As Colin Powell (himself no extreme conservative) has clearly enunciated, almost all generals are averse to war, having been there & seen it magnified in its infinite detail. Liberal? Conservative? That need not be the issue.
The fact that liberal leadership (executives, different from generals) has not been successful in conducting wars does not speak to the notion of whether conservatives are "aggressive militarily". These are in no way related concepts.
Conservatives, unlike liberals, tend to be driven by fundamental, core beliefs and have the stomach to act contrary to poll results where it is called for. Why? Because the concept of "righteousness" is absolute in a conservative whereas liberals allow the concept to be driven by the needs of the moment.
This is all so much conservative claptrap. Conservatives have no trouble waging war because they want control. They also like the power they feel holding a rifle between their legs; oh, sorry, in their arms.
The weakness of liberal executives apparently results in a series of second guesses. This, unfortunately, resulted in the incremental buildup of Vietnam -- LBJ didn't want to be there and as a result was unable to commit the proper level of force to end the war. The result, as we all know, was 50,000 dead American kids.
The "weakness" that you perceive in liberals is actually a sign of evolution. The liberal recognizes that violence begets obedience only short term, and that long term, the end product is more violence. When liberals have to fight, as exemplified by FDR, they do it well.....probably better than conservatives because they have more imagination.
Similarly, Carter, when our hostages were taken, was petrified, unable to act. Any conservative president would have creamed Iran for its actions. Carter couldn't move -- fearful of getting us involved in a protracted engagement. Of course, Carter's gutting of our intelligence community further crippled our miliary.
You should be half, the man that Carter is.
Clinton is the best example of weak leadership. In particular, his failure to hammer Saddam when our weapons inspectors were ejected was one of the most incompetent moves on the part of an administration in our history. Inexcusable. We should have slammed Saddam instantly when this happened. Now, Bush II has inherited an untennable situation with respect to Saddam, that ultimately, will require military action.
Can't stop can you..........another obnoxious conservative trait........kick'em when they are down. |
