Things I Never Knew...

A blog trying to come to grips with my general ignorance about the world.

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Friday, April 11, 2003

 

Fighting a 'Humane' War

I happened across an interesting article online at the New York Times today (April 13, 2003), "Who Owns the Rules of War?" by Kenneth Anderson. It describes some of the history of rules and laws governing the execution of war. Lots to read.

Some of the main source documents referenced (links to Yale Law School's Avalon Project);

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Now that American forces are in Baghdad and meeting with limited resistance from the Iraqi army, I’m drawn to wonder, “How do we determine victory in any conflict?” By that I think I mean, “How do we gauge success?” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer recently said in response to reporter's questions, "Victory is when the President announces it." But I'm looking for some more objective criteria. It’s one thing to say that we defeated our opponents militarily. Considering our military might, I don’t think that end is ever really in doubt, it’s mostly a question of how do we achieve that end and what are we trying to gain in doing it. After 9/11, we were exhorted to focus on the “War on Terrorism” which took us into Afghanistan to take out the Taliban and al-Qaeda. While it seems that we’ve managed to inflict great damage on al-Qaeda and “free” Afghanistan from Taliban rule, we have yet to bring Osama bin Laden to justice and we seem to have left Afghanistan to fend for itself while we went on to deal with changing regimes in Iraq. Did we succeed in Afghanistan? What did we succeed at? And is it the same thing that we set out to do? By the same token, are we accomplishing what we set out to do in Iraq?

First, a little on the Powell Doctrine (from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/iraq/powelldoctrine.html): “After the end of Persian Gulf War in 1991, Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined his vision for efficient and decisive military action. His plan is now referred to as the Powell Doctrine, although there is not an actual formal document named as such. Powell, currently the U.S. secretary of state, has recently invoked the Doctrine in articulating the justifications for the Bush administration's preparations for war in Iraq. Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.

Powell based this strategy for warfare in part on the views held by his former boss in the Reagan administration, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and also on his own experience as a major in Vietnam. That protracted campaign, in Powell's view, was representative of a war in which public support was flimsy, the military objectives were not clear, overwhelming force was not used consistently, and an exit strategy was ill defined.”

Source material for the Powell Doctrine from "US Forces: Challenges Ahead, Foreign Affairs Winter 1992.

In reference to Weinberger, this article, "About the 'Powell Doctrine'..." from Air Force Magazine: Journal of the Air Force Association, August 1999, Vol 82, No. 8, details how the doctrine attributed to Powell was based on one elucidated by Caspar Weinberger in a speech at the National Press Club Nov. 28, 1984. The Washington Post dubbed it the Weinberger Doctrine. In that speech, then Secretary of Defense Weinberger said that six tests should be met before US forces are committed to combat abroad. Is a vital US interest at stake? Will we commit sufficient resources to win? Are the objectives clearly defined? Will we sustain the commitment? Is there reasonable expectation that the public and Congress will support the operation? Have we exhausted our other options?

I’m interested to see how this doctrine has been applied. A cursory Internet search leads me to believe that the key point of the Powell doctrine is that, “the key to success in any military conflict was the use of overwhelming force.” [“What Happened to The Powell Doctrine?” by Charles Krauthammer Washington Post, 4/20/02] It supposedly was applied in the Gulf War and arguably in Kosovo. While people still refer to it in regards to Iraq, it seems to have been supplanted by a new doctrine, President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption first elucidated at his commencement address at West Point in June 2002, (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html);

“For much of the last century, America's defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.

We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. (Applause.)

Homeland defense and missile defense are part of stronger security, and they're essential priorities for America. Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. (Applause.) In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act.”

And then further in the National Security Strategy published September 17, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html.

Interesting - This PBS Frontline report, THE USES OF MILITARY FORCE by Jim Mokhiber part of the FRONTLINE documentary, Give War a Chance; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/force/index.html - actually addresses a lot of the same issues I was wondering about. I haven't had a chance to go through it all (I've only referenced some of the source documents above) but it looks promising.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2003

 

Continuing my perusal of the news, this comes off the Associated Press wires (via Salon.com), "Russia may consider a U.S. nuke treaty." Russia's parliament might consider ratifying a treaty signed by U.S. President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May, 2002, which would require both nations to cut their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds by 2012. Which obviously means that the U.S. and Russia both still posess nuclear weapons. I wonder how necessary nuclear weapons are in this post-cold war era where concepts like "mutually assured destruction" may or may not apply. Could Russia ever relapse against the U.S.? And how do we justify our investment in a (dwindling?) nuclear arsenal in the context of national security?

</Aurelius> <!--3:41 PM-->

 After that last post, I poked around a little more online and found this article, "For Some, Syria Looms as Next Goal: U.S. Officials Talk of Peaceful Change in Government Seen as Aiding Hussein," in the Washington Post. The brunt of the article discusses the desire for regime change in Syria, because of ties to terrorist groups, possible posession of weapons of mass destruction, and charges of sympathy towards Saddam's regime in Iraq. The Syrians aren't too popular with the Israelis either, because it "has given sanctuary to groups such as the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah that carry out terrorist acts against Israel." Israel accused Syria since last December (2002) of receiving weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters "there is no evidence" that weapons of mass destruction have been moved out of Iraq into another country. Some other sound-bites:

Curiouser and curiouser...

Map of Syria from University of Texas
Map of Syria (2002, CIA) to get oriented. Syria is south of Turkey and west of Iraq. Its capitol is Damascus, which I think might be the historical center of the Ottoman Empire (but don't quote me on that.)

</Aurelius> <!--3:11 PM-->

 

Now that coalition forces are starting to take control of Iraq and it appears, for all intents and purposes, that we are winning the war, I wonder what comes next? For myself, I would like to see what changes the "liberation" of Iraq will bring. In addition, I'm still waiting to see evidence of the weapons of mass destruction that were such a large justification for the war. I'm also curious if there's more fighting to be done. Some administration rhetoric has been singling out other Middle Eastern countries that need to mind their p's and q's, Iran and Syria for instance. I stumbled across this article on newsday.com, Evidence Against Syria Is Questioned that questions some of the rationale behind the administration's accusations. [I've never heard of the newsday.com until today and am uncertain how reliable a source it is.]

My thoughts are, the arguments that the Bush administration put forth to justify the war in Iraq seems pretty unsteady and it seems that similarly shaky ideas are being circulated that may draw us into wars with other countries. How will this end?

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Sunday, April 06, 2003

 

"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breast it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."

--John Adams, Thoughts on Government

</Aurelius> <!--11:44 PM-->

 

Question of the Day

Does the U.S. mass media have a liberal slant? Why do I keep hearing about the “liberal media”? I keep hearing complaints about the "Liberal Media," which puzzles me considering how much liberals seem to be vilified in the media. If it was really that liberal, I would think media would come across as more sympathetic to liberal causes. I suppose from a social perspective the media is relatively liberal. There does seem to be a proliferation of risque behavior, violence, and broaching of subjects that shock. But that's also understandable considering the economics of media and it seems that even as media pushes barriers, it still plays things pretty safe, never wanting to alienate its audience. But does this behavior merit a title of "Liberal"? As unsophisticated as my knowledge of politics is, I thought I was just missing something. But even after brushing up on my ideologies, I still couldn't rectify the disparity...

Does the U.S. have a “liberal media”? http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/liberalism/3855 article published in 1997 in Suite101.com. Disputes claims of a liberal bias in media based on research in 1979/1980 by S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman which showed that 65 percent of interviewed media members described themselves as liberal. Conclusions were discounted as faulty and article goes on to describe the forces in subsequent decades that actually subject media to conservative bias: deregulation, corporatization of media, repeal of Fairness Doctrine by Reagan FCC.

Examining the “Liberal Media” Claim: Journalists' Views on Politics, Economic Policy and Media Coverage, http://www.fair.org/reports/journalist-survey.html, report by David Croteau, Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, © June 1998 published in fair.org. It lends evidence that “Liberal Media” claims are based more on misreadings of surveys of journalist’s personal views rather than on actual news content. Journalists, it finds, do tend to identify as more liberal socially but tend to the right for economic issues. It also brings up the points that media coverage is better identified by biases of the sources rather than the journalists and respondents reported favoring conservative sources. Another point brought up is the fact that journalists work in a corporate context, the conservative bias of which must not be discounted.

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