You can show Resolve, by being willing to die, rather than being willing to kill.
Ok.. you go first... I promise I'll be right behind you...
But it rarely comes to that. Our military should be used for the defense of our nation.
Hello??!! That's EXACTLY what we're doing!!! We invaded Afghanistan in defense of our nation, and now we're positioning ourselves in the middle east in order to fight the militants in THEIR backyard, not ours.
And since I believe that most of us acknowlege that Saudi Arabian Wahhabists are the true enemy, invading Iraq and disposing of a unwelcome tyrant is just one more step closer to dealing with the true perpetrators of 9/11.
Bin Laden is important, but he's just a general in this war. It's the financial and moral leaders living in Saudi Arabia that I want to deal with (or force the Royal family to deal with)...
We can extend that protection, to honor mutual defense treaties with other liberal democracies. Not Kings, Shahs, Emirs, thugs, warlords.
There's something contradictory about the above statement, and the one which follows..
In a society of Mansons, only a Hitler can keep order. In a society of Gandhis, no government at all is needed.
Listen... we deal with the powers that exist in these countries. Contrary to popular belief, the US doesn't really have the ability to force allied governments to comply with your idealistic views of pious politics.
If we don't deal with some of these regimes, that power vacuum will be filled by someone who will seek to use them against our interests. And for us to create positive change in these governments, we HAVE to be engaged with them. We have to make them dependent upon us, our weapons, our influence, and ultimately, our protection.
Americans don't like to think of themselves as violent, grasping, materialistic, arrogant. Yet, increasingly, that's the way we are seen, outside of America. I'm not making this up;
I don't doubt they feel this way.. However, much of this is because the US has always been "useful and controllable", generally paying more heed to the interests of our allies. In general, US assistance has primarily been one-way. We rebuilt many of these nations. We re-armed them, and provided them a market into which they could sell their goods (also known as a trade deficit).
But now the US is threatening to "pee in their pools", in order to pursue it's policy of shaking up the middle east and hopefully creating the impetus for credible change there.
They weren't the nations which had 50,000 of their people targeted for murder by airliner, and suffered 10's of billions in economic damage. They aren't the ones who pay 25% of the UN's budget. They aren't the ones who provide almost 80% of the UN logistical transport.
And they aren't the ones who have provided any form of viable solution that achieves results without relying upon US military power.
The reason why we are hated abroad, yet millions want to become Americans, is that we are a schizophrenic society (= "of two minds").
Of course many hate us.. What we're doing is "inconvenient" to them, either economically or mentally (because the US has protected them for decades).
But at times like this, I want them to respect, if not fear, us more than they love us. I want them to understand that we're tired of the BS intrigues and manipulations and that this isn't business as usual.
They are trying to break down our will to deal with this issue. They want us to act like it never happened and that we should just forget about it, so they can get back to life as usual.
Maybe that's one downside to the US not actually mobilizing for all-out war upon Militant Islam and just fighting this as we did WWII.. That was a "clean" war. A war in which we knew what we were fighting for..
But in this unconventional war, I don't think that message has truly come across. And I don't believe that France and Germany really respect just how committed Bush seems to be in fighting it, their petty interests in the region be damned.
Hawk |
