fourth time’s the charm
I’ve been trying to see the bright side of the election results. I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind. Instead, some excerpts that pretty much capture my mood.
Via Orson Scott Card:
The negotiated peace was more or less holding after American withdrawal. But then a Democratic Congress refused to authorize any further support for the South Vietnamese government. No more armaments. No more budget.In other words, we forcibly disarmed our allies, while their enemies continued to be supplied by the great Communist powers. The message was clear: Those who rely on America are fools. We didn’t even have the decency to arrange for the evacuation of the people who had trusted us and risked the most in supporting what they thought was our mutual cause.
We did it again, this time in the Muslim world, in 1991, when Bush Senior encouraged a revolt against Saddam. He meant for the senior military officers to get rid of him in a coup; instead, the common people in the Shiite south rose up against Saddam.
Bush Senior did nothing as Saddam moved in and slaughtered them. The tragedy is that all it would have taken is a show of force on our part in support of the rebels, and Saddam’s officers would have toppled him. Only when it became clear that we would do nothing did it become impossible for any high-ranking officials to take action. For the price of the relatively easy military action that would have made Saddam turn his troops around and leave the Shiite south, we could have gotten rid of him then — and had grateful friends, perhaps, in the Shiite south.
That is part of our track record: Two times we persuaded people to commit themselves to action against oppressive enemies, only to abandon them.
Make that three times, with number four on deck.
Osama is on to something. Our public is fickle, and our politicians interested in re-election above all things. Our two year election cycles make a consistent foreign policy impossible. Bleed us long enough and there’s a damn good chance we will run away.
Just days before his execution at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodian statesman Sirak Mitak penned a final note to the U.S. ambassador refusing his offer of evacuation.“I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty….You leave and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under the sky.
“But mark it well that, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we all are born and must die one day. I have only committed this mistake in believing in you, the Americans.”
People tell me I have to have faith in the new Democratic congress. Trouble is, I do.
Posted on November 8th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: politics
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And that’s not counting the times where we got our nose bloodied and decided to “re-deploy”, criminally prosecute, or do virtually nothing. I can cite our responses to the taking over of our embassy in Tehran under Carter, the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut under Reagan, the action in Somolia under Clinton, the first World Trade Center bombing under Clinton, the attack on the USS Cole under Clinton, and the bombings of our embassies in Africa under I’m not sure who was president then. Since Viet Nam, we have sent a clear signal to our enemies: We do not have the stomach to finish what we start, and will not aggressively respond to attacks against us. I think it will take suicide bombers showing up in our malls and schools before we really pay attention to the threats of our enemies. I fear it will be too late by then. I hope I am wrong.
I’m not sure why there is continued confusion about our role in Iraq.
There was not a viable link between Al-Queda and Saddam. The invasion was to find WMDs and overthrow the dictator. Although we didn’t find any WMDs, at least we confirmed there weren’t any. And, more importantly, we got rid of Saddam. We allowed them to establish a democratic government and have tried to help quell the insurgents. What more do we have to do? (And don’t say we need to continue our presence to stabalize the place….we’ve been there for years and it’s only gotten worse….they really don’t want our “help” anymore.)
I disagree with our invasion of Iraq and the constant allusion to terrorism when discussing it. The “terrorists” in Iraq are the insurgents from Saddam’s army who allowed us to rush into Baghdad unopposed so our President could yell “Mission Accomplished” before the fighting even began. The plan was clear - since they couldn’t confront our military head on, they sat back and blended into the population and attacked individually. Now there are the added attacks between the sects which are akin to a civil war. These, too, are not terrorists.
I wish we could separate the verbiage used to describe the assholes who attacked our country on the 11th, and the assholes who attack our troops in Iraq (albeit, there are a few with newfound Al-Queda ties…another unfortunate side effect of our presence in Iraq).
Our business in Iraq is over, and was never about terrorism. A gradual withdrawal of our troops in Iraq is not turning our back against national security. In fact, it will allow us to regroup for when an ACTUAL threat needs to be faced (i.e. Iran, N. Korea, etc.). The sooner we get out, the safer we become.
You think we’ll be safer. I expect expanding wars which go nuclear within a decade.
Time will tell which (if either) of us is right. I feel sorry for the poor fools who put their faith in the US. I imagine there won’t be many more who make that mistake.