-Re Afghanistan: Wasn’t suggesting “No aid”, just a temporing to keep Russia engaged below any level of real success. I suppose its easy in hindsite to see that possibility, not so easy at the time, but by the mid 80’s Russia was already caving within, so Pakistan wouldn’t have been an option.

- Re Dessert Storm: Yes, pretty much the kernal angst in Bin Ladens head was the arguments he had with the Royal Princes over Iraq, which coupled with some other malaprops got him booted for good. Even so had we finished the job, and with Russia tied up in Afghanistan, Usama would have had no where to base from. The Sudan booted him fairly quickly, and the Taliban didn’t particularly care for him or welcome him there, until he started throwing money around and building some infrastructure. The real reason we’re the target for Islamic Celiphate dreams, is because we’re the lead dog. Take us down and the rest will fold like paper dolls. The Euro block is already trying too, even as the WOT has badly cripled al Qaeda. I honestly don’t think anyone knows if it can be done, but an even reasonable Democracy in Iraq, over time, would be the kiss of death for the Wahhabists and Islamo Jihad. The odds tend to be against any multiculturalism based countries pulling it together, but there’s a chance. Doubt it though.

- Bang

I guess I don’t really buy your reasoning that containment was a stall for SLBM backed full MAD. You make it out like once full SLBM backed MAD was in place the containment of the Soviet Union could be allowed to lapse. That full MAD was the end goal and containment a stall for that. I would state instead that SLBM backed full MAD was more a component building to the end goal of containment. Maybe we are just splitting hairs here or arguing opposite sides of the coin or something. But do you think containment was allowed to lapse once MAD was in place? I certainly don’t. Hell, Iran/Contra took place in a full MAD era. And it was only a few years later that the USSR was gone.

RE: Afghanistan. The CIA had virtually no presence in Afghanistan before the Afghan conflict. The Taliban did not exist before 1994, and if you are refering to the Mujahideen fighters, they did not exist as a force until after the pro-Soviet coup of 1978. Larry P. Goodson provides a good summary in his book ‘Afghanistan’s Endless War’, outlining the progress of Soviet influence in Afghanistan from 1956-1978, when military aid topped $1.25 billion per year. The Soviet invasion to support the pro-Soviet coup was undoubtedly a move at influence expansion, though the Soviets did not seek to make the country part of the USSR. There was no “damping down” to do – the Central Asian Republics had been fully pacified since the 1920s and 30s (see Basmachi Revolt). The Chechens and other Caucasians were also thoroughly pacified by 1978 and would not revolt again in force until the post-Soviet era in 1990.

It is unfortunate we dropped the ball on Afghanistan. But Gulf War I was the real problem with bin Laden and the reason he launched his Jihad against the United States and the west. He offered his muj. fighters and expertise to Saudi Arabia, who turned to the USA instead. OBL was incensed at the presence of non-Muslims in their holy land and the Saudi’s decision to turn to infidels to protect the holy land in general. His “nutiness” springs entirely from that moment. If you have a chance, read ‘Taliban’ by Ahmed Rashid, which details the Taliban’s rise to power and relationship with Osama bin Laden as well as some study of his motivations. It was published before 9/11 and as such is uncolored by emotions that many authors have shining through their work in scholarship since. It is very interesting reading even today.

I agree with you on MAD and its uselessness with regard to small conflicts – that’s why I think MAD is merely a part of containment pointed at the USSR and to some extent China (though China would have a tough time making the entire United States glow with their nuclear arsenal as it stands, especially if they were to attempt to destroy the majority of at least our land based nuclear weapons with their force to reduce their own losses). And if we couldn’t and didn’t credibly threaten the USSR with MAD over Afghanistan, then really SLBM backed MAD was only really a threat to Soviet encroachment on true first-world countries in NATO. This gets back to the point of Vietnam and where you and I differ there.

Lastly re: restraint in Afghanistan, we couldn’t really back off there once we started. The Pakistanis, Iranians and the Saudis, the other main supporters of the Muj in the conflict, could not offer the advanced arms and support that the Muj needed to fight off the Soviets and as Goodson notes in the prologue to his book, in 1986 there was really no knowing whether the Soviets would stop in Afghanistan or continue on into Pakistan, a real US ally in the Cold War. By late 1986 and early 1987 the Stinger was in the field and, as Goodson relates, by 1987 it was virtually assured the war was lost for the Soviets. By 1987, as Geogre Crile notes in ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ over $600mil was being pumped into the war annually by the muj.’s backers. It wasn’t a war like Vietnam.

- Personally I’m still not sure we shouldn’t have tempored our efforts there. Without our help in aid to the local forces, the Russians might have remained tied up in the region for many more generations, without ever really establishing a true hold on things. So they, not we, might now be up to their hips in problems in that region. As it is, they were forced to withdraw when the loss’s, 15,000+ dead, could no longer garner public support. Its a tough call, having both plus’s and minus’s either way.

- Bang

- Unfortuately for them we had gotten a heavy CIA presence in the area, as a part of the earlier Iranian problem, so it was just a matter of progressive aid to the Taliban, to stifle that incursion, without resorting to Nuclear threat.

- Unfortunately for us, after that we dropped the ball, not seeing the future threat to our own interests and stability in the region. Bin Laden may be nuts, but hes no dummy, nor are most of the al Qaeda leaders. They knew a dispersed non-symetrical war is the one thing America was the most unsuited to fight. The rest is history.

- Bang

- Bang

RE: Day late. I can’t say I’m very familiar with Bay of Pigs or Somalia, but I have done a decent bit of reading about Desert One. It was a good plan. It may have worked. It wasn’t that Carter’s heart wasn’t in it. This article at The Atlantic has a lot of information. I don’t think you can call an operation with 74 of America’s most highly trained and professional men manning eight helicopters a dollar short. You can’t throw a rescue mission in the capital of a hostile country to rescue dozens of people from a secure compound in a day either. Yes, Carter gave a go at negotiating their release, and despite the failure of the military mission, that is what worked in the end.

RE: Vietnam. I can’t say I’ve ever heard that nuclear detente was the reason we were involved in Vietnam. Are you saying that Vietnam was an exercise in containment in the pre-nuclear ballistic submarine era? Are you saying that Nixon and Kissinger delayed the end of the war by a few years because they needed to bide their time to get SLBMs in the water? And that after SLBMs and a guaranteed retaliatory strike were in the water it was no longer necessary to contain communism’s advance on land in Asia? Then why Iran-Contra? Why Pinochet? Why support the Afghans? I don’t understand what you are trying to state but I am honestly interested in this angle so please post back. In my opinion Americans “see Vietnam in shame” is because we lost to a bunch of guys in black pajamas. Why throw in the towel?

- Bang

- Being an Independent, I don’t tend to just parrot the talking points of the hard right W2. It’s not so much that I take Carter to task for the fetish he has for negotiations, even with 6 rocket launchers aimed at his head. It’s that he keeps on making the same mistakes over and over, as if he just refuses to see the limits of his own tactics in statesmanship, and the fact that sometimes the time for talking is over.

- Besides, its been underwritten many times now that Liberals just shouldn’t try “rescue” missions, e.g. Bay of pigs, Iran, Semolia, because the results betray their hearts just arn’t in it. A day late and a dollar short is worse than no effort at all. All it does it get good men killed and doesn’t solve anything.

- The only reason de’ terre’ for the situation for the American people having to “see Vietnam in shame” is because 99% never knew, and still don’t, what the whole damn process was all about. It wasn’t anything the hippy movement, Nixon himself (who was probably the most out-of-touch with reality President we’ve ever had the misfortune to endure), or the American electorate thought it was. The State Department. and DoD did what they had to do to carry out the Eisenhower/Kennedy policies, its just a damn shame it had to take us so long to get the nuke sub fleet operational. Eisenhower was slow on the trigger, because he was just sick of war, and understandibly so. Kennedy would talk a tough line and then walk like a weinie. His blunder in putting missiles in Turkey, triggering the Cuban crisus, came close to ending life on our planet. But both of them have to be credited with the “stopping the advance of Communism” policies that worked. Once the subs were deployed we could get the hell out of Nam, and from that day to this, Communism has not gained an inch of dirt anywhere on the globe.

- Bang

RE: lack of dependence = less interest in ME: I don’t agree. The less relevant the region became over time the less we would’ve cared about their affairs and wars. Islamofascism wasn’t even a term in use until 1989/90. I’m certain you mean instead their theocratic shia islam government model. Would America have cared if ME or *any* governments changed or even fell apart if we did not need stable, friendly governments to provide resources? We certainly did not care about the hardcore theocratic Taliban government of Afghanistan, or the country as a whole once the Soviets were gone post 1989. They had little to offer the United States and were largely forgotten until 9/11.

RE: Soviets in the ME: “Soviet supply of Iran” didn’t stop us from supplying the Iranians with weapons ourselves, or approving the Israelis, who asked the Reagan administration if would be ok, to do so either. Yes they were an enemy and they were certainly outside our sphere of influence, but I think we certainly would’ve been less likely to support Iraq to the extent we did, and less willing to come to the aid of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia should Iraq still have conquered Kuwait in the 1990s. I know I am in unknowable territory already, but if we had not needed (or desired) to support Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden would not have become so incensed at the American presence in the Islamic holy land and launched his jihad and organization (an organization we helped establish and supported, IIRC) against the United States and the west in general.

RE: oil companies in general. I don’t begrudge oil companies making a profit. I don’t begrudge them attempting to influence American foreign policy either (and please agree that oil companies do influence American foreign policy) – their directors and employees are voting American citizens like any of us. I do begrudge them for paying out enormous sums to do so, and by extension, leading the country as a whole down paths that are not exactly to our benefit. I begrudge any corporation that pays $33,000,000+ (http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/HomePages.exe?DoFn=&LookUpDate=4/28/2006) to lobbyists, candidates, PACs, etc. to buy its way in Washington. As a realist, I know that all corporations, non-profits, etc. do this to get access and get what they want. But please agree that it is wrong – it is not enshrined in the Constitution, the federalist papers, or anything related to our country’s official methods of governance. You’re right – it is in America’s and the world’s interest to continue to keep the oil flowing. But if ever less were used/required, ever less interest would hinge on oil supply and the countries that supply it. America didn’t give two shits about the Middle East until our own supplies of oil were insufficient or too hard to acquire. Only after World War II did America formalize its security relationship with Saudi Arabia and later the Shah of Iran and others. If oil weren’t as important, I can’t think you would disagree that we would care much less about those countries and their affairs. I also think it is logical to associate stagnant CAFE standards with an interest on the part of oil companies to sell oil. Oil companies were certainly not displeased that CAFE standards did not rise. In the end I am suspicious that oil companies’ profit motive is leadin the country as a whole down a path that is not in the country’s overall best interest.

RE: nuke power and environmental weenies. As you no doubt suspect I care about the environment. But really, who does not? Who would like to live next to an open sewer or a PVC plant? Who wants to drink benzene and arsenic? Bluster aside, I think nuclear power is a good idea; I have done consulting work for Excelon. I think environmentalists are coming around to the viewpoint that it has been proven safe by countries such as the USA itself, France, Japan, Germany and Sweden. Many industrialized countries depend heavily (ie >25%) on nuclear power and we all know there has only been a single major incident, and that in a (at the time) Soviet country that certainly was less safe about it than any free democratic country. Nuclear power is heavily regulated and should remain so – it is very unsafe by its very nature and requires a lot of oversight. Had Three Mile Island not happened, it may have been very different. Overall though, oil does not account for a very significant portion of America’s energy supply *except for transportation*. Oil accounts for only 20% of America’s overall energy consumption, and of that, 67% is used for transportation. I am not certain how the remaining 33% breaks down, but I do know that in 2004, the USA’s oil-fired electricity production capacity was only 3.03% of the total share. You may also note from the table that the maximum amount of electricity generated from oil has remained fairly constant for >10 years, meaning increased consumption (and imports) of oil go overwhelmingly to transportation. My point is that we do not need to replace oil usage in the United States. We should lessen it – and gradually is of course best. As we lessen it, our imports will fall and we will become less dependent. The largest consumer of oil is transportation. We should reduce the amount utilized by transportation by raising our fuel economy standards. As consumption is lessened our national interests in oil production subside and the messy entanglements that national interest promotes will also subside. Falling use leads to falling prices leads to falling bank accounts for Islamofascists.

RE: Japan/Detroit. Sure it is a complicated issue, but CAFE standards are undeniably an important piece of the puzzle. And you can’t deny that the Japanese automakers have recently and over 15 years made large gains against US auto makers. (the link for the 15 year stats disputes the fact that asian auto makers have gained share on American makers, instead stating that Asian auto makers have ‘enlarged’ the market by ~17% (and captured all of those sales) while the big 3’s total sales per annum have remained static in the period. But then again in that period the US population grew from 248.7 mil in 1990 to an estimated 295 mil in 2005, an increase of 15% and vehicles are relatively less expensive now than they were in 1990, in 1990 dollars). Why do people buy SUVs? Certainly people buy what they want, but it doesn’t hurt that the American auto makers heavily market them, which they do because they are highly profitable. SUVs and trucks were certainly inexpensive to operate in the past when gas was $1.20, $1.50, even $2.00 a gallon. But it grows more expensive over time and people have been buying fewer SUVs and other Light Duty Vehicles for the past year (1)(2)(3). I agree quality is less of an issue now than before, but since quality has reached rough parity, other features like fuel economy are now important. I also agree American auto makers have been somewhat shortsighted with regards to their large, low mileage vehicles. In the days of cheap gas it wasn’t a problem and oil/gas prices relative to the 1980 high have fallen significantly and stayed roughly static from ~1986 to 2004. However, gradually higher CAFE standards would have saved the American automakers their current troubles. Japanese automakers certainly have an advantage because their domestic CAFE-like standards are higher and fuel is more expensive in those countries.

RE: Government regulation vs. the market. I generally agree, but I think oversight is useful. I like to think of it like this (and this is a rough analogy): Man is smarter than nature, or at least can modify nature to his own advantage. He can save food before a famine, he can build a dam to harness a river’s energy, whatever. The market is like nature, and regulation imposed by man (ie government) can achieve socially desirable outcomes that may never occur (or may not occur soon enough for a smart man to avoid a famine). Is that elitist/nanny-state? You may think so, because surely someone must make those decisions and that person is therefore an elite. I prefer to think of it as “someone is watching out for you” and not letting you stub your toe when you don’t have to. Should this regulation be used lightly and only after lengthy public debate? Sure should.

RE: mandated CAFE standards. Gradually rising CAFE standards would allow adequate time to develop technology to meet the goals. I am not advocating raising the standards 50% tomorrow, nor would I have in a historical context. But raising them gradually 1%-3% every year or three would mean a continual improvement and a continual reduction in oil consumption. Improving 2% every other year from 1985 through 2005 would yield a CAFE standard of 33.52 mpg today. There are cars out there today that beat that handily. Light truck standards would be at ~20 mpg, approximately where they currently stand. Were light truck standards improved every year by 2%, they would stand at ~26mpg, which I don’t think is out of reach of auto manufacturers. Higher fuel economy and subsequent reduced dependence on foreign oil is a desirable outcome and I think people would pay for it. Also re: safety, small, light vehicles can be designed safely. The Toyota Prius, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Saturn Ion and Toyota Camry all have 4/5 star safety ratings. Do those models sell? Sure they do, especially if you put the same millions behind SUVs into marketing them.

RE: the Acura RL and cars of similar size and weight. Heavier Japanese cars are roughly at parity with their American counterparts, that is true, but that doesn’t mean improvements can’t be made without sacrifice such as continuously variable transmissions, braking energy recapture systems and the like. Also I would point out the curb weights of the corolla, civic and focus are equal yet the corolla and civic get better mileage and the corolla costs less (according to msn autos).

RE: Carter was an abject disaster, Kerry and the hostages. You guys obviously have some strong feelings on this count. I personally think that Carter’s pardon and discharge upgrade were a noble close to some lingering Vietnam tensions. Vietnam is a chapter of American history that is an embarrassment for the American people as a whole, no matter their political parties. Gladly, it has mostly left the stage. I wasn’t alive then and I am glad, though I certainly get the impression that Iraq is no cupcake and is certainly as bad at times as Vietnam. Kerry’s late-date discharge upgrade does raise questions but it’s not like Carter personally sought it. Nor did Kerry win in 2004, and assuming you backed Bush, its fairly irrelevant anyway. Concerning the hostages, Carter’s administration froze their $8bil+ assets, which was the bargaining chip that got the hostages returned. It was also his officials that negotiated the January 19th agreement that prompted their return. That they were returned 5 minutes, 20 minutes or an hour after the inauguration (sources vary on the timing) was certainly a snub to Carter – certainly you guys realize that. As an aside, if the Iranians didn’t like Carter, isn’t that a good thing? I’m not trying to change your mind on Carter. I doubt I could. Sure he wasn’t a great president, but he did do some worthwhile things in office such as the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt (bringing Egypt firmly into our sphere of influence), created the Department of Energy and an energy policy, and negotiated SALT II. Iran and the hostage crisis was a pot boiling since the 1953 regime change in Iran that eventually came due, just as Osama bin Laden was a pot boiling since 1989 and came due on Bush’s watch, that to his misfortune trashed his last year as president. That US Army Delta Force & co. failed to secure the hostages due to a single serious accident is not *anyone’s* fault, and certainly not Carter’s.

Thus the reason von Clauswicz said “You can never avoid a war, you can only postpone it to your enemy’s advantage.”

It’d be really nice if we actually taught history in school so we wouldn’t be repeating it constantly.

- Unfortunately, Bush41 jumped the shark, possibly even worse, by not prosecuting Dessert Storm to its proper conclusion. Had he done that, the entire ME situation could be completely different today, 9/11 might have never happened, and Bin Laden could have been sitting on his heels in some prison somewhere all these years. We’ll never know, but the possibilities of what might of been are really disturbing in hindsight. A great many people were very angry we didn’t do that at the time, even though we couldn’t know where dropping the ball could lead to, it was just intuitive it wouldn’t be good, knowing Husseins ideas and nuttiness.

- Bang

I disagree with your implicit assumption that evil oil companies are corrupting our halls of power, that sounds suspiciously like the start of the usual inane arguments that oil companies are at fault for making a profit, etc. It’s not just in the oil companies interest to keep oil flowing, like it or not, the entire world’s economy, and our own, are dependent on supplies of energy. It’s in the national interest to keep supplies available, particularly as the environmental weenies keep us from building the only viable alternative, nuclear.

The Japanese/Detroit issue is far more complicated than just CAFE standards, if CAFE standards are why they are “eating our lunch” how does that explain the popularity of US SUVs and trucks with poor mileage? People buy what they want, the perceived quality issues between Japanese and US cars are now largely in people’s minds. Toyota has been screwing up royally lately, and often blaming the owners for their design problems (read up on sludging engines). And JD Powers shows tha many US brands are either close (a few points off only), equal, or better than the Japanese brands. Now we also get into lots of issues with short sighted planning on the automakers parts, onerous unions crippling the US automakers when they try to make progress, and a perception that Detroit doesn’t make quality cars, a perception that is helped out by biased automotive press writers who suck Toyota’s tailpipe all too often.

I’d love to be less dependent on the ME, or not at all, and let the bastards try and eat sand. But wishing won’t make it so, we have to play the hand we’re dealt.

And I’m basically opposed to government mandating much of anything. The free market will always do a better job. Mandating fuel economy usually means setting targets that aren’t easily acheivable without drastic measures that wind up mandating cars no one wants and decreasing safety, all for more and more money. Take a look at a lot of the more popular Japanese cars, their gas mileage isn’t all that stunning, where they make a car of similar size and weight to a US car, not much difference.

So yes, I agree that if we weren’t as dependent on ME oil it’d be much better, but the whole issue is not as simple as that, and Carter was an abject disaster as president, and could manage to screw up a wet dream.

If our dependence on foreign oil were lessened from the late 1970s on, there may have been less pressure to arm Iraq in the first place during the Reagan administration as it would not have been as pressing to balance Iran. Iraq may have had less military muscle and less lust for Kuwait’s oil supplies.

Regardless, I doubt you can disagree that less dependence on oil, middle eastern countries of dubious loyalty, liberty and like-mindedness, and less corrupting influence in our country’s halls of power in the hands of large oil companies with deep pockets would be a bad thing. It could’ve happened, but after 1985 standards settled. And now Japanese automakers are eating Detroit’s lunch.

- Although I admit for the left-over moonbats from the 70’s, they’re most likely hopeless cases of arrested development…..

- Bang