Amen.
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Why war with Iran would spell disaster
- Thread starter mrjarrell
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Amen.
You might want to recheck those dates. It goes back to 53 when we got into bed with the Brits and helped finance a coup of their government. Mainly because the Brits were pissed about the oil not being under their control (though we were, reportedly, more afraid that communism MIGHT become a stronger political force in the region).
- Jan 12, 2012
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I would have to disagree. Much as I am no supporter of F. Roosevelt, refusing to sell materials used in the war effort against people you do not want on the receiving end of a war does not constitute an act of war in itself, but merely the refusal to aid an undesirable war effort.
This has been common knowledge for years.
There was (reasonable) concern at the time that Mossadegh would be friendly to the Soviets. For perspective this was four years after the Greek Civil War and the Malaysian insurgency, and two years after the Korean War. About the same time as the Mau Mau uprising. Four years later the Soviets smashed liberalization movements in Poland and Hungary. Nasser and the Arab League were playing footsie with the Soviets, after their abortive war with Israel in 1948.
In the grand scheme of things, there was so much coming down about this time, lots of it instigated by the Soviets, that Truman and later Eisenhower, had to think the West was on the verge of collapse.
Or maybe it was just a cynical oil grab.
How different world history would have been if the Soviets had gained influence over Middle Eastern oil fields and closed the Suez Canal.
I would agree if we had only refused to do business with them ourselves. When we start dictating who someone else can do business with and actually use physical means to enforce that then we cross the line.
Had the countries involved just refused to do business with them that would be one thing. But freezing of assets? and an Embargo?
Here are some things that were going on prior to the attack:
The exchange of American destroyers for British bases in the Caribbean and in Newfoundland in September, 1940. This was a clear departure from the requirements of neutrality and was also a violation of some specific American laws. Indeed, a conference of top government lawyers at the time decided that the destroyer deal put this country into the war, legally and morally.
The enactment of the Lend-Lease Act in March, 1941. In complete contradiction of the wording and intent of the Neutrality Act, which remained on the statute books, this made the United States an unlimited partner in the economic war against the Axis Powers all over the world.
The secret American-British staff talks in Washington in January-March, 1941. Extraordinary care was taken to conceal not only the contents of these talks but the very fact that they were taking place from the knowledge of Congress. At the time when administration spokesmen were offering assurances that there were no warlike implications in the Lend-Lease Act, this staff conference used the revealing phrase, "when the United States becomes involved in war with Germany."
The inauguration of so-called naval patrols, the purpose of which was to report the presence of German submarines to British warships, in the Atlantic in April, 1941.
The dispatch of American laborers to Northern Ireland to build a naval base, obviously with the needs of an American expeditionary force in mind.
The occupation of Iceland by American troops in July, 1941. This was going rather far afield for a government which professed as its main concern the keeping of the United States out of foreign wars.
The Atlantic Conference of Roosevelt and Churchill, August 9-12, 1941. Besides committing America as a partner in a virtual declaration of war aims, this conference considered the presentation of an ultimatum to Japan and the occupation of the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese possession, by United States troops.
The orders to American warships to shoot at sight at German submarines, formally announced on September 11. The beginning of actual hostilities may be dated from this time rather than from the German declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor.
The authorization for the arming of merchant ships and the sending of these ships into war zones in November, 1941.
The freezing of Japanese assets in the United States on July 25, 1941. This step, which was followed by similar action on the part of Great Britain and the Netherlands East Indies, amounted to a commercial blockade of Japan.
The warmaking potentialities of this decision had been recognized by Roosevelt himself shortly before it was taken. Addressing a delegation and explaining why oil exports to Japan had not been stopped previously, he said: "It was very essential, from our own selfish point of view of defense, to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific. So our foreign policy was trying to stop a war from breaking out down there.... Now, if we cut the oil off, they [the Japanese] probably would have gone down to the Netherlands East Indies a year ago, and we would have had war."
When the Japanese Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, appealed for a personal meeting with Roosevelt to discuss an amicable settlement in the Pacific, this appeal was rejected, despite the strong favorable recommendations of the American ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew.
Final step on the road to war in the Pacific was Secretary of State Hull's note to the Japanese government of November 26. Before sending this communication Hull had considered proposing a compromise formula which would have relaxed the blockade of Japan in return for Japanese withdrawal from southern Indochina and a limitation of Japanese forces in northern Indochina.
However, Hull dropped this idea under pressure from British and Chinese sources. He dispatched a veritable ultimatum on November 26, which demanded unconditional Japanese withdrawal from China and from Indochina and insisted that there should be "no support of any government in China other than the National government [Chiang Kai-shek]." Hull admitted that this note took Japanese-American relations out of the realm of diplomacy and placed them in the hands of the military authorities.
The negative Japanese reply to this note was delivered almost simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. There was a strange and as yet unexplained failure to prepare for this attack by giving General Short and Admiral Kimmel, commanders on the spot, a clear picture of the imminent danger. As Secretary of War Stimson explained the American policy, it was to maneuver the Japanese into firing the first shot, and it may have been feared that openly precautionary and defensive moves on the part of Kimmel and Short would scare off the impending attack by the Japanese task force which was known to be on its way to some American outpost.
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1928 and China in 1937, and got their butts handed to them by the Soviets in 1939. Their occupation of China was not benevolent. They were engaged in an effort to create a Greater Japanese Empire.
It's not like they were just walking down the street minding their own business when FDR savagely cut off trade.
No they were not. Nor has my stance ever been that they were.
My stance is only that it wasn't like we were walking down the street minding our own business when we were attacked either.
My opinion on foreign affairs has always been one of non-involvement unless actually attacked. We don't like you we don't trade with you. Period.
Oh and always be prepared for an attack and to respond to one.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? You earlier indicated embargoes and sanctions are an act of war, but now you say that if we don't like someone, we just don't trade with them. So if we don't like someone, we simply don't trade with them, but it's not really war? Except when it's an embargo or sanction and then it's war.
If America and her allies didn't like Japan in 1941, we were free not to trade with them, because we didn't like them. And that wasn't war, except that it was. So we should have known the Japanese would be coming for us...
Anyway, we were attacked by Japan before 1941 (although no one remembers the USS Panay). And the Japanese were a threat in the long run to the Brits in India and Hong Kong, the Dutch in the East Indies, Australia, etc. Had it not been for Herr Hitler, maybe Japan would not have seemed as serious a threat.
Sooner or later they would have collided with the US. Better to fight them, as unprepared as we were, in 1941, than in say 1945 after they had consolidated the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
walterwhiting
Plinker
obama would never send or ask congress to send American troops against his muslim brothers. He would just apologize to them and blame the whole mess on Bush and Romney. Besides the troops would be forbidden to have ammo. We must save all the ammo for homeland security and the social service police in case the American people get out of hand and start an uprising.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? You earlier indicated embargoes and sanctions are an act of war, but now you say that if we don't like someone, we just don't trade with them. So if we don't like someone, we simply don't trade with them, but it's not really war? Except when it's an embargo or sanction and then it's war.
If America and her allies didn't like Japan in 1941, we were free not to trade with them, because we didn't like them. And that wasn't war, except that it was. So we should have known the Japanese would be coming for us...
Anyway, we were attacked by Japan before 1941 (although no one remembers the USS Panay). And the Japanese were a threat in the long run to the Brits in India and Hong Kong, the Dutch in the East Indies, Australia, etc. Had it not been for Herr Hitler, maybe Japan would not have seemed as serious a threat.
Sooner or later they would have collided with the US. Better to fight them, as unprepared as we were, in 1941, than in say 1945 after they had consolidated the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
No. I never took a stance against not trading with a foreign power we do not like. I do however disagree with going out and actively trying to prevent them from trading with anyone else and also freezing their assets that we hold. It's theirs. We don't like them we give them back. No contradiction there.
At the time the Japanese were threats to those countries not ours. I would be willing to bet the Japanese were well aware of our involvement with the Brits and those "secret" meetings. The funny thing that "secret" actions by our government seem only to be "secret" to the American public.
This is a little off track but a funny related story. A friend of mine was stationed on the DMZ in Korea back in the early 90s. He was out on patrol and over the loud speakers the north koreans had was a "well wishes for the mother of soldier so and so" (a new guy in their unit) who's mother got sick. The soldier didn't know what they were talking about but they got back he got a message from command that his mom was sick. He was "like wtf!?"
If Japan would have been a future threat, who knows. Maybe, Hitler was definitely out of control (maybe the rumors of syphilis are true) and if Japan maintained their alliance I do not doubt it. However at that time they were not, at least to us.
Now here is a contradiction... I do wish they would have listened to Patton and just rolled over Russia when we had a chance. We wouldn't have had the problems we had with them and if our logic for interference in other countries (like the coup in Iran) is that they "might" succumb to communistic (or other anti-us philosophies) then we should just taken over the every country on that continent when we had all our armies over there.
Problem solved. United World of America
and no purple I am serious.
I wish our elected leaders had such a view. But alas, donkeys and elephants don't seem to see things that way.
Yup.
Great article on Jefferson:
Was Thomas Jefferson a Great President? - H.A. Scott Trask - Mises Daily
Shows while he was not perfect (has some technical constitutional violations under his belt) he was a pretty damn good president.
- Jan 12, 2012
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I would say that the trade embargo was a major mistake, but the way he fretted over exceeding his constitutional authority regarding the Louisiana Purchase is very refreshing considering that most modern presidents consider the Constitution to be an impediment to be evaded than a directive by which to operate the country.
Definitely refreshing... I think one of the main differences now is that "politician" is a career choice and rarely undertaken for sake of "duty" but more so for personal gain.
While imperfect, guys like Jefferson seemed to actually value the things they preached and great effort was made to avoid hypocrisy.
Then again I have been accused of being an idealist lol.
While a bit off topic I love his letter regarding strict adherence to the constitution (bold added by me - seems almost prophetic):
"I do not believe it was meant that they might receive England, Ireland, Holland, etc. into it, which would be the case on your construction. When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe and precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution. If it has bounds, they can be no others than the definitions of the powers which that instrument gives. It specifies and delineates the operations permitted to the federal government, and gives all the powers necessary to carry these into execution. … Nothing is more likely than that their enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding, by way of amendment to the Constitution, those powers which time and trial show are still wanting. … I confess, then, I think it important, in the present case, to set an example against broad construction, by appealing for new power to the people
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Up until our combat forces left Iraq, we were in a low-level state of armed conflict with Iran, who was supplying sophisticated bomb-making materials and trainers to the insurgents as well as sponsoring Shiite militias. More than one group of Iranian special forces were captured on the Iraqi side of the border (and that's probably why the three dumbass US civilian hikers were taken hostage in Iran a couple years ago). We could have seen a change in the Iranian government a couple years ago if the current Administration had been as interested in "freedom" for the Iranians as it was the Libyans, Egyptians, and Syrians.
The danger in Iran developing nuclear capabilities is not in their possession of a suitable delivery system, they already have a number of delivery options; so many than the change of them developing a reasonably portable device must be taken with the utmost seriousness. Less than one percent of all shipping containers entering the US are inspected by ICE agents in a year; that ought to be a terrifying statistic.
Seems to me that while most of our nation-building projects have been failures (except for the first three - Germany, Japan and South Korea), the government is considering the alternatives to leaving a country we have to militarily "spank" in chaos and physical and economic shambles: we're seeing the effects of such actions not only in Iraq, but in Libya, Egypt and Syria, where the rebels fighting for freedom won all the battles and have lost the war - and their attempts to attain freedom - to religious theocracies or economic chaos. While their methods are often ineffective because their tactics are stupidly emotion-based and condescending, the State Department's foreign strategy of attempting to foster the principles of self-rule and citizen ownership of government are sound; we know that because they have worked in Japan, Germany and South Korea. There are cultural factors that work against such successes in all nations, but the principle of fostering democracies because they tend to compete economically rather than through military action seems to be sound, we don't see Great Britain, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Portugal, or even France in expansionist conflict with their neighbors, while Russia, Communist China, Argentina, Bolivia, and others are flexing their military muscles against their neighbors.
Perhaps if we could populate the State Department with a different group of diplomats, we would get a better result than we have since 1955.
The danger in Iran developing nuclear capabilities is not in their possession of a suitable delivery system, they already have a number of delivery options; so many than the change of them developing a reasonably portable device must be taken with the utmost seriousness. Less than one percent of all shipping containers entering the US are inspected by ICE agents in a year; that ought to be a terrifying statistic.
Seems to me that while most of our nation-building projects have been failures (except for the first three - Germany, Japan and South Korea), the government is considering the alternatives to leaving a country we have to militarily "spank" in chaos and physical and economic shambles: we're seeing the effects of such actions not only in Iraq, but in Libya, Egypt and Syria, where the rebels fighting for freedom won all the battles and have lost the war - and their attempts to attain freedom - to religious theocracies or economic chaos. While their methods are often ineffective because their tactics are stupidly emotion-based and condescending, the State Department's foreign strategy of attempting to foster the principles of self-rule and citizen ownership of government are sound; we know that because they have worked in Japan, Germany and South Korea. There are cultural factors that work against such successes in all nations, but the principle of fostering democracies because they tend to compete economically rather than through military action seems to be sound, we don't see Great Britain, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Portugal, or even France in expansionist conflict with their neighbors, while Russia, Communist China, Argentina, Bolivia, and others are flexing their military muscles against their neighbors.
Perhaps if we could populate the State Department with a different group of diplomats, we would get a better result than we have since 1955.
femurphy77
Grandmaster
Isn't it safe to say that we are already fighting WWIII with a worldwide terrorist organization that kills those that don't follow it's edicts? (I can't be any less cryptic without getting banned)
Of course, to use this starting date, it would be very convenient to ignore the '53 coup orchestrated by the CIA and MI6.
Of course, to do this, one would have to leave behind "the liberal fetish for root cause analysis" as I heard it called on Fox "News" on Friday. It made me wonder if the opposite of this is conservative faith in random acts of freedom hatred
This is a little off track but a funny related story. A friend of mine was stationed on the DMZ in Korea back in the early 90s. He was out on patrol and over the loud speakers the north koreans had was a "well wishes for the mother of soldier so and so" (a new guy in their unit) who's mother got sick. The soldier didn't know what they were talking about but they got back he got a message from command that his mom was sick. He was "like wtf!?"
If Japan would have been a future threat, who knows. Maybe, Hitler was definitely out of control (maybe the rumors of syphilis are true) and if Japan maintained their alliance I do not doubt it. However at that time they were not, at least to us.
Now here is a contradiction... I do wish they would have listened to Patton and just rolled over Russia when we had a chance. We wouldn't have had the problems we had with them and if our logic for interference in other countries (like the coup in Iran) is that they "might" succumb to communistic (or other anti-us philosophies) then we should just taken over the every country on that continent when we had all our armies over there.
Problem solved. United World of America
The North Koreans and North Vietnamese spend much more effort on HUMINT than the US, to our detriment. Another plug for serious OPSEC in US military operations - ALL of 'em. The problem we have is that, as a culture, we just don't believe that smiling/fawning indig is actually working for the bad guys; he can't be - he's smiling at me!
Patton didn't promise to kick the Russians' butts; he said he could start a war and make it look like THEY started it. Since the Russians had plenty of raw materials, a war machine industry almost as cranked up as ours, an arguably better tank - and lots more of them - and a much bigger and battle-hardened ground force I'd suggest they wouldn't have been close to a walkover. Ike was prudent in holding Patton's leash tight, all considerations of civilian control of the military aside.
Of course, to use this starting date, it would be very convenient to ignore the '53 coup orchestrated by the CIA and MI6.
Of course, to do this, one would have to leave behind "the liberal fetish for root cause analysis" as I heard it called on Fox "News" on Friday. It made me wonder if the opposite of this is conservative faith in random acts of freedom hatred
As someone mentioned upthread, the '53 coup wasn't accomplished in a vacuum; it was part of the complex pavane of counters to the Soviets influence operations around the world and it should be viewed in that context - not as a grab for oil resources.
I find it interesting that we are so inept at international relations, apparently, that all our attempts at influencing power in other nations result in unending hatred for us, while all the Soviet's influence operations have apparently not netted them such widespread hatred. I wonder why that is?
The future of the human race depends on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It doesn't matter what the sacrifice would be, how much it would cost, what it would do to the world economy, or how many of our brave fighting men would die if war became necessary.
Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is absolutely necessary to the future of the human race. There is no way around it.
My parents' generation lived through most of the cold war and understood the serious threat of nuclear war. The minions in Washington today in their 20s and 30s can hardly remember that time and have absolutely no clue what would happen if a hostile state like Iran became nuclear-armed.
World War II would pale in comparison to what will happen if Iran gets a bomb. "World War" is going to have a literal meaning if that day comes.
I really hope that diplomatic means work, and that Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions. But there is no room for compromise on this. Iran cannot be allowed to have a weapon. NO way, no how.
Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is absolutely necessary to the future of the human race. There is no way around it.
My parents' generation lived through most of the cold war and understood the serious threat of nuclear war. The minions in Washington today in their 20s and 30s can hardly remember that time and have absolutely no clue what would happen if a hostile state like Iran became nuclear-armed.
World War II would pale in comparison to what will happen if Iran gets a bomb. "World War" is going to have a literal meaning if that day comes.
I really hope that diplomatic means work, and that Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions. But there is no room for compromise on this. Iran cannot be allowed to have a weapon. NO way, no how.
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