WB: On War – Moon of Alabama

July 19, 2006

WB: On War

Billmon:

Under the circumstances, it seems more accurate to say that Israel is to America what Austro-Hungary was to the Second Reich — a reckless ally bent on vanquishing a weak but troublesome neighbor, whom Kaiser Wilhelm foolishly allowed to start a chain reaction that no one, him least of all, could control.

On War

Posted by b on July 19, 2006 at 04:10 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Juan Cole in his blog today talks about “Spheres of Influence”. His simple explanation is 100% correct and draws the only logical conclusion any of us can make with any certainty at this point in time and that is “So, basically, the Palestinians and the Lebanese are screwed.”
Sometimes Billmon’s overanalysis with self-debates concerning U.S. establishment “experts” taxes my small brain and patience to the unbearable. For example, if Bush and his neocon gang go for the throat (at least what they wish us to believe is the “throat”), I don’t need an expert like Lind to tell me that “…war with Iran (Iran has publicly stated it would regard an Israeli attack as an attack by the U.S. also) could easily cost America the army it now has deployed in Iraq.”
Hell, Riverbend said the same thing in American Hostages quite awhile ago.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jul 19 2006 5:15 utc | 1

I’ve already said who I think is playing the role of Kaiser Wilhelm this time around.
Well, as long as Billmon’s digging up old posts:

I actually think that comparing Bush to the Kaiser does Willie a disservice. Willie was a scrub of a man and an indifferent leader, but his strategic aspirations for improving Germany’s influence and prestige were neither unfounded nor unrealistic – and he damn near pulled it off.
The ‘State of Germany’ had been unified for less than a century by 1914, and had only just begun to understand the potential weight of its strategic influence. A late invitee to the Mercantilist parlor game that defined International Politics of that era, Germany longed to establish her place among the other great European nations.
Winning a land war in Europe was acknowledged as the quickest, most effective way for Germany to conquer Europe’s industrial heartland (the Ruhr Valley, etc) as well as capture her rivals’ overseas possessions. After centuries of life as divided vassals, the Germans would then emerge as the preeminent World power for the first time in their history.
The US, on the other hand, already IS (was?) the preeminent World power – with influence, prestige, and allies that European politicians of the early twentieth century would never believe was even possible.
Bush’s war is squandering that power. And even were he to win (which he won’t), there is still no appreciable strategic upside worth the cost in lives, treasure, and international goodwill.
Simply put, the Kaiser’s war was the calculated play of a professional gambler who understood the game, knew the odds, and shot the moon because the potential rewards were worth risk. Bush, on the other hand, is the late night drunk shooting craps on credit.
Night Owl at March 17, 2004 03:50 PM

Still works for me.

Posted by: Night Owl | Jul 19 2006 5:39 utc | 2

Some more folks see the 1914 parallel:
Ignatius in his WaPo column: End the Slow-Motion Diplomacy

When international crises arise, analysts often cite the tragic chain of events that produced World War II — Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement that emboldened the Nazis and led to the slaughter of tens of millions. The 1938 Munich lesson of the necessity for action is indelible. But it’s also worth considering the lesson of 1914, in which the world slipped toward a war that could have been avoided had statesmen escaped the lock-step chain of action and response.
Are we living through a Sarajevo moment, like the concatenation of events that marched Europe toward World War I? Impossible to know. But given the risks for the United States and its allies, this ought to be a week when Americans are aggressive, active diplomats, rather than bystanders. If America means to be a world leader, it cannot appear to be a prisoner of events.

Meyerson in his WaPo column: The Guns of July

I wonder if this is how the summer of 1914 felt.
Then, you will recall, the assassination of the Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist terrorist provided the senescent Austro-Hungarian Empire the excuse it had been looking for to wipe out the Serbian nationalists, which provoked the pan-Slavic nationalists at work for the czar to threaten the Austro-Hungarians with destruction, which led Germany’s Kaiser to pledge retaliatory war against Russia, which prompted the French, who had an anti-German alliance with Russia, to begin mobilization. . . . Nobody wanted global conflagration, yet nobody knew how to stop it, and the American president (Woodrow Wilson, who was not yet a Wilsonian) did nothing to help avert the coming war. Within a month, the war came, and it took the remainder of the 20th century for the world to fully recover.
I review this familiar history for those of us (myself included) who’ve been wondering how the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers (and the killing of eight others in the Hezbollah raid) has escalated in less than a week to what may be the brink of a cataclysmic regional war with ghastly global implications. The two crises and the sets of conflicting forces are by no means parallel, but in each the power of nationalism, the sense of national victimization, the need for revenge, the opportunity for miscalculation, the illusion of attainable victory, and all-around fear and rage loom large. More inexplicably, so does the American absence.

Posted by: b | Jul 19 2006 9:01 utc | 3

The Gumps of August
By Spengler. From the Asia Times, July 18, 2006.
Transplant Forrest Gump into Barbara Tuchman’s 1962 history of the outbreak of World War I, The Guns of August, and you have a rough idea of what is afoot in Washington. America’s slow-witted Everyman traipsed oblivious through great events in the eponymous 1994 film, blessed by marvelous good fortune. President George W Bush resembles Forrest Gump, but without the lucky streak.
US policy has turned to dust and ashes. Watching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on television, it occurred to me that she had borrowed a makeup artist from Night of the Living Dead. On reflection, it is more likely that she has not slept in a week.
More….

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 19 2006 9:13 utc | 4

False Flags, from ex-Delta Force operative Stan Goff’s blog:

“The border of Southern Lebanon and Israel is a seamless web of intervisible Israeli outposts with night vision devices, tied together with ground surveillance radar, plowed-flat and raked daily to see footprints, and backed by quick reaction forces. Israelis routinely make incursive patrols into Lebanon. It is nearly impossible for an organized group of Hezbolla or anyone else to cross the border south, much less capture prisoners there. The very notion that this was an incursion INTO Israel is propped up solely by the credulity of the general public that knows nothing about military operations. In reality, the idea is as ludicrous as the Easter Bunny.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2006 13:58 utc | 5

The only good news this week has been that there has been no attack on Syria or Iran. A few facts not written by corporate media; aerial bombardment will not stop the rocket attacks. Israel will have to re-occupy Southern Lebanon. At this point Israel, has two choices; accommodation with Muslims, or become what they fled and depopulate a 50 mile buffer around their borders.
With true believers in charge of Israel, Iran, USA and UK, accommodation will be in very short supply. Striking reverberations with “The Guns of August”.

Posted by: Jim S | Jul 19 2006 15:10 utc | 6

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