Once (within our lifetimes) it was the mark of a man to walk when he knew he was out, without waiting to be given out.
Now it’s the mark of a fool deserving of condemnation from his teammates and the public at large.
Winning is all.
Honour is nothing.
Character is less.
The world has lost sight of virtue.
All the more reason for rules in war, where winning is all that matters. Without regard to the virtue of the cause. Or the means of fighting it.
Yes, one can, maybe, get away with referring to the under-dog as Loser in some sports, but in small wars and counter insurgency, it usually becomes self defeating.
Especially when the under-dog has its teeth firmly and deeply fastened into your arse, and you can’t make it let go.
All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
…Know thy enemy and know thyself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know thyself but not thy enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not thyself, wallow in defeat everytime.
…Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
Once more it has been forgotten, in spite of verbal acquiescence, that guerrilla warfare is essentially political, and that for this reason the political cannot be counterposed to the military.
Regis Debray, Revolution in the Revolution
There is the problem in applying military force, no matter how great, to an essentially political problem.
It becomes impossible when trying to apply national miliary force to a shifting and stateless chimera like Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda, applying the revolutionary techniques of the dedicated minority to convert the uninterested majority which Debray set out in his book, executed the classic act of outrage on 9/11 which provoked the reaction of crushing but ill-directed military force by the target, which in turn outraged the people of the targets of reaction and brought both groups into direct conflict, whereupon the revolutionary leadership could mould and direct the conflict and benefit from every reaction of the target.
Blind Freddie could see the strategy, and the tactics. Bush, Blair and Howard didn’t. And they still don’t.
Which highlights an impoverished mission without clearly defined objectives which are: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound …’War on Terror!’
Oh, yes!
Or, perhaps more aptly: Oh, no!
The War on Terror is a neccessary war against Islamic militants who want to destroy Western civilization.
I agree that action is neccessary against Islamic fanatics (I’m using fanatic to mean someone a lot worse and more dangerous than a militant) who want to destroy Western civilization. They also want to destroy all other forms of Islam and everything else they don’t agree with.
It’s not the same as a war on terror.
Catchy but vague terms such as ‘a war on terror’ fail to define who it is that we are fighting and what it is that we are trying to achieve. A lack of clarity in the aim invariably results in a failure to concentrate resources and forces to achieve the aim, because nobody knows what it is.
This leads currently to things that have nothing to do with protecting ourselves (i.e. primarily the West but also secular Islamic nations such as Egypt and even sectarian Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia) against Islamic fanatics being lumped into the same ‘war on terror’ conflict, such as religious and ethnic conflicts in Iraq which are confined within its borders and always will be, because they’re only fighting for control of Iraq. The same in Afghanistan. To the extent that those places become sites for exporting violent Islamic fanaticism targeting us, as Afghanistan did, then they’re part of our conflict with Islamic fanatacism and become legitimate targets for appropriate action, whether diplomatic, economic, or military.
The vagueness of ‘war on terror’ also brings into the Islamic fanaticism conflict other campaigns that are limited territorially to one or two nations and which don’t pose a general threat to the West or large groups of nations, such as the Basques in Spain and, not so long ago, the IRA in Ireland. These campaigns are essentially a national rather than an international problem, except to the limited extent that various groups of that sort exchange skills, intelligence, and weapons.
The scope of the ill-defined term ‘terror’ is so broad that it encompasses every violent act, and certainly every one that has multiple casualties. Since the Virginia Tech murders I’ve seen a few commentators arguing that this a new form of terror to be combated in the war against terror. That strikes me as ridiculous. It’s a mental health issue more than anything, not that I’m saying that Islamic fanatics don’t have a problem upstairs.
I don’t advocate not fighting those that would use terror tactics as a means to an end.
This thread needs to be split, as we’ve drifted quite a way from Chevan’s topic about firebombing in Korea. He might be justified in firebombing us for hijacking his thread. 
Anyway, how do we fight the Islamic fanatics?
What we’ve (i.e the West) been doing so far has been successful in one sense, such as seemingly rooting out the viper’s nest in Afghanistan, but counterproductive in other ways.
We didn’t really root out the viper’s nest in Afghanistan. We certainly disrupted its breeding program, but in the end we just forced it to go somewhere else.
In so doing and in failing to capture bin Laden, we created an Islamic hero, a giant Robin Hood, for exactly the people who need to be dissuaded from following his ideology.
In invading Iraq we provided a focus for the Islamic jihadists as a simple conflict between Islam and the West, rather like Spain was for the socialists and fascists in the 1930’s.
The catalogue of ill-considered and counter-productive actions is lengthy.
The question is: what can be done that is more productive to eliminate this threat to the West while allowing Islamic countries to live their lives without believing that we are out to get them, in the same way that many of us think they are out to get us? It’s only by coming to some common understanding that all of us are likely to resolve a conflict that can’t conclusively be resolved militarily, in a regular or irregular sense, by either side.
It seems to me that a good starting point would be to stop using the words “they” and “them” to lump all Muslims in with bin Laden and Co. Backing people into a corner invariably results in them baring their teeth at best,and biting back at worst.
I’ve scanned that thread.
It doesn’t alter my previously expressed opinion.
I gather from your early posts in that thread that you think there was no intention by the Americans to invade Japan. If so, that is contrary to all the evidence.
The best sources for historical evaluation are primary sources, such as these http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php
There, and in other primary sources rather than secondary sources, you will find that the overwhelming concern in America was to bring Japan to unconditional surrender. This was the dominant opinion of both Congress and the American people it represented, and the Truman Administration which was elected to give effect to those aims. The desire was to do it with the fewest American casualties, and with the fewest Japanese casualties. It was hoped that the atom bombs would achieve both aims. They did.
Impressing the USSR was not a major concern, except for these two points. One, the US and UK were concerned by the USSR’s communist expansion into the nations it had occupied in Europe and the denial of their political liberty by the occupying Soviets. Two, the US and UK were concerned that the withdrawal of American troops from Europe to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan left the UK unable to resist a USSR attack if the USSR pressed westwards. It has to be remembered that the avowed purpose of the Soviets was to expand communism around the globe.
At the Potsdam Conference, Truman received news of the successful test of the atom bomb. He viewed this as strengthening his hand against the USSR, not because of any intention or ambition to use nuclear weapons against the USSR but because it allowed the US to complete the defeat of Japan without relying on Soviet help in a land invasion. It relieved him of the problem of dealing with and relying upon Stalin, who had been a consistently difficult ally.
Nix, Mr. Rising Fun! (that is not a typo)
Appart from getting the news from Stimson (“Baby is born”) about the A-bomb test success. Truman also got cofirmed by Stalin that USSR will be true to the promise to enter the war.
He is what Mr.Truman wrote in a letter 17-July-1945 (the very first day of Potsdam conference):
[INDENT]“I got without any problems what I came here for - Stalin will join the war … now we can say that we will end the war a year earlier and I think of our boys saved lifes.”[/INDENT]
Are you sure?
I thought that General Groves’ message to Stimson was transmitted to Truman: “Diagnosis not yet complete but results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations.”. Followed a couple of days later by a more definite message in similar vein confirming that the bomb worked.
Truman also got cofirmed by Stalin that USSR will be true to the promise to enter the war.
He is what Mr.Truman wrote in a letter 17-July-1945 (the very first day of Potsdam conference):
[INDENT]“I got without any problems what I came here for - Stalin will join the war … now we can say that we will end the war a year earlier and I think of our boys saved lifes.”[/INDENT]
That doesn’t alter Truman’s position later in the conference that, as Churchill noted, he was much more bossy with Stalin once he had news of the atom bomb’s successful detonation and America’s ability to finish the war by itself.
The USSR’s attack on Japan can reasonably be seen as the action of a nation desperate to grab what it could before the war was ended by the US on US terms, leaving the USSR and matters such as the Kurile Islands to be determined by the US. After all, the USSR had already penetrated the Manhattan Project and taken sufficient information to commence its own nuclear program. It knew it was running out of time to be a party to Japan’s surrender.
This is just one of the texts avaialble on the net. I just have read it today: http://trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/nixon5.htm
From “Oral History Interview with Robert G. Nixon”, October 21, 1970. By Jerry N. Hess.
[INDENT]
[i]Stimson, who was Secretary of War, came over. It was while he was there that he received a message from Washington, which said: “Baby is born.”
Stimson then went to Truman and said, “Mr. President, we have exploded an atomic bomb successfully at Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert.”
This was the realization of the long, more than two billion dollar search, to bring this incredible explosive into being. After Roosevelt’s death Truman was sworn in, in the Cabinet Room at 7:09 p.m. by the Chief Justice. Stimson, later in the evening, had come to Truman and related, very briefly, the facts about the search to bring this atomic bomb into being.[/i]
[/INDENT]
and
[INDENT]
[i]HBSS: Did he imply or state that there had been any serious discussion not to drop the bomb?
NIXON: No.
Truman said he was given this advice in order to end the war. As he said, “To save the lives of a million American boys” who would be lost if they had to invade the Island of Honshu. This was to compel the Japanese surrender before there was an invasion, which, incidentally, had already been wrapped up. I forget at the moment the date. But we had set the date for the invasion. I think it was around October 15.
HESS: The name of that proposed invasion was the Olympic Coronet.
NIXON: I never knew the code name.
Truman said the same thing for the reasons that the Russians were brought into the war against Japan. Afterwards there was a great deal of criticism. Many people said it wasn’t necessary at all. Well, George Marshall thought it was necessary. Chester Nimitz thought it was necessary. The military mind, of course, doesn’t take anything for granted. Until the foe surrenders, if they are still fighting with all of their power, you don’t have any guarantee of victory on your part. They may smash you. So, Truman told me that Marshall and others had said, “Yes, get the Russians into the war.”
This couldn’t be done until after the German surrender. The reason was very simple–military logistics. The Russian army was fighting in Western Europe. The Japanese Islands are half way around the world, thousand upon thousands of miles away. There was a one-track railroad running from Moscow to Vladivostok.
I never thought the Russians were needed. This gave Russia the right to increase their possessions in the Pacific area. But, why not? I felt we wouldn’t have to ask the Russians to join us. When things were cleaned up with Germany, if it was to their national advantage to join us in a war against Japan, they would. They didn’t have to be asked. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t. So, there you are.
Anyway, this particularly came true after the atomic bomb was dropped. But who knew that that would happen? I understood, initially, that the agreement was made at Yalta that the Russians would come into the war against Japan three months after the surrender of Germany.
Well, coming home on the Augusta, Truman told me this same thing: Stalin had agreed that Russia would come into the war against Japan approximately three months after the German surrender and this would be August 8. And the Russians did enter the war.
HESS: Exactly three months after V-E Day.
NIXON: Yes. That’s right, May 8th to August 8th. So, they did carry out one of their agreements.
HESS: When it was to their benefit.
NIXON: That’s the way a nation has to work. Self interest is a powerful thing.
But Truman said, “Bob you can’t use it. When we get home, you mustn’t write this until I give the official word on it.” So, here I was, nursing a story in my bosom of tremendous magnitude. Because Russia coming into the war against Japan was important, but I kept the faith.
On the same day Stimson told Truman about the successful explosion, Truman, Stalin, and Churchill met around the conference table. (Truman told me this on the way home on the Augusta.) When the meeting broke up at the end of the day, Truman said, “I walked over to Stalin and said to him, 'Generalissimo, we have a new weapon. A very powerful weapon.”’
Stalin didn’t seem to be surprised at all. As we learned afterwards, the Russians knew what we were after, and everything about it, down to the complete blueprints.
Anyway, Truman said, “Stalin didn’t seem surprised at all. He just asked, 'What are you going to do with it.”’
Truman said, “I said, 'I’m going to win the war with it.”’ And that was it.
I have read other accounts that differ in some degree, but this is what Truman told me in his own words coming back aboard the Augusta.[/i]
[/INDENT]
I more or less agree with the points made in this interview.
That doesn’t alter Truman’s position later in the conference that, as Churchill noted, he was much more bossy with Stalin once he had news of the atom bomb’s successful detonation and America’s ability to finish the war by itself.
Of course he got bossy. Who would not? Maybe Stalin? Or Churchill?
The USSR’s attack on Japan can reasonably be seen as the action of a nation desperate to grab what it could before the war was ended by the US on US terms,
Yes, of course.
leaving the USSR and matters such as the Kurile Islands to be determined by the US.
Descision on Kuril islands being turned to USSR was part of the Yalta agrements which all 3 allies signed, including USA.
After all, the USSR had already penetrated the Manhattan Project and taken sufficient information to commence its own nuclear program. It knew it was running out of time to be a party to Japan’s surrender.
Penetrated partly. They did not know all of it from the USA. Plus the lab with similar research was orginised in 1941. It is mentione in our forum by Chevan and me somewhere, just need to look.
Unfortunately Nixon was a journalist.
The last thing I would ever expect of that crew is accuracy, let alone in instances when they could come up with a pithy statement instead of accurately reporting the facts, which could lack a bit of punch.
That is one recollection.
The one I’ve seen more often is that after Truman told Stalin at Potsdam about the atom bomb, although not in as many words, that Stalin appeared unimpressed beyond replying that he hoped the US “would make good use of it against Japan”.
I do not cite Nixon because his particulary accurate. Simply because I agree with most (not all) of his points.
By the way this message from Nixon is true:
[INDENT]
So, Truman told me that Marshall and others had said, “Yes, get the Russians into the war.”
[/INDENT]
To my knowledge Truman was the one who wanted to break the Yalta deal and stop being nice with USSR. This is because he thought USA did not need USSR anymore in may 1945. But his generals were the ones who stoped him and worned that USA would still benefit in the Pacific theater if USSR joins the war.
Agreed.
Actually, the American terror bombing of Vietnam paled in comparison to that of Germany in WWII. Far fewer were killed, as the statistics in this thread, by critics of such, bare out…
The British and the American 8th Air Force on the other hand committed war crimes when they bombed Germany, because this was against the pure Aryan people and their glorious Führer!
[sarcasm off]
Jan
Well, to be fair, the Fuhrer bombed civilian targets, as policy and on a large scale, first.