Quote:
Originally posted by sgtclub
It's all of these things. Removing the leader without instituting the vote would not have been as effective. "Happy talk" without military action would not have been as effective.
|
But the military action was not deployed in the support of democracy, in the sense that what prompted us to invade Afghanistan and Iraq was a variety of other facts relating mostly to military threats against us. On the day that we invade a country that doesn't pose a threat to us simply to help a local movement for democracy, I'll buy that there's been a major shift in the orientation of our foreign policy. If we put real teeth behind our happy talk, you would see some results.
Quote:
|
And I think it takes someone so blinded by partisanship that he can't see the light right in front of him. Please tell me, why didn't we see all of these things under prior adiminstrations? Or, much like the fall of communism, is this some sort of cosmic coincidence bearing no relationship to stated goals of policy?
|
In Afghanistan, we may no progress with the Taliban because our policy there was subordinated to our policy re Pakistan, which was more concerned with things like nuclear war with India. It took 9/11 to re-order those priorities.
In Ukraine, you had a repressive post-Soviet regime over which we had little influence.
In Israel and Palestine, you had tremendous movement towards peace leading up the end of Clinton's second terms. Things then fell apart. A lot of people have written a lot of words about why that happened. You might choose to believe that Arafat was responsible, and that Arafat's death was necessary to see the current progress, and there's something to it. But it's not like Bush's speeches killed Arafat.
Meanwhile, during the Clinton years it's not like our foreign policy ignored these sorts of issues. Most conservatives thought that Clinton spent too much time worrying about nation building, not too little. Recall our involvement in Haiti and the former Yugoslavia, and our role in the bail-outs of Mexico and Thailand.
