Posted on 05/23/2008 9:08:23 AM PDT by The_Republican
On Wednesday, Joe Lieberman wrote on this page that the Democratic Party he and I grew up in has drifted far from the foreign policy espoused by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy.
In fact, it is the policies that President George W. Bush has pursued, and that John McCain would continue, that are divorced from that great tradition – and from the legacy of Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Sen. Lieberman is right: 9/11 was a pivotal moment. History will judge Mr. Bush's reaction less for the mistakes he made than for the opportunities he squandered.
The president had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead – by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan, and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests – Mr. Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world.
At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the "war on terrorism" that ignores larger forces shaping the world: the emergence of China, India, Russia and Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water; the persistence of poverty; ethnic animosities and state failures; a rapidly warming planet; the challenge to nation states from above and below.
Instead, Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make.
The intersection of al Qaeda with the world's most lethal weapons is a deadly serious problem. Al Qaeda must be destroyed. But to compare terrorism with an all-encompassing ideology like communism and fascism is evidence of profound confusion.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I see why Biden prefers to plagerize. His own thoughts are worthless!
It sounds like Mr Biden is having a bad day
Plugs needs to go play in traffic.
Joe, when the obsession involves hunting down the people who killed 3,000 Americans that's called a healthy obsession. In fact, it's the type of obsession that gets you elected to the White House.
Biden is a freaking idiot. But then what's new.
“to compare terrorism with an all-encompassing ideology like communism and fascism is evidence of profound confusion.”
To ignore the similarities is evidence of profound naivety and stupidity. But hey, it’s Biden speaking, what else would one expect?
>>by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan<<
If Afghanistan was “necessary”, why did he vote against it? One more lie from the Duke of Delaware. He tells so many that he’s lost count.
No problem, he’ll say three Hail Mary’s and get absolution from... himself.
“Biden is a freaking idiot. But then what's new.”
It's more like classic leftist thought on the WOT and terrorism in general. Terrorism to the left is basically a “criminal act” and law enforcement problem. The problem is that we treated it just that way during the Clinton years and what we got for our trouble was 9/11.
And yes, I agree, Biden is an idiot.
I saw this article in the WSJ this morning but didn’t bother to read it. I figured I had probably already seen most of it in other articles that had been published previously.
/s
It appears that Biden is trying to say that Bush created the radical Islamic terrorist movement...
existential - “relating to or dealing with existence (especially with human existence)”
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Like much of what Biden says, the whole statement is confusing. The facts are the opposite. The terrorist movement targeted us because we exist and we don't conform to their existential view of the world and our place in it. Bush has been forced to deal with the threat, employing every tool he can muster, while also fighting the continuous political opposition of those, like Biden, who have shamelessly attempted to exploit the inherent uncertainty of a war against a Fabian foe.
Bottom line - Biden is an opportunist who should never be trusted (existentially).
Biden isn't just an idiot. He's a pathetic idiot.
That is the only sense in which Mr. Biden might be said to have a point. Of course, that's not what he intended to mean. Otherwise, he is as full of noxious gas as always.
Stick to plagiarism, Joe!! It might give you better ideas....
It is Joe Biden who is so stunningly ignorant that he does not see or admit all the myriad ways in which jihadists and their terrorist-sponsoring states can work together across the supposed Sunni/Shia divide. How exactly does he think Iran and Syria turned out to be such close jihad allies in subverting Lebanon’s independence and security with the development of Hizbollah, long before George W. Bush came anywhere near taking office?
If we believed gasbag Joe then we’d have to believe that Syria is not massively supporting Hizbollah, that Iran cannot support Hamas, that neither Syria nor Iran could have been aiding various terror groups in Iraq. The jihadists benefit from the ignorance and gullibility of liberals like Joe who are always eager to take up the talking points that benefit global jihad.
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