Charlie Rose

hrc  01/23/2009 08:02 PM Report

This was another revealing glimpse into the current mind of Washington. Without a doubt the military was ordered into Iraq as if it were to be a weekend exercise. Notwithstanding the excuses prior to or post invasion, with a new presidency comes a chance to redefine the mission, that gives me hope. I mean life is not a military mission now is it, or is it? If it is, then it's adversarial by nature, if you would acknowledge nature as a state of being.

Words like freedom and democracy commingled with military purpose give new meaning to those words entirely, giving way to a new meaning of America. For instance, take something simple like being pro Israel. That at once makes you anti-non Israeli whatever that might mean, the consequences which are undefined, well they lie with Israeli initiative. Is Israel the new Washington?

Besides that, somewhat off topic is all the CIA meddling in the Mideast. Why are we defining Mideast policy, what follows that. Micromanagement of diverse factions, endless meddling and saber rattling is what follows, a state of chaos in perpetuity.

Picking up on the previous comment, and a current theme in Iraqi dialogues is the democratic state of the new Iraq. By what thread does that hang? I hope that's not the means by which we judge success or our exit strategy out of that quagmire. As a military sense of purpose, it's suitable, but in reality, well. Don't we have enough problems of our own, within our own boarders to solve? Or is this solving our problems by exporting them.

Slosh  01/23/2009 06:53 PM Report

More than a thousand words to say this self-satisfied rubbish...

Russia hasn't become a democracy overnight, the rest of Eastern Europe have.

The Taliban didn't cut off the opium trade, they stashed opium to control prices. There was never a shortage of heroin in Europe.

If a fundamentalist religion is another viable approach to order and stability, its curious that history doesn't provide any examples of that kind.

DavLev  01/23/2009 06:36 PM Report

What price fundamentalist religion, I ask? Is beheading those who don't agree with your religious tenets (extreme to a fault), appropriate? The Taliban are among the cruelist and most barbaric religious fanatics on the planet. Even the Germans didn't deal with THEIR women, the way these brutes do. I'm no Russian lover, but on the Rose Show, they have expressed dismay at not being able to help control the opium trade. Legalizing the drug (in the US and Western world) would help..bought under supervision through pharmacies. But then, that would disable all those law enforcer types who make a living off of it, through State funding, prisons, and graft ( see the movie, "Righteous kill", a true account of police corruption in NY State ).

Some of Charlie's guests have stated that neither 3 nor 10 brigades can stop the flow of guerrillas and weapons from Pakistan into Afghanistan. I agree. Instead, we have begun to draw down our forces in Iraq, (perhaps) just to move 30,000 into neighboring Afghanistan. How absurd..especially if you are one of those soldiers. This will accomplish nothing, but more deaths, coming back in frozen boxes and grief for thousands of families. What is the end game there Mr. Keane and Mr. Gates? Where are those in the North that fought the Taliban at the beginning of the war? Have they disappeared? Isn't NATO sufficient? If not, why not? They draw on 300m Europeans, with a GDP equal to US. Why is the former general not advocating our bombing No. Korea, Syria's nuke plants (3 remaining) or Iran's 3 plants (producing enriched uraniaum with all it's implications?). The Ruskies are building bases in Syria, the Koreans are threatening to hit South Korea, Chavez is allowing Russian planes and bases..Hamas and Hezbollah will be armed with 30 foot missiles (by Iran), yet the interviewee has in my opinion, no solutions..but just a lot of obvious rhetoric.

As far as Iraq, we freed 25m Iraqis..in 3 weeks ("Mission Accomplished"). However, those that wanted 500,000 US troops there, were living in a dream world. What, without a draft?

REMant  01/23/2009 05:10 PM Report

I'd like to believe that we will have created a democratic state in Iraq, but frankly I think that is far enough in the future, that if we leave altogether all hell is likely to break loose. Ppl play our game as long as we are there, but, as far as I can see, democracy is not really in the nature of any country in the Near East. Almost anything could cause conflict, and no matter which side wins, we will have only succeeded in replacing one Sadaam with another. Russia hasn't become a democracy overnight, and it isn't because of the ghost of Stalin. By democracy we generally mean some semblance of a classic liberal economy, at least internally. But we should acknowledge that fundamentalist religion is another viable approach to order and stability, evidenced by the Taliban's elimination of the opium trade while in power. If we can find it in our hearts to respect their religion and way of life, we might in the end accomplish a great deal more than by what we are doing. The main problems I see are keeping the peace between the fundamentalists and the Arab moderates, and the festering wounds left by the creation of Israel and the division of India. I suspect that if peace can be kept the economics will win out eventually. IMHO our error in Vietnam, and the Cold War was in not leaving things to take their natural course. By not believing in ourselves we made it more difficult (not to mention more painful), because stable and prosperous nations rise out of discipline, not its absence. In the short run tho we have the problems of nuclear weapons and Bin Laden in Pakistan, the Palestinians, and the erosion of discipline in our own country to deal with.