Posted on 03/28/2006 7:27:52 AM PST by quesney
Some interesting thoughts from a friend based on a Washington Post op-ed today on the Christian convert facing the death penalty in Afghanistan (link to that op-ed follows):
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The problem Bush faces is that democracies are rare. There are even fewer examples of one democratic nation transforming another country into a democracy. Bush is wrong in saying that democracies don't attack each other. Hitler was democratically elected and it devolved into a tyranny. Same thing happened in Haiti and in much of South America. Trading partners tend not to attack each other. The wisdom of George Washington's Farewell Address again comes through: Trade with everybody...but avoid their political entanglements.
As outsiders we can judge Afghanistan and the Middle East with disgust. They are barbaric but Islam has been around for 1600 years and its becoming more militant. If Bush or any western leader thinks they can intervene and transform these countries into the judeo-christian models we have in America, Canada, Austriala and UK (that's about it), then they don't have a full appreciation of history and human nature.
Bush liberated Afghanistan but since he chose to intervene again in their affairs to save face with the media, the Afghans are now carrying signs that say 'Death to Bush'. You can accuse them of being ignorant and ungrateful but is it wise to draw the ire of crazy people when what you need from them to protect your own country is their docility?
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Unfathomable Zealotry ("Is This My Fellow Man?") Richard Cohen Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/27/AR2006032701299_pf.html
Washington meant alliances with France and England. Both had a pretty poor track record. The U.S. was a weak nation at that time (subject to defeat if both France and England decided to attack simultaneously)...a hyperpower today, things have changed.
Are you posting directly from The Washington Post or just from home today?
There are more democracies in the world today by a huge factor than there were 10 years ago.
You've made quite a few isolationist posts; I didn't know that was what liberals stood for these days.
Hey guys, argue on the merits -- don't resort to calling me a liberal, which I am most definitely not. I supported the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, btw. And I appreciate what Bush has tried to do. I'm just wondering, as I think we all should, whether this world is beyond saving and we should simply focus on looking out for ourselves and protecting ourselves. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is not get involved. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Well, we liberated Europe twice in the last century from the combination of their own militaristic follies and cowardly appeasement.
They're not REALLY our friends/allies now, are they?
I find it amusing that the French, in particular, are always quick to deflect criticism of their anti-Americanism with reminders of how Lafayette helped us during our revolution......
Yet they conveniently FORGET things like Omaha Beach.
#1. This site has been inundated with posters from the mainstream media. They signed up years ago to establish credentials and then stir the pot when it suits them.
#2. You sure sound like one of them in reading your in forum posts.
#3. Why don't you argue the merits of why we should become isolationist? You do understand, don't you, that that will lead to intense economic stagnation for our nation and has often led to war.
Japan attacked us with ships and planes built from scrap metal we had sold to them. I guess this writer believes we won't have any future troubles with China, either. What a head-in-the-sand (or some other dark place) perspective.
HAHAHAHAHAH somebody's Y2K complient...
To the Neo-isolationists, HERE is what we are up to in Iraq (and to a lesser extent in Afganistan).
Counter Insurgency is a strange bastard style of war. It is not total war but it is also more then the Leftist" Police matter". The other thing most old Cast Iron Conservatives forget is the political aspect. Iraq was doable. We had the political consensus to do it. So since we needed a kill zone we could suck the terrorists into and we needed to get the American people to support the cost, there was no other choice BUT Iraq.
Want to really blow the Leftists minds? Tell them this. Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and 9-11 happened the USA would STILL be doing the same thing now in Iraq. Iraq was doable militarily and politically. There was no other place for the US to go. Iraq is basically the same deal as the invasions of Italy was in 1943
Here in a nutshell, is the MILTIARY reason for Iraq. The War on Terrorism is different sort of war. In the war on Terrorism, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is hostile to guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
There are other reasons to do Iraq but that is the MILITARY reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. I often worry that the American people have neither the maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" then to actually THINK. Problem is these people have NO desire to co-exist with us. They see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. They think their "god" will bless them for killing Westerners.
So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest realize we are serious. See in the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it.
I personally would completely remove our troops from Germany and South Korea (for starts), and put active duty forces on our own borders. I would also work hard to restore NATO alliances and tell the UN to go to hell.
We spend too much time worring about the neighbors house, while the criminals walk in and out of our own house at will. As far as I'm concerned that's just stupid.
But that's just me.
Why did you have to inject rationality into what was supposed to be a classic bait-and-switch Founders rant?
Are you really claiming to be so stupid you don't know how Hitler and the Nazis took over Germany?
History has shown that the default form of government is not democratic but authoritarian. Many of the countries we now call democracies do not withstand close inspection, and that includes Afghanistan - which outside Kabul is run by drug-dealing warlords.
It's not isolationist to say that we have a lot on our plate right now and we are getting stretched very thin, both militarily and financially.
If you are expecting an intelligent discussion of various views on foreign policy based on their merits from the Bush-cultists, then you're wasting your time. You'll be much more popular just posting pictures of mushroom clouds over the Middle East. Come on, all the cool kids are doing it.
Pt of clarification: Washington meant France, Great Britain, ("England" is not a country), and all other nations of the world.
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