We gave them their freedom and misery, let the people of Iraq handle it from here.
Demonstrations Turn Violent in Iraq
Time to leave Iraq.
We gave them their freedom and misery, let the people of Iraq handle it from here.
Demonstrations Turn Violent in Iraq
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
*faceIraq*
Maybe our military could swing by Libya on their way out, and bring home the US citizens trying to get the hell outta there.
We're going to have to keep a military presence there as a "security umbrella" for them for quite some time. Today's demonstrations didn't really cost the US any lives.
Are you willing to increase taxes in order to pay for this umbrella?Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
No need; eliminate the Dept of Commerce. We can get rid of jobs like this.
How does it feel to pay taxes for someone's $120,000/year - $170,000/year job doing the accounting for a branch of the government dedicated to corporate welfare and the proliferation of meaningless studies?ob Title: Deputy Chief Financial Officer
Department: Department Of Commerce
Agency: Bureau of Industry and Security
Sub Agency: Bureau of Industry & Security
Job Announcement Number: BIS-DA-2011-0005
SALARY RANGE:
$119,554.00 - $179,700.00 /year
OPEN PERIOD:
Monday, February 07, 2011 to Monday, March 07, 2011
SERIES & GRADE:
ES-0505-99/99
POSITION INFORMATION:
This is a Full-Time position in the Senior Executive Service (SES). This is a Permanent SES Career-Reserved position.
PROMOTION POTENTIAL:
00
DUTY LOCATIONS:
1 vacancy(s) in one of the following locations: Washington DC Metro Area, DC
WHO MAY BE CONSIDERED:
Applications will be accepted from All Qualified Individuals
(U.S. Citizens Only)
JOB SUMMARY:
The historic mission of the Department of Commerce is "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce" of the United States. This has evolved, as a result of legislative and administrative additions, to encompass broadly the responsibility to foster, serve, and promote the Nation's economic development and technological advancement.
The mission of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is to advance U.S. national security, foreign policy, and economic objectives by ensuring an effective export control and treaty compliance system and promoting continued U.S. strategic technology leadership.
The Office of Administration serves as the principal advisor to the Under Secretary and the Deputy Under Secretary on financial and management policy for the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). The Office of Administration develops BIS strategic plans and multi-year performance measures in cooperation with the Assistant Secretary for Export Administration and the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, and in accordance with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993; formulates, presents and executes the BIS budget; conducts management and program reviews of BIS headquarters, domestic units, and international units to assess the accomplishment of performance measures and program effectiveness; effects financial and budgetary controls; provides financial reporting and financial internal controls in accordance with the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act of 1982, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circulars A-50 and A-123; prepares formal financial statements in conformance with the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 and other OMB requirements; administers the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974; implements policies and procedures for personnel, physical, and information security; coordinates all BIS activities related to safety and the emergency preparedness program, particularly as applicable to Executive Order 12656; and acts as the focal point for the Government Accountability Office and Departmental Inspector General audit activities. The Office of Administration also coordinates human resources management activities, including time-and-attendance controls, workforce planning, career development, employee recognition, and performance management.
http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.as...02-07+08:59:00
I'm surprised at your lack of commitment to your beliefs. If you took it seriously you would have at least mentioned the cost of the associated bureaucracy to try to make your point. Maybe if you eliminated 1000 such bureaucracies you might put a dent in the cost of the umbrella.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Doesn't quite work that way.
Doesn't quite work that way.
Indeed.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
We should really leave Iraq to become chaotic, that would serve our agenda.
Our agenda? What is our agenda? Supporting dictators for stability instead of encouraging democracy with its messiness?
Become chaotic? We made it chaotic.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Fixed.
We have much larger deployments around the globe for much older wars. Currently, every US soldier is supposed to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but I bet the Iraqi government will negotiate for a reduced force to stay for longer; my bets are on 20k or so. The cost of maintaining 20k troops in Iraq who little to no warfighting is relatively cheap, and might be worth the money if we can build and keep friendly relations with the Iraqi government and population. We have far more troops in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.
Are we still supporting dictators in the middle-east?
Protest Organizers Ordered to Shut Offices in Iraq
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
You know, at some point, the means no longer justify the ends. It's all nice and well to try to prevent Iraq from becoming more chaotic, but we know we have very little chance of success, while the cost of ongoing operations is certain. We shouldn't be doing things just because we feel an obligation to do them, especially when the odds of success are incredibly low. If 8 years isn't enough to resolve the problem using our methods, 13 or 18 years won't help either.
Are those two mutually exclusive? How much influence do we have over dictators with whom we have poor relations? Have you not noticed how the situations in Tunisia and Egypt differ from the one in Libya?
Hope is the denial of reality
Sure, I've noticed the differences. I also notice the glaring fact that we're already involved in two protracted, unfunded, extremely expensive and unpopular wars in the region.
As great as it sounds for the US to help rebels trying to overthrow dictators....we are stretched too thin. Our "agenda" can't simply be to intervene militarily everywhere oppressed people have need, or every place that's fighting for democracy. We really need to stop thinking of the US as the world's savior and military might. IMO.
Interesting. You're simultaneously calling for us to stop acting as the world's policeman and to promote democracy in the world. You don't see a contradiction there?
Hope is the denial of reality
I said we are stretched too thin to continue acting as the world's police. I've also said we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if we had the money, which we don't, we should reconsider our "agenda" and our policies. Promoting democracy doesn't necessarily mean military intervention. Even Tunisia and Egypt have politely suggested we butt out, this is their fight. Statements from Obama or other diplomats and ambassadors are welcomed, though. NATO and the UN have a role.
I'm not keen on the politicians now calling for arming rebels, no-fly zones, or bombing air strips. And for all the foreign aid we give, maybe it should be for humanitarian relief or resettling refugees. Not weapons, tanks, tear gas, or bombs. What's contradictory about that?
What do YOU think our role is?
I fail to see the relation between foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. It's not like we're short-changing the latter to increase the former. And your views are still highly contradictory. What happens if a dictator doesn't allow us to promote democracy in his country? Do we cut off relations with every dictatorship that does this?
Hope is the denial of reality
Sending a hospital ship is different from sending an aircraft carrier. Foreign aid that goes to dictators doesn't necessarily mean better roads or schools for people, if they're using that money to buy tanks or pay soldiers, or their own Swiss bank account.
Contrary to popular American belief, democracy will find its own way in the Information Age. We don't have to start it for them. Well, unless we decide to send up more satellites or build cell towers, or drop free phones from helicopters instead of propaganda pamphlets. See: Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, etc.
We give them aid because we need their support on some issues. Would you rather the US ignored every country in the world that's ruled by a dictator (that would also entail ignoring the UN Security Council, which includes several dictators)?
Pray tell how you think the dictators of those countries woudl react to such a blatant violation of their sovereignty.
Hope is the denial of reality
Can you spell it out for me? Because I can't.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Ah, the "agenda". We give aid because we need their support on "some issues", not because we are champions of liberty or representative democracy.
How about you cut to the chase, Dr. Loki, and tell us all what US foreign policy should be, particularly in the middle east. That's what you really want to do. It's got nothing to do with my own opinion or how "contradictory" you think I am.
I find it incomprehensible that people feel we should only engage with democracies. Obviously we shouldn't reward poor behavior, but the world isn't perfect and we need to work with the people who are calling the shots. If they are reasonably decent world citizens, and our engagement with them keeps them that way, I'd chalk that up for a win - even if we continue to implore countries around the world to improve human rights/etc. in their territories.
On the issue of aid - most of our military aid goes to two countries (well, excepting Iraq and Afghanistan that are rather singular recipients right now), and that's to pay for the peace dividend between Israel and Egypt. The majority of our other aid goes for economic/humanitarian/development aid and has nothing to do with the military. We give the Jordanians some military aid (again part of a peace dividend), the Pakistanis some aid (as a bribe to keep them happy with our cross-border attacks and to get them to adequately secure their nukes), and a bunch of other countries get dribs and drabs. (IIRC Yemen is getting some significant aid now as well, as part of our counterterrorism programs.) We also have some training programs that we fund.
We sell weapons to a lot more countries, but we're not handing the weapons to them, and at least selling them weapons keeps them beholden to US - look at Iran's essentially defunct air force because they were dependent on the US for parts and supplies.
More broadly, there is a direct dividend from close military cooperation and training. When we equip a foreign military, we generally intensively train their troops, have good high-level contacts with their leadership, and routinely carry out exercises with them. For those with close ties, they often educate their officer corps or general staff at our war colleges. This doesn't just make them dependent on us; it also permeates their consciousness with the US values of a professional military. In many of these countries, the military is one of the most trusted and respected institutions in the country, and if the US ethos of how a military should be structured and how its soldiers should behave gets instilled in the military, it's very hard for major abuses by the army to take place.
Just look at Egypt - back in the day, the military was much more openly involved in seizing power, but 3 decades of US influence has changed them into a more professional force that wouldn't directly confront their own citizens. Sure, the military still controls the country, but at least it's people we know and sorta trust not to do anything too horrible. High level contacts between our military and the Egyptian high command have probably been invaluable in keeping this crisis from escalating too far.
The dictator we knew was better than the alternative --- that's stability over principle?
Also, maybe things didn't "escalate too far" because Egypt has a great number of highly educated young citizens who can think for themselves.
To an extent, yes. More generally, it's dealing with the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. The US isn't opposed to democratic revolutions, they just want them to happen in a manner that doesn't invite civil war and chaos. Furthermore, absent a serious democratic movement, the US isn't going to completely ignore important players in a region just because we have some problems with their form of government.
Those educated citizens weren't the conscripts holding the guns. Egypt's military leadership and officer corps clearly saw the demonstrations, heard the demands from Mubarak and the political echelons, consulted with each other, and blinked. They did this to a large extent because the role of the Egyptian military in their society has changed from the 1950s revolutionary movement into a more mature, professional force. This is partly due to internal dynamics, but I think it also has to do with the fact that they have been trained by Americans for three decades. The US military is both fearsomely competent and incredibly professional; this is not lost on those people who are trying to learn from them. When their higher level officers go to either the National Defense University or the Army War College, they are indoctrinated with American tactics and strategy, but much more intensively in the laws of war, human rights law, etc. Our trainers who teach their lower level officers and some conscripts about how to use our technology and tactics in the battlefield - from fighter planes to armored vehicles - give the lower ranks an insight into accepted norms and discipline in the US military.Also, maybe things didn't "escalate too far" because Egypt has a great number of highly educated young citizens who can think for themselves.
These are very foreign concepts to most non-Western armies, and exposure to what we consider to be accepted norms about how a military should work is invaluable.
For some historical perspective: in 1798 (IIRC) Napoleon invaded Egypt and conquered it in a pathetically short amount of time, despite the fact that the Egyptian military was the pride of the region. This sent massive political and psychological shockwaves through Egypt (and the broader Ottoman Empire) and was their first exposure to modern Western tactics and technology. The devastatingly superior performance spurred the next two centuries of Egyptian officers to try to figure out what it was about the Western world that made them so remarkably good at fighting wars. Sometimes the solution was the superficially copy them without a real change in behavior (as they did with the Brits); sometimes they specifically turned away from Western military strategy, as when they turned to the Soviets for weapons, training, and doctrine (along with a political alignment towards socialism). Yet they always had that massive psychological shock of 1798 in the back of their head, and were continually trying to figure out how to counter it.
For the last 30 years, the solution has been to embrace the most powerful military in the history of the world and learn from them. Part of this has been adopting a professional ethos that simply didn't exist before. I think this contribution - and the contribution of good working relationships between the Joint Chiefs with Egyptian High Command - cannot be overstated.
Eh, none of the people in charge was formed by cooperation with the US. On average they were in their late 40s by the time the US-Egypt channels were opened. Hosni Mubarak, the most pro-US member of the Egyptian government for over 32 years was trained in the USSR.
Congratulations America
Promoting democracy (against the wishes of the dictators in which we'd want to promote it) is nothing less than a global crusade that is both costly and antagonistic to large chunks of the world (including the democratic parts, who consider the exercise to be one of the imperialism).
The people in charge were worrying about the colonels, who have more direct access to (and loyalty from) the soldiers. Most of those colonels were educated in the US.
Hope is the denial of reality
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