[lit-ideas] Five Years Ago: John Wager's Questions
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:42:33 -0400
JW: in five years, the U.S. has not been able to find one
person hiding in a hilly, remote area without all that many
civilian centers to worry about. Is the U.S. so weak that we
cannot do this? Is there a reason we deliberately are not
doing this?
Eric: Some partial opinions. If we violate Paki sovereignty,
Mushareff will be ousted and replaced by a hardliner. That's
the fear, as I understand it. Getting the Bin Laden varmint
is not worth the blowback caused by entering Pakistan.
However, if we can send the right ops inside and take him to
Afghanistan, where we will then "capture him," it should
work. That will take time however.
JW: In the same time it took the U.S. to go from military
second-rate power ... to being a military super-power, the
U.S. went ... to a country labeled by most of the world as
an aggressor, a repressive government, and a military power
that can't seem to defend its own troops against home-made
weapons.
EY: Part of it is no doubt due to the impressive propaganda
machine arrayed against the US. Part of it is certainly due
to the nature of the American people, their economy, and the
media/values world they live in.
The people: There are more of the selfish hippie people, who
issue a kneejerk response to every war. This is an age of
American nihilism, where people only believe in their own
comfort--so many selfish hippies guarding their buzz. The
kind of community that existed in WW2 is gone--partly for
technological and partly for sociological reasons.
The economy: When WW 2 started, the US closed all its auto
plants and began producing war materials. No new cars until
after the war. After 9/11 everyone was encouraged to shop so
the economy didn't flounder.
The media: Our media uses a Vietnam model for everything.
The NY Times for example, started its quagmire crap a few
weeks into the Afghan War, until it was shown to be ridiculous.
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