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Originally Posted by tk27
Guilty of ambiguity.
Guilty of accusation, I think democratic peace theory as a practiced by Rumsfeld, Bolton, Albright, and Cohen is not always in America's interest.
I'm speaking in pro-American Nationalism here, they're speaking in ideology.
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No offense, but IMHO, you speak too often from a position colored by liberal MSM and academia.
The positions may be popular with some in those fields, but they lack extensive life experience outside their ivory towers and realpolitik. Kind of like an Iraqi Study Group report written from the protection and insulation of the Green Zone.
Military history is a dying intellectual exercise on most campuses, where courses on gays in the military or military fashion are more likely than a serious military offering. MIT recently forced their military history department to change their logo, as the 18th Century cannons appears to be intimidating and "militaristic". When the real world catches up to the leftover 60s liberal academics, they are going to be the grease in the treads of the tanks. Neither Sharia or Maoism are going to be particularly tolerant of leftist free-spirits. Thus the ability of students to appreciate and understand military actions are seriously compromised. One of my favorite Rumsfeld exchanges was when he had to explain to a member of the media that the purpose of our bombing was to actually KILL people.
I also think that Machiavelli, Hobbes, Keenan, and Kissinger were certainly more pragmatic and would see Bolton and Rumsfeld as centrists, not particularly conservatie or neo-cons, but that is just my .02. Bolton has largely successfully represented the interests of the US, Rumsfeld would have been viewed as a success had he left earlier in this war. History may yet vindicate his service. It is too early to tell and emotions are running too high right now.
We have to decide as a nation whether it is in our interest to practice interventionist politics (and by extension, military action as an extension of those politics). It is disingenuous to demand action in Rwanda, or Haiti, or Bosnia, or the Sudan, and decry it when the same interventionist policy is applied in similar areas. Due to modern weapons technology, lack of serious border security, and the sheer volume of international commerce arriving on our shores, we can no longer afford to pull back to Fortress America and hope that they do not come after us. The time for that is past and it will eventually fail. Therefore, I believe we need to establish a policy under which we will intervene and what the range of consequences might be for those who endanger us.
When an American city is burned to bedrock, and the economy is wrecked, it will be a little too late to wish we had fought them in their backyard rather than ours. I do not recall a lot of people whining about erosion of terrorists rights and the evils of military action when by and large, we were doing it on the cheap in late 2001.
What really chaps my ass is the liberals bitching about the war who cannot claim to know a single person actually putting their ass on the line in the effort. None.
TR