<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>Every or almost every aspect of Bacevich's analysis is wrong. Two examples from the interview on DN:</DIV>
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<DIV>"We wish to dominate. We wish to ensure that <STRONG>norms</STRONG> that work to the advantage, or perceive to work to the advantage, of the United States prevail across the world. And we are, I think, uniquely, in this moment, determined to rely on military power to enforce those norms."</DIV>
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<DIV>What norm is that? The norm that we control the world's resources? Does Bacevich define these "norms?"</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>"But you asked the question, where does the pressure come from? And the pressure comes from what President Eisenhower called the <STRONG>military-industrial complex</STRONG>. The pressure comes from the national security apparatus. There are people in institutions who are deeply invested in maintaining the <I>status quo</I>. There are budgets, there are prerogatives, there are ambitions, that ostensibly get satisfied by maintaining this drive for American globalism, again, backed by an emphasis on military power. So I don’t discount for a second that the President would have had to, you know, shove aside some fairly stubborn resistance to make that course change on Afghanistan, and he chose not to do it."</DIV>
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<DIV>Yes, there is that, but in service of what or whom? It's the "industrial" aspect that's more important than the military as a fighting force. And it's economic interests that go beyond both to determine our elites' interest in controlling oil. The resistance that the President would have to "shove aside" (and won't, because he doesn't want to) is that of more than the M-I complex, and they also have to do with "credibility" in terms of our use of violence. </DIV>
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<DIV>So are we interested in understanding why we're in Afghanistan and how to explain that to people, or are we interested in inventing fictional accounts that aggrandize the patriotic self-image of people like Bacevich? It's really just a pragmatic argument. Bob's suggestion won't work, it just won't work, can't work. Ever.</DIV>
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<DIV>DG<BR><BR></DIV>
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<B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel@comcast.net><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> naiman.uiuc@gmail.com<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</SPAN></B> Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Tue, August 3, 2010 6:46:30 PM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [Peace-discuss] Bacevich: Vietnam vs. Munich, and Creating an "Iraq/Afghanistan Syndrome"<BR></FONT><BR>
<META content=off http-equiv=x-dns-prefetch-control>Thanks for sending this on, Bob. Some on this list think Bacevich is a stooge, a closet imperialist. Quoting:
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<DIV><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal" class=Apple-style-span><I><B>Bacevich is an imperialist goof.<BR><BR>For his generally benighted view, see his book "American Empire" (2002), where he wrote about "the imperative of America's mission as the vanguard of history, transforming the global order and, in doing so, perpetuating its own dominance [guided by] the imperative of military supremacy, maintained in perpetuity and projected globally" (p.215ff.)<BR><BR>This is the sort of person who ends up as professor of "international relations" at Boston University (where Howard Zinn was hounded out).<BR><BR>His objection to American policy in the Mideast on Democracy Now! today is that it isn't working. We're not killing enough Asians to make our writ run, and it's too expensive.</B><BR><BR>…<SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: normal" class=Apple-style-span> [ironic praise for something the author agrees with here.] Continuing:<BR></SPAN><BR><B>The
totality of the interview is the sort of objection that Nazi generals might have made of the Russian campaign.<BR><BR>The antiwar movement continues to be in serious trouble when people who purport to be against the war praise Bacevich. --CGE</B></I></SPAN></B></DIV>
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<DIV><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal" class=Apple-style-span>Quite remakable. </SPAN></B></DIV>
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<DIV>What is to be emphasized here are the virulent attacks on those who do not precisely say what these guys want them to say (or admit),<I> even when they are saying things that would get the U.S. government to change its behavior. </I>It is all devious, they say. <I> </I>It appears as a kind of absolutely rigid ideological response not so different from when the Communist party line eminating from Lenin and Stalin condemned those like Rosa Luxemberg, Mensheviks, Trotskyities, socialists of various stripes, etc. in the early part of the 20th century. They would have been happy to see these deviants burned at the stake. (Trotsky indeed was assasinated, and others also fell.)</DIV>
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<DIV>--mkb<BR>
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<DIV>On Aug 3, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Robert Naiman wrote:</DIV><BR class=Apple-interchange-newline>
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<DIV>Campaigning for President, Senator Obama said: "I don't want to just<BR>end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the<BR>first place." But as Andrew Bacevich notes in his new book,<BR>"Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," as President,<BR>Obama has done the opposite: he has promoted and acted on behalf of<BR>the mindset that leads to war. Bacevich's book is a call for Americans<BR>to reject the Washington consensus for permanent war, global<BR>counterinsurgency and global military power projection, and to demand<BR>instead that America "come home," as Martin Luther King called for in<BR>1967, and focus on resolving its own domestic problems rather than act<BR>as a self-appointed global police and occupation force. Because of his<BR>personal background and establishment credentials, Bacevich may be<BR>able to move Americans currently beyond the reach of the peace<BR>movement. This is important, because a key
task for ending our current<BR>wars and preventing future ones is to break the current<BR>near-monolithic support for permanent war among the dominant<BR>institutions of the Republican Party - a stance that effectively<BR>disenfranchises the substantial minority of Republican voters who<BR>oppose the permanent war.<BR><BR>This is why Bacevich's new book is potentially important for the U.S.<BR>peace movement. Get the book, read it, give it to a Republican friend,<BR>and talk to them about it. Join Just Foreign Policy on September 24th<BR>for a "Virtual Brown Bag" with Andrew Bacevich, and try to virtually<BR>bring your Republican friend.<BR><BR><A href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/bacevich-vietnam-vs-munic_b_669502.html" rel=nofollow
target=_blank>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/bacevich-vietnam-vs-munic_b_669502.html</A><BR><BR>http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/3/17494/90841<BR><BR>http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/662<BR>--<BR>Robert Naiman<BR>Policy Director<BR>Just Foreign Policy<BR>www.justforeignpolicy.org<BR>naiman@justforeignpolicy.org<BR><BR>Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan<BR>http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Peace-discuss mailing list<BR>Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net<BR>http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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