Read this article a couple days. It's a must read. But, with Bush's inauguration speech, I doubt he will be backing away from the Bush doctrine in his 2nd term.
IF this erupted into an all out war it would be World War III, NOT World War IV. I'm going to attribute this error to the complexities of the Roman Numeral system or to the lack of the author's historical knowledge.
Venom, vitriol and vituperation from the weak and treason-biased leftist wolverines won't change the shape of things to come. Not having girly-men making decisions is a change for the better...
Has the President ever (as Podhoretz claims) specifically identified the enemy as "radical Islamism"??
As Mel says at the end of the movie Patriot, HOLD THE LINE, HOLD THE LINE, no retreat!
This can be blamed on Bush for failing to take real action against terror-supporting states while becoming mired in Iraq; for failing to secure the borders; for failing to take prudent steps to prevent entry of terrorists; for failing to root out sleepers and moles within the U.S.
However, a nuke in Chicago or a Smallpox release in Cleveland or a dirty bomb in Boston or a real nuke in Long Beach Harbor should and (hopefully) will bring an all-out nuclear attack on those terror states; a recall of troops for homeland security duty; deportation of all visa-holders from terror-supporting states; a securing of the borders; a complete revamp of "legal" immigration policy and the INS.
If this does not happen after the "next" 9/11 we are finished; Western Civilization will be lost. We shall see if Bush is up to what must be done.
--Boris
"One can only admire Hendrickson’s candor in admitting what is usually hotly denied: that even many leading realists, along with many liberal internationalists, are rooting for an American defeat."
{snip} "Instead of taking to the streets, the realists and the liberal internationalists will go back to their word processors and redouble their ongoing efforts to turn public opinion against the Bush Doctrine. Mainly they will try to do so by demonstrating over and over again that the doctrine is already failing its first great encounter with "hard reality" in Iraq."
The "realists" are what Mark Steyn call "stability junkies", who value stability more than anything else in foreign policy. They don't hate America and think it's the source of all evil, as many on the left do, but they do believe that it is not possible to radically change the political nature of other countries.
I don't understand those guys at all, because Germany and Japan after WWII offer the only necessary counter-example.
The liberal internationlists are the ones that cheer the UN, France, et.al. over America, and many of them are America hating. So I expected no less from them. They want us to fail, so that their transnational authority can take control, for our own good, of course.
But for the realists to hope we fail... that's really disappointing. They apparently feel that their foreign policy wisdom is so special (despite the Japan/Germany counterexample), and they are so sure this effort to transform the Middle East will fail, that they want it to fail as soon as possible so that we get back to a more routine and realistic foreign policy (where they are calling the shots again, naturally). I would have hoped that anyone who believed in America as the leading light of freedom in the world would wish us well in this endeavor, even if they thought it would probably fail. Alas, no.
While I agree with a lot of what Bush says, there is a lot I also disagree with (e.g., Palestinian state, amnesty for illegal immigrants, etc). IMHO--he missed a golden opportuntity to mobilize American for the current war (and it is a war).
For example: he urged people to "go shopping" right after 911 (as opposed to enlisting). In order to make his strategy in Iraq work (its kind of wobbly now), the US has to drain the WHOLE swamp (including Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the PA).
Doing this requires a much larger military than what we have right now. This is a hard thing to come to terms with in a Government where 80 cents on the dollar goes to social spending of one kind or another. Rumsfeld's problem is that he doesn't want to increase the size of the military, mostly because of what it will cost. Instead we have a penny-wise/pound foolish situation where we may eventually hand a victory to our enemies by taking ineffective half measures.
Will this be expensive? Hell yes! However, the alternative is an expensive, long stalemate vs. an expensive, relatively short war. And once we're close to REALLY winning, you'll see the likes of France and Russia get involved to stay in the game.
Must read from Podhoretz.
Sets up the obstacles and obstructionists to
Bush's second term policies, then knocks them down
with hit's in the black.
Excellent read.
Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, told the Wall Street Journal after his retirement that the antiwar movement in the United States was "essential to our strategy."
the present leaders of the democrat party are the same anti-warriors of the 1960s-70s.
"Which is why I think (to say it one last time) that the amazing leader this President has amazingly turned out to be will—like the comparably amazing Harry Truman before him when he took on the Communist world—have the wind at his back as he continues the struggle against Islamist radicalism and its vicious terrorist armory: a struggle whose objective is the spread of liberty and whose success will bring greater security and greater prosperity not only to the people of this country, and not only to the people of the greater Middle East, but also to the people of Europe and beyond, in spite of the sorry fact that so many of them do not wish to know it yet."
I beg to differ that the Europeans do not know yet that they need the security of a democratic ME. They know it. They just don't want the "swamps" to dry up before they sell their back log of weapons to offset their upcoming economic crisis. Besides, if the ME becomes overall prosperous..uh oh..no more "peasants" to exploit. What will that do to france's inflated self esteem? La boohoo.
The question is not whether when this goes hot it will be III, IV or V. The American Revolution was part of WW I. The Great War, the War to End All War, was WW II. The war against Fascism was WW III or WW II continued. The Cold War was no war at all but a series of local wars that involved the US locally. There was never to be a major war between Russia and the US, nor with China. In the next world war Russia, China, and the US will be allied once more.
OK...Bump for later. It's as long and thorough as his WWIV commentary.