"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?
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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.
I suppose. Also moot. Just about as moot as you can get in fact.
I argue we are worse off than we would've been if we had followed our original course.
Better way to phrase this would probably be, "I assert we..." (etc.)
BTW, I'm not sure there was a very long time period in which we actually did follow what you think/assume was our "original course". How long after 1789, 10 years tops? Or don't the Barbary pirate wars count as "meddling"...
It's very hard for me to keep straight what's "meddling" and what's "okay" in the eyes of a Washington's-Farewell-Address-Quoter (WFAQ), you see. For some reason it always seems to miraculously coincide with wars the WFAQ doesn't like vs. wars the WFAQ likes.