TPM has a nice slideshow, including a shot of this hallowed strip club.
Funny, I never walk down that block, so I didn't know exactly where it was, but there are always guys handing out leaflets for that strip club on Broadway.
He was going to pull out of Iraq (which he did slowly, but he's doing it)
There are still 70,000 troops in Iraq. By the end of the year, there are supposed to be 50,000 troops in Iraq, which would still be more than any other country except Afghanistan. I realize that's less than 140,000, but that's the very kind of withdrawal that earned withdrawal its reputation as a birth control method.
I've never been to a strip club, but if I were to go to one, it wouldn't be one that needs to hand out flyers.
3: Are you calling our soldiers sperm?
5: Nope, he was calling them our collective penis.
3: you missed out the (rather important) point that those 50,000 will be gone by the end of next year. They're not staying indefinitely.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/us/politics/27obama-text.html?pagewanted=2
"As I have long said, we will retain a transitional force to carry out three distinct functions: training, equipping, and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq. Initially, this force will likely be made up of 35-50,000 U.S. troops.
Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. "
Barack Obama, Camp Lejeune, 27/2/09.
you missed out the (rather important) point that those 50,000 will be gone by the end of next year
The past two years have taught me not to give this administration credit for things it hasn't actually accomplished yet. We'll see whether those 50,000 troops are gone by the end of next year. Healthy skepticism is warranted.
and make a last, time-limited attempt to magically turn Afghanistan into DenmarkA major exporter of bacon? I don't think so. If Petraeus can be cited on the record as having agreed to the initial timetable, then he should simply be asked, again on the record, what he has seen in the last couple of months which has changed his mind: to thereby dial down the rhetoric.
Nobody likes having their project pulled, even when the arguments for doing so are clear. Most project managers, being human, resist to some extent. But most project managers' human resources problems aren't resolved with high explosives.
Every time I read these US generals playing politics I do think that maybe a nice jail sentence for one or more of them might be a good idea, pour encourager les autres, and all that.
10: "A major exporter of bacon? I don't think so."
Hey, at least Obama closed down Guantanamo.
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All this politics and serious issues and earnest stuff. This site has just gone all to hell.
Review of Weeds S0601. No real spoilers, except for those who haven't caught S5
Kohan's brilliance of syncing nuance with the blunt drama onscreen shines in the final minutes. As Nancy drives down the highway and throws the murder mallet weapon out the window, a nature radiocast about the parasitic wasp airs in the background. The DJs describe how the wasp can sting a cockroach in its brain, making the bug its slave. One of the DJs pipes up, "sounds like the purest description in nature of evil I can imagine." Nancy looks in her rearview mirror to catch Shane, wide-eyed looking back at her, emotionless. It's obvious he's lost it. What's clear is that Shane is motivating Nancy's motives; she's arguably serving him. But that's how Nancy moves: When she sells pot or goes on the lamb, it's all for the children.
Well, I thought it was funny.
The Esteban stuff had bored me, but I'm hooked again. One of the nuances here is that Shane is clearly brilliant and the smartest of the crowd. Nancy continually gets her kids into bad situations, finally to where they were about to get killed. Shane, justifiably, bears some serious grudge. Besides being a homicidal psychopath at 14.
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14:"lamb" fucking sic
The Idiocracy accelerates
But most project managers' human resources problems aren't resolved with high explosives.
Yeah, I have this problem where I work. I know how to motivate people, but upper management won't back my innovative methods.
As far as OP, pt 1
This is what I find infuriating, uh, outrageous, about managerial liberal twits like Matt Ygs. In addition to pimping for wars to be conducted more responsibly with a more frugal allocation of resources, as if the wholesale killing of innocents were analogous to the zero-based budgeting process for your half-mil-a-year, save-the-children 501(c)3, they persistently approach the American death machine as an unfortunate distraction. Oh, isn't it a shame that Obama has to kill dozens of Yemeni civilians for no reason at all whatsoever when he should be fighting to save Social Security. Isn't it too bad that he's got to worry about his escalating Asian land war when America is going dark. How will it affect his legacy? We report, you decide.
Oh why, oh why does Trajan fight in Dacia? We can't afford it. Oh well, think I will escape the Logic of Empire at the Chariot Races watching a teenage boy kill a woman with a croquet mallet. It's soooo cute.
OP pt 2 is Stupid Republican Tricks.
14: I think Weeds jumped the shark long ago. Check out "Breaking Bad".
I've talked to some insider-ey people with Obama admin connections who say that that Obama has committed to "begin a process for drawing down the surge" in 2011, as opposed to committing to a full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Unfortunately, I think Petraeus was less off the reservation than poking at the inside of the envelope. But we'll see soon enough, we should all have plenty of advance info to decide whether to vote for Nader in 2012.
Anywhere you can buy a "ground zero" snowglobe is not hallowed ground.
Except the flakes are grey, black and red, not white. And if you look really closely, some of them look like tiny little people.
The heat death of the universe would be too soon.
There's two kinds of people in this world: those who think 9/11 snowglobes are a wonderful way to memorialize a national tragedy and mosques in downtown Manhattan are a disgrace; and those who think 9/11 snowglobes are a disgrace and that a mosque in downtown Manhattan is a wonderful way to celebrate American values. Discuss.
I was covered in those flakes that day, and I appreciated 22.
Protip: Make your Ground Zero snowglobe is in your checked baggage if you want to take it back to the Real America.
21: Ok in fairness I have only seen this kind of stuff in Times Square, but I bet you can buy it down there* as well. Depending where I go for lunch, I may look into it. Investigative reporting at its best.
*not a euphemism for what it is usually a euphemism for
22 was a bit over the line, wasn't it. Sorry about that, anyone who was actually offended.
I'm offended by backing away from jokes. Now what do you do?
25. There is, I suppose, a fairly robust argument that engaging in cheap profiteering with a complete disregard for taste is a perfectly appropriate way to memorialise the World Trade Centre in its day to day life. But equally there's an argument that souvenirs based on a deliberate attempt to out-kitsch all comers should be deprecated regardless of subject.
On the other side of the equation, there are already mosques in downtown Manhattan, and downtown London and Madrid, and building a community centre to go along with them is entirely irrelevant to the question of the WTC site.
30 is based on the assumption that they're perfectly ordinary snowglobes. If 22 speaks truth, I confess myself gobsmacked.
29: It's like one of those Star Trek episodes where Kirk makes the computer blow up.
No, 22 doesn't speak truth, but if it did, I'd totes buy one.
34: This is why everyone hates America.
It isn't our fault if everyone else has good taste, Sir Kraab.
28: Demand you take down 22 immediately. Peaceful members of Unfogged, please repudiate insensitive LB posting.
No, PGD, you've got it all wrong. It's "pls refudiate".
Didn't you misspell 'refudiate'?
From the sight of that snowglobe, PGD? I should think so.
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I'm not sure what to make of the possibility that Rand Paul's opposition to the Civil Rights Act is just fine with Kentuckians but that the best hope for his losing the election is his opposition to the War on Drugs. Is the outcome more important than the reasons for the outcome? I guess it is, but wow.
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45: Isn't Kentucky wall-to-wall weed?
Roger Simon: "And what's the point of doing the right thing if your party is going to lose seats because of it?"
46: Probably more like mobile-home-to-mobile-home meth.
I think it would really show the terrorists that we won't be intimidated if we gave Ground Zero over to a constant party. There could be some movie stars there, 'cause there's a lot of them in Manhattan. And they could do fancy, choreographed routines, all on cue.
The first time I was back in NY post-9/11 was when I went home for Thanksgiving. In Penn Station, I overheard a guy on his cellphone, who was clearly being asked what sights he took in on his trip to the big city, and he said, "Oh you know, the tree in Rockefeller Center, the Christmas Show, FAO Schwarz, Ground Zero." At that point, the thing was still on fire. It became a tourist attraction pretty darn fast.*
*Yes, yes. Plato, Republic, Leontius, etc.
Kentucky grows the most and the best weed east of California.
46: Yeah, I think it trumps tobacco as the state's most important cash crop.
51: Most? Probably. Best? Them's fightin' words...
Most? Probably.
As of 2006, they were still trailing Tennessee.
50: The thing is, at that point there was still something to see there that was connected to 9/11, though it's being just another item on the tourist checklist was a bit fucked-up. It's now that it just looks like any other large construction site that its appeal is mystifying.
There could be some movie stars there, 'cause there's a lot of them in Manhattan. And they could do fancy, choreographed routines, all on cue.
Having liberal, terrorist-coddling celebs would be in poor taste, so you're left with Jon Voigt, Craig T. Nelson, and Chuck Norris (I'm not sure if Patricia Heaton's conservatism extends to domestic security), who could do some very fancy tableaux vivants of beheading Bin Laden and/or Jimmy Carter.
It became a tourist attraction pretty darn fast.
Everyone at a tourist attraction isn't a tourist.
50: reminds me of that award winning photo from Lebanon...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6385969.stm
...though, to be honest, the photo's misleading, according to the article.
54: I like how they can count down to the individual plant.
Oh, right. "New York Dolls." I had forgotten the name of the Ground Zero Strip Club, but I just had to dodge a guy handing out cards in a New York Dolls apron/smock/thingy. Now I am at Park Place, apparently somewhat liveblogging the snowglobe quest. I am walking by the Groud Zero Not Particularly Appealing Women's Apparel Store. Ah here we go. Absence of two large buildings: check. There are some guys selling bottled water but maybe I spoke too soon about the snow globes. Nevar forgetzorz calendars/souvenir booklets for sale. Ok, its a start. Man lifting child to see absence of buildings because being too young to remember it is almost as bad as forgetting. No fucking snowglobes. This is how I'm spending my lunch break?! Loud possibly crazy tour guide. I swear I am this close to just asking someone who you have to blow to get disaster kitsch around here. NY Souvenirs, 114 Liberty Place. I'm afraid this is as close as I'm going to find. Obama shot glasses, plain old snowglobes and, yes, little plexiglas desk monoliths with the WTC (no, not the Well Tempered Clavier. Gets me every time, too) and its dates of being etched in. Mission somewhat accomplished.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said:
ONLY A LIBERAL
Could Make a Victim Out of a Terrorist
I honestly have no idea what the reference was. Terrorists in general? A specific person? Gitmo prisoners? I found it hard to be properly excoriated.
I am walking by the Ground Zero Not Particularly Appealing Women's Apparel Store
It's a bit much that they put that in the actual name of the store. I mean, generally they're a bit more tactful. Like they talk about "Plus Size Clothing" rather than "Tents for Fatties".
Still, it's nice that Manhattan will clothe you even if you're a not particularly appealling woman.
54: As of 2006, they were still trailing Tennessee.
Tennessee, Tennessee, there ain't no place I'd rather be
Take me to another place, take me to another land, make me forget all that hurts me, let me understand your plan
60 deserves some kind of prize for devotion to the blog in the face of grave psychological and aesthetic danger.
Commenter at Andrew Sullivan's site suggests a coffee shop in the new Ground Zero office complex called Hallowed Grounds.
60 is incredible. A new American hero in our midst!
ONLY A LIBERAL
Could Make a Victim Out of a Terrorist
This is pro-liberal right? The meaning is more clear if you substitute "Chuck Norris" for "a liberal".
66: Truly. Now grab two beers and make a quick exit, preferably while hurling profanity, Smearcase.
Something buggy is going on with the archives. I'm trying to reach the Austin meet-up post and the sidebar links aren't quite working correctly. Anyone experiencing the same thing or know what's up with that?
M/tch, here's the post. The timing of posts in the recent archive doesn't match my memory of how things went, but I assume I'm the one in error and don't have time to look more closely.
69: Do you not see it here? I also see for the first time that you requested I get off my keister and decide about the meetup location, and I'm happy that apo answered correctly.
Huh, I just went out for a sandwich, and could have emulated Smearcase, although probably without the same level of panache. I remember there being more kitschmongers four-five years ago -- there's some stuff for sale in newsstands, but not really many sidewalk vendors selling 9-11 stuff any more.
Has anyone told the wingnuts that there's a Metro stop at the Pentagon? Socialism!
Huh. Seems to be working fine now, but I had to restart my computer in order for that to happen. I blame w-lfs-n.
Now grab two beers and make a quick exit, preferably while hurling profanity, apo.
78: I think your palindrome needs some work.
an attempt which was doomed from the start, but at least it wasn't going to go on forever.
But it will go on forever. Ever since we missed killing bin Laden, Afghanistan was and remains a long-term holding action. The Bushies screwed up on killing bin Laden, but when they did so they had enough sense to draw down in Afghanistan to minimize casualties. (And then they fucked up by invading Iraq.) No one will accept the political consequences of allowing bin Ladin back into Afghanistan (Saddam Hussein, by comparison, is dead). So we're never going to win in Afghanistan, but we've got the North Korea of South Asia next door in Pakistan, so we can't give up either.
Since the terrain is almost all rural our strategy should be to buy off the warlords and get them lined up fighting for us, using bribery and corruption (looking the other way when they sell opium). Then you minimize the number of Americans in Afghanistan and call it a victory.
Instead we've got the stupid surge which won't work - winning in Kabul is not possible in the way 'winning' in Baghdad was possible. (Our strategy in the surge in Iraq was in part, retreat - we bailed out of rural areas concentrated on the one big city and once we reduced the violence (via ethnic cleansing no less) we bailed out of the cities and left them to the government. That worked because the entire exercise was a fighting retreat, not an aggressive advance.) In Afghanistan an optimal surge strategy would be to bail out of the rural areas (like Iraq), call in the warlords, and then bail out of the cities. Since the cities in Afghanistan aren't like Baghdad and don't feature the same issues of ethnic cleansing (the Pashtuns have the majorities in Kabul and Khandahar) there's no point in trying to patrol and clean up the mess. Better to leave the cities behind and build secure bases nearby but outside the cities, far away from the people. A dozen bases in the Pashtun areas could guard most of the country and then you just need to figure out how to patrol the roads to get your supplies in. That doesn't really differ from Iraq in major ways except in the part where we can't leave. (That, in turn is what makes it so critical we leave Iraq. We need to minimize casualties.)
PGD @ 19: I've talked to some insider-ey people with Obama admin connections who say that that Obama has committed to "begin a process for drawing down the surge" in 2011, as opposed to committing to a full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Unfortunately, I think Petraeus was less off the reservation than poking at the inside of the envelope. But we'll see soon enough, we should all have plenty of advance info to decide whether to vote for Nader in 2012.
Obama is never going to commit to leave Afghanistan as long as bin Laden is alive. I don't see why he would, since the game is not over. That doesn't mean we can't adopt Joe Biden's super anti-terrorist strategy. That would be useful and would involve the minimum in fighting forces. But we will never, ever ever ditch Afghanistan without getting bin Laden, and I don't see why anybody would think we would or would be willing to do so. It's the unnecessary side shows (like Iraq) we want to stay out of.
Of course, if liberal types are going to go to Nader over this then we're doomed to a Palin/Gingrich presidency starting in 2012. I can just imagine the fresh hell that will open up. In that case we will truly go down the tubes as a nation.
Can you imagine the police state we'll get out of a Palin/Gingrich + a Republican congress? F.M.L. I don't want to live out my remaining days in a camp.
max
['I really can't believe we're going to commit suicide like this.']
but we've got the North Korea of South Asia next door in Pakistan, so we can't give up either.
Sure we can. Pakistan was right next to Afghanistan back in 2000, and yet somehow we survived.
Pakistan was right next to Afghanistan back in 2000, and yet somehow we survived.
About 3,000 New Yorkers didn't.
Shoulda preemptively bombed Hamburg, I guess.
Politically, Obama's options on Afghanistan are pretty bleak. If he pulls out, Republicans will blast him (and Democrats generally) as weak on national security and inviting another 9/11. If he keeps the troops there, it's an enourmous waste of life and resources, and the GOP blasts him for that. I don't know what I'd advise him to do, were I his political adviser.
If the domestic political aspect of it is a wash, and there's no good end to be served by staying in, shouldn't that make the decision easy?
85: But can't you say this about absolutely every issue? No matter what Democrats do, Republicans will vilify them and claim they're big spenders who want high taxes and don't care about national security. If the outcome is the same no matter what, why not do the right thing? (I know, I oversimplify. Some Republican attacks take hold with the public more than others.)
I hope David Johanssen, or whichever one of the Dolls is left standing, sues. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what they meant.
81: Can you imagine the police state we'll get out of a Palin/Gingrich + a Republican congress?
Ah, but what about Palin/Gingrich (personally, I would back a Palin/Quayle ticket) and a 50% +1 Democratic congress? That would be so fucking awesome. Everybody would be anarchists after four years of that!
85: 62 percent of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan. I'm so fucking sick of Democrats pussying out and getting red-baited.
Make no mistake, the "counterinsurgency" plan for Afghanistan would require us to stay for a decade or two more.
Per CBO, if we can get troops in Iraq/Afghanistan down to 30,000 (combined in both places) by 2013, we save $1 trillion over the next decade.
Obama is never going to commit to leave Afghanistan as long as bin Laden is alive.
How do you know Bin Laden is alive? How will we know when he dies?
I've been following the whole Cordoba House mess fairly closely in part because a member of my wife's family who lives a block south (and works 1/2 block east) of the WTC site* wound me up on it a couple of weeks ago (I've not spoken to him since the more recent follies, though). I think what really put him over the edge was the realization that after all the crap and stuff** of the last 10 years it's not yet "over", and politicians and pundits who otherwise hate just about everything about his politics, his life and his city feel that they have a proprietary right of demagoguery with regard to the neighborhood. Even worse, the political and local media take it seriously. When Pam Geller's worldview gets mainstreamed you know we're fucked (not sure if I or anyone else linked this essential Justin Elliott time-line of the prehistory of the "controversy"). The one person who has really come through is Bloomberg-- a guy I admit I was lukewarm on.
*But of course the views of one resident are no more determinative than those of any one 9/11 "family member".
**In addition to being out of residence for a goodly period of time, there was the air quality/toxic debris concerns, building being considered for demolition for several of the proposed memorial plans and the continuing follies of the Deutsche Bank building demolition across the street.
Obama is never going to commit to leave Afghanistan as long as bin Laden is alive.
Yeah, I'm not really seeing this; bin Laden's disposition hasn't seemed to be a principal concern for some time.
Ah, but what about Palin/Gingrich (personally, I would back a Palin/Quayle ticket) and a 50% +1 Democratic congress? That would be so fucking awesome. Everybody would be anarchists after four years of that!
Writing two checks. Paradise.
... But goddamit, we elected Obama on the understanding that we were done with endlessly prolonged, pointless wars. He was going to pull out of Iraq (which he did slowly, but he's doing it), and make a last, time-limited attempt to magically turn Afghanistan into Denmark -- an attempt which was doomed from the start, but at least it wasn't going to go on forever.
I voted for Obama too and while I didn't fully realize that I was just trading a thousand years in Iraq for a thousand years in Afghanistan where we are now is quite consistent with Obama's campaign positions. Unfortunately he wasn't lying. And now he is going to be very reluctant to admit error. He will probably leave it to the next President. Like Bush did.
Never mind, James. Since neither party will ever pass a serious climate bill, and even if they did the Chinese would laugh at it, you're not going to have a thousand years anywhere. Not even in America.
Can I troll now? Lemme get more coffee. Ok.
Logic of Empire is an example of the early stories (1941) that created Robert Heinlein's reputation, and frankly, created SF as we know it today. I see little to nothing on the blogs that contains this level of astute analysis.
Um. Lemme add another link here, Obama Seeks New Design for housing, Fannie Freddie ...privatization, hardcore neo-liberal stuff.
War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin Nah.
What are the conditions of middle and late empires, when expansion has reached its limit? Entrenched hereditary oligarchy with high expectations. Decreasing surpluses and dwindling opportunities, cutthroat competition within the hegemony. Urbanization and factory farming. Lumpenproletariat.
The war machine must shift to defense, counter-insurgency, internal security. The needed Stasi and Sardaukars are being trained in Iraq and Iran. As PO and AGW start hitting hard, the model of forts staffed with brutal sociopaths outside cities will be moved back to the US.
The domestic economy, in order to keep the elites secure/happy (villas, aqueducts, baths, and games/guards for local politics) and the masses impotent, must move ever increasing numbers of "citizens" to debt serfdom or slavery.
I don't think we have to stay until UBL and his 300 followers are captured/killed. We just have to wait until Karzai (or a successor) and the Taliban can make a deal good enough to allow us to leave without taking helicopters off the roof. Maybe that takes 1,000 years, but I'm thinking 2 or 3 ought to do it.
At least there will be circuses. Who doesn't love a circus?
98:We are not abandoning those minerals ever. We will decide who gets the molybdenum. Unless we change completely the meaning of "we" from elites to masses.
Look, I have been saying it for years. You cannot attack the war machine directly. You attack it by depriving it of honor, prestige, and funds with massive social spending and redistribution.
Britain did not get NHS because it withdrew from Empire. Britain lost its Empire, kicking and screaming for a decade after WWII, because the people demanded NHS.
"Peace, Peace" is utterly useless.
Finally
Many people will die. BP will not fix the mess.
Obama cliffdives to radical evil.
92: ...bin Laden's disposition hasn't seemed to be a principal concern for some time.
It will become the single most important issue of the day for months leading up to the election if US troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan under a Democratic president, and it will have plenty of traction among the mushy middle who actually decide US elections.
Personally I'm in favor of ignoring most of Afghanistan and devoting 100% of the resources currently invested in Taliban Whack-A-Mole to hunting Bin Laden. That includes straightforward violation of Pakistan's sovereignty when it can be done without provoking outright war. When the ISI stops funding and supporting the Taliban we can talk about Pakistan as an ally. Right now they are not even close to it, sucking up US aid to no good end, hiding and protecting the world's number one nuclear proliferator, actively working to destabilize the world's largest democratic state (a natural US ally), and supporting the nastiest bunch of political actors since the Khmer Rouge.
Britain lost its Empire, kicking and screaming for a decade after WWII, because the people demanded NHS.
Sorry, olloxbay. Britain left its empire according to a more or less planned schedule that had been drawn up by the Colonial Office by 1948 at the latest. The reasons they did so were that the elite realised: 1. it was cheaper to exploit primary producers economically if you didn't bother governing them as well, and 2. it would make the Americans happy and they would subsidise any ad hoc interventions that became necessary after "independence". This was in fact a highly successful imperialist strategy and would have worked even better if the majority of British corporations hadn't been so locked into rent seeking that innovation had become virtually impossible.
100 is wrong, but 103 is not quite believable either. In any case the reality of the economic unsustainability of Britain's world empire was clear long before WWII and could only maintained as long as it didn't come under stress. Cue the paper hanger from Austria...
I'm not sure the drawing down of Empire happened as calculated as chris y makes it, but after the independence of India the rest of the empire didn't really serve much purpose anymore, acquired as it had been to protect India and the routes to it. On the other hand, Kenya and the ethnic cleansing there only happened after the loss of India, as it become the most profitable remaining colony.
Martin, my dad worked in the Colonial Office from 1948. When he joined he was told that their mission was to abolish themselves. The road map at the time looked a lot tidier than the practice did later - for example, the "Central African Federation", which didn't exist at that time but briefly did later, was intended to create a single state from what are now Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi and the Caribbean colonies were envisaged as forming a sort of small scale USA, but the bigger countries understandably decided they didn't want to subsidise the small islands (Hello New York and California?).
I think the original plan also involved hanging onto Aden (S.Yemen), which was far more important then as a naval fuelling station than it would be today. But the only other major glitches were the wars against the Communists in Malaya and the KLFA in Kenya.
The KLFA, contra Kenyan national mythology, ran one of the most ineffectual guerrilla campaigns in history. They never extended their base beyond the Kikuyu and were viewed as racist by the Luo; and they were riven with factionalism which seriously limited their effectiveness. Much but not all of this can be laid at the door of the appalling Kenyatta, without whom they might have been a lot more effective. The British repression was one of the nastiest colonial wars in history, and unnecessarily bloodthirsty, not least because it was largely directed by the settler police; however it scarcely counts as a genocide, simply because operations never reached that scale - had the KLFA been more effective, it might have been another story. The Kikuyu remain after all numerically and politically dominant in Lenya, for better or for worse.
It's true that Kenya was the most profitable colony after Indian independence, but Britain post war still couldn't afford to subsidise the settler regime and had no intention of trying. They sought, and ironically found in Kenyatta and his colleagues, a compliant comprador elite to to the job for them.
The Malaya war was a classic cold war operation, differing from Vietnam chiefly in that the imperialists won. Westmoreland might have done well to study it more deeply.
However, neither in Kenya nor in Malaya did the military operations significantly delay the original programme for "home rule" (I hestitate to use the term independence for post colonial countries, whether they originated in the British, French or Dutch empires, because to the extent they're independent today, it's the end product of a long process which only began with the end of direct rule).
In case the above appears unitentionally apologetic for the British Kenyan regime, let me clarify that they were perfectly capable of genocide IMO, had they felt the need to carry one out. However in fact the operations against the KLFA were in reality so localised that they don't really meet most practical definitions of genocide.
That includes straightforward violation of Pakistan's sovereignty when it can be done without provoking outright war. When the ISI stops funding and supporting the Taliban we can talk about Pakistan as an ally. Right now they are not even close to it, sucking up US aid to no good end, hiding and protecting the world's number one nuclear proliferator, actively working to destabilize the world's largest democratic state (a natural US ally), and supporting the nastiest bunch of political actors since the Khmer Rouge.
This is a bit wrong. Firstly, it treats Pakistan as an entirely unified actor that is an ally of the US or not; instead, Pakistan is a collection of actors, some of whom are allies of the US and some of whom aren't. Secondly, it reduces the notion of `ally' to one of moral approval or disapproval. Thirdly, the notion that India's a natural US ally is pretty dodgy -- beyond all democracies (& in fact most countries) being natural allies, there's not too much there? India is after all a nuclear proliferator (the world's largest by pop'n, actually) that runs on Five Year Plans.
(Inasmuch as Pakistan is a `natural ally' of China, cutting back on US aid merely encourages Pakistani reliance on China, and so actively hurts the situation in the sub-continent. Further, I am unsure if I'd call Indian-controlled Kashmir democratic, so it might be a good idea to be a bit wary of rhetoric of democratic India destabilised by Pakistan. Besides, arguably, given that arguably India's control of Kashmir is a dodgy land grab, there's nothing wrong with Pakistan destabilising Indian-controlled Kashmir any more than there was something wrong with the US destabilising the Eastern Bloc.)
Yes and no. Yes on Pakistan not being a unified actor. No on India: India isn't a nuclear proliferator. It hasn't as far as I know spread nuclear technology to anyone else (a striking contrast to Pakistan) and it hasn't broken the NPT by acquiring its own nuclear weapons, because it never signed on to NPT in the first place.
Pakistan is a natural Chinese ally only in as much as they both dislike India. Other than that, they have few strategic interests in common - esp. see Central Asian Muslims, Iran and the energy trade (gas from Baluchistan).
there's nothing wrong with Pakistan destabilising Indian-controlled Kashmir
Morally wrong, maybe not, but it does rather risk starting a nuclear war, which could be unwise.
108 -- proliferator is the wrong word. I should say something like `state that acquired & mantains nuclear weapons without much lipservice to disarmament', or some such. Pakistan only acquired nuclear weapons after India, after all.
Pakistan & China sharing a dislike of India has historically been quite a strong bond, hasn't it?
108.last: oh definitely, but then unwiseness has never stopped nations yet, has it?
109.3 Oddly enough, and uniquely in history as far as I know, unwiseness has apparently prevented full scale nuclear war for 65 years.
Pakistan & China sharing a dislike of India has historically been quite a strong bond, hasn't it?
True, but then again India used to have quite a strong bond with China (Krishna Menon and the Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai policy). Then, 1962. As I say, I suspect there are issues that could weaken that bond: energy politics, relations with Iran (especially in the event of a war in Iran) and relations with Central Asian Muslims.
cutting back on US aid merely encourages Pakistani reliance on China, and so actively hurts the situation in the sub-continent
Not necessarily disagreeing, but how does that work? If the US cuts back on aid, Pakistanis will be angry (-ier) with the US, but how does Pakistani reliance on China actually make things worse? (Not much aid from China to Pakistan anyway. Arms sales and possible nuclear proliferation assistance.)
unwiseness has apparently prevented full scale nuclear war for 65 years.
That and a fair amount of pure dumb luck.
Because a lot of the Pakistan/China bond would be a bond based around disliking India, which isn't really a good thing.
I also assume that power would shift from the ``US desk'' to the ``China desk'', which I -think- would be a bad thing.**
* Trust this as much as you'd trust yer archetypal man-in-the-pub; most of what I know about Pakistan/China relations is through an Indian lens, which has obvious implications.
** Even less trust-worthy -- I know nothing about Pakistani bureaucratic wrangles.
112- you mean they wanted to push the button, but mislaid the doomsday machine during their last re-modeling-the-house effort?
114. I think he means stuff like this. It happened more than you want to know, on both sides.
That sounds like smart thinking to me.
Don't get me wrong: I liked Dr. Strangelove a lot - but I do think it was somewhat of an exaggeration.
115: That, and the guy in Moscow who didn't push the button when a Norwegian sounding rocket set off the alarms in '97; and the guy on the Soviet sub in '62 who decided not to sink a US destroyer with a nuclear torpedo (the other two command officers wanted to go ahead); and probably a few others I haven't heard about.
Maybe that is why the protocol specified more than two officers?
It didn't; the three-person system was something that the sub's crew came up with unofficially. Soviet doctrine was that they should get release authority from Moscow, and if that wasn't possible then the captain and political officer had to agree on the launch, but the three of them on board B-59 - captain, first officer, and political officer - decided between themselves that they were going to change things, so that all three would have to consent in order to fire if they couldn't get through to Moscow. The dissenter, Vasili Arkipov, was the first officer (second captain); if they'd been going by protocol they'd have launched.
http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2613/vasili-alexandrovich-arkipov
Top marks, incidentally, go to the other two officers as well, who could have overridden Arkipov and launched but chose not to do so even though they themselves believed that it was the right thing to do. That's some impressive intellectual humility.
