Since you believe that U.S. foreign policy between 1950-1980s ignored Washington's wisdom, one thing's for certain: if we hadn't "ignored Washington's wisdom" we may not have won the Cold War.
All examples of the "meddling" people have listed on this thread as having led to 9/11 were done as part of fighting the Cold War. I guess what you're saying is we shouldn't have fought the Cold War?
"And would we have been? If we hadn't, for decades, ignored Washington's wisdom?
Since you believe that U.S. foreign policy between 1950-1980s ignored Washington's wisdom, one thing's for certain: if we hadn't "ignored Washington's wisdom" we may not have won the Cold War.
All examples of the "meddling" people have listed on this thread as having led to 9/11 were done as part of fighting the Cold War. I guess what you're saying is we shouldn't have fought the Cold War?
"
You cant be selective about specific -- either we were true to Washington's wisdom or we weren't. If we hadn't gotten involved in WWI, there might not have been a WWII or a Cold War -- and on and on. Impossible to prove, but possible. For a long time we haven't been faithful to Washington's wisdom, leading to this viscious downward cycle of getting ever more deeply involved in other people's hopeless problems. You can't just take one specific war or time period in isolation. Anything you point up I can argue is a mere symptom/result of not being faithful to the founder's wisdom in past situations. I argue we are worse off than we would've been if we had followed our original course.
These excerpts from the founders deserve to be reposted again, again and again. I challenge any of the critics to say they were wrong. Just look at the mess we're in today and how far back it goes. They'd be appalled by our stupidity and hubris.
--John Quincy Adams--
America goes not abroad in search of monsters to
destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. She is the champion and
vindicator only of her own.... She well knows that by
once enlisting under other banners than her own, were
they even the banners of foreign independence, she
would involve herself beyond the power of extrication
in all wars of interest and intrigue, of individual
avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors
and usurp the standards of freedom.
-- George washington --
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are
recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But
even our commercial policy should hold an equal and
impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive
favors or preferences; consulting the natural course
of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means
the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing;
establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to
give trade a stable course, to define the rights of
our merchants, and to enable the government to support
them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that
present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit,
but temporary, and liable to be from time to time
abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances
shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is
folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors
from another; that it must pay with a portion of its
independence for whatever it may accept under that
character; that, by such acceptance, it may place
itself in the condition of having given equivalents
for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with
ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no
greater error than to expect or calculate upon real
favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.