This didn't concern me too much because, I noticed as I traveled the world, they were there and I was here. There also were two oceans between us, and few of them had Navies.
What changed on 9/11 is that they came after us in our warm, snug offices. Unfortunately, they killed more that 3,000 innocent civilians. The original reports, if you recall. feared that 50,000 persons may have been killed.
My response is to hunt them down, and speakingly quite frankly, kill them. I don't want them brought back to stand trial. This is not a judicial process.
Unfortunately, both for us and the world, they come from a region of the world where there really are no legitimate goverments except for Israel. In my unstudied opinion, I can't predict what will happen when we replace Sadam, but it will send a powerful message to those other countries which have supported and support terrorism and terrorists. It may have been fashionable to pull feathers from the eagle's tail a few years ago, but ,hopefully, it now is a dangerous and perhaps fatal game to play.
If we keep our eye an the goal, and do not waver, we will prevail. So, no it is not an American empire, it is a response to the murder of 3,000 plus persons on our territory by an alien entity.
This arguement is not just about 9/11 and Iraq, it goes back at least to the Spainish American War and the projection of force globally, our taking out and putting in rulers in other countries and a large military presence overseas AND it is about the large amounts of blood and tax dollars necessary to sustain these things and the cost of backlash AND the cost to our liberties here at home. No matter how it is calculated the costs of "projecting force" is enormous and the current arguement is do we expand and exasperate the problem or try a different path like the one our founders suggested.
cordially,
You're in good company:
"such presents as would show a friendly liberality should at the same time be made to those who unequivocally manifest intentions to remain friends; and as to those who indicate contrary intentions, the preparations made should immediately look towards them; and it will be a subject for consideration whether, on satisfactory evidence that any tribe means to strike us, we shall not anticipate by giving them the first blow, before matters between us and England are so far advanced as that their troops or subjects should dare to join the Indians against us.
It will make a powerful impression on the Indians, if those who spur them on to war, see them destroyed without yielding them any aid. " Pres. Jefferson to Sec. of War Dearborn August 28, 1807
Our historical policies have been so successful that mid-east tribes on the other side of the world are now more integral to our huge economy than the indians were in Jefferson's presidency.
Honest people familiar with our founding- such elementary events as the Jay treaty, the Quasi-war, Jefferson's Barbary war and the disaster of his embargo- can address the growing difficulties of continuing to follow the principals of relations with other nations that we have for over two hundred years. If costs and benefits of changing our historical policies are discussed honestly we can decide on new ones, or find ways to best make the pro-growth ones work in a crowded world without a frontier.