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Foreign Policy: Why Defend Those Who Don't Want Us?

Posted on 12/31/2002 8:24:17 AM PST by Bluegrass Federalist

In reading an article posted today on Foxnews.com, I read more about the growing problems with North Korea. While the South Koreans quoted in the article stopped short of this, I have heard comments from their new leader in the past weeks that are highly critical of the U.S., our foreign policy, and most interestingly, our presence there.

This follows the German election in which the candidates raced to be the most critical of American foreign policy. You remember Germany, the nation we liberated from Hitler, rebuilt under the Marshall Plan, saved from starvation during the Berlin airlift, protected from the Soviet threat, tore down the Berlin Wall, and on and on.

I am sure if I had more time I could cite more examples. Please feel free to add your own.

My question is, in these cases, is it really in our strategic interest to continue to defend these places? Korea is irrelevant in every sense but the nuclear, and protecting the South is not necessdary in dealing with that threat. Whether we bomb theoir recators has no bearing on whether we lose American lives in protecting an ungrateful people who don't want us there. I say we call their bluff and let them deal with the consequences.

Same for Germany. While a bit more strategic, do we really need to be subsidizing them? Would Europe be competing with us economically if they had to have a defense budget? We protecxt them , they profit and then show off how anti-American they can be. We need Ranstein Air Base, but I am sure there are plenty of other countries in Europe who would beg to have a U.S. presence.

We have other friends who can help us with bases and strategic needs. Japan in the Asian theatre, others in the European. I think we need to send a message to our other allies. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.


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To: Michael81Dus
And will you tell me what I have to do with Hitler and his followers?

Your association with Hitler is similar to mine with the slaveowners of the southern United States in the early 1800's. I did not own slaves, yet there are those in the United States that say that I should pay reparations.

Germany is on a very dangerous path today. The rhetoric that spewed forth from the candidates in your last election cycle was astounding. Germans might consider a little humility, and our cautious approach may become a little friendlier.

21 posted on 12/31/2002 10:16:10 AM PST by gcraig
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To: gcraig
Unbelievable- that´s not logical.

"Your association with Hitler is similar to mine with the slaveowners of the southern United States in the early 1800's. I did not own slaves, yet there are those in the United States that say that I should pay reparations."

I want to add that just one of the candidates for Chancellery used worth that damaged the US-German relations. The other was -unfortunately- not the winner...

Have a good and happy year 2003!!

22 posted on 12/31/2002 10:19:16 AM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: Michael81Dus
national character doesn't change.
23 posted on 12/31/2002 10:19:50 AM PST by magua
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To: Michael81Dus
Germany may not need US troops any longer, on that we may agree. But if you welcome the presence, you could show it a bit more. And your history books don't sound too terribly accurate to me. Why was the Eastern economy weak? What did Kohl do? It was Reagan's polcies of peace through strength and containment that wrecked the Soviet economies. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War - don't doubt it for a second.

I understand that we fund our own bases over there. My point in that regard is that if you had to pay for your own defense, you wouldn't have the money for all the social programs we have to hear about over here from our Lefties.

I am not in any respect anti-German, and do not support the "scum" label applied earlier. But if you are going to pick your leaders on the basis of who can be more critical of the U.S., maybe it's time you paid for your own defense. There are no threats put there, right?
24 posted on 12/31/2002 10:20:20 AM PST by Bluegrass Federalist
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To: Cicero
Kind of my point. If Europe thought we were leaving, maybe they would see things a little differently.
25 posted on 12/31/2002 10:21:39 AM PST by Bluegrass Federalist
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To: Michael81Dus
That's certainly not part of my argument. I have no poroblem with Germans or Germany, and don't believe in continuosly slapping them in the face over Hitler. I agree with the slaveowner analogy, being a white Southern male. I have known Germans, and liked them all. My only point is that it pisses me off to hear the criticisms in your elections, which the candidates knew was a load of populist garbage that they are now backing off. If they don't like us, we can take our troops and go home, and see how vulnerable they feel.

But, I am sorry this thread turned into what it did, and assure you I don't feel that way about Germans. Hey, at least you're not France (but be careful, you're moving in that direction).

Don't forget the Korea angle here. That situation prompted this thread, and no one has mentioned it. A little more pressing there, because there are troops massed at the border, and North may have nukes. ROK might want to be a little lighter on the anti-U.S. rhetoric.
26 posted on 12/31/2002 10:29:16 AM PST by Bluegrass Federalist
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To: BeerIsGood
This is my first extended rumination of the day, and I've been trying to compose a tirade for the Palace which hasn't been going well, so please pardon me if it's a little looser than usual.

It's not really about defending others from their own folly, or against dark forces from whom they can't defend themselves. American armed power exists to defend American interests. In the main, America is best off when tyrants and aggressors are put down sternly and swiftly, because to have these on the loose threatens the increasingly far-flung reach of our trade, our travel, and our extended families.

I tend to favor non-intervention in quarrels less threatening than, say, the discovery of nuclear capabilities in North Korea, unearthing a funding trail that connects Palestinian and al-Qaeda terrorism to Iraq, or learning that Celine Dion's touring south of the border again. But one's judgment on these things is more trustworthy if one has lots of high-quality information than if one is a regular schlump-on-the-sidelines like myself. So we have a national security apparatus with lots of intelligence resources, and which is watched, hopefully closely and continuously, by elected officials for signs of mission overreach.

The painful things about American extra-national military interventions are twofold:

  1. They involve violence and prodigious expenditure;
  2. Sometimes we make things worse. Not always, not even frequently, but it's happened once or twice.

It's simply very hard to know when it's a good idea to entangle ourselves in the conflicts of others. We private citizens are unlikely ever to be able to cross-verify enough of the arguments for an intervention to be confident that we're hearing the truth and nothing but. Governments are uniformly run by people who like having power and love to wield it, so their institutional tendency is to favor such things. We have few checks on overreach other than the desire of officials to be liked by the citizenry, which, come to think of it, has worked surprisingly well even on appointees. Basically, once we put the reins in their hands, we have to trust them to know where they're riding off to, and why.

The dangers are considerable. But the options are few, perhaps none, especially given the perilous state of the world and the amount of envy we engender with our success.

A country needs a military in proportion to how much she has to defend. We need a large one, as possessors of a quarter of the world's wealth. But size alone isn't sufficient. We also have to have our fingers on the pulse of the world, be intimately acquainted with its troubled places and the roots of their miseries -- and sometimes that draws us into others' quarrels all by itself.

Robert A. Heinlein once called America a "blind giant" for her habit of stumbling into wars unknowingly and under-preparedly. Well, we have a better intelligence network now than any previous generation of Americans -- but much of it depends on alliances and involvements that George Washington would have thought unwise, even treasonous. Thus the times have changed.

Worst of all the agonies of this subject is this one: That intelligence network does frequently learn things that private persons ought not to learn, for their own good and the good of the country. Sometimes, its agents must do things in the interests of the nation that would be considered crimes if done by ordinary citizens. It all grows out of the nature of the Game of States, in which "there are no morals, only expedience." (V. I. Lenin)

I'll return to this anon.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://www.palaceofreason.com

27 posted on 12/31/2002 10:41:26 AM PST by fporretto
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To: fporretto
I certainly agree with most of your points, althoough ot your conclusion. I do not advocate isolationism, or a large-scale drawback to our own borders. In the Korean example, I mentioned Japan as the base in the region, obviating the necessity of defending Korea. If nations see us leave a Korea to its folly, they may be a bit more appreciative of what we do for them.

In reality, a proposal of a withdrawal would force the Koreans to eat their words almost immediately, a prospect that would be very gratifying. We can defend our interests from Turkey, Britain, the Med, Japan, Guam, etc., etc. without haviong to put up with this kind of crap.
28 posted on 12/31/2002 10:46:57 AM PST by Bluegrass Federalist
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To: Michael81Dus
Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that the German gov't should not be trusted, not individual Germans. As we all know, gov'ts don't always do what the people want.
29 posted on 12/31/2002 11:05:17 AM PST by Morrigan
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To: BeerIsGood
Nobody has said a word about South Korea. Why die defending them? If NK is a threat, we can deal with them without supporting R.O.K.
30 posted on 12/31/2002 4:08:52 PM PST by Bluegrass Federalist
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To: Morrigan
On that point we can agree, no problem.
By the way, I already live in 2003...
31 posted on 12/31/2002 5:13:06 PM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: magua
"national character doesn´t change" ?? So the Italians are still the same Romans wishing to conquer the areas around the Mediterranean Sea?

Boy, the national character (if there is one) changes with the minds of the people, and I strongly believe that the era of 1933-1945 changed a lot of people´s minds all over the world! Therefore the "n.c." of Germany changed and so it did in Japan.

Or how could you explain that we´re integrating in a united Europe voluntary?
32 posted on 12/31/2002 5:16:13 PM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: BeerIsGood
Hey, I see what´s your point and I respect it.
But please understand, that it was only ONE candidate who damaged the transatlantic relations - for our misery it was the winner. The other candidate, Bavarian Governor Stoiber never attacked the US.

33 posted on 12/31/2002 5:17:58 PM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: BeerIsGood
I cannot see where the US pay for our defense. We don´t need these 90,000 soldiers, our forces count 300,000 and we´re surrounded by NATO-members or neutral states. In case of an attack with ABC-weapons (which we promised not to produce on our own free decision), we´ll be defended by the NATO - so US, UK or French nukes will be used.

Let´s say it was the West winning the Cold War.
Kohls diplomacy won the trust of Gorbatchov who wasn´t sure how to deal with the idea of a united (and stronger) Germany. It was Kohl who defeated the fears of a new dangerous Germany by our neighbours so that France, the UK and the Soviet Union agreed to our renunification.
Thats fact. It was Bush who early supported him on that way but in these days, the whole world looked at him.

For me, it´s 2003 - I just came back from our New Years eve party and I´m tired. For your timezone: see you in Y2K+3 (lol).
34 posted on 12/31/2002 5:28:11 PM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: BeerIsGood
South Korea chimes in with more criticism. From Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,74282,00.html

35 posted on 12/31/2002 8:08:37 PM PST by Bluegrass Federalist
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
Most of the people overseas like the US and want to live here.

That's not the impression I get when talking to people from other countries. While these people--I'm primarily talking about online friends who still live in other countries--seem to like the U.S., they've also told me repeatedly in conversation that we have no clue just how badly most of the rest of the world hates us. I tend to agree with the original poster in this thread. Let them take care of themselves for a bit and see if their attitudes change.

MM

36 posted on 12/31/2002 8:13:51 PM PST by MississippiMan
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To: BeerIsGood
We are there more for the strategic bases than the ingrates that live there.
37 posted on 12/31/2002 8:15:21 PM PST by MissAmericanPie
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To: Cicero
Move the bases from Germany to Poland (who could use the extra money that all those military people would pump into their economy). As to Asia, keep our bases in Japan and let South Korea and China worry about North Korea.
38 posted on 12/31/2002 8:21:03 PM PST by McGavin999
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To: BeerIsGood
First, in both Germany and Korea the candidate barely eeked out a win. In Korea it was within about 2 points, so in other words, the nation is divided. The guy there now is a bona fide lefty, who is following suit of his predecessor. In their case, "Gore" did win. Still though, the question in the case of Korea should not even come close to being isolation from Korea or vice versa.

In reality the Europeans are the ones really to blame for the leftist anti Americanism trash floating around. Their ideals are the ones we are competing with, not really anyone else's. The Koreans view themselves as being small fish in a really BIG pond, but when the socialists and leftist Nobel Prize people award prizes to their previous leader it makes the Koreans think that "they finally got someone to recognize them". The same people awarded Jimmy Carter the award merely to advance their own political agenda.

In regards to Korea, or anywhere strategically, we cannot be of the thinking that our troops will be there forever. The same with Japan. The only reason the troops were there in Korea in the first place is because of Communists and the old framework of how things work.

With the collapse of Communism though, and the eventual collapse of North Korea's regime, then what? What will be the rationale behind stationing troops there? Believe it or not, North Korea is a short term problem.

We have to start rethinking our reasons for being around the world. Right now though we are working within the old framework, when in reality we should be working out a new one, based around the new threats. Until recently there has been little new or prevelant threats. Then there was Sept 11.

To think in the right now terms is short sighted. In the long term, we have to come up with more, or better yet, different reasons. In my estimation I will expect a smaller signature of open big huge military bases, but a massive increase in our plain clothed intel presence around the world. We still have a bad ass military, but what we, and Asia are starting to need is bad ass intel and lightning strikes. We will probably expand our presence around the globe, but the difference will be that our guys will be in suits and ties instead of military uniforms, and most Koreans or Japanese will walk past them on the street not knowing who they are. Asia is also in need of a balance against China so in Asia we will still have the hardware, just a smaller openly military signature there to disrupt the average Joe Kawasaki's life.

Things are going to change, and that is not really a bad thing at all.

In other words, big old huge bases with 100,000 Marines might not really meet our strategic needs anymore.

We will still have the Marines, but they will be stationed in Florida or Hawaii, but able to get to their location with guns blazing in 10-12 hours from the call.

39 posted on 12/31/2002 8:59:03 PM PST by maui_hawaii
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To: BeerIsGood
If we withdraw from everywhere its about like saying "Hey. Let the Democrats have it all..."

Simply put, that would be running away from the fight, ideological even.

Those people who say "America is a hegemon...those pigs...etc" what do we do? Let them continue on in ignorance about us? Should we let them have an uncontested slam dunk against us? Even when its not true? Like I said, Europeans want to be on top of things. They are the real root of the problem.

For me, we have to be who we are and discredit those types of people, and expose them for the ignoramuses they are.

40 posted on 12/31/2002 9:05:10 PM PST by maui_hawaii
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