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To: Alberta's Child

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa

Iraq is considered ‘partly’ democratic by US-accepted indices. (I would consider it ‘marginally’, if not only ‘nominally’ so).

Are you a complete isolationist, or do you think it’s important to support countries who have proven that they are trying to grow toward the same rights, liberties, and value of the individual, that we have traditionally fostered in the US?


35 posted on 01/04/2020 5:13:03 PM PST by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it")
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To: Jamestown1630
Are you a complete isolationist, or do you think it’s important to support countries who have proven that they are trying to grow toward the same rights, liberties, and value of the individual, that we have traditionally fostered in the US?

I have no problem supporting them at all. I would even suggest that these are the only types of countries in the world who we should have amicable trade relationships with.

Supporting and promoting them doesn't mean they are all military partners of ours. And it doesn't mean we should ever allow foreign interests to have any influence in our own government here, either.

A look back at the Suez Canal crisis of 1956 might be instructive here. In that case, all noble ideals about "supporting countries who have proven that they are trying to grow toward the same rights, liberties, and value of the individual" went out the window. The U.S. was in the unusual position of siding with Egypt and the Soviet Union against Great Britain, France, and Israel in that dispute. And that's because we considered our own interests to be far more important than the interests of those three countries -- even if it meant taking sides with hostile, totalitarian regimes.

38 posted on 01/04/2020 5:19:47 PM PST by Alberta's Child (In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.)
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To: Jamestown1630; Alberta's Child

“Are you a complete isolationist,”

“Isolationist” is a politician’s handy term of abuse against somebody who doesn’t support a war that the politician favors. LBJ called Vietnam war opponents, “isolationists.”

If you, Jamestown1630, don’t favor sending US troops into, say, Cuba or Venezuala, does that make you an “isolationist”?

Some commentators who want to invade those countries would call you an isolationist for not agreeing with their plans.


86 posted on 01/04/2020 9:18:47 PM PST by rintintin
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