DarrenBarefoot.com

I have stopped reading Winer for exactly what you point out. He is not very well spoken or thoughtful. His only area of strength, RSS, has fallen into a debacle and public embarassment all for the want of a one-page legal agreement among the parties involved with the development. All in all something of a self-promoter with perhaps a reasonable web application but not exactly a Tim Berners-Lee.

[Reply]

Think you kind of missed my point in the first part: e.g. the comparison between North and South Korea. The U.S. brought freedom to the South, let the communists take the North and we see the result. A top 10 economy in the South, cannibalism in the North.

Interestingly, the failures you list all suffered from the same problem currently experienced by the U.S. in Iraq: an unrelenting negative attack on the U.S. by their own media.

Europeans are funny: simultaneously accusing America of inconsistency by not solving all the world’s problems at once while carping like whiny children when America solves one problem. All while unable to solve any problem, large or small, in their own backyards.

You can give Czech students all the credit they deserve. They had the opportunity to do what they did (along with the rest of east Europe) only because America was in Europe with huge forces for decades, pressuring the USSR into collapse.

[Reply]

To quote Smug (it is ok if I call you Smug, isn’t it?):

Compare east and west Germany, north and south Korea, Japan, east to west Europe. Freedom in the free places was bought and paid for with American lives at the great discount of America becoming an island of freedom in a world of hell.

I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here, whether you are extrapolating from the examples to get a general statement that ‘freedom in the free places was bought and paid for with American lives’, or whether you are saying that freedom in those specific places was bought and paid for with American lives.

In any event, let’s examine east and west Germany first. Who freed Germany? Let’s start with 1945. It seems to me that you’re parroting the standard American line about America saving the free world in WWII; that without them, the entire world would have gone down in Nazi flames. I have news for you: the Germans were beaten before D-Day. They were in retreat, having suffered staggering (and I mean staggering) losses on the Eastern Front, which remains the most costly military campaign the world has ever seen in terms of lives.

Ironically, freedom in West Germany was purchased in large part with rivers of Russian blood. Let’s also remember the Commonwealth nations, including our own small nation, who played a rather significant role in the European war, shall we?

That, I maintain, is an absurd position. Thus, your argument is an absurd one.

[Reply]

>>”As for South Korea, let’s not forget the other 19 nations involved besides the US.”

No, let’s don’t. But, let’s also not forget that almost all of the troops were American. Are you suggesting that the UN would have had the guts to intervene in Korea absent the U.S.?

>>”Japan: I’ll grant him that one, but let’s not forget about, you know, ushering in the nuclear era.”

A couple of hundred dead residents of the nation that attacked the U.S. versus a million or so dead Americans and countless more dead Japanese expected in the planned 1946 invasion of Japan seems a more than fair trade. Would you rather have had the Nazis or the Soviets build the first atomic bombs? I’ve never understood this fear of increased knowledge and ts application. Would you have us all be lobotomized?

>>” * East and West Europe: Has he forgotten about the UK and every other nation involved in the liberation of Europe? And is he actually giving the US credit for the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe? For starters, I know a few million Czech students who would disagree.?

I think it is reasonable to assert that, absent the U.S. commitment to Western Europe, it would have been part of the Soviet empire by the end of the 1950’s. Don’t forget that all those Czech students were able to get away with what they did because they U.S. was willing wage nuclear war and risk its own destruction in order to thwart a Soviet attack on western Europe. Absent that pledge, those Czech students would not have had a chance. (Not that the spring of 1967 really changed anything.)

Your comments are typically hypocritical, condemning the U.S. for lack of consistency then chastising it for not currying favor with feckless international organizations like the UN. Can’t have it both ways.

[Reply]

All burning bags of off-topic shit aside, those who don’t understand America’s role in history regarding the collapse of USSR, the general increase of freedom in the world or the growth of free economies don’t understand that “America” is not a country, it’s an idea.

So far it’s the best idea for organizing a country ever attempted. It’s an idea that through sheer growth defeated the USSR and, in a blink in historical terms, turned shell shocked places like Europe, Japan, and Korea into productive nations again. You need only to compare these places to their neighbors that wallow in impoverished communism to understand the difference.

It’s not because Uncle Sam pushed the buttons and pulled the strings of daily life it’s because the United States used violent force against the local fascists and created environments that allowed freedom and capitalism to thrive. Not to perfection, but not fascist hell either.

If you can’t understand that the *idea* of America is winning you don’t even understand as much as the average terrorist. It’s why they hate the lot of us and wish they could kill every last one us - except maybe for the BBC. They know who’s side they are on.

[Reply]

Richard: If you read the flow of the argument, you’ll see that I cited gun control as a problem Europe had solved (in response to Smug’s comment that Europeans were ‘unable to solve any problem, large or small, in their own backyards.’)

Regarding your immigration point, let’s put that to the test. I’m using numbers from http://www.migrationinformation.org/GlobalData/countrydata/data.cfm.

In 2001, the US had 1,064,318 immigrants (shortened from ‘inflow of foreign-born population’). The entire population was roughly 282 million, given us a per capita immigration rate of 0.0037%.’

In 2001, Canada had 250,346 immigrants. The entire population was roughly 31 million, giving us a per capita rate of 0.0081, or more than twice the rate of the US.

To put it another way, in 2001, while the US was roughly 10 times the size of Canada, it only took in 4 times the immigrants.

Let’s address your other point: ‘that the US is more popular among immigrants than all other countries combined.’

In 2001, Germany welcomed 977,701 people.
The UK welcomed 106,820 people.
Australia welcomed 88,900 people.

That’s 3 countries, and we’ve already exceeded the US’s total for that year.

Now, tell me, Richard, which of us should hit the books?

While I don’t think I’ve been US-bashing (I’ve bashed before, and defended your country against other bashers, so I know of what I speak), you’ve highlighted why people do. It’s your assumption of superiority on so many topics that is offensive to the rest of the world.

[Reply]

Smug: I’m sorry that you’ve downgraded the debate from facts and specific arguments to general propaganda on the American way of life.

I never said that America didn’t play a role ‘in the collapse of USSR, the general increase of freedom in the world or the growth of free economies.’ I simply pointed out that:

a) American foreign policy is woefully inconsistent.
b) Europe has done plenty of good, domestically and abroad, in the last half-century.

You seem to have largely ignored all of the examples of both of these points. I tried to refute all of your arguments, why won’t you do me the same courtesy?

[Reply]

>>”a) American foreign policy is woefully inconsistent.”

This canard is constantly trotted out.

Why does it matter? By what yardstick are you assessing consistency?

By the measurment of what several different adminstrations have thought best suited the interests of the U.S., American foreign policy is as consistent as any nation, probably more so. The central, bipartisan, element of U.S. foreign policy since, at least, 1941 has been to make ths country invulnerable to tyrants and criminals who seek to do it harm. I’d say we’ve been remarkably consistent in pursuing that objective. Our differences about tactical issues are, to be sure, reflected in our policy, but the central aim is always accepted without question.

Of course, it is always easy to accuse others of inconsistency if you make up the rules.

[Reply]

You are free to feel however you want , but please be honest. All of the countries that America has helped are better of than those it hasn’t. Dave Winer seems to be on the wrong side of yet another issue.

[Reply]

Nick: You said “All of the countries that America has helped are better of than those it hasn’t.” What about the countries on my list of failures? How do you make this case for Vietnam, for example?

[Reply]

There’s no crime in Europe? That’s news to me.

[Reply]

It doesn’t sound like they have “solved” crime, yet. Why is Germany’s crime figure so close to the US, for example? Is it because they have less gun control than Switzerland? Maybe there’s some other reason(s) for the generally lower crime numbers, that have little to do with European governments’ policies? E.g., maybe cultural factors are more important for Portugal’s crime numbers than political ones. (Hey, maybe Portugal should take France’s permanant seat on the security council — they’re clearly the more advanced culture!)

And as for the other problems in your list… well… they may have universal health care and inexpensive secondary education today, but those are hardly guaranteed for the future. One bad recession/depression, or mismanaged economic policy, and those problems may be quickly “unsolved”.

Pardon my French, but there’s no reason to think that Europeans’ sh’t don’t stink.

Of course none of this has anything to do with Dave Winer’s comment about disliking Spirit of America, which is not a governmental body, nor is it supported or organized by our government’s officials, so it doesn’t have anything to do with official US policy. Except that it was created by a bunch of people who want to do more to make sure that the US’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan turns out more like Japan, western Europe and South Korea, and less like Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc.

Winer’s attitude toward SoA is truly bizarre. But of course he recommended relocating persecuted Kosovars (essentially speeding along the ethnic cleansing) on the US taxpayer dime, rather than dealing with Slobodan Milosevic directly. Later he admitted that Yugoslavia didn’t turn out to be another Vietnam, but that was clearly his view at the time the bombs were dropping.

By comparison, Iraq is a much harder situation than Yugoslavia, but it’s way too soon to judge whether it will be more like western Europe, or more like Vietnam. In the meantime, there are a lot of people (and even a few governments) who will work toward a better future for Iraq (and therefore the rest of us).

[Reply]

Darren:

My original post wasn’t a debate about details and facts but did include my general perception of history.

It’s likely impossible for us to debate the facts because we aren’t working from the same ones. I wrote (http://smugcanadian.weblogger.com/stories/storyReader$1066) about that because I doubt there’s any point in arguing further. We have two different sets of facts and when you say “check your facts” what you are actually saying is “believe my set of facts”.

For example, you say that the U.S. is inconsistent in its foreign policy. I say, yes, absolutely, that’s as it should be. Presidents change, conditions change, big government bureaucracies do imperfect things. I don’t expect perfection from the U.S government, I just compare them to what else is out there.

You also say Europe has done good things abroad. I’m not sure what, but I will say the Europeans are somewhat consistent, particularly when sponsoring genocide in dozens of different African countries over the last 100 years.

But you probably won’t read about that in the BBC so it doesn’t exist for you and we therefore can’t argue about it.

If you actually want to be able to argue about the facts you can’t show up with the assumption that the United States is “always” one thing or another. It’s just a government, it behaves much like a big stupid company - the goal is not perfection, but to be a few notches better than the other guy.

In general, taking a long view of history, the United States is a very free place. They make piles of big mistakes but nothing like the kind of mistakes that are made in other places with other systems of government. In general, when the United States army spends enough time in your nation the place will become vastly more hospitable. That’s about as detailed as my original post was and if you want to disprove those “facts” good luck to you.

[Reply]

Darren most of your arguments are just plain silly.

Your list of countries that the US have failed is exactly that. They failed to stay the course and mostly due to gaining short term political gain at home.

Your crimes stats conveniently miss those of the UK or do you not consider them to be European? If you had included them you would have seen that their violent crime have surpassed the US. So have Canada’s. You mention gun control as a social problem. I thought that was ironically funny. We here in Canada have spent upwards of two billion dollars on a non-functioning gun control fiasco that has had no affect in deterring crime rates. It’s a social problem allright just not how you perceive it and I am not a gun owner.

Your immigration numbers for the US conveniently miss those of the illegals which no matter whose numbers you look at are massive.

Dean then tells us he has news for us. The USA had no effect on the outcome of WW2. Wow! Tell that to my mother who hid in fear of the Russians and rejoiced liberty by the Americans. For this to be true then we need to conveniently ignore the MASSIVE quantities of supplies that left America for the UK and Russia. The huge loss of life of the merchant marines that such died horrible deaths on the North Atlantic shipping these goods. War is logistics and supply but Dean would have us believe that Jesus was nearby, the supply bottle of men and machines never emptied.

Finally, I clicked a bunch of links but lots of them failed. The one I didn’t and laughed at was to the BBC. It is oxymoronic to look to the BBC for historical fact or context. Just look at their history.

I’m going back to my Chomsky novel, he writes the best fiction.

[Reply]

The tactics being used to refute your statement, Smug, remind me of high school debaters who believe they can defeat an opponent’s argument by finding an old Time magazine story that contains one contradictory detail.

In truth, their intent is not actually to refute your argument, but simply use it as a springboard to engage in their favorite activity: public exhibitions of America bashing.

If they are seriously arguing that a quiescent life in a fascist state is better than a noisy, uncertain life in a democratic state, then they have gone over to the other side.

[Reply]

Darren, you didn’t disprove my claim about immigration, you simply pulled some numbers out the air without citing a reference. See the following chart to get a clue: http://www.migrationinformation.org/GlobalData/charts/5.1.shtml

You were apparently mislead by the fact that Germany admits guest workers for limited periods and then replaces them on a regular basis, while most immigration to the US is permanent, so the key figure is net migration.

Judging immigration on a per capita basis is a silly way to do it, because it says nothing about the desirability of one country over another. A more sensible way to do it is on a per square mile basis. Apply that measure to Canada and tell me how it looks.

Now back to the main point, when not bashing America for failing to intervene in places like Rwanda, where we should have gone (and would have if the UN had sanctioned regime change), we’re criticized for trying to pull Vietnam out of the Soviet orbit. OK, we failed there, and the cost of our failure was that 200,000 Vietnamese were murdered by the Communists in the year after we left.

Was that a good thing, and does it mean we never should have tried to liberate Vietnam from the Soviets?

I think we all know the answer.

[Reply]

Saddam was a supporter of terrorist groups, Myron, and connecting him to them was not a subterfuge - it was a fact.

[Reply]

Richard, my numbers all came from the URL I cited, http://www.migrationinformation.org.

First off, there’s no indication whether Germany’s numbers include short-term workers or not. By the same token, there’s no indication whether the US’s numbers recognizes that country’s work visa program.

You’re the one who cited per capita as a possible metric. Furthermore, net migration is a biased stat, because Americans are notoriously sedentary. This is both cultural and a result of the size of the nation…they can ‘immigrate’ internally for a different lifestyle. Conversely, the EU agreement permits Europeans to work in any EU nation of their choice. This fosters both immigration and emigration.

Since you suggest a land mass comparison (which, as far as I can figure, isn’t any better or worse than per capita), let’s take a look (numbers from the CIA Factbook):

Canada: 9,093,507 sq km
USA: 9,158,960 sq km

Those numbers obviously favour the US, until you take a closer look at the land we’re discussing. At least half of Canada is pretty unattractive to the average immigrant. After all, 90% of Canadians live within 160 kms of the 49th border.

A better measure might be to compare population densities?

This whole immigration debate is specious because of a factor we’re not discussing: ease of immigration. Clearly, Canada and the US’s immigration policies differ, and both differ radically from Europe. Relatively speaking, the US and Canada have plenty more attractive land for immigrants than, say, Germany or France. So, clearly there will be more immigration into North America than into the average European country.

As for Vietnam, are you arguing that not trying to liberate Vietnam would have resulted in more deaths than doing so? I’m having difficulty understanding why that would be the case. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Casualties, we get ‘Vietnam released figures on April 3, 1995 that a total of one million Vietnamese combatants and four million civilians were killed in the war.’ Add another 650,000 for American deaths and deaths in Cambodia. Would a quick, clean Soviet invasion have cost more 5.5 million people?

[Reply]

Perhaps, Richard, you should adjust your figures for Americans in Iraq to include those killed by Saddam. After all, if it weren’t for Bush, Sr., Hussein would never have killed that magic million to begin with.

Nothing like getting somebody else to do your dirty work for you.

[Reply]

Quoting the Stud:
“Dean then tells us he has news for us. The USA had no effect on the outcome of WW2. Wow! Tell that to my mother who hid in fear of the Russians and rejoiced liberty by the Americans. For this to be true then we need to conveniently ignore the MASSIVE quantities of supplies that left America for the UK and Russia. The huge loss of life of the merchant marines that such died horrible deaths on the North Atlantic shipping these goods. War is logistics and supply but Dean would have us believe that Jesus was nearby, the supply bottle of men and machines never emptied.
”

I said no such thing.

The statement is typical of one of the things I find most troubling about my beloved neighbors to the south: the incredible degree of polarization that creeps into absolutely everything. If someone doesn’t agree with you, then he’s a COMMIE PINKO LONG-HAIRED FREAK, or possibly a NAZI BOOKBURNING BIBLE-THUMPER, depending on which side of the fence you’re on.

I thought you were being sort of over-the-top, sort of hiply satirical, but then you say ‘for this to be true’… as if I had actually said what you said I said. I didn’t. Didn’t say anything even close to it.

The original point was that Smug said that the freedom of East and/or West Germany was ‘bought and paid for’ with American blood. It wasn’t. If anybody’s blood was spent to pay for freedom in Western Europe, it was (ironically) Russian.

And that’s the point. The original assertion was bombastic and erroneous.

BTW: I’m truly glad that your mother was liberated by Americans. But think about whether or not D-Day and that liberation would have been possible if there were 100+ divisions between Normandy and Berlin. Whether you like it or not, the Russians made that liberation possible by killing huge numbers of German soldiers.

[Reply]

Dean, the world we* live in is not a place of blacks and whites, it’s a place where every issue has shades of grey (*we meaning “adults”).

In this world, killing 20,000 to prevent the certain murder of a million is a good thing to do. Now I agree with you that it would be nicer if we could all sit at home with a nice plate of cookies and a cold glass of milk instead of going half-way around the world to kill the bad guys, but we’ve found that the bad guys won’t let us do that. We can fight them at our place, or at their place, and it’s really a better deal all around if we fight them at their place.

Darren, when I cited Stalin’s murder figures I wasn’t talking about WWII, I was talking about those he executed. Regarding the German immigration figures, http://www.migrationinformation.org/GlobalData/charts/5.1.xls says that Germany admitted 924,000 from 1995-2000, when the US admitted 6,250,000.

Please stop lying.

[Reply]

Russia has traditionally been considered part of Europe, Darren, although the Soviet Union clearly spanned both Europe and Asia.

Regarding the connection, see: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060746734/

“Weekly Standard reporter Hayes marshals a wealth of evidence that, in contrast with the tenuous connections that have so far made news, point to ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda. Most intriguingly, Hayes finds links between Iraq and the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, one of whom apparently received shelter and financial support from Iraq after the attack. Hayes also gets confirmation by Czech officials of the alleged Prague meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent. Elsewhere, Hayes points to Iraqi intelligence documents that mention a “good relationship” with bin Laden. Other sources note an alleged agreement for Iraq to assist al-Qaeda in making chemical and biological weapons. Relying both on “open sources” like news articles, transcripts from the 1998 embassy bombing trials, as well as anonymous intelligence reports and informants, Hayes allows that some of these stories may prove unreliable. But he contends that the number, consistency and varied provenance of reports of high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq throughout the past decade allows one to “connect the dots” into a clear pattern of collaboration. Despite the frustrating absence of source notes and no knowledge of what cooperative efforts ever came of these contacts, most readers will conclude from this volume that the Saddam–al-Queda thread has some play left in it.”

Now what was your point about 5.5 million dying in a Soviet invasion?

[Reply]

Darren said:

>>”…I wonder how we should proceed, then, if not by citing evidence to support our position?”

“Facts” (which in your case appears to mean single instances of contradictory evidence; hence, my high school reference;) don’t necessarily prove anything. In any case, we arren’t debating a provable notion. We’re talking about strongly held convictions.

>>”My chorus…is that American foreign policy has been inconsistent….”

First, you need to explain the standard by which you measure consistency. Measured in terms of long-term adherence to Cold War policy, I think U.S. policy after 1939 has been remarkably consistent, and garnered widespread bipartisn political support in the U.S. (Name a serious U.S. politician who proposed withdrawing from West Europe and removing the nuclear unbrella over West Europe?)

The consistency lies in the application of a foreign policy that seeks to support the interests of the U.S., by one adminstration after another. If the U.S. supports one regime but not another, the consistency is to be found in the motivation and the objective. Expecting any nation to exhibit consistent behavior is to expect that nation to work against its own best interests.

No state can successfully operate on any other basis. Are you suggesting that, to measure up to your notion of consistency, the Iraqi invasion should be followed by U.S. invasions of every other country any U.S. administration has ever opposed? That would be one form of consistency, but obviously not in the interests of the U.S. as judged by its government.

In any case, why the rant about U.S. consistency? By your standards, no nation acts with consistency.

>>”Like any nation, the US looks out for its own self-interests. However, when they’re the most powerful nation on the planet (by a considerable margin), that behaviour is questionable.”

Why? How? Who is asking the question? Is the U.S. supposed to act against its own best interests just to keep the world’s illegitimate regimes happy?

>>”…either they’re the global cop, or they’re not. For the past fifty years, though, they’ve only been the global cop when addressing the violation suited them.”

You’re playing the “When Did You Stop Beating Your
wife?” game. Yes, the U.S. has a predominance of power. Why shouldn’t the U.S. use it? Perhaps, if the UN had more credibility in the U.S. as an honest and effective organization, the U.S. might be inclined to allow for broader UN particition in certain of its efforts. Remember that the UN has not exactly distinguished itself in the eyes of the American public.

In addition, why aren’t you slandering the French for their continuing interventions in West Africa? Or the Soviets for interventions on a global scale? Or Russia’s continuing intervetions around its periphery? Or China’s intervention in Tibet? Don’t those measure up to your standard of “cop”? Or is it that you, like so many others, apply a different standard to the U.S.? A standard, I believe, that is deliberately constructed to generate the maximum amount of anti-U.S. propaganda and unreasoned emotion.

[Reply]

I think the Stephen Hayes research has been adequately rebutted:

“…right after the Hayes piece ran (my note: the Weekly Standard ran a feature article using the same material), the Pentagon knocked it down, saying it was based on raw reports that were classified. “The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions,” the DOD release said.” (Salon - 22 Jan 2004)

The annex referred to above, a memo released by the US Department of Defense, formed the basis for much of Hayes’ research. However, a closer inspection reveals that:

“…many of the memo’s pieces of evidence come with caveats. For example, in regard to several meetings, the memo states that “None of the reports have information on operational details or the purpose of such meetings” (which are obviously crucial to establishing an “operational relationship” between Iraq and Al Qaeda). Other evidence is indirect, such as a note that “According to sensitive CIA reporting, . . . the Saudi National Guard went on a kingdom-wide state of alert in late Dec 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist Al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia.” ”

(Quoted from Spinsanity - 23 Nov 2003)

So it can hardly be concluded that the case is closed on the connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam, and there certainly is nowhere nearly enough evidence to warrant starting a war on this flimsy pretext.

[Reply]

That’s precisely my point - certainty of a “working relationship” does not exist. If it did, we would hear more of it than from one, discredited journalist.

[Reply]

Darren sez:

Nick: You said “All of the countries that America has helped are better of than those it hasn’t.” What about the countries on my list of failures? How do you make this case for Vietnam, for example?

Ha! But Vietnam wasn’t a country that the US helped, thus, it doesn’t apply!Darren sez:

Is it clear, now, how I arrived at a number of 977,701 immigrants to Germany, or will you continue to accuse me of lying?

But you said, “In 2001, Germany welcomed 977,701 people.” In fact, Germany let in a bunch of Souther European and Turkish guest workers. I noticed that you used 2001 instead of 2002 data from migrationinformation.org, which gave Germany a slight edge over the US compared to 2002 data. Even so, if you look at “Acquisition of citizenship (total), by year,” arguably a better test of how many people are actually welcomed by a country, you’ll find that Germany and the US are hardly different. Further, if you look at “Foreign population as a percentage of the total population,” the US beats out Germany and has a growing percentage of foreign population as a percentage of total population.Darren sez:

Like any nation, the US looks out for its own self-interests. However, when they’re the most powerful nation on the planet (by a considerable margin), that behaviour is questionable.

No way, Darren, Le France and many other fine countries have vetoes in the United Nations Security Council and have nukes and better cheeses. What leads you to believe that the US is the most powerful nation on the planet?

[Reply]

Richard, I’m on your side, but the only evidence I need of a Saddam-Qaeda link is the fact that terrorists are created in Arab regimes. It isn’t incorrect to believe that the nature of those regimes is responsible for the terrorists.

Playing Darren’s game of tit-for-tat documentation is best left to children and lawyers.

[Reply]