Right or Wrong, VD Hanson's mideast war arguments don't make sense
VD Hanson in my estimation, is the leading intellectual spokesman for the US war machine that has been the US administration for the past five or so years.
Problem is, Hanson's verbose arguments do not make sense, regardless of whether the administration is right or wrong.
At least half of Hanson's verbosity is mere assertion, the same assertion made over and over again in different words, with no evidence or even argument provided to support the assertion.
Hanson complains that Afghanistan supported Bin Laden, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His complaint is staggering, seeing that Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, were set up and supported by the USA as a way of containing the Soviet Union, which the USA opposed not because it hated Russians but because it disliked the militant atheism of the Soviet Union. The fact is, that it is simple nature, especially in parts of the world such as Afghanistan, that organizations the US sets up and supports, such as Taliban and Al Qaeda, will continue to do mischief, after they have been officially disbanded. For example the murder rate in the USA is something like 10/100,000. Over ten years that is 100/100,000. Thus you would expect an organization even an ally of the USA, that had a million persons in it, to murder 1000 people over ten years, if their murder rate was the same as the US murder rate. If the million person organization had been a violent organization dedicated to expelling dreaded Soviet atheists from Afghanistan, one would expect ten thousand murders out of them over ten years without blinking an eye.
Hanson condemns Iraq for associating with Al Qaeda in the 1990s. Again, Al Qaeda was set up by the USA itself as a way of containing Soivet expansion so how can Hanson reasonably complain about Iraq associating with Al Qaeda? Insane.
Hanson complains that Pakistan supported Taliban and Al Qaeda. Again, insane. When a nation like the US gets behind organizations such as Al Qaeda and Taliban as a way of containing the once-dreaded Soviets who have become the admired Russian Christians, this creates an inexorable momentum that cannot come to a halt the minute the USA blows the stop whistle.
Hanson celebrates things in a vague crazy way as if he had no understanding of impermanence, no understanding of quantification. He celebrates things like, the Saudis cleaning up their financial offices (what is that supposed to mean?), Pakistan and Saudi Arabia being ever-more sensitive to dangers of islamic radicalism (meaningless); iran being more closely "scrutinized" (what intelligence agency worth its salt would scrutinize iran significantly less if we had not invaded Iraq?); the US attempting to pressure the Saudis to reform (attempts dont mean anything) and etc.
Hanson asserts that oil and Saddam were a danger. Meaningless. There are many dangers in the world, and the fact something is a danger does not justify whatever is done with regards to that danger.
Hanson comes up with the weird accounting math, that if you spend less reacting against something that causes you damage than the amount of loss the damage caused, you are a winner. Such does not compute. If someone causes $5000 damage to my car, does that mean that I have done something wise, if I burn down the guilty party's house, because it cost me only $4000 to burn the guilty party's house down, whereas the guilty party caused $5000 in damage? It might be wiser to spend that $4K in some other way.
Hanson concludes that we have done wisely because there have been no further attacks. Does not compute. Joe Schmo pissed in the wind after 911 while reciting Hindu scriptures, that does not mean that what Joe Schmo did prevented further attacks. The fact there have been no further attacks, says nothing to prove that the attacks were dealt with in a wise and efficient manner.
What is missing with Hanson is a sense of balance. A laundry list of achievements does nothing to prove that the time energy and money spent on those achievements, was spent in a wise way, compared to the available alternatives.
By his own admission, after five years of the USA dressing up as a militant crusader for democracy and shooting up the middle east and the eastern-middle-east, we now have the economic dominance of Chinese trade, Arab oil (which Hanson admits has gotten rich through rises in the price of oil caused by the US shenanigans in the middle east), and the europeans being the moderate alternative to us (Hanson neglects to mention, if international trade was a basketball game the score would be something like europe 117 USA 66, year after year after year now.
Great. So the USA is getting its butt kicked in trade and becoming poor compared to China europe and the oil trading Arabs. Such is supposed to prove that the USA has been spending its time energy and money wisely over the past five years? Gimme a break.
@2006 David Virgil Hobbs
Problem is, Hanson's verbose arguments do not make sense, regardless of whether the administration is right or wrong.
At least half of Hanson's verbosity is mere assertion, the same assertion made over and over again in different words, with no evidence or even argument provided to support the assertion.
Hanson complains that Afghanistan supported Bin Laden, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His complaint is staggering, seeing that Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, were set up and supported by the USA as a way of containing the Soviet Union, which the USA opposed not because it hated Russians but because it disliked the militant atheism of the Soviet Union. The fact is, that it is simple nature, especially in parts of the world such as Afghanistan, that organizations the US sets up and supports, such as Taliban and Al Qaeda, will continue to do mischief, after they have been officially disbanded. For example the murder rate in the USA is something like 10/100,000. Over ten years that is 100/100,000. Thus you would expect an organization even an ally of the USA, that had a million persons in it, to murder 1000 people over ten years, if their murder rate was the same as the US murder rate. If the million person organization had been a violent organization dedicated to expelling dreaded Soviet atheists from Afghanistan, one would expect ten thousand murders out of them over ten years without blinking an eye.
Hanson condemns Iraq for associating with Al Qaeda in the 1990s. Again, Al Qaeda was set up by the USA itself as a way of containing Soivet expansion so how can Hanson reasonably complain about Iraq associating with Al Qaeda? Insane.
Hanson complains that Pakistan supported Taliban and Al Qaeda. Again, insane. When a nation like the US gets behind organizations such as Al Qaeda and Taliban as a way of containing the once-dreaded Soviets who have become the admired Russian Christians, this creates an inexorable momentum that cannot come to a halt the minute the USA blows the stop whistle.
Hanson celebrates things in a vague crazy way as if he had no understanding of impermanence, no understanding of quantification. He celebrates things like, the Saudis cleaning up their financial offices (what is that supposed to mean?), Pakistan and Saudi Arabia being ever-more sensitive to dangers of islamic radicalism (meaningless); iran being more closely "scrutinized" (what intelligence agency worth its salt would scrutinize iran significantly less if we had not invaded Iraq?); the US attempting to pressure the Saudis to reform (attempts dont mean anything) and etc.
Hanson asserts that oil and Saddam were a danger. Meaningless. There are many dangers in the world, and the fact something is a danger does not justify whatever is done with regards to that danger.
Hanson comes up with the weird accounting math, that if you spend less reacting against something that causes you damage than the amount of loss the damage caused, you are a winner. Such does not compute. If someone causes $5000 damage to my car, does that mean that I have done something wise, if I burn down the guilty party's house, because it cost me only $4000 to burn the guilty party's house down, whereas the guilty party caused $5000 in damage? It might be wiser to spend that $4K in some other way.
Hanson concludes that we have done wisely because there have been no further attacks. Does not compute. Joe Schmo pissed in the wind after 911 while reciting Hindu scriptures, that does not mean that what Joe Schmo did prevented further attacks. The fact there have been no further attacks, says nothing to prove that the attacks were dealt with in a wise and efficient manner.
What is missing with Hanson is a sense of balance. A laundry list of achievements does nothing to prove that the time energy and money spent on those achievements, was spent in a wise way, compared to the available alternatives.
By his own admission, after five years of the USA dressing up as a militant crusader for democracy and shooting up the middle east and the eastern-middle-east, we now have the economic dominance of Chinese trade, Arab oil (which Hanson admits has gotten rich through rises in the price of oil caused by the US shenanigans in the middle east), and the europeans being the moderate alternative to us (Hanson neglects to mention, if international trade was a basketball game the score would be something like europe 117 USA 66, year after year after year now.
Great. So the USA is getting its butt kicked in trade and becoming poor compared to China europe and the oil trading Arabs. Such is supposed to prove that the USA has been spending its time energy and money wisely over the past five years? Gimme a break.
@2006 David Virgil Hobbs
posted by David Virgil at 12:07 AM
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