War on Terror - WWII analogies

[achilleus]

Read an interesting little article in Newsweek last week. Got me thinking.

So, the Bush administration has drawn several analogies between the War on Terror and WWII. If one believes that the WoT is similar to WW2 then mistakes that are made are forgivable, and the Bush administration is on the right track. Victory through force of arms. The article mentions Japanese internment camps that the US had during WW2. Wrong, but we were at war, so it was OK then. Similar to the current situation with detainees, etc...

Now, many people believe that the WoT is not like WW2, but more like the cold war. In other words success won't depend on military might, but a combination of politics, money, cultural shifts, and military might.

So, which do you people here believe?

It's gonna be won (or contained if you think it will never be 100% won) through force of arms or other methods?

[S. Hunter]

We can't win. Idealistic types say we can, its impossible. IMO, the only thing we can really do is too stop supporting Israel if we really want to win - That or destroy an entire culture and its seeds all around the world - Something impossible. They hate us because US + Israel = Israeli control and opression of their holy land. (Which is ours and Israels too (Assuming US is atleast cosmetically christian)). We are going to have to pull out - Democracy won't work in the mideast if we impose it, We aren't liberating like we were in WW2, we are INVADING and trying to impose democracy, which the media likes to portray as liberating. We should leave and leave them well enough alone - There is no reason to not leave the mideast altogether, including israel. ITS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS, A thousand times more sudanese were killed than israelis have ever been, yet we don't try and stop the conflict there. We should stay in america, have an army for defense, and let the world destroy itself unless it poses a direct threat to us. (I mean nation state threat, Terrorists are easily dispatched by swat teams and good intel, which I wouldn't advise against. That is assuming that any terrorists would still attack us once we reached isolationist state)

All this and I would probably vote for bush because of Guns and Taxes.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by S. Hunter

(I mean nation state threat, Terrorists are easily dispatched by swat teams and good intel, which I wouldn't advise against. That is assuming that any terrorists would still attack us once we reached isolationist state)

You speak from what authority on the ease of intercepting terrorists?

[achilleus]

Originally Posted by S. Hunter

We can't win. Idealistic types say we can, its impossible. IMO, the only thing we can really do is too stop supporting Israel if we really want to win - That or destroy an entire culture and its seeds all around the world - Something impossible. They hate us because US + Israel = Israeli control and opression of their holy land. (Which is ours and Israels too (Assuming US is atleast cosmetically christian)). We are going to have to pull out - Democracy won't work in the mideast if we impose it, We aren't liberating like we were in WW2, we are INVADING and trying to impose democracy, which the media likes to portray as liberating. We should leave and leave them well enough alone - There is no reason to not leave the mideast altogether, including israel. ITS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS, A thousand times more sudanese were killed than israelis have ever been, yet we don't try and stop the conflict there. We should stay in america, have an army for defense, and let the world destroy itself unless it poses a direct threat to us. (I mean nation state threat, Terrorists are easily dispatched by swat teams and good intel, which I wouldn't advise against. That is assuming that any terrorists would still attack us once we reached isolationist state)

All this and I would probably vote for bush because of Guns and Taxes.

(Damn extra characters!)

[S. Hunter]

You speak from what authority on the ease of intercepting terrorists?

I meant as in not deploying a whole army or large scale deployment. My idea is to withdraw all of our forces from everywhere save intel agents, and deplay incredibly conservatively. I would also stop money to any other countries for aid or anything. I'm an extreme isolationist. I typed the post above while putting my knickers on and practicing sabre on my wall, so there are plenty of things wrong. I'm in a hurry though.

(P.S: I really don't mean to demoralize or offend any members of our armed forces, I respect them for serving more than just about anything in the entire world)

[Soldier]

I understand the isolationist idea - let the world see what happens when we do not help. But I do not think it will be by any means "easy" to intercept terrorists, even with an extensive intelligence net (which we currently lack).

[jBirch]

I think the idea is to remove the bullseye from America first, before getting involved in other fights. I'm firmly of the belief that military action against guerilla forces is a waste of people. Terrorists aren't interested in taking and securing ground: they are interested in simply making that ground as bloody and expensive as possible in an effort to make you give it up and go away. It's why asymmetric warfare is so effective against democratic armies: people get pissed off when their sons and daughters are dying to no effect.

I think that fighting terror with terror is merely going to fuel the problem; on both sides. What you need to do is make some real sacrifice for peace, understand the problem and solve it. Give the terrorists a peaceful voice for their words that is really listened to, not merely pacified. Smoke and mirrors merely results in broken mirrors and glass in your feet as you stumble blindly about. If you ask any terrorist in the world why they are killing, they will respond "because you killed us first" or "becuase no one listens and we're hurting". It's childish yes, but it's also real. Think about that.

Unfortunately I think that the sacrifice outside of military action necessary to reach a real peace is too much for the US. The concept of freedom does not contain the notion that behaviour must be controlled or curtailed. Freedom means the ability to act as you please, immune to consequences. Until that changes, terrorism is here to stay.

[Inquartata]

All analogies in the realm of praxeology are inherently flawed. Alas, they're also irresistible...

I don't think that the current war is any more like WWII than it is like Vietnam ( with apologies to the "quagmire" enthusiasts ). Neither do I think it's like the cold war. If it resembled anything we have experienced before we would know better how to fight it, instead of blindly groping our way through as we are doing.

I suspect that what it's going to boil down to eventually is something similar to the Israeli model: a strong defense, targeted assassinations of terrorists whenever and wherever they can be found, limited preemptive strikes at potential threats, and perhaps the occasional Afghanistan-like military intervention when a given state is being refractory and harboring terrorists.

[jeff]

I agree with Inq (which may dismay him!), and would add that isolationism is just a non-starter. The economy and our interdependance with other countries makes that impossible. How long could we go without foreign oil, for example? How well could we work against terrorism if our response was a Fortress America (which can't be achieved). To me, isolationism is just ostrich-like putting one's head in the sand.

[L.O.A.S.]

Information for this post is taken from the book by Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. The particular chapter is titled Different Animals, and talks about fighting the Japanese in the south pacific.

The U.S. Ambassador to Japan at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, Joseph Grew, traveled the country lecturing on American overconfidence at defeating the Japanese war machine.

"At this very moment, the Japanese feel themselves, man for man, superior to you and to me and to any of our peoples. They admire our technology, they may have a lurking dread of our ultimate superiority of resources, but all to many of them have contempt for us as human beings... The Japanese leaders do think that they can and will win. They are counting on our underestimates, on our apparent disunity before - and even during - war, on our unwillingness to sacrifice, to endure, and to fight."

Statistically throughout the pacific campaign, the proportion of captured to dead Japanese was about 1:120. In the North Burma campaign, we captured 142 Japanese, and killed 17,166. At Guadalcanal, more than 30,000 Japanese died before the island was secured. The truism among western nations is that the loss of 1/4 to 1/3 of an army usually bodes surrender. Incredible. Fanatical. This is not to say that our Marines were butchers and wouldn't take prisoners. On the contrary, they would have prefered Japanese surrender to having to go into caves to root them all out.

Although insulting to Japanese, I would say that today we face an enemy of similar fanatacism and resolve. The above statistics, and projected American casualties were significant contributors to dropping the "big one". Twice. I'm not proposing we nuke anyone, but we definitely need to take the hammer to the terrorist. Wishfull thinking and turning isolationist won't make them go away.