MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Hits of the Day
Obama’s War by Walter Russell Mead
By EmmaZahn on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 11:14am |“Vote for a Republican,” my grandfather used to say, “and you get a depression. Vote for a Democrat and you get a war.” That seemed like a pretty good rule of thumb in the twentieth century: Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover gave us depressions, and Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy (with an assist from Lyndon Johnson) all gave us wars.
Then came the twenty first century and all bets were off. George W. Bush gave us two wars and a depression; President Obama has already presided over two slack economic years and now seems bent on giving us his first war.
URL:
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/03/19/obamas-war/
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Comments
Good find Emma. Oh and my mother use to say the same thing. Republicans -> depression and Democrats -> War.
by cmaukonen on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 12:19pm
Thanks. My grandpa said the same as well but it doesn't seem quite fair to blame the Dems for wars that result from economic events produced by Republicans.
by EmmaZahn on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 2:13pm
Well that is kind of a yes and no. There is (or was) a very hawkish wing of the Democratic party consisting of southern democrats and Chicago democrats. A number of which became neo-conservatives over Vietnam and the civil rights act. etc.
by cmaukonen on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 3:09pm
I don't buy Mead's argument this time, it presumes a lot about things that haven't happened yet. I think it's so sloppy that it makes me wonder about his stuff I've admired in the past.
First that he presumes this will be a war and not just a short police action. Then it relies on a picture of the past heavily influenced by Bush II's neo-cons and ignores other recent history like the Kosovo intevention and the Iraq no-fly-zone policed by Clinton's US and Blair's UK after Bush I's international coalition, all of which purposefully declined to force regime change of Iraq.
I think Afghanistan can correctly be labeled as "Obama's war." He didn't just inherit it, he campaigned on it and escalated it as promised.
The Libya thing, on the other hand, cannot even be labelled a war yet, much less Obama's.
And so far from information we have, whatever it is or becomes, it's far from Obama's, if anything
it's France's and the UK's:
France and Britain Lead Military Push on Libya (New York Times, March 18/19)
who managed, after convincing the Arab League, to convince Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Susan Powell:
Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton (New York Times, March 18/19)
who managed to convince Obama, who said ok but only if it means no U.S. boots on the ground.
Also, I think Mead's falling for the U.S. media's tendency to spin everything like USA #1 is always in charge and plots everything to a T and is in control of everything that happens.
Also it presumes a neo-con intent to support democracy rather than an intent to just just finally rid of Gaddafi who has long alternated between being a nightmare or a pain in the butt for the international community. So far I suspect it's more of latter and less of the former.
Edit to add: WSJ reporting concurs with the second Times' piece: Europe Pressure, Arab Support Helped Turn U.S.
by artappraiser on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 12:59pm
I have always found Mead variable. Some things he has obviously put more effort into than others. If this one seems like he was working more from memory than current events, he probably was --he is no longer CFR's Kissinger fellow and his association with the neo-cons was never all that strong. Losing connections is bound to have its effect.
I do appreciate your critique as I have been keeping up with FP/IR events even less than Mead lately. Mostly what I know is from almost headlines only and what I read here -- which isn't everything. I am still enthralled by the money games so that is where my reading is concentrated.
Impressions from my superficial current perspective and fading memories are:
1) Expect Khadafi or Gaddafi or however his name is being spelled this week to back off at least enough to see if his latest notoriety will drop down the media memory hole like those in his past. I may be and likely am wrong about that. The Arab League turning on him enough to pursue a UN resolution is interesting because;
2) it seems as if the US may have used the situation as leverage in some way. More reading on my part definitely required but
Money is so much more interesting.
Thanks for links.
by EmmaZahn on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 2:32pm
...leverage in some way....Money is so much more interesting....
A suggestion:
leverage >>> oil >>> money
And I ain't talking empire, or trying to "get" the oil, I'm talking the world, the world's economy needs the oil in stable hands to function The world needs stable access to the oil until they start gearing up alternatives. We can't have things develop so that countries use it as a political football (whether democracies or dictatorships) or we will see violence between countries to secure it like the fight to secure land was WWII. It's "all about the oil" in the aspect that it is so important to economic health right now that a country or countries can/could extort or blackmail with it. And that's not to say that it is about Gadaffi's oil in the specific, it's about what would happen to the surrounding countries, from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, where there's more oil, should the west and the UN stand back and do nothing as he would continue with wherever his crazy whims might take him.
I think those countries that are pro acting now are thinking let's not be penny wise and pound foolish, i.e., all those times in history where people said "if only we had acted earlier, we would have saved all that happened after, a bunch of money and lives to boot" and those who abstained are thinking that this might be folly and might just as well contribute to making things worse than better. The latter is the "do nothing" or "first do no harm" argument, because humans are very faulty in their ability to judge risks and all possible results and the future . And I am strongly susceptible to it (loving George Washington's Farewell Address as I do.) On the other hand, there's the WWI and WII examples.....(not to mention if all physicians had followed the "do no harm" oath we would not have things like surgery, antibioitcs or smallpox vaccine.)
It's like this--one could argue that if the whole Mideast and North Africa erupted in warfare tomorrow and there was $500 per barrel oil being offered by select vendors, it would be a good thing in that would teach the industrialized world they better get off their asses and develop alternatives much faster. That good result would come along with a lot of things like death, starvation, devastation and economic suffering in the meantime, though.
by artappraiser on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 4:13pm
Not what I was thinking but I like what you did with it.
by EmmaZahn on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 4:43pm