Michael Smith wrote:
>
> On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:18:46 -0800
> Michael Perelman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Even if Cole is correct, he did not win the war, but moved it to more
> > difficult terrain in Afghanistan, together with sideshows in Yeman,
> > Pakistan, & who knows where.
>
> Moreover, even if Cole is correct, surely it was *Bush* who "won"
> the war?
I suppose it depends on how to construe "winning," and that in turn
depends on what the actual goals of the war were.
My own conception has always been in terms of the war's relation to
long-term foreign policy aims at estabblishing a permanent u.s. military
force in the mideast, which intensified after the most dependable U.S.
ally in the area was the Shah's Iran. The first Bush seemed momentarily
to have accomplished this, but then it became poltically impossible to
keep the u.s. military presence in Saudi Arabia.
It seems to me that the Second Bush did accomplish this goal.
("Permantly"is a long time, but the military presence there now is in
principle permanent, and it would not easily be removed. Continued
'minor' resistance (called "terrorist") do not make a military presnce
at all difficult, and even strengthen its ideological justification.
So yes, I think Bush won that war. It made the U.S. unpopular with much
'enlighteneddd' public opinion in Europe, and brought sneers from
politicians there & in Russia, but no one ever really challenged
U.S.policy and seem to have in substance supported it, whatever their
public announcements.
Losses in prestige were superficial; gains in military control great.
Carrol
Carrol
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