New Conspiracy Theory

I've always had a suspicion of peace movements because usually the people who want 'peace' the most are the ones with the most to lose from social dislocation.

bingo! (well, sorta): except exactly how conscious and calculated cd such a policy be? evah since i can remember, there's been pressure to override the "vietnam syndrome": if successful, this overriding wd produce turmoil >> social unrest >> social change ie exactly not what the pro- overriders are after

conclusion that all sides are currently blundering round incoherently in their conflicted subconsciouses = fine by me

existence of perfectly hermetic and successful ruling class plans to delude one and all = equiv of theory of worldrule by 12- ft tall lizard ppl = less fine

Yes, isn't this less conspiracy theory and more political pragmatism?

You know, that's one of the better theories I've read in a long while in terms of sheer paranoia.

As it is, I think the trend in recent policies -- especially given that the recent run of top brass were Vietnam vets for the most part -- was to avoid a repeat of that war's protracted, ill-defined and ultimately calamitous status. The Lebanon fuckup in the early eighties underscored that -- since then, the three general paths when it comes to the full commitment of troops instead of just air power have been pathetically easy rollovers (Grenada, Panama), lengthily planned out buildups resulting in pathetically easy rollovers (Gulf War) or 'peacekeeping' missions, however defined, in areas where overall control would be unable to be challenged in a major way (Haiti, Bosnia/ Kosovo). Somalia was the big exception in the past two decades; unsurprisingly the US got out (there's your conspiracy theory -- Bush intentionally hands Clinton a problem on a plate?).

The current Afghanistan policy uprooted a regime considered hostile to US interests in light of 9/11 at next to no human cost to US forces -- of course, what happens next is the unsure part, while the amount of innocent dead is a sick, pathetic travesty.

Vaguely related, I note GWB's recent k0mments:

President Bush admitted yesterday that he did not know Bin Laden's whereabouts. "We don't know whether he's in a cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open. We just don't know," he told reporters at his Texas ranch. But he insisted Bin Laden would not escape. "He is not escaping us. This is a guy who three months ago was in control of a country. Now he's maybe in control of a cave."

note if U will thee italic-ed bit. truth is clearly an elastic type of thing in this (sigh) hypermedia-ised age. Here's me thinking that it was actually Mullah Omar (?) & his taliban who ran Afghanistan, & not al-quaeda. I look back at the time just before thee war on Afghanistan, & vaguely remember (planted?) stories about how the Taliban were sick of OBL, & wanted him out ov their country. Now ir seems he aktually ran afghanistan. No, no, silly me, clearly I am paranoid, or remembering these things incorrectly. As U were (etc)

I heard everything from Taliban controls all, Bin Laden minor irritant to Bin Laden controls all, Taliban mere front, and I couldn't detect any agreement on the matter from right or left-wing sources, though likely I wasn't looking hard enough. As it stands, I think the reign was something of a collaboration based in large part on personal connection via the leadership. You're right to suspect the shifting portraiture of the situation, though.

But can't the current policy be read, at least in part, as a continuation of policy that goes back a very very long way? The US wasn't at all eager to get involved in either WW1 or WW2.

Certainly it's a reflection of a general isolationist tendency. But the general portrait could probably be made like this -- 'leave us alone until you bug us, then we're going to beat you up.' Interestingly, Vietnam itself goes against this tendency, being initially seen as a preemptive strike against Other Interests.

Not really "policy", david, so much as reaction: isolationism = status quo inertia of large section of population (many of whom were after all war refugees or descendents of same, w.good reason to want to stay out of such stuff), inertia which dfft wings of US political class at difft times pay mind to, exploit/respect whatever. By contrast, involvement in WW1, WW2 and Vietnam was at behest of *liberal* wing of American establishment, *against* status quo isolationist tendency. Korea ditto, tho "liberal" tendency — Truman/Ike — at that moment far more right-centrist than Wilson, FDR or JFK.

This cycle arguably broken by Reagan, tho again he never oversaw MAJOR troop deployment, just brush-fire sabre-rattling. Bush Senior of course led US into Gulf War: in American political discussion, he's often seen as liberal rather than conservative. War = Big Government x 100, after all.

Lenin may have been anti-war in general philosophical terms, but in strategic terms he was coolly pro-WW1: it delivered revolutionary conditions — ie social chaos and collapse of the viable centre = a plausibly winnable situation — to the Bolsheviks. At least in Russia, and nearly- almost in Germany also. Plus class and race riots all across the US in "Red 1919". If US had entered WW1 earlier, who knows where these would have led?

By contrast, involvement in WW1, WW2 and Vietnam was at behest of *liberal* wing of American establishment, *against* status quo isolationist tendency.

I see what you mean, certainly with regard to WW1. But involvement in WW2 was *forced* in the end by Japanese attack and German declaration of war.

True, but Atlantic-side FDR was pro- Churchill from the get-go, rather than neutral: and Pacific-side, colonial rivalry with expansionist Japan wd almost certainly have ended in serious firefights even if the European War had never been (there's an essay on this, maybe more, in Chomsky's The New Mandarins). (There's also a peach of a Conspiracy Theory surrounding Roosevelt's early knowledge of Pearl Harbor: which claims he knew in advance but didn't tell and did nothing, to up the outrage and start the war he wanted; problem being, the effectiveness of theJapanese attack was entirely underestimated… I am agnostic, as usual, as to actual plots, but the Paranoid Angle speaks as ever to a genuine political constituency with manifestly effective minor presence)

Whether we can say with metaphysical certainty whether he knew in advance or not, it's certainly plausible that he regarded it as bait: if the Japanese didn't take it, then no harm done, and if they did, then we were in the war. It strikes me as more likely that it was a gambit, rather than an outright sacrifice.

Vietname syndrome = very real, and very true. Even NYT and such publications are quite explicit that it scares them.