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VERY thought provoking ... the Demon-Krats will go catatonic if we ever exercise such overwhelming "peacekeeping" and battle resolution full force. We're seeing a lot of this philosophy at work in Iraw now, I believe .. get the job done, take out the monsters. At the end of a TV appearance recently, Kaplan questioned: In Somalia .. would it not have been better for the CIA or Special Forces to provoke a coup, wherein the tyrannical leader could've been destroyed by his own instead of the tragedy that occurred... the savage murder and debasement of our finest .. the slaughter of millions of people there? I have to say I agree with him ... Somalia will always be a haunting ... the ultimate desecration and abandonment of our bravest by one of the the most depraved, degenerate worms to ever stalk this earth. That he was ever our president will be this country's cross to bear for decades.

I have a friend in Special Forces, and I know there's a big push on to increase their numbers because they're so perfectly configured for the new landscape, and they can work in small groups very effectively. I understand the Army is fighting this BIG time .. politics .. politics everywhere. Keep fighting, Rummy!! God Bless our finest .. our brave, brilliant and courageous military.

Keep fighting, Rummy!!

Just more reasoning why Bush MUST be re-elected in 04. It's not just him (although I mostly feel he's done a great job), but it's his Team that we must re-elect as well. Powell too I suppose. Condi, definitely!

Prairie

At the end of the day we need both a large standing army and superb, substantial Special Forces. Neither is a substitute for the other. We shouldn't underestimate the difficulty of toppling hostile regimes through covert action alone. At best the historical record is mixed, because certain regimes are much better-equipped to survive anything short of outright invasion than others. I'll be damned if anyone with a grip on reality would say we didn't need to invade Iraq to get rid of Saddam, or that covert action alone can bring Iran and North Korea to their knees. Furthermore, what should we do about nations whose governments aren't friendly, but whose people probably hate us even more? (Saudi Arabia immediately comes to mind.)

If the Democrats knew any history they'd be screaming about using Mongols in Iraq...after all, the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258!

Besides the famous case of Gylippus in the Peloponnesian War, there's another case of one Spartan turning things around. In 256 B.C., during the First Punic War, the Romans had landed an army in North Africa and were at the point of forcing Carthage to make peace, when a Spartan named Xanthippus arrived, reorganized the Carthaginian army, and soon inflicted a crushing defeat on the Roman army. It was another 15 years before the Carthaginians were finally forced to sue for peace.

A world managed by the Chinese, by a Franco-German-dominated European Union aligned with Russia, or by the United Nations (an organization that worships peace and consensus, and will therefore sacrifice any principle for their sakes) would be infinitely worse than the world we have now. And so for the time being the highest morality must be the preservation—and, wherever prudent, the accretion—of American power.

Although I haven't yet finished reading the article, that snippet alone leads me to believe that Kaplan probably "gets it". I'm a bit surprised to find this in The Atlantic, but evidently Kaplan's been a contributer for some time, so maybe I should be paying more attention...

The United States is not and never has been an empire in the sense of wanting to rule more and more territory. Moreover, we do not believe in "might makes right," but rather that might should be used to uphold the good. The conservatives who are pushing this America-as-empire theory are incredibly stupid and handing the America-hating Left an incredibly gratuitous propaganda tool.