Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This conceit that a Democrat is going to make the country's interests take a back seat to what Europeans want is another fairy tale. The dispute is about whether our long-term interests are better served when we work with allies, giving up something in the short term to get something in the long term. Even Bush is willing to do this -- witness his decision to go back to the UN just before invading Iraq, which he did largely to protect Tony Blair from domestic opposition.
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Bottom line question. Is he willing to preempt and, if so, under what circumstances.
I'm going to give you the closest analogy I can to what happened here domestically. In the '60s, in response to numerous corruption scandals, police officers were put in cars and told to respond to whatever someone told them to respond to. Great percentages of large police departments were made reactive, whereas before they were perfect community policemen walking beats and knowing residents. Moreover, the number of policement in most major cities increased per-capita (of residents). Nevertheless, RT's homicide chart (the other day) shows what happened, even as medical technology and the increasing availability of ambulances and quick surgery made many shooting victims live where before they'd die.
Of course, this was coupled with huge social shifts in the country and numerous other contributing factors. But, the reactive policeman theory simply did not work. By the '90s, Clinton was embracing community policing, where the police know the community and do their damndest to prevent crime. Coupled with better use of intelligence (based on pure technology) and deployment of manpower (preventitively), crime has dropped everywhere. In short, there is a lot less to react to. Pure-reaction does not work.
We did the same thing (if anything) during the Cold War with terrorists. Slowly the violence built. We responded lightly. Then 9/11. Then knowledge of the A.Q. Khan network of rogue WMD networks. Bush has responded by getting Saudi Arabia (slowly) to crack down; by getting Libya to renounce terrorism; by getting Pakistan (slowly, and really only after attempts on their President's life) to crack down; by renouncing Yasser Arafat and the politics of terror; by greatly increasing our nation's intelligence capabilities; and by invading Iraq. He is confronting and isolating Syria, N. Korea and Iran. In fact, Syrian and Iran are basically surrounded by our allied states now. Bush has put troops and/or equipment in other parts of the mid-East and Africa, in the Phillipines, and anywhere else our enemy exists and can be confronted directly without incurring undue costs.
Except for follow-up support in Afghanistan, and British, Polish, Italian, Spanish and Australian support in Iraq, our allies have done little to condone or contribute to our efforts. We simply cannot count on their support. Now you tell me, which of these actions and initiatives would Kerry have led? We have a 30 year history to go on. What can we expect in the future from him. What will he do to apply pressure? Who will he confront? Who will he ignore. And who will he simply react to?
His record in the old days is not exactly a shining star, and those days are over. He certainly has not advocated withdrawing from the world, so what exactly is his plan? Because, at best, it sounds like he's on-board to making things the way they were when we were reacting with Officer Dibble. And with his base, you know he will never say that he will order an invasion alone if the threat warrants such action. So what's conceited about this belief? Its based on his record and his silence for the last 30 years and during this campaign. You might hope he's only pandering to the far left in the party, but if he doesn't affirm the policy of preemption, he has given you no reason to believe that his plan to return to the old days of reaction and containment with allies is only our conceit.
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