And it ain't ghostbusters.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/23/the_power_of_presidential_solidarity/
"It is fashionable in some circles to invoke the United Nations as the touchstone of moral authority, but realists know better. They look to the United States, not the UN, as the great moral engine in world affairs."
Doc
aricbcool
06-23-2005, 18:06
"Every president speaks of freedom and democracy. Bush is the first to make their promotion the cornerstone of his foreign policy."
I only hope that we continue on this path with the next several presidents.
I would gladly spend my life bringing liberty to other nations, if only the US Govt. would give me a chance.
"Think of Gerald Ford in 1975, refusing to meet with the Soviet writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn for fear of irritating Moscow. Or Jimmy Carter in 1979, kissing Leonid Brezhnev on both cheeks and praising the shah of Iran as ''deeply concerned about human rights." Or the first President Bush in 1991, urging Ukrainians not to free themselves from the Soviet Union and allowing Saddam Hussein to savagely crush the Kurdish and Shi'ite uprisings that followed the Gulf War."
I'm tired of the isolationist America. I don't want to go back to it. I'm tired of the "Why should we care?" attitude, or the "American lives are more precious" attitude that many Americans have. By freeing oppressed peoples, tearing down regimes, and instituting free self government, we not only make the world safer for America, we also make it a better place.
Great read Doc. Thanks very much.
--Aric
Airbornelawyer
06-23-2005, 19:06
With all due respect to Mr. Jacoby: "Every president speaks of freedom and democracy. Bush is the first to make their promotion the cornerstone of his foreign policy. "
If American policy can succeed only in cooperation with others, then the third critical development of the past decade offers special hope: it is the democratic revolution, a trend that has significantly increased the ranks of those around the world who share America's commitment to national independence and popular rule.
The democracies that survived or emerged from the ruins of the Second World War -- Western Europe, Japan, and a handful of others -- have now been joined by many others across the globe. Here in the Western Hemisphere, the 1980's have been a decade of transition to democracy. Today, over 90 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean live under governments that are democratic -- in contrast to only one-third a decade ago. In less than six years, popularly-elected democrats have replaced dictators in Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, and Grenada.
In other parts of the world, we see friends and allies moving in the same direction. Earlier in this decade, the people of Turkey fought back a violent assault on democracy from both left and right. Similarly, since the fall of Vietnam, the non-Communist nations of Southeast Asia have rallied together; with prosperous economies, and effective, increasingly democratic national governments, they play an increasingly important role on the world stage.
These trends are far from accidental. Ours is a time of enormous social and technological change everywhere, and one country after another is discovering that only free peoples can make the most of this change. Countries that want progress without pluralism, without freedom, are finding that it cannot be done.
In this global revolution, there can be no doubt where America stands. The American people believe in human rights and oppose tyranny in whatever form, whether of the left or the right. We use our influence to encourage democratic change, in careful ways that respect other countries' traditions and political realities as well as the security threats that many of them face from external or internal forces of totalitarianism.President Ronald Reagan,
Message to the Congress on Freedom, Regional Security, and Global Peace (http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/31486d.htm)
March 14, 1986
NousDefionsDoc
06-23-2005, 19:18
Globalism requires a stick to go with the carrot.