I’m close to agreeing with you here except I would qualify it by saying that the original policy towards Iraq was and should have played itself out as it did.
Personally I don't see how our foreign policy towards Iraq could have been affected by 911. Iraq had nothing to do with that attack and was in fact an opponent of that same terrorist organization.
What I believe might be a more accurate assessment (with regard to Iraq) is that security issues were raised by 911 in general. We were exposed and moving into a time of having to deal with a major terrorist organization and in the process invade a nation (Afghanistan). Since WMDs or WMD tech could be useful to nations and terrorists of varying character, and they might want to take advantage of our being busy with other people, it made sense to review nations which had that capability.
I believe Iraq policy had been a failure, both in foreign policy and taken as a security issue (both being very separate issues). I think mechanisms should have been reviewed and revised much earlier. But that may come down to what you are suggesting by disagreement on amount of time.
In any case, I wholly reject the stock dilemma posed by most Bush apologists that it was either keep the policy we had in place before hand or invasion. My predictions before the war based on intel at the time have already been proven correct and Bush's has been shown to be filled with errors he is now scrambling to lay blame for. This sort of proves the other option was not as bright as predicted.
I’m not sure what you are saying here. It may be that Dems were right about certain foreign policy issues, please expand your point.
It may not be worth expanding on. I was simply trying to say that 911 appeared to have made Reps embrace some stereotypical "bad" Dem policies (foreign and domestic). Thus after 911 many Reps suddenly realized the Dems had been right about many things, or conversely that Reps had been incorrectly bashing them for years.
I agree it did not change everything, but many of the big issues.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that it was some sort of revelation, just that after 911, the neocon message struck a chord with a lot of conservatives.
Heheheh... I'll agree if we can change "conservatives" to "desparate conservatives who did not understand what happened themselves or had other ideas of how to deal with the problems we faced." The reason for this is that there were conservatives who were not neocons who had understood the issues and had their own suggestions. They did not however have access to the President as the neocons did.
Before 911 Bush had wrapped himself in a bizarre black-white coccoon of advisors. They were hawks or doves, with little outside analytical opinion. And unfortunately the doves were not powerful anyway. Thus when 911 hit Bush fully accepted the stock dilemma he himself had created, dropping the doves and embracing the hawks.
When you say abandonment of key principles. Which ones are you talking about? Are you speaking beyond the policy of pre-emptive military action?
They are the ones mentioned at the beginning of the thread. Once neocon agenda and strategy were accepted, it was much more than foreign policy which was affected.
Some of the biggest were: nation-building, deficit spending, growth of govt, intrusion of govt, stretching military assets, weakening intel, and federal power over states.
You seem to be the quintessential swing voter.
Heheheh... that's terminology from the perspective of partisan politics. I've been right where I am all along, its the parties which have been swinging back and forth.
These statements can be described as many things depending on your ideology: Arrogant, justifiable, manifest destiny, wrong, right. But cowardly? I don’t see cowardice in these statements.
The sheer cowardice within even the small points mentioned are evident. What I find interesting is that you do not see it, or even notice that it must be there if one can call it "arrogant". If anyone else had stated this doctrine I am quite sure you could pick up exactly where the cowardice is showing.
Let me put it this way, if a person really had faith in this nation and its future, and understood the fact that we are the only superpower left points 3-5 would not even occur to that person as necessary. Even point 2 is questionable.
The only people who feel they need the right to beat down anyone that might pose a challenge to their power, are called cowards. Brave people know that they can wait until challenged, taking a body blow before decimating their opponent.
That defines the difference between a bully who acts tough because he is a coward, and a warrior who acts reserved because he is not.
No, we wouldn’t accept that doctrine to be announced or practiced by anyone else, that’s true. Then again, there are no other superpowers who can legitimately make the claim.
When I was growing up the claim was that if we allowed the Soviet Union to win, this is the exact thing they would have done. Now that we have "won" we do it instead? We have met the enemy and it is us?
I don't buy that at all. I believe US citizens are basically good and would be appalled if they weren't so confused and taken advantage of by a select few who happened to be at the top when 911 occured.
Reps were the party of Lincoln, and here are some quotes by Lincoln I've always liked and speak volumes on the Bush Doctrine:
"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it."
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
I side with Lincoln, the neocons have the power (superpower in fact) and have revealed their character, exhibiting cowardice.
Also, there is a point to be made regarding deterrence for nations harboring terrorists since they will be viewed by the Bush Doctrine to be equally guilty of terrorism as the terrorists who actually commit the acts. That is a very real point for nations that support and harbor terrorists.
We have terrorists in the US, yet I imagine we'll cut ourselves the slack of distinction. Ireland has terrorists and we'll do the same. Israel certainly does and after 911 an Israelu group even tried to whack a US congressman and my guess is we'll see a reason to find a distinction.
Isn't it pretty obvious that the only use of that connection is to rope in nations we want to attack on flimsy pretexts, and be ignored in any other situation?
I agree about not going into hock to attack nations. That’s an area where the Bush doctrine can easily get out of control regardless of cause.
More importantly it shows how neocon agendas eventually impact nonforeign policy issues.
But my point is that it doesn’t matter whether it is allowed, for the US to attack countries deemed capable of matching our military strength or impeding our national interest. The US position is that we will take appropriate measures.
We have just declared that we will attack anyone that can threaten to be equal to us in power, or threaten our interests. Why then should the world not respond by "taking appropriate measures".
Imagine the soviet union had not crumbled. If it and China had made this same declaration, would you not want to react against it in some way? Why would others not do the same thing toward us.
We have made ourselves more of a target, and given people a real reason to despise and fear us.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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