eflatminor
Classical Liberal
- May 24, 2011
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Seriously? That's your response? Perhaps this, and perhaps that? Yeah maybe if we had stayed and actually fought the war with the idea of winning Vietnam would look like South Korea.
But the actual fact is we abandoned Vietnam, the communists took over, and they massacred a bunch of people. We abandoned Afghanistan in the 1980s and the Taliban took over and massacred a bunch of people. We did not abandon Greece after WW2 and we defeated the communists and Greece has done much better than comparable communist countries.
The record is that bad things happen when we cut and run, not when we are engaged.
Maybe...maybe not. Personally, I'm not willing to risk all those lives, all that money and all that destruction on a maybe. It's certainly unfortunate what the Communists did to other countries in the past. Same hold true for Islamists today. That does not necessarily make it our problem. Further, I cannot blindly accept that "bad things happen when we cut and run" when we know damn well bad things also happen when we engage, meddle and otherwise interfere with the business of other nations.
I'm reminded of something John Qunicy Adams said: "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
I argue that just a modicum of this kind of thinking is in order.
In a world economy with us as a world super power it is our problem. Everything is our problem
If we choose to make it so, yes. There are other choices.
You think the Taliban were not our problem in 1990? They were in an obscure piece of shit medieval country on the back side of nowhere. Now everyone knows where Afghanistan is.
Of course, the Taliban was the force we supported when we intervened in Afghanistan against the Soviets. That they later turned against us is yet another example of blowback. Further, one could argue that had we not stationed troops in Saudi Arabia and had we not shown financial and military favoritism to their enemy, the Taliban would still be obscure fundamentalists that no one really cares about.
You think we shouldn't have commercial ties everywhere in the world? Everywhere is our market.
Commercial ties, heck yes! Military intervention is a different kettle of fish. I strongly support the idea of our military keeping international waters and airspace safe for free trade. This does not necessitate hundreds of military bases and the meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. The military can help keep oil cheap by ensuring cargo ships travel safely. Installing the Shaw of Iran, for example, is going too far.
Our citizens travel everywhere
Whose protections and inalienable rights end at our borders. If you choose to live in another country, you do so by their rules.
We have interests everywhere. That's reality. Face it.
Indeed we do. Personally, I believe those interests are best served by trade. The more countries trade, the less likely they are to war. Trade is not served by military intervention, economic sanctions, and the inevitable blowback all that meddling causes.
Bottom line, I think we're talking a matter of degrees here. I don't think you're really advocating we play the world's policemen and I'm not advocating isolationism. I'm simply suggesting that when we consider our traditional inclination to intervein in the affairs of other countries, we ought to balance that with the understanding that there are always consequences to that intervention...often very ugly consequences.