If you think economics are a bad impetus for making foreign relation decisions, you could say France did the right thing for the wrong reason (self interest). The Us, on the other hand, did the wrong thing for the wrong reason- since our reasons didn't even make sense, and they certainly weren't in our self interest, so we weren't even as "smart" as France, which was, at least in your opinion, engaging in foreign relations that benefited France.
We have embarked upon "saving" a people who didn't want to be saved by us, and whom the world did not want to save, from a dictator who was no worse than other bad dictators. We have embarked upon this venture without the manpower to really do the job, and without national resolve to do it (mostly because our fearless leader lied about the job he was planning to do, and what the job would entail- you might simply want to call his rhetoric understatement- but I think by now it has risen to the "lie" category). WE have spent ourselves into amazing debt to fund this quixotic quest, and in the end, I think, we have probably fueled militant Islamic sentiment- the very thing we are supposed to be fighting. We also appear to be working on destabilizing Saudi Arabia next
I really can't imagine a more idiotic plan for the Middle East than the one we are engaged in at the moment. We should have just mailed Osama the money we are spending in Iraq- at least we would have spared some soldiers lives that way. We've given him exactly what he wanted- and that's never a good thing to give your "enemy". |
