Alternate Universe
 

I recently witnessed two Arsenal fans arguing over the manager's "obvious mistakes" in a recent game. They went on and on about how if he had done X or Y we would have won. That got me to thinking a little bit, first in the context of football. Sure, he could have substituted this attacking player sooner to give the team more of an edge, but that doesn't necessarily mean a win is inevitable does it? The other team would make choices and changes as well to deal with the new situation, they wouldn't just keep doing what they did before would they? So making X change wouldn't necessarily produce the desired result in all instances right?

So being me I took that line of thought into politics and world events which inevitably led me back to the cellar. The Cellar is a swirling cauldron of intelligence, experience, common and not so common sense with 200% of the daily recommended allowance of opinion thrown in to boot.

So put your thinking cap on and travel through time and space to an alternate universe. Al Gore and our beloved GWB are locked in a friendly round of legal wrangling to decide who will sit in the awful office. The supreme court has returned their decision and to everyone's surprise they've decided Al and George are too inept for the job. They've named you as the next President of the United States.

You are the President. You make the decisions. You set the course. Assuming that the same basic historical events are in place in the alternate universe - what do you do? Remember we're sitting here with hindsight which isn't quite at 20-20 yet, but we're approaching 40-20.

How do you respond to the recession that is beginning as you take office?

What is your military and defense policy in general?

How do you respond when the Chinese are holding your AWACS flight crew in captivity?

How do you respond when planes crash into the WTC?

How do you respond when envelopes with white powder start showing up and killing people?

What do you do when you receive intelligence that Iraq has continued working on WMD?

Remember that each of your actions has a consequence, intended or not. Remember that the other players in the drama may or may not respond exactly how you'd like them to.

How would you have done things differently?

I'm not going to go much in depth since I was very young when these happened but from I've learned about leadership in and out of politics is that you can not know everything and you better start learning to take advice from multiple experts in the particular field you are working with.

Iraq for example, from what I remember, I did not see much debate on what would happen when we did invade Iraq. We did not challenge the assumption that Iraqis would accept Western democracy with open arms and that turned out to be our biggest mistake. That is something that could have been easily prevented and should have been looked at more and hence my leading argument against Bush for this conflict.

This "action based on unbacked assumptions" is one of the biggest flaws I see in this administration when not going into depth and talking about foreign policy and it is something that should be valued as a leader by questioning every assumption to make sure that the generalization can hold. My other big flaw I saw is the "you are with us or against us attitude". We had most of the world at our knees, even Iran, after 9/11 but we blew it by pushing other countries to do what they did not want to do and ostracizing others.

I can't really say on the rest because I feel I was too young to remember what was actually happening but that is my two cents.

I could never imagine that I would know more about such things than the economists, so I email the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and ask him/her what to do.

I could never imagine that I would know more about such things than military and defense leaders, so I email my Secy of Defense and Head of the Joint Chiefs and ask them what to do.

I could never imagine that I would know more about diplomacy than expert diplomats, so I email my Secretary of State and ask him/her what to do.

etc.

When you say "other players in the drama", I assume you do not mean Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. unless we so choose to involve them?

So, who do you appoint to those slots? Friends/cronies or experts?

you are the president. you set the course. if we stand here now and blame Bush/Clinton/Bush/Reagan for doing XYZ then we as the "current president" must accept the same responsibility. of course you have advisors. your beliefs and agenda guide you in naming those advisors so their agenda will most likely be similar to yours.

Now lead your nation.

I wasn't really referring to your advisors as much as the outside players. You can hire and fire your advisors so you have the ability to dictate their actions. You don't have that ability with other world leaders.

1-Put UG in charge of the military.
2-Put Radar in charge of State.
3-Order a large box of popcorn.

Incidentally, it looks like Spexx is working on embracing his inner meanie.

Our foreign-policy problems (not the inconveniences we get from some other democracies but the real problems) stem from the nondemocracies. We want the problems to go away? Really? Okay then, we remove the nondemocracies and replace them with democracies. Dead tyrants fertilize the gardens of democracy superbly, for we have the example of their sort of misgovernance in mind.

Remove 'em by chicanery, war, revolution, or economics -- no particular order, and who cares anyway, as long as they disappear? -- with tyranny out of the picture and secure property rights and security in their persons in it, nothing can stop a people from prospering.

UG, what if the people do not want a democracy?

Pierce, darling, if you weren't such a fascist sympathizing holder of a summer's-day IQ, I wouldn't have to dismiss your discreditable argument -- that a people wouldn't want democracy in view of everything else that's out there on view -- as airily and persistently as I do. It seems some mental block with you: you have for some time shown a willingness to bow before the opinion that is essentially that of oppressive, repressive minorities. But I do not bow before the opinions of fascists/communists/objectionable-ists. You lose that mental block, that undue willingness to sympathize with those not deserving the least sympathy, and a new light will dawn right there in your frontal lobes. The enlightenment is this: smart people want liberty. Villains don't. The smart people should neutralize the villains, and it wouldn't be any too wrong to reduce the villains to holes full of smoke before they can implement their programs of oppression. Undemocracy makes oppression convenient, and oppression may have the working definition of "not having democracy."

IOW, you'll get to enjoy enlightenment instead of walking in fascistocommunist darkness, foolishness, and misery. I haven't met a smart fascist sympathizer yet. And the dumb thing you're doing is in essence trusting official opinion polls from despotisms. Is it true that you'd rather be persuaded that less-than-democracy is good enough for those foreigners out there, than that they might perhaps do as well as we do by doing it generally as we do? Look to the immigration situation for refutation of that idea.

Nondemocracy creates poverty -- is this even open to dispute? People, given a choice, leave nondemocracy and its poverty and go to prosperous democracies, do they not?

Now is there any inherent sin or wrongness in democracy coming to them right where they're squatting?

And you have not seen that many Middle Eastern countries reject western democracy and want to set up their own government? Whether you accept it or not, many Muslims do want Islamic Law. Now I must ask the question again.

What if the people do not want western democracy?

Then let them enjoy something they think is more eastern. I won't complain. Meanwhile, read up on your Thomas Friedman for some very cleareyed looking at the whole matter -- Longitudes & Attitudes.

Autocracy and nondemocracy are, and Friedman agrees with me here (more correctly the other way around, but in the end we're on one page) the exact center of the problem that all the Arab states suffer from, some of course more than others. A good many Arabs know this. A democracy with Islamic features included is still a democracy, and I don't have a problem with that.

Now tell me if there's anything inherently wrong with democracy coming to them right where they're squatting. I'm here to tell you there's no shame in admitting that it would likely be good if it happened.

I'm here to tell you that only the oppressive élites want anything but democracy -- after all, anyone will fight like a dog to gain or keep power.

And here's another question for you: why should such people's opinions be respected? I cannot think of one single solitary reason. I can think of unreasons -- and as a moral being I reject them utterly. Shouldn't these simply be wiped out instead, that democracy may flower without a lot of damned savage interference by the shitty of head? Dead oppressors cannot oppress.

How do you respond to the recession that is beginning as you take office?
Deregulate where it makes sense. Let the recession happen since deferred recessions will probably hit harder.

What is your military and defense policy in general?

Bring home the troops. Focus on defense of American territory not 'interests" which look suspiciously like subsidies for individual players.

How do you respond when the Chinese are holding your AWACS flight crew in captivity?

Our surface ships and planes were not there.

How do you respond when planes crash into the WTC?

Hit the responsible people and organizations hard. Build on the international support that was immediately forth-coming.

How do you respond when envelopes with white powder start showing up and killing people?

Let the pros do their jobs.

What do you do when you receive intelligence that Iraq has continued working on WMD?

Don't cherry pick the intelligence to match my (obviously different)agenda.


The really hard question was the one you didn't ask. What do we do about Iraq? Clinton and Hussein worked pretty hard at destroying that country, what would moral policy be? I suppose I would have militarily supported the Kurdish move to independence as part of a coalition and lifted the embargo. The Kurds were already a distinct community struggling for independence. It would be up to the Shiites and Sunnis to settle their differences. The only justification for our continued presence was our hand in making the mess. The long view is energy independence and free trade with willing partners.

UG, you do realize that most of these oppressive rulers are there because of us, right?

There was a democracy in Iran before 1953.

And we back the very dangerous regimes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

I can't say these countries will become democracies but they will become much less oppressive if we stop backing them and allow someone else to take charge.

Those Kurds sit on top of a lot of oil.

Too bad you are now at effective, if not actual war with at least four different countries, with an ally that has never won any battle ever, and can't get any of that oil to a port OR pipeline, guaranteeing a long, hard time and probably the inevitable slaughtering of your friends.

http://cellar.org/2007/kurdsarea.jpg

A regional agreement guaranteeing borders is not out of the question. Even now Kurds in Iraq are standing down while Turkey pummels the PKK.

Set whatever border you like, nobody's transporting their oil and the minute you leave, they're slaughtered.

The permanent relationships can be built while we are there. The Euros have substantial pull with the Turks. Once the price of oil in a pipeline to Turkey resembles the cost they'd be paying their own people for it, the desire for stable pricing and a piece of the action will trump expansionism especially if Turkish oil people are part of the mix.

That sounds suspiciously like, just let the oil barons control the destiny of the region (world), and we'll all live happily ever after.... except of course anyone that stands in their way.

I doubt they will focus on such nuance when the pipelines are being bombed and Americans dictating a solution cuts Kurdistan in half for the benefit of the Kurds. I think your solution would look a lot like today's situation. The funny thing is you'd lose the anti-war folks in exactly the same way you have now. What does Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria have to do with 9/11? And what if the Kurds find it more convenient to pipe their oil south? What difference does it make if their enemy to the north gets rich on them, or their enemy to the south? Now you have an empowered Iraq with the Hussein family still in charge.

How do you mean this? Do you expect the Hussein women to return from exile in -- is it Monte Carlo? [I didn't look.]

Pierce, remember that pour faute de mieux is not depraved foreign policy, but exactly the thing we've been doing since our nation's inception. Blaming the U.S.'s policies for each and every social ill found in Araby is strictly from the propaganda book of those "very dangerous regimes." You're much more credulous about Arab propaganda than I am, as recollection of our disputes over Middle Eastern policy shows. I do believe becoming familiar with how the ruling circles of the Arab states came to power -- that is, you're going to have to become more familiar with Arab history from Morocco through Syria than I think you are -- will show how little we've had to do with it, and for how much time. Even the William Eaton-Hamet Karamanli expedition in the early 19th century amounted to about a company of foot soldiers and some naval support, primarily in logistics.

Even post-WW2, our involvement really didn't amount to anything much beyond telling the winners, "Congratulations on your success, and we're available to discuss trade agreements at your convenience."

Read the entire thread, bottom-poster.

I don't blame every problem on the United State's policy, but I do realize that we need to share some responsibility for them. If the United States had a non-interventionist foreign policy, I realize that the Middle East would still not be comparable to the US when it comes to domestic issues, but I also recognize that we have made the problem worse by supporting a lot of the cruel leaders we see today in the area.

You could have been talking this much sense all along, you know. Now you're sounding a lot less like a raving antisemite than you used to, which is encouraging. (That sort of thing is why I can't gag down supporting the excesses of the Palestinians, who haven't gotten out of the habit of crying victim while doing perp.)

........*forcibly restrains self from jumping into this one*

There's a lot of dung there. Which one would you jump on?