupert Murdoch
wants them to hear.
.

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