Ok, fair enough. But surely you realize that getting from the current state A=we engage in tons of "foreign aid" to Z=no foreign aid whatsoever would represent such a quantum leap that it is not realistic to suggest as a feasible alternative path we "could have" taken.
But my particular problem with governmental aid to Israel is that the strings attached to it HURT Israel’s ability to protect herself when needed.
This is a fair point and I actually agree with it as stated. (Doesn't mean I seek to discontinue our aid to Israel, but I do understand the point)
Let me ask you this however. In your ideal world, would we allow Israel to purchase arms and/or materiel from us (i.e. U.S.-based suppliers)? If so, we'd still get basically all the blame we currently get for "helping Israel". If not, on what grounds?
WRT the Shah and his downfall, I am saying that Jimmy the Peanut either created or contributed in a MAJOR way to the perception of our indecisiveness, and thus our weakness.
Clearly. My point is, however, if it hadn't been that, it'd have been something else. Whether we supported the Shah, didn't support the Shah, too weak & allowed the revolution, or had actually stood up & intervened to suppress the revolution, the Muslim-imperialists would have found some grievance to put in their crazy writings.
That is why it's not worth wringing our hands over.
But putting the country on a “war-footing,” similar to that during WWII, but with less rationing, would have been the simplest and quickest way I can think of to do several things, including getting the whole country involved in the situation, where EVERYBODY knows what is happening and is convinced that he or she is part of the solution;
I confess to being puzzled by people who suggest that "getting the whole country involved in the situation" (with some rationing, I gather?) would have somehow led to a better situation than the one we have at present, where 99% of the country is NOT AFFECTED IN THE SLIGHTEST by our current military operations and yet half of whom have spent the past four years doing practically nothing but shrieking nonstop about how horrible and terrible it has been that we invaded Iraq and how immediate the need is for the occupation to cease.
I just can't help wondering how shrill that whining would become if all those people were actually "involved in the situation". I admit, I am loathe to find out, and so I just do not consider it a state of affairs to be sought after. Usually this is the stage in the argument where the person putting forth your view says something like, "but if everyone was involved, then um we'd all see the importance of the struggle and uh we'd all be united and, like, it would be better".
I don't buy it for one single second.
The Islamists are barbarians. Any treatment short of what I described will only be perceived by them as weakness. And weakness begets more war, sure as the sun rises in the east. NOW am I clear enough?
Fair enough but this seems part of a different argument; what does it have to do with the supposed need to examine our nation's past foreign policy behavior for "contributions" we've made to Islamists' attitudes?
As far as the “pure as the driven snow,” there are way too many who seem to think (if they think at all) or “feel” that there needs to be NO discussion of how we might have done things differently in order to achieve a different outcome.
Saying there need be no such discussion (for example, because it's unhelpful, a point others in this thread made before I) is not the same thing as asserting that our nation is "pure as the driven snow". Again: it's a straw man.
and I want to be sure that we do nothing to create conditions which cause this cancer on mankind to recur. Sort of like, my smoking helped cause my lung cancer. Now that it’s gone, should I continue to smoke?
No, but even granting that smoking caused your lung cancer - something we can infer with FAR MORE certainty than we could ever infer a construction like "9/11 happened because Jimmy was weak on Iran" - examining that behavior and thereby "abstaining from smoking in the future" is NOT the best way forward for you. One needs to go in for (depending on type..) surgery/ chemo/ radiation, and then continue with all the followup appointments, etc. As I'm sure you realize, "let's figure out what I did to make this happen" is NOT a good way to cure/treat/manage lung cancer! :-)
Anyway, at some point I do have to point out the analogy breaks down. Cancer is a battle with an adversary that is not conscious, does not have motives, does not have thoughts, feelings, a culture or a psychology. That is why one can at least hope to make good explanations for the onset of cancers that involve only the cancer patient - namely his behavior, environment, and/or genes.
But when discussing a struggle against human adversaries, fascist Muslim imperialists in this case, any attempt to seek "explanations" that refer only to us and our behavior is bound to lead to a lousy and unhelpful explanation. These are people, and cannot be treated as some passively-responding chemical or virus or bacteria or electric field, about whom we can somehow calculate, as if according to some physical law, that we "contributed" to their behavior by doing X and thus whose behavior we can "alter" simply by not doing X. I would say at best this line of thinking appeals because it is emotionally satisfying: after all, offers the promise that we can have some control over a situation that so many of us feel so helpless over.
I don't think the possibility of such control exists however. Emotionally satisfying or not, the explanation is still wrong. This is a struggle against other humans - in most cases crazy, pathetic humans, yes, but humans. They have their own motives and feelings and responses, and chances are, if we hadn't done X to piss them off, we'd have done Y. Trying to track down all the "X"'s we did is a fool's errand because you'll never in a million years predict, and prevent us from doing, all possible Y's. Unless of course you radically alter the fabric of our country. By - among other things - making it less free.
p.s. Best of luck w/the cancer.
I know analogies are of only limited usefulness, but that was the best I could think of... Indeed, one would have to go through the whole treatment regime, but I HAVE known those who would continue smoking afterwards...
And, no, thankfully I don’t have such a cancer; though a smoker for many years, my wife motivated me to finally have my last one over four years ago... after a relapse just after the start of this Iraq fracas, which brought back some unpleasant memories from the sixties (RVN related). I had promised her I’d quit in 2000, just before we got married. She was actually OK with me smoking, even though she didn’t like it much at all. But when she confronted me in ‘03, she told me that it had been MY choice to quit, so now if I didn’t quit she was gonna kill me. So I’m four years and counting.