Comments on: Proportional response in the Obama era — “Let’s pretend it never happened”

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:35:43 +0000

I’m reminded of the playground fight ‘rules’ in effect when I was growing up. A fight often ended when one combatant had the other on the ground, and forced him to yell “Uncle!” such that *everyone* else could hear it. It was a formal admission of defeat to “the world”. In this case, the world that mattered was everyone else on the playground.

Our diplomats and military experts these days could learn a lot. From the mouths of babes.

I remember a scene from a book (Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot’?) where a class nerd took on the playground bully and beat him soundly. This one ended with a slightly different flourish:
“Say, ‘Uncle’!”
“Uncle!”
“Say, ‘I’m a big fat turd!’”
“I’m a big fat turd!”

The pont being, additional measures were needed to ensure admittance and recognition of total defeat. And that was true in WWII: Conditions for (admittance and recognition of) total defeat were different for each of Italy, Germany, and Japan. The same would be true of fundamentalist Islamic jihadists, were we to seriously take them on as a matter of true war. I suspect in this latter case, we would achieve their total defeat only when their theocratic, hardline legitimacy was spurned by *all other Muslims* due to them getting their asses thoroughly thrashed. When they become an object of scorn and ridicule among their own, in other words.

By: Charles Martel

Charles Martel — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:56:29 +0000

One key to the Romans’ success in controlling 3 million square miles of territory (about the same area as the continental U.S.) with only 180,000 legionnaires was a two-prong approach: The first was that the empire’s constituent kingdoms and satrapies were pretty much free to run their own affairs as long as they paid their taxes, bowed–however half-heartedly–toward the emperor, and didn’t rebel. The Romans were instinctive federalists in that respect.

The second prong was always, always, always keep your word to honor your treaties and protect your allies. The empire lasted as long as it did because every region in it knew that Rome would send legions 1,000 miles in defense of her and her allies’ sovereignty. It might have taken them a couple of months to arrive, and a few more weeks to get set up before taking on a miscreant, but, to paraphrase Mr. T, “I pity the bastards.”

America is long past honoring her treaties. Our cred has been destroyed by the ball-less wonders that now own the federal government. There is no “good” hegemon waiting in the wings to take our place, only the sons and daughters of such perpetually and irretrievably semi-savage cultures as the Arabs, Chinese, and Russians. I pity us bastards.

By: jj

jj — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:37:10 +0000

Interesting, the Pax Whoever concept. Peace, which you’d think would be the most natural state of mankind, or at least the most desired, clearly isn’t; despite what we were told in grade school. Peace doesn’t brew up spontaneously, it has to be imposed. It has to be imposed by somebody a lot stronger who says, in effect: “all right, you bastards, you’re going to be peaceful and go about your business quietly and with decorum or we’re going to slaughter you.” This is of course, along with being a simple truth a sad commentary on the general inclinations of mankind. Whoever it is who imposes the peace also has to be willing to spend the treasure necessary to maintain the strength to enforce it which, as we have noticed, becomes expensive. They also have to maintain the attitude, which may be impossible.

There have been three that the world talks about: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana. The Roman peace lasted longest of the three, some hundreds of years, and it was also probably the most broadly peaceful, in a relative sense. (It’s always in a relative sense, there’s never complete peace in all precincts.) The Romans of course dealt with a smaller world, they didn’t know two-thirds of it existed, but that wasn’t their fault. They took care of what they knew about, and were smart enough not to expand beyond what they could swallow. They mastered the maintenance of peace early, and knew that it took organization, discipline, and ruthlessness. When it was time to administer lessons, they did so, perhaps sometimes sadly, perhaps occasionally regretfully: but always thoroughly. They didn’t just defeat Carthage, they destroyed them for all time, so effectively they haven’t raised their heads again in more than two thousand years. They didn’t just shut down the Jewish revolt: they dismantled it, just like the temple itself, brick by brick. These were very good lessons for the rest of the (known) world: screw with us at your peril. The Romans could – and did – sow destruction that was total when they felt they needed to. The result of that was they didn’t need to much: their world was pretty peaceful.

The British were a fundamentally different bag of tricks. They conquered more by guile than they did by force. They saw the world as a business opportunity, and business suffers when the employees are disgruntled, so you try to keep ‘em gruntled. If you can. If you can’t, well, the lesson remains the same, and the teaching of it remains the same too: you have to be able to step down hard, and you also have to be willing to do so. They made a number of people sorry over the two centuries or so of their imposed pax, though they didn’t go in for slaughter the way the Romans did, except when absolutely necessary, and usually on a much smaller scale. But everybody got the message, and there were always elements of that goddam globe-girdling fleet in every body of water bigger than a backyard swimming pool – you were never allowed to forget they were there.

Pax Americana has been, and will have been, the shortest-lived. Owing to the attitudes of many of our Founders, we had little interest in the world beyond our own borders for a long time. We shut Spain off in Cuba, but we didn’t follow them home and burn them down: we didn’t care. We just wanted them out of Cuba. When they left that was good enough, we had no object lesson in mind, and didn’t pursue. In fact we didn’t know or care much about Europe until we somehow or other – for no good reason in the eyes of most Americans, then or now – wound up fighting in WWI. The end result of that so disgusted most Americans that we again retreated back inside and resumed ignoring everybody.

Then in 1938 war started in Europe, and we resolutely didn’t care, even when Britain got involved in 1939. As a nation we weren’t particularly Anglophile through the 20s and 30s in spite of their best efforts. Then Pearl Harbor got bombed in December of 1941, and we discovered that we had a bit of Rome inside. China and Japan had been going at it for a solid decade before Pearl Harbor: WWII for them was nearly 15 years. Mainland Europe was preoccupied with WWII for, in some cases, seven years. England fought for six, nearly seven. The Japanese bombed us three weeks before the end of 1941, when we had a small – though growing – military, and not much equipment. We spent about six months getting ourselves organized, and off to Europe and into the Pacific. We didn’t start until the summer of ’42 in Europe, and the wastes of the Pacific were less organized than that. For us, WWII lasted, for real, from about June/July 1942 to August 1945 – thirty-six months we devoted to not just defeating, but destroying Germany and Japan.

When it ended we were the military and economic colossus. An unaccustomed position, and we didn’t know what to do with it. Being children on the international stage we gave far too much away to Stalin, and that we let Mao live at all was an awesome mistake. No nation was ever in the dominant position we were at the end of WWII, and we were clueless. We were led by a provincial little jackass from outer Buttbite, Missouri, who’d never – except for military service in WWI – been anywhere, never done anything, and never known anybody worth knowing. Truman had about as much experience as Obama, and he didn’t kjnow what to do anymore than Obama does.

So Pax Americana, except economically, was over more or less right then. Under Truman and Eisenhower we half-assed Korea into a bit of unfinished business that haunts us to this day; we abandoned our allies the British in the Middle East, thereby contributing to root causes and f****ing that up for all time; and then we did whatever the hell it was we thought we were doing in Vietnam for more than a decade.

So Pax Americana lasted about twenty minutes, not because we didn’t have the strength, militarily and economically, but because since the democrats took over congress in 1954 we’ve been a little short on will. Turns out that’s the most important component. Morons who lurk in alleys know that you don’t let anybody come back: you put them down so they stay down. Between 1942 and 1945 we knew that too – but that’s about the only time. Reagan was never allowed to finish anything, GW Bush was never allowed to finish anything, and this is the new normal: bullshit that drags on forever, no resolution in sight.

By: Caped Crusader

Caped Crusader — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:46:43 +0000

I second everything jj said above. We have not settled an offense to our nation since WW2, wasting countless lives and treasure, for no good purpose. Hell, we whipped the whole damn world i a little over 3 years starting from a dead stop. There is no excuse for these endless wars that settle nothing, except for Democrat insistence not to win or offend anyone.

Try this instead. Invade Iraq. Inform the populace we will be governing and supervising their development into a stable prosperous representative republic for the next 30 years. We will pump oil at market prices for the benefit of the country and to pay ourselves back for the expense of this inconvenience. During this time everyone should have a decent home, education, food, medical care, and a nice life. If, after 30 years or so they cannot develop into a decent country we will leave, and decimate the country on the way out. Get in the way and you lose your head. Bet t would work better than what is going on now. This is basically what we did with Japan and Germany and it worked!

By: Jose

Jose — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:52:53 +0000

Proportionality is simply another term for Fairness

By: SADIE

SADIE — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:49:36 +0000

Three selected snippets from the article. Anyone wondering why we still have 30,000 troops separating North and South Korea for the past sixty years.

“War has an endpoint. Peace does not. A peace in which you are constantly at war can go on forever because while the enthusiasts of war eventually exhaust their patriotism, the enthusiasts of peace never give up on their peacemaking.”

“This vulgar worship of peace as a religion, a creed that restores the faith of faithless men and women in humanity is a combination of empty sentimentality and calculated ignorance.”

“Peace leads to war because peacemaking rewards the warmakers. It rewards the obstinate killers who refuse to stop killing. And the more it rewards them, the more they kill.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

By: Charles Martel

Charles Martel — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:32:21 +0000

I like Dule Hill, too. He has great comedic chops, works incredibly well with Roday, and should have been a world-famous shirt model by now.

I enjoyed and agree with jj’s take on America’s history of disproportionate response. The Yank willingness to drop woe on enemies kept the peace for several decades after WWII. In that respect, we were much like Rome—cross us at your own risk.

Now we have a eunuch in the White House and eunuchs in the Pentagon, so Pax Americana is coming to an end. Unfortunately, we will not be able to attach RIP to its demise.

By: lee

lee — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:08:44 +0000

Oops! Wrong actor…

Hated “West Wing.” LOOOOVED “Sports…” whever-the-hell-it-was. It didn’t last long.

It’s too bad Sorkin is such a deep drinker of the Democrat Kool-aid, because he does do some very nice “real-world-ish” stuff, that I was much fonder of in my own left-leaning days. But I still recall with a certain fondness.

As far as proportionality…

Yeah–how did we get to this tit-for-tat business where we have to carefully measure out the “tit” for their “tat.” And apparently, the more successful the country (i.e, “meaner” in the world of the Leftiness), the less their response can be in order to be considered “proportional.” V. Israel and Hamas.

The left is kuh-raaaaa-zee!

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:57:20 +0000

Israel loves proportional responses. They have had a lot of conflicts and wars with their neighbors, the Arabs and pseudo Arabs (Iranians).

The proportional response is also how Americans treat Leftists, Democrats, and other proto/pseudo socialists.

In all of those cases, a victory has yet to be seen on a strategic level.

I think I stated something relevant now, a few years ago. That the Left would decide whether you got to live or die and how much you got to pay them for that privilege. People thought they had seen the worst excesses of the Left, the President Obama, in 2010. Then 2011 they thought the same, while I always kept thinking, “they haven’t seen anything yet”.

By: lee

lee — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:56:43 +0000

BTW, Dule Hill was also “Bud,” Rudy’s friend.