<4. Mean it, when we say we support Freedom and Democracy.>
Showing Resolve and Conviction, showing you "mean it", doesn't always mean killing people. You can show Resolve, by being willing to die, rather than being willing to kill.
I know, this is contrary to our national character. John Wayne and General Patton made "the other poor bastard die for his country". But this aspect of our national character, in a world of ever-more-ubiquitous nukes, is suicidal. We will evolve to something better, or die.
But it rarely comes to that. Our military should be used for the defense of our nation. We can extend that protection, to honor mutual defense treaties with other liberal democracies. Not Kings, Shahs, Emirs, thugs, warlords. We can become self-sufficient, or find technological work-arounds, or do without, instead of stealing. Stealing is wrong, whether nations or individuals do it.
<It's like a pacifist parent scolding their children... >
Yes, I agree, a lot of people confuse freedom with anarchy. Especially groovy PC liberals. A free society is only possible, as most people learn to exercise more self-discipline, not less. In a society of Mansons, only a Hitler can keep order. In a society of Gandhis, no government at all is needed.
<...the only real "homeland defense" is an active and relentless offence against anyone who might be inclined to assist those terrorist networks.>
That is true; but it is only part of the truth. When the terrorist is a McVeigh, acting alone, doing things that most people abhor, a 100% military/police response is correct. But when the terrorist is a Hamas, or a Al Queda, and they are "fish swimming in the sea of the people", then 100% Force is counter-productive. Polls show clearly, that Bin Laden's methods and goals elicit far more sympathy, in every Muslim nation, than America's methods and goals. This is an ugly truth, and it is an ineffective response, to pretend it isn't so. Denial is rarely an effective policy, yet that's mostly what we have been doing, since 9/11. 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 wish it wasn't so; but the evidence is in every poll taken, around the world. And not just Muslims, but Europeans and Koreans and all our natural allies.
<5. Address the reasons we are hated in so much of the world...>
The reason why we are hated abroad, yet millions want to become Americans, is that we are a schizophrenic society (= "of two minds"). On our own soil, we practice our ideals, of liberal democracy. Abroad, in poor/small/weak nations, we do the opposite. If I was an Afghan, I couldn't publish in a newspaper the things I post here. If I tried, the local warlord's militia (funded, trained, supported by the U.S.) would kill me. Yet I can do it with perfect freedom and safety, here. Obviously, it's better to be a citizen, than a subject, in the American Empire. |
