Continuing my analysis of Mr. Dyer's writings. Let's take his most recently posted item, "Waiting for Iraq".
Another attack on American policy in Iraq? All three of Dyer's most recent articles carry the same theme, the same drumbeat. Three articles, three attacks from three different angles on the American policy in Iraq. Is this thread common to all of Dyer's writings?
Dyer wrote:Most Americans don't realise how much the rest of the world opposed their country's invasion of Iraq, because most US mass media shield them from the knowledge. Watching the domestic service of CNN just after the election, I heard three different newsreaders in the same day explain to their American audience that France and Germany had been "cool" to the American attack on Iraq.
Dyer watches a few hours of CNN, then cites that as his only evidence that Americans are shielded from the truth by our media? First, he's mistaken. We know how upset the rest of the world is. Our media talks plenty about demonstrations and anti-Americanism rising all around the world, and our media correctly portrays the Iraqi conflict as the flashpoint for these sentiments rising in Europe and Canada and at the United Nations. Secondly, the ones who are being insulated by their media are those in Europe and Canada.
* Canada has for years banned the FOX News channel. How's that for freedom of speech and the triumph of superior Canadian social values?
* The Beeb is funded by the British government but operates autonomously. How many Britains rely on the Beeb as their only major source of news. Does the American point of view get any traction on the Beeb? Mr. Dyer lives in London, so he should know. If the BBC is providing a fair accounting of American points of view, then how does Dyer explain this opening statement?
I'm mindful of Ford's reaction to my argument about American moral authority. Ford singled out one line which, if pulled out of context, can be viewed as entirely false. Dyer has done the same here, taking issue with the understated description of French and German reaction to the Iraq move as "cool". Ford read into one remark the notion that I know nothing at all of World War I and nothing significant about Canada's contributions to the wars I mentioned. Ford read way too much into one line, even though I -was- sloppy with it, and Dyer is doing the same about CNN.
To me, this proves JUST HOW LITTLE EXPOSURE the American point of view is getting in Canada and Europe, even in London, where the British government sided with America on the Iraq move.
* The French and Russian press are state-controlled. We know what that means, don't we?
However, it is convenient to Mr. Dyer's theories to believe that Americans are uninformed. This allows him the comfort of assuming that Americans in general do not disagree with his point of view and his ideology, but that instead we are simply ignorant, kept in the dark, unaware. He had better think again, because he's making the exact same mistakes as al Qaeda has made, drawing flawed conclusions about America based on faulty logic and a misreading of limited facts. America is a much stronger and sturdier and open place than either UBL or Dyer are crediting to us.
Dyer wrote:They weren't "cool" to it; they opposed it utterly. They saw it as an illegal act intended to undermine the entire multilateral system and replace it with a unilateral system in which America is the global policeman -- indeed, the global judge, jury and executioner.
Please observe the following facts:
* President Bush, before his first election, campaigned strongly against the idea of "nation building", vowing that he would take no part in it, that he would lead our country away from it. This policy approach was validated by our electoral process, but only barely. (Bush actually lost the popular vote.) Unless one subscribes to ridiculous conspiracy theories, Bush did not know that 9-11 was coming, and so he could not have planned to put up a front on the nation building issue knowing that events would trigger an opportunity to reverse his position. BUSH HAD NO SECRET AGENDA TO IMPOSE AMERICAN DOMINANCE ON THE WORLD. His original views could fairly be seen as falling on the isolationist side of things. He wanted to take care of American business at home, with an agenda focused mainly on tax cuts, education reform, tort reform, medical reform, etc.
* September 11 changed America. We awoke to the existance of threats we had been ignoring, to our peril. Mr. Dyer's flip assessment of the purpose of the 9-11 attacks is in error, and his analysis of America's purposes in the wake of the attacks is even more in error.
Unilateral system in which America is the global policeman? Try "right of self-defense" instead, Mr. Dyer. We are entitled to protect ourselves from clear and present danger.
IN HIS SPEECH TODAY in Halifax, President Bush noted that Canada (correctly) assessed the Nazi threat while America was hiding its head in the sand. Bush quoted the Canadian Prime Minister of the day, and the quote revolved around the notion that some wars cannot be avoided and are therefore best engaged as soon as possible. Canada was fighting Nazis while America was still on the sidelines. The Prime Minister's words reflected the wisdom of striking at an enemy before he brings destruction to Canadian shores. Canadian folks should take two or three looks at the Bush speech and reflect on its message. We can debate the meanings if you like. Certainly Mr. Dyer could stand to hear that speech. I refer everyone back to the top of this thread, to the Principles and Lessons I posted.
The rest of Mr. Dyer's article builds on the flawed projection of American purpose. He presumes the truth of our ambitions of empire and hegemony, and all that follows is laid upon this faulty foundation. (Don't take my word for it. Follow the link in the previous post and read Mr. Dyer's words for yourself.)
I'm seeing a common thread here. Mr. Dyer leaps to conclusions about the purposes and intents of al Qaeda, then tries to build a logical case on his illogical assumption; the end game is to wag his finger at the Iraq invasion. Mr. Dyer leaps to conclusions about the purposes and intents of the United States in carrying out its foreign policy. He presumes bad faith, yet offers no evidence as to the bad faith that he presumes. What does America have to gain from dominating the rest of the world through military might? Is that actually what we are doing? Show me something more substantial than one man's ideology. What else is Mr. Dyer going to presume? Who else is he going to claim to speak for?
Dyer wrote:That may take more time than is available, for what US public opinion responds to is American casualties.
Based on what evidence?
Dyer wrote:If too many American soldiers get killed in Iraq, then the public will eventually pull the plug on the war, just as they did on Korea in the 1950s, on Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, on the US military intervention in Lebanon in the 1980s, and on Somalia in the 1990s.
Bin Laden believes the same thing. Neither he nor Dyer understand the American people, our values, our character, the depth of our commitment to our principles, the power of our ideas.
I see the problem here, and the problem is ideology. Bin Laden has an ideology of Islamic supremacy, backed by the rather flimsy logical leap of "the Soviets are the best in the world, so if we can beat them, we can beat anybody." Dyer's ideology is similarly narrow-minded. America is not the side in this dispute that has abandoned multilateralism. The UN are the folks who have abandoned their charge, preferring instead to become a body not of action, but of inaction, corrupted by Saddam's oil kickbacks, shaded by appeasement of Arab hatred of Jews, blackened by a subtle but omnipresent antisemitism, chained to ideologies that sit and ignore growing threats, treat dictatorships as morally equal to free societies, and worse. (Libya and Sudan on the Human Rights Committee? Give me a break.)
The USA is still the premiere force in this world for multilateralism. However, we insist on EFFECTIVE multilateral approaches, not the wolf of corruption and greed parading around under the sheepskin of multilateral facade. We reject the notion that twelve YEARS of diplomatic efforts count for nothing. We played diplomatic patty-cake with Saddam, including sanctions that failed to achieve their purposes, weapons inspections that never arrived at definite proof of compliance, limited military strikes by the Clinton administration, seventeen UN resolutions that were ignored, a failed uprising by the Shia that left HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS dead, and Saddam's ongoing violation of his cease fire agreement from 1991.
When is enough enough? The United States has grown disgusted with the do-nothing United Nations and all who insist on continuing to play the same games, starting with the French, who are at center of the Oil For Food scandal.
American policy threatens the multilateral system we have in place, Mr. Dyer? No. UN incompetence and UN corruption undermine the ability of that organization to fulfill the purposes outlined in its charter. If the UN were doing its job effectively, we wouldn't have had to go to war in Iraq with only a handful of allies. The UN security council would have held Saddam's regime to account.
Mr. Dyer is wrong about recent American wars.
UN action in Korea was its finest moment, its first test. It passed, but only barely, and chiefly on the back of American commitment. America, in the wake of World War II, dismantled nearly our entire military machine that we had spent five years assembling. Our fleets were mothballed, our generals complacent about our nuclear capability. Our leaders thought that any future wars would be fought with nukes, and that we had the edge there, so who needs these conventional forces? By the time the North Koreans made their move, the American military was back to a sorry state. It took an historically brilliant maneuver by General MacArthur to salvage our position there and start to drive back the North Koreans. And we beat the tar out of them DESPITE the sorry state of our equipment and units. MacArthur insisted that the Chinese would not attack, but he was mistaken, and it was the error that ended his career. When the Chinese poured across the river and surprised us at Chosin, we nearly lost the war for a second time. We fell back and back and back, then managed to dig in and weather the storm. We eventually pushed even the Chinese back, then accepted a stalemate. That was quite probably for the best, because fighting a war with China in Asia was a dicey proposal at best. America and China got enough taste of what it was like to fight each other directly that neither side has wanted to repeat the experience since then. That is probably the single most important development in world history in the second half of the twentieth century: that America and China fought to a standstill in Korea, then later were able to open mutually respectful and successful diplomatic relations, and to resolve all our disputes since then with talks instead of arms.
Taiwan is the symbol of Chinese-American diplomacy. Both sides understand what is important to the other side and where the lines are drawn, and we are comfortable there. The Taiwanese are not comfortable, but at least they are free in reality, in the ways that count the most.
The chief value of the UN at this point, despite its faults and failures, is the role it plays to China. China was validated by the UN as a major power, given a veto and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council chiefly because of US strategy in formulating the UN. China cares a great deal about the face it presents to the world, and that face is most keenly on display at the United Nations. Having China at the table is so important, that even if the UN achieves nothing else of value, it is still worth keeping around if it serves to smoothe relations between China and everybody else. The UN is much like Taiwan: an imperfect but highly successful solution for dealing with China. Russia is the other major component. The West, led by the USA, conceived the current structure of the UN to contain China and Russia peacefully, to get them to talk rather than to shoot. This has worked out well, except now the French have turned coat and are leading an effort to turn the UN into a means to contain America. This may be the most colossal strategic blunder since the Maginot Line, but at least the French play for keeps. I can respect their ambitions, even when I find them to be high destructive and poorly planned.
Mr. Dyer is wrong about a lot of things. To simplify American public support for wars down to the single issue of casualties is a colossal blunder of logic. American support for wars turns on our perception of our national interests. Americans lost faith in Vietnam because our strategy there was to contain and defend, but NOT to attack and to win. We thought that we could sustain a defensive posture indefinitely and outlast the will of the Viet Cong. We were wrong. When we realized this, we had the choice between even further escalation via invading and occupying the north, or withdrawing. China may not have gone along with our invading the north. We deemed that to be too much of a risk for what was at stake. It wasn't the body count that drove us out. We kicked the living crap out of the North Vietnamese forces over and over and over again, even during Tet, the height of their strategic ascendance. No, it was the size of the gamble and the stakes vs the smallness of the prize that drove us away.
Was it a mistake to engage in that war at all? I can make a case that it was not, but I will admit that conventional wisdom leans the other way. Certainly the issue is arguable at best.
Somalia was more of the same: our people didn't believe in the mission, which was one of defense but not offense. We weren't going in to FIX the problems, but only to sit around as targets and be shot at. Americans will NOT put up with that for long. We've learned our lessons with that.
The only time we pulled out strictly over casualties was in Lebanon. Some believe that was a mistake, while others believe it was a mistake to have gone there in the first place.
And yet again, Dyer presumes to know and understand the purposes of all major players:
Dyer wrote:If the US does not change course, the other great powers will eventually give up on the waiting game and move to counterbalance and contain American power. That would mean alliances, arms build-ups, all the lethal nonsense we thought that we had left behind us. Nobody wants to go down that road, but they inevitably will if US policy doesn't change.
Ford, I daresay this assertion flies in the face of your claim that American military attack on Canada is "just silly". Dyer doesn't seem to think so. He sees American action in Iraq as unprincipled, a mask for ambitions of global military dominance, in the tradition of empire, from Alexander's Macedon to Caesar's Rome to the Khan's Mongolia to Victoria's England to Hitler's Germany to the Soviets. Just one more in a long line of human aggressors come to impose their will on as many as they can, to take from others in predatory fashion rather than to build and create on their own.
Mr. Dyer doesn't seem to know us very well. I think that you know us much better. I think that most Canadians know us better than that.
One can disagree with the American move to invade Iraq on any number of grounds. Certainly, here in the States, the issue is hotly debated and readily debatable. It's a complex matter. Over and over, however, I see Dyer simplifying the issue with erroneous assumptions. He speaks for Bin Laden. He speaks for America. He speaks for all major powers. He must either have telepathy, to see into all these minds, or he has a willingness to overstep the facts to support his ideology.
And you say this is reflective of mainstream Canadian thought on American political matters?
- Sirian
