and talking to people who read a lot about the Middle-east and Asia, and my awareness of things like Jane's and Aviation Week and all, so rather than a collection of current articles, it was my own having read massively in newspapers/magazines/popular fiction from the early and mid-20th century, and having talked (or rather, *listened*) extensively to people with all kinds of perspectives on WWII (and the Cold War) growing up, that made me shout at the zampolit talking heads saying "Japan! Germany!" --No, Saigon, you fools! The fact that people *in* Iraq, Iraqis and long-time dwellers, were saying things that contradicted the Chalabite narrative, and they didn't care, didn't even acknowledge, makes me totally unsurprised at the "reality-based community" revelation.
One thing that reading actual source materials, even conflicting ones, rather than the Approved Versions of history of "The Good War" generated from 1950 on yields, is that most of our assumptions about it, based on the Approved Versions, are wrong. There was infinitely more screw-up and CF and mendacity and evil stupidity on the part of the Allies than we're allowed to think or say. There was much more culpablity among the "Good Guys" in the decades of enablingabetting "peace" leading up to 1939, on both sides of both oceans.
But, beyond all that, there's the fact that we hadn't been involved in playing politics for most of a century on a deranged level in Germany and Japan to the extent we had been in Iraq. We hadn't been bombing, on a regular basis - and shooting for target-practice, if a soldier I once went out with is correct - from the air for a decade over Germany and Japan, prior to beginning the war. We didn't subsequently put people with no clue but ideological purity in charge, but rather people with some familiarity and respect for the local cultures, like MacArthur, in those countries. We didn't go in with no meaningful intelligence nor intelligence gathering capacity, trusting in our wondrous machines to do it all for us, in the forties, to countries where we had no one who spoke the local language and knew the territory. And the Marshall Plan was not conceived primarily as a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme for White House cronies, which is something that was obvious about this crew from their behaviour all through 2001.
And then there is the fooged-together-like-Yugoslavia aspect of Mesopotamia, and the history of dirty dealing and Oil Companies that goes right back to the days of El Aurens and Standard Oil and the fabrication of the House of Saud, who, like Hussein, may be monsters but are *our* monsters, and the fact that we have never dealt in good faith out there, so why should anyone think we were going to start now? and Democracy? yeah, just like with the Marcos family, don't make me laugh, we don't care, just look at Egypt and how "tough" we are on human rights with our satraps allies so long as they let us use their canals or their natural resources.
I mean, what about Katyn Forest? All that romantic talk about the Noble Poles through the War, and then 1945, Yalta, back of the hand from Churchill and Roosevelt -- What about Beria, and Hungary and all? Symbiotic relationships with our enemies to keep the war machines running are nothing new.
(Spending hours of each week buried in the crumbling periodicals archives and crackling microfilms as a teenager created a cynicism reserve deep as the Marianas Trench...)
For it to be ever anything but a Fiasco, with a capital F, it would require there to be a) intelligent people of b) good will and c) financial disinterest d) running things. Since this was not the case and remains improbable as long as the crew is in power, and since they have demonstrated themselves RWA to grab and spoil whatever they can, Kerry's remark that they will leave him a Lebanon is entirely apropos. All the talk about them putting off an offensive until after Nov 3, rumors leaked for days before confirmed, prove that they have no concern whatsoever for making it succeed.
This is like one of those industrial accidents where someone is halfway caught in heavy machinery. There is no good ending to this, even if we survive it.
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zvi and
Well, I was mostly just listening to NPR then
Date: 2004-10-24 08:47 am (UTC)One thing that reading actual source materials, even conflicting ones, rather than the Approved Versions of history of "The Good War" generated from 1950 on yields, is that most of our assumptions about it, based on the Approved Versions, are wrong. There was infinitely more screw-up and CF and mendacity and evil stupidity on the part of the Allies than we're allowed to think or say. There was much more culpablity among the "Good Guys" in the decades of
enablingabetting"peace" leading up to 1939, on both sides of both oceans.But, beyond all that, there's the fact that we hadn't been involved in playing politics for most of a century on a deranged level in Germany and Japan to the extent we had been in Iraq. We hadn't been bombing, on a regular basis - and shooting for target-practice, if a soldier I once went out with is correct - from the air for a decade over Germany and Japan, prior to beginning the war. We didn't subsequently put people with no clue but ideological purity in charge, but rather people with some familiarity and respect for the local cultures, like MacArthur, in those countries. We didn't go in with no meaningful intelligence nor intelligence gathering capacity, trusting in our wondrous machines to do it all for us, in the forties, to countries where we had no one who spoke the local language and knew the territory. And the Marshall Plan was not conceived primarily as a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme for White House cronies, which is something that was obvious about this crew from their behaviour all through 2001.
And then there is the fooged-together-like-Yugoslavia aspect of Mesopotamia, and the history of dirty dealing and Oil Companies that goes right back to the days of El Aurens and Standard Oil and the fabrication of the House of Saud, who, like Hussein, may be monsters but are *our* monsters, and the fact that we have never dealt in good faith out there, so why should anyone think we were going to start now? and Democracy? yeah, just like with the Marcos family, don't make me laugh, we don't care, just look at Egypt and how "tough" we are on human rights with our
satrapsallies so long as they let us use their canals or their natural resources.I mean, what about Katyn Forest? All that romantic talk about the Noble Poles through the War, and then 1945, Yalta, back of the hand from Churchill and Roosevelt -- What about Beria, and Hungary and all? Symbiotic relationships with our enemies to keep the war machines running are nothing new.
(Spending hours of each week buried in the crumbling periodicals archives and crackling microfilms as a teenager created a cynicism reserve deep as the Marianas Trench...)
For it to be ever anything but a Fiasco, with a capital F, it would require there to be a) intelligent people of b) good will and c) financial disinterest d) running things. Since this was not the case and remains improbable as long as the crew is in power, and since they have demonstrated themselves RWA to grab and spoil whatever they can, Kerry's remark that they will leave him a Lebanon is entirely apropos. All the talk about them putting off an offensive until after Nov 3, rumors leaked for days before confirmed, prove that they have no concern whatsoever for making it succeed.
This is like one of those industrial accidents where someone is halfway caught in heavy machinery. There is no good ending to this, even if we survive it.