Posted on 04/14/2008 6:06:15 PM PDT by pissant
He believes that this is the sure way to end America as we know it, by over-comitting around the world. At the same time we seem unwilling to ask others to fund their own defense.
For example, Japan spends less that 1% of their GNP on defense, yet has the 2nd largest economy in the world and we still have our military stationed in Japan. If N. Korea erupts, who is on the front line facing the 7,000 tubes of artillery?
I am all for confronting evil, especially dictatorships, but would not it be more responsible to get others, like Japan, Germany, Korea etc to fund a greater part of their own defense?
schu
We have military stationed around the world on far flung bases because it is in our best strategic interest.
I hope Pat takes the VP slot on the Alan Keyes ticket. They’re both half crazy.
What Party is Keyes running in since he gave up the GOP?
Not sure why we still have thousand's of troops stationed in Germany.
PB’s position is that we have signed on to treaties/agreements which we are entirely unable to fulfill. So if the world circumstances change such that we need to meet our treaty obligations in multiple locations simultaneously, we will have to renege on our commitments.
Why is that a good idea?
schu
And then Saudi Arabia.
BUMP!
Lafayette was an American?
any one that will take him or he'll make up a good one like "The Constitutional Christian Ol' Glory Patriot Party."
First of all, we don’t have that many formal treaties. But what we do have is a NATO Alliance whose primary purpose was to thwart the USSR’s very real ambitions. It seemed to work out OK.
Russia is still a threat, and China is a growing menace, so it does not make sense to abandon our bases throughout the world. We need a bigger military still, by a good 50%.
We have formed other alliances as well. With the Aussies and Japan, with Israel, with Canada, etc. If any of these countries were to be invaded, you can bet that we would be there to fight by their side, treaty or not.
The history of the world is one of constant warfare. Many of them skirmishes (iraq falls into that category) and proxies, but powerful nations fighting wars is the norm, not the exception. There is nothing that has changed that. So I’m am 1000% behind having bases and combat readiness planted all over the globe.
Yes, allies should pick up more of the tab, but post WWII, they simply haven’t. That does no mean we should follow suit.
We have thousands of troops stationed in Germany because it is a stable democracy that is a heck of a lot closer to the ME than we are. Lots of staging of personnel in and out of elsewhere in the world go though Germany. One of our biggest military medical centers is there; the most severely injured personnel from the ME go to Germany instead of flying all the way home.
No, he was a frog. And the French aided the Revolution not out of their unbridled love for us but their hatred of the Brits.
Suggest you read the book, that is not what PB says. Here are some examples:
NATO
Mutual security treaty with S Korea
Japan-US mutual security treaty in 1960
Taiwan Relations Act of 1979
Mutual security treaty of 1951 with the Philippines
SEATO/Manila Act and Thailand and Pakistan
ANZUS Pact of 1951 with Australia
1947 Rio Treaty with Latin America
Not sure about the level of commitment as I am not a treaty expert.
For the record, I do NOT subscribe to PB's world view, I do believe we have a role in maintain world order and peace, especially where we have significant interests. I especially disagree with him on Israel.
Just read it, you will be surprised.
schu
Here's my half-baked idea. Announce that we will begin destroying the icons of Islam - mosque by mosque, shrine by shrine, all the way to mecca, if necessary - until the mullahs are gone. Islam is what fuels this, why not gut its earthly connections?
I’d say a combination of the two. Otherwise, Lady Liberty would not exist.
Russia has no good reason to object. If we destroy Iran's military hardware, Russia gets to sell them a whole new set. ;)
As always, we're the bad guy....
“George Washington was an isolationist.”
And he was right to be one. We had just fought a long and bl;oody revolution. Our country was in its infancy, awkward and uncertain as it began to take its fiorst tentative steps. Isolationism was imperative at that time. We needed time to grow and mature, to find ourself; the last thing we needed when George Washington called for isolationism was foreign entanglements. We are now the world’s only superpower. Our reach and our influence are global now. We cannot afford to be isolationists any longer. Hell, we had a pretty sizeable isolationist movement here in the late 1930s and the first two years of the 1940s. The world in general and America in particlar are damn fortunate we ignored those isolationists.
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