(09-12-2009 12:23 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  

(09-11-2009 10:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(09-09-2009 08:05 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Yes,you correctly point out we are not in the nation building business, but we are in the business of promoting freedom and liberty to all people around the world.

Here we disagree.
That's not the business we should be in.
We should be in the business of protecting Americans' lives, liberty, and property, throughout the world.

Yes, we can do that AND promote Liberty and Freedom in the world.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not.

The differences I see are that
(1) one of those objectives really is our business and one really isn't, and
(2) perhaps relatedly, one we have historically succeeded at and one we haven't, but
(3) at least over the past few years, we have seen our ability to achieve the one objective eroded and distracted by our efforts to achieve the other.

Where we should be promoting liberty and freedom is at home. Let's get that right before we go micromanaging the rest of the world.

Let me remind you that it is our business to gain security here at home and when freedom is shared by others in the world we accomplish that goal. It's because of the challenges we face, that you carelessly deny your duty to support freedom around the world.

Freedom from bondage and freedom from oppression
Freedom from hunger and freedom from want
Freedom from hatred and freedom from fear
Freedom to think and freedom to speak
Freedom to teach and freedom to learn
Freedom to love and freedom to share
Freedom to hope and freedom to rejoice

(09-12-2009 08:30 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Let me remind you that it is our business to gain security here at home and when freedom is shared by others in the world we accomplish that goal. It's because of the challenges we face, that you carelessly deny your duty to support freedom around the world.

Disagree with both those statements.

History has shown that you don't have Afghan "allies"... you only "rent" Afghan "allies"... and they will turn on you after getting the other sides money.

It might be cheaper to "buy off" these warlords instead of investing in a "strong central Afghan government" and doing the nation building thing.

Watch what China is doing in Africa. They will soon have the whole continent under their sphere of influence. And how many Chinese soldiers have been involved?

They can do it with economic force because they have a producer economy. We have to send troops because ours is a consumer economy. When your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Perot said it in 1992 (and FWIW, I was saying it as soon as the Berlin wall fell)--in the post-Cold War era, economic power will be more important than military power. And just being a consumer doesn't get it done; that's the problem with Keynesian efforts to solve everything by stimulating consumption. We need to be a producer; we need to fix our supply side.

Nobody in Washington, in either major party, has come even remotely close to getting that message yet. We ignore it at our EXTREME peril.