posted on May 2, 2007 07:13:28 AM
Posted: May 2, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Joseph Farah
The leadership of the Democratic Party wants the U.S. to get out of Iraq because, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid explained, "the war is lost."
I'd like to consider this position in light of this week's U.S. State Department annual report on terrorism, showing more than half of the world's 2006 terrorism deaths occurred in Iraq.
Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others who want to withdraw from Iraq at the earliest opportunity might cite that report as evidence to bolster their argument.
However, I suggest the report does just the opposite – speaking to the absolute urgency of an increased and more determined commitment to unequivocal and absolute victory in Iraq.
Think about this now.
There were 20,498 people killed by terrorists in 2006. Of that total, 13,340 were killed in Iraq.
This is not evidence we are losing the war in Iraq. Rather it is evidence Iraq has clearly become the center of the war between the West and Islamo-fascist terrorists.
In other words, there can be no question – not by any objective standard – that Iraq is now the focal point of the showdown, the so-called war on terrorism. The grisly statistics prove the case.
The Democratic leadership looks at those statistics and determines America needs to run away from them.
But running away from those statistics – as ugly as they might be – means running away from the "war on terrorism." It means surrender – not only to the al-Qaida enemy in Iraq, but to the worldwide al-Qaida enemy and its allies.
Reid, Pelosi, et al. want to take U.S. troops away from fighting terrorists in Iraq and redeploy them to calmer, more peaceful venues where there will be less chance of casualties – for both American fighting men and the bad guys.
Does this make any sense?
Will the Democratic leadership admit what it really seeks to do with its cut-and-run plan is to surrender in the "war on terrorism"?
Is there a clear-thinking American who cannot see this for himself?
Seeing the increased carnage in Iraq, people committed to defeating the Islamo-fascist terrorists and protecting our homeland from these enemies should unequivocally determine to fight the enemy harder on this central front.
It is an absolute fact that we can fight them there or fight them here. The fact that most of the terrorist violence is taking place in Iraq should suggest our strategy to make America safer is working. No major terrorist attacks here, while the body count rises in Iraq.
My point is that leaving Iraq means waving the white flag to the people who attacked the U.S. Sept. 11.
We are fighting al-Qaida in Iraq today.
You can argue the war was misguided from the beginning. You can argue that you were misled. You can argue there were no terrorists in Iraq when we invaded.
But you can't argue that terrorists aren't there now. The U.S. State Department report should clarify just what the stakes are in Iraq. It has become the "war on terrorism."
Now let's look at another part of the report – one we all understand. It shows, once again, that Iran is the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world today, followed closely by Syria. Both of these countries border Iraq.
Americans need to comprehend the magnitude of a decision to leave Iraq now – to hand it over to the Islamo-fascist terrorist enemy on a silver platter.
Iraq and Syria and al-Qaida would all be emboldened by the Democrats' surrender plan.
All the sacrifices we have made in Iraq to date would be for naught.
America would be viewed by the enemy as a "paper tiger" ready to yield to more pressure and more attacks.
Truly, instead of fighting them over there, we will be fighting them over here.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on May 2, 2007 07:28:33 AM
It's hard to watch as the democratic party wants the U.S. to surrender to these terrorists - by running away from them in Iraq.
We KNOW we're fighting the AQ there - the same terrorists who gave us 9-11.
Anyone heard what THEY believe will happen AFTER we retreat, as they want us to do?
I sure haven't.
Some here have argued that there is no terrorist threat to the U.S.
Imo, they have their heads lodged FIRMLY and deeply in the sand.
All one has to do to see the reality of the terrorist situation is read this site daily:
There they will, hopefully, have their eyes opened once and for all.
If that renewed info about the actions of the terrorists, worldwide, doesn't do it....nothing will.
Sad - sadder than sad that the dem party is placing our fighting troops in this situation.
They're now saying they're being asked when they're going home....and they're trying to reassure those Iraqi's they're NOT going home...they're going to stay there and protect them.....just as they are doing now.
The democrats have created several discusting situations by playing this political gain game.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 2, 2007 08:00:31 AM
Things for the anti-war Americans to ponder:
If we leave Iraq:
It will be a great victory for the most dangerous ideology on earth today.
The people running North Korea are presumably as evil as the Islamists. But there is no ideology emanating from North Korea that threatens mankind. We are fighting an ideology, supported by millions of people, that wishes to conquer the world and routinely engages in mass murder of the innocent -- especially the innocent -- to achieve its totalitarian goals.
No one will trust America's commitment for the foreseeable future. Nations and forces aligned with America against freedom-hating enemies will conclude that it is actually quite easy to defeat the United States of America. Just kill relatively few of that country's soldiers, and the U.S.A. will soon abandon you.
The very best Iraqis -- and members of their families -- will be slaughtered like animals.
It will mean the end of the possibility of the rise of a moderate form of Islam for the foreseeable future, perhaps generations. In the Arab/Muslim world, might is revered, and the victorious Islamists will therefore be revered. Moreover, they will have earned the right to claim that they constitute an unstoppable force. If America, the most powerful country in the world, surrenders to them because the Islamists murder fellow Muslims and killed the indescribably tragic but militarily small total of 3,000 soldiers in four years -- one-one-hundredth the losses the U.S. experienced in World War II -- who in the Muslim world will stand up to them?
Iraq will turn into a far more potent terror base than Afghanistan could ever be. One of the major powers of the Arab world, one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, may well be ruled by jihadists.
Moderate Arab regimes will likely be overthrown by a combination of an emboldened Iran and an Islamist Iraq that regards moderate Arabs and Muslims as loathsome as, if not more so than, Americans and Jews. It is almost inconceivable, for example, that the Jordanian monarchy would long survive an American defeat in Iraq.
The American military will suffer a crisis of morale that it will not soon overcome. Though defeated not by the Islamist enemy but by the American Left -- most particularly the Democratic Party and the mainstream news media -- it will be hard to convince many people to join or stay in the U.S. military. Why bother? Even if you do a great job, if you haven't done it all -- whatever 'all' means in a place like Iraq -- you will be told that you lost the war.
And those who have heretofore murdered fellow Muslims will focus their attention on murdering us.
The left dismisses the argument that it is far better to fight them in Iraq than in Europe and America. But the dismissal is simply irrational. The people we are fighting, including Osama bin Laden and all the variations on al Qaeda, know that the battle for Iraq is the battle for their future -- that if they win in Iraq, they win all over the Middle East and beyond; that if they lose there, America and the West win.
But none of this matters to the Left because Democrats and others on the Left do not ask what will happen if America leaves Iraq. They are certain that the war was wrong, and that, in addition to handing George W. Bush and the Republicans a defeat, is what they seem to care about.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 2, 2007 08:07 AM ]
posted on May 7, 2007 11:06:59 AMExposing the Hidden War
By Laurence Footer | May 7, 2007
AIM.com
Phares defines the war of ideas as more than merely a conflict between al Qaeda and the United States, instead focusing upon the forces of democracy and those aligned against democracy...
What is the war of ideas?
Is it a byproduct of the clash of civilizations proposed by Samuel Huntington? Is it the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street?
In The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, Dr. Walid Phares exposes a very different war of ideas waged by Jihadist groups and authoritarian Arab states to obfuscate the West's understanding of both Jihad itself as well as the core strategies utilized by the Jihadists to confront Western civilization.
The author sizes up this war of ideas as a general would a battlefield.
Central to this analysis are the answers to one critical series of questions: "what do [Jihadist] strategies aim at, what tactics and practices do they expect to see implemented, how do they read each other, and how do they react and reshape their arguments?" [1]
By examining the objectives, strategies and tactics stated and utilized by Jihadists against democratic nations, The War of Ideas is uniquely positioned to suggest a course of action for Western governments (especially the United States) to counter such an ideological assault.
Phares defines the war of ideas as more than merely a conflict between al Qaeda and the United States, instead focusing upon the forces of democracy and those aligned against democracy - including both Jihadi groups as well as Arab dictators and monarchs.
While The War of Ideas does not claim that these two groups have actively conspired with one another, it does highlight an alignment of interests in the desire of Arab states to retain power and the Jihadi objective of restoring the caliphate and confronting Western civilization.
Most significantly, the author exposes how this war of ideas is being waged within the very same halls from where the great ideas of Western civilization arose:
the most prestigious universities of the civilized Western world.
Specifically, The War of Ideas exposes how Arab governments, especially the Saudis, have funded Middle Eastern studies programs at hundreds of leading Western universities to both influence Western educators' and elites' opinions of the Arab world as well as prevent the West from understanding Jihadist objectives.
It is from this base, within an infiltrated academia, that Phares explains the war of ideas has been waged: by influencing the West to believe that democracy wasn't meant for the Middle East, thwarting Western understanding of Jihad and the violent nature of Jihadism, concealing the Jihadist vision of restoring the Islamic caliphate, deflecting Western attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and convincing the Muslim world that the West has been waging an ongoing war on Islam.
While examining the strategic aspects of this non-military conflict, The War of Ideas builds upon the works of great military thinkers such as Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. Citing Clausewitzian notions such as "it is no secret that politics has long been a major reason behind war and peace among nations," [2] and observations reminiscent of Sun Tzu including, "in war, if you are able to define how your enemy perceives you and acts toward you, you have already won," [3] the author examines the implications of both Eastern and Western strategic thought on the manner in which the war of ideas is being waged.
Additionally, Phares highlights the impact of the war of ideas on the Global War on Terror by suggesting that:
The consequences of this War of Ideas were enormous:
the average citizens in North America lost track of the struggle for freedom in the Greater Middle East; they didn't know that Middle Eastern peoples were oppressed, but thought that they "naturally" disliked America and democracy. ...
The Western public never was exposed to the true histories of the Arab world or made aware of the mounting threat of Jihadism.
On September 11, 2001, the workers entering the two towers in Manhattan had no idea that … their vision and that of their society had been obstructed, even subverted. [4]
As such, the policy prescription presented in The War of Ideas is simple: provide information at home and abroad to confront Jihadist ideology while actively promoting pluralism, political dissidents, democratic movements and education reform in the Greater Middle East.
Phares contends that such a plan could prevent the War on Terror from being "extended into the next generation." [5]
This particular author brings a unique perspective to the raging war of ideas waged by Jihadism against democracy.
Born and raised in Lebanon, Walid Phares bore witness to both its golden age of pluralism as well as the bloody civil wars that followed. Currently serving as a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C., Dr. Phares has published dozens of books and articles since 1979 in both Arabic and English on pluralism and democracy in Arab nations, radical Islamic ideology and militant Islamic groups.
Phares has delivered an eye-opening analysis of the once-hidden ideological war waged by Jihadism against democracy.
While politicians and pundits wax rhapsodic in opposition to or in favor of the war in Iraq, the war of ideas does not await their participation and continues to be waged against America and the West.
The War of Ideas exposes this effort by the Jihadists and their allies against Western civilization and makes a compelling case in favor of more robust democracy promotion, public relations, and education reform efforts in the Greater Middle East.
[1]
Walid Phares, The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy, (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), page xxi.
[2] Ibid, p. xiii
[3] Ibid, p. 183
[4] Ibid, p. 170
[5] Ibid, p. 245
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 7, 2007 01:33:46 PMIf we leave Iraq:It will be a great victory for the most dangerous ideology on earth today.
Oh really now !!!
It doesn't surprise me that you want to believe this since you and your kind like to believe the WMD Bush claimed were in IRAQ were found.
WASHINGTON - It’s become President Bush’s mantra, his main explanation for why he won’t withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq anytime soon.
In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that “this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here.”
The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California's Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on American streets.
But is it true?
Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn't. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland.
“The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature,” said James Jay Carafano, a homeland security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization. “It’s a poor choice of words that doesn’t convey the essence of the problem - that walking away from a problem doesn’t solve anything.”
U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.
Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they're believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters - 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists - according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center.
“Attacks by terrorist groups account for only a fraction of insurgent violence,” said a February DIA report.
While acknowledging that terrorists could commit a catastrophic act on U.S. soil at any time - whether U.S. forces are in Iraq or not - the likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best, experts say.
James Lewis, a U.S. foreign policy analyst at CSIS, called Bush’s assertion oversimplistic, but added that there’s a slight chance a few enemy combatants could make their way to the United States after a U.S. troop withdrawal.
“There’s a grain of truth in Bush saying it’s better to fight them there rather than here, but it’s also overstated,” Lewis said. “It’s not like there’s going to be gun battles in the United States.”
Daniel Benjamin, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, agreed.
“There are very few foreign fighters who are going to be leaving the area because they don’t have the skills or languages that would give them access to the United States,” said Benjamin, who served as the National Security Council’s director for transnational threats from 1998 to 1999. “I’m not saying events in Iraq aren’t going to embolden jihadists. But I think the president’s formulations call for a leap of faith.”
"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America," said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he's contradicting the president and other top officials. "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."
Carafano and Lewis believe that a U.S. troop pullout would embolden Islamic jihadists, but that they’re much more likely to stay closer to home and spread violence to neighboring countries with poor records of combating terrorism, such as Somalia, Morocco, Algeria and perhaps Egypt, than they are try to penetrate America.
Increased terrorism in those places would tax the United States, which would have to deal with the economic costs, global refugees and health crises that combat in those countries could produce.
“The danger is not that they’ll follow us home,” Carafano said. “The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists.”
Lewis of CSIS believes that a U.S. pullout could prompt some foreign fighters in Iraq to go home, head to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there or move to Europe, where Muslim anger is high and there are more Muslim communities to blend into.
“The United States is a distant (fourth),” he said.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 7, 2007 01:47:02 PM
It's REALLY pitiful ld that you will NEVER 'get' this....or much of anything else.
tsk tsk tsk
"[i]If we leave Iraq:
It will be a great victory for the most dangerous ideology on earth today[/i]."
Yes, it will.
I think you'd better WAKE up and start taking notice to which ideological group are willing to use suicide bombers/etc, to MURDER women and their own children for their own religious growth in the world.
Unsurprisingly, George W. Bush's announcement of a "surge" in Iraq came despite the firm opposition to any such move of Americans and the even stronger opposition of the (thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous official leaks and statements -- from Washington and Baghdad -- about how Iranian intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting our mission to gain victory, an aim which is (by definition) noble. What then followed was a solemn debate about whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (IEDs) were really traceable to Iran; and, if so, to that country's Revolutionary Guards or to some even higher authority.
This "debate" is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed and must be obeyed -- or else. What you actually believe is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the air we breathe.
The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.
In this case, however, even ridicule -- notably absent -- would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the "source of the problem." The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of the U.S. military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush administration and Tony Blair's Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.
"The Iran Effect"
The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III."
What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that narrowly holds political power in the U.S.? We cannot know. Such state planning is, of course, kept secret in the interests of "security." Review of the declassified record reveals that there is considerable merit in that claim -- though only if we understand "security" to mean the security of the Bush administration against their domestic enemy, the population in whose name they act.
Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit "national security" exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through -- as long as an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice did with those "mushroom clouds" over American cities back in 2002). And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt the device: Hitler's defense of innocent Germany from the "wild terror" of the Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace, is but one example.
The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam -- fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder control.
Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites -- nuclear and otherwise -- in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?
It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."
Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one condition: that the U.S. and Iran were functioning democratic societies in which public opinion had a significant impact on public policy.
As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among Iranians and Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues. The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on state policy in the U.S. and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear conundrum.
Promoting Democracy -- at Home
These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis from exploding, perhaps even into some version of World War III. That awesome threat might be averted by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion -- this time at home, where it is badly needed. Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and, although we cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be, well-known, would be Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain nameless, among them labor activists about whom we hear very little; those who publish the Iranian Workers Bulletin may be a case in point.
We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of visceral hatred for democracy).
Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.
The U.S. would have adopted a national health-care system long ago, rejecting the privatized system that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. It would have rejected what is widely regarded by those who pay attention as a "fiscal train wreck" in-the-making. The U.S. would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures to protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises, including in Iraq. After all, according to opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order in that land.
If public opinion mattered, the U.S. would accept UN Charter restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has the right to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or imagined, including threats to our access to markets and resources. The U.S. (along with others) would abandon the Security Council veto and accept majority opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales; while the U.S. would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the world. Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in accord with the judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in diametric opposition to present-day policy.
Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the U.S. would have diplomatic relations with Cuba, benefiting the people of both countries (and, incidentally, U.S. agribusiness, energy corporations, and others), instead of standing virtually alone in the world in imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands). Washington would join the broad international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for 30 years -- with scattered and temporary exceptions -- and which it still blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The U.S. would also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that rejected the international consensus.
Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States as well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are certainly highly suggestive.
Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful step towards helping our own country become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international order (to adopt the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of fear and dislike throughout much of the world. Apart from being a value in itself, functioning democracy at home holds real promise for dealing constructively with many current problems, international and domestic, including those that literally threaten the survival of our species.
posted on May 7, 2007 02:00:29 PM
Gotta LOVE how helen ignores the FACT that our soldiers have caught Iranians moving these devices from Iran TO Iraq.
Just ignore all the facts of the Iranian SUPPORT in Iraq....and all will be well in helen's world.
Mind you it's not the REAL world...but 'her' world. Where a madman rules and wants nuclear weaponds to 'wipe Israel off the face of the earth'.
Helen, obviously believes HE plans to do this with his nw ENERGY program.
Come back to reality helen.....Noam has been anti-American for most of his adult life.
Join those of us who don't want to allow the growth of this ideology where they're willing to murder their own women and children to 'terrorize' the world.
Join those of us who speak out about how EVIL they are. This war isn't going away. And it's certainly not about this President. Only his willingness to FIGHT against this evil ideology.
Tell us you don't REALLY believe Iran is going to EVER work towards peace and acceptance of Israel's right to exist.
Tell us something that proves you aren't ALWAYS on the enemies side.
posted on May 7, 2007 02:09:29 PM
Linda, I think you'd better WAKE up and start taking notice to the fact that you believe the terrorists more than you believe what is printed as FACTS from our own government.
You continue to live in the same fantasy land as the terrorists.
Do you not understand the following:
"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America,".... "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."
It is a FACT that you can not prove anything Bush has done has prevented another 9/11 attack from occurring on American soil.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 7, 2007 02:54:39 PM
So whats wrong with the hard working people of Kansas, getting off their azzes to do their own clean up, rather than blame the war on terror on a lack of resources.
This wasn't another Katrina preying on welfare recipients.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on May 7, 2007 02:58:37 PM
ld....for the past SIX years now we have not been attacked.
I know you would NEVER accept that as any proof.
But we WERE attacked FIVE TIMES by these same AQ radicals during clinton's admin. and THEN 9-11.
To me that's proof enough.
But I've often also posted article after article on these threads when suspected terrorists WERE arrested in the US for their terrorists PLOTS...that they WEREN'T able to accomplish before their arrests.
Nothing would ever be seen as the truth to you....you've got your head buried so deeping in the sand you can see ANY reality.
To you and your ilk....this Iraq war is just about Bush...and how wrong you all believe he was to invade.
But you refuse to see that dems/liberals ALSO voted for this war...also made statements in support of saddam having womd...also....also....also.
Nope....now you PRETEND all that and all that the past THREE administrations and our intelligence TOLD us.....never happened.
Well....those of us who live and breath in the REAL WORLD know they DID happen.
And we know that the liberals have done NOTHING to help fight this war against terrorism. They've ONLY fought this admin.
How will they occupy their time when this President is no longer in office, BUT our muslim enemies are STILL working to take America down?
How will they STILL not mention ONE word of holding any terrorist to account then?
And why can't they just vote to not fund this war???
Why the cowardly plays?
Because THEY don't want to take the responsbility for the AFTERMATH of protecting the terrorists by changing our Patriot Act....by no funding the war.
They know what's coming down the road....especially when they're MORE concerned about the 'civil rights' of those who wish to bring us down....than they are about PROTECTING this Nation.
Like clinton didn't have the guts to do. Then 19 men....caused all that havoc.
ONLY those 19, ld. So your argument about numbers doesn't even make any sense. They don't NEED large numbers to operate and create their terrorism.
AQ is doing very well in small numbers in Iraq right now.
And our liberal left wants to SURRENDER to THEM.
cowards.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 7, 2007 05:14:22 PMld....for the past SIX years now we have not been attacked.
And you attribute that to Bush's policies. Where is your proof that one contributed to the other. You can't prove that.
How many years did America go without an attack after Pearl Harbor. Are you going to attribute that success to FDR?
But we WERE attacked FIVE TIMES by these same AQ radicals during clinton's admin. and THEN 9-11.
We were attacked one time on US soil during the Clinton administration. Are you forgetting that it was one month after he took office. I suppose it will be ok to blame Bush Sr for that because Clinton was only in office one month.
But I've often also posted article after article on these threads when suspected terrorists WERE arrested in the US for their terrorists PLOTS...that they WEREN'T able to accomplish before their arrests.
Again just because they were arrested does not mean they were arrested because the new measures that were put in place because of Bush. You keep saying the most of the powers the FBI and CIA have were in place well before 9/11.
Nothing would ever be seen as the truth to you....you've got your head buried so deeping in the sand you can see ANY reality.
It is you that have your head so far up Bush's hairy behind that you can see anything. You and your drones fail to see those in your own party are growing tired and restless of Bush's efforts in Iraq. They like the rest of America want RESULTS, not some cheer-leading.
Like Clinton didn't have the guts to do. Then 19 men....caused all that havoc.
Yes they did and it happened during Bush's watch. Bush failed to see the warnings and only took action afterward the nations wost tragedy. I don't call that being a leader.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
