Going Ballistic
My ears are ringin'
Ringin' like empty shells
--Call Letter Blues, Bob Dylan
Well, the minutes seemed like hours,
hours they seemed like days
It seemed like my good, old gal ought ta
done stopped her low-down ways
--Death Letter, Son House
___________
Ringin' like empty shells
--Call Letter Blues, Bob Dylan
Well, the minutes seemed like hours,
hours they seemed like days
It seemed like my good, old gal ought ta
done stopped her low-down ways
--Death Letter, Son House
___________
The U.S. government is concerned with the spread of nuclear weapons technology, but we're shipping nuclear triggers via UPS. But it is not the waylaid parts per se that caught our eye. instead, it was the below observation:
"Washington has hinted that it would go to war to protect Taiwan."
The U.S. is involved in the endless long war, with a military stretched to its breaking point tied in little knots in Baghdad allies. It has a chugging economy which cannot long sustain the effort without mortgaging our nation's future.
And we hint we would go to war to defend Taiwan. Paper tiger.
Labels: china sabre rattling, war with taiwan
posted by Lisa at 9:09 PM
2 Comments:
barbara tuchman in "the guns of august" and nigel ferguson in "the pity of war" both go into how idiot pronouncements like britain's "we will go to war to protect serbia" where a large nation chooses a strategically unimportant, often a political liability and declares itself ready to war on its behalf.
over and over in the run up of the war there were sensible folks on both sides, including some of the better military minds, who all declared how incredibly destructive and stupid a general european war would be. nobody in their right minds wanted that war to take place, once the war genie was out of the bottle it took a long time to stuff him back in. there's even a school of historians who are beginning to look at ww1 and 2 as one long war with a resting period, a rest period forced upon the participants by a world wide depression. interesting and sensible proposal. the issues were essentially the same. and without the stupidly vindictive measures of the versailles treaty germany might have been able to reassemble something closer to a liveable state. or, and i count my old professor hanson among this crowd, ww1 should have been carried through to the "unconditional surrender" point. in order to rebuild something viable and not a threat to the rest of europe, germany had to be totally and utterly defeated. continuing the war needed to be off the table as a sane option.
MB,
If Iraq and Afghanistan were wars with viable states, why were there no peace agreements or surrenders signed after "mission accomplished" was declared.
Your example of Serbia leads me to believe that some national policies are actually suicidal in nature. I used to believe that societies were not suicidal, but the longer I examine the phenomena of state and societal policies which are destructive and defy reason, I am abandoning my position.
Substitute "Iraq" for "Serbia," and I believe that is your point. The question is, why do societies choose self-defeating behavior?
Re. yours and other's theory on Versialles, we cannot know if Germany would have "reassembled" into a livable state. Trying to force democracy on the Germans was as foolhardy as forcing democracy on the Afghanis and Iraqis.
Historians selectively forget that Hitler's rise to power occurred in a democratic environment. The rule of the majority does not imply logical policies. Witness exhibit I: GWB.
Post a Comment
<< Home