Question for Potential CiC Howard Dean
Got this nice note from Scott, once known to the world as "Lt. Smash," the service man who served in the Sandbox during the Iraq invasion:
Dean,Is Howard Dean saying that it's acceptable to intervene unilaterally on behalf of European Muslims, but not in the case of Arab or Kurdish Muslims? Is this an ethnic distinction, or merely geographic?
I'm not trying to poke fun at Dean, I really want to know. If he is going to be our Commander-in-Chief, the American people deserve to know under what circumstances he would take unilateral military action.
As someone who might be called to participate in such action, I have a strong interest in his answer.
Cheers,
Scott
You can try to help him answer his question if you'd like. Simply click here.
Apparently Howard Dean is taking a typical leftist position: American can go to war, unilaterally if necessary , only when the war is not in America's interests . As long as we're sacrificing our soldiers and wealth for the benefit of others (Bosnia), then war is morally acceptable to them; but when we wage war primarily for our own national interests (Iraq), then they consider war to be morally evil. The exact opposite is true.
Mr. Forkum hits the nail on the head. If we are to survive as a nation and as a civilization, we must dare to be _selfish_ -- without apology.
Another possibility is that the control freaks, as I like to refer to them, cannot bear to see fascism wearing a white face.
Part of their metaphysics has been formed by watching Hollywood's version of reality and by reading the books listed on the obsurantists' syllabi.
This is why they seem to be oblivious to the atrocities of Subsaharan Africa, Tibet, Cambodia,
Manchuria, Korea, etc..
The other possibiliy is that they really don't care about human life. Their tears are saurian. What really troubles them are the obstacles to the Revolution. After all a little radical pragmatism in order to expedite "world peace" is acceptable.
As a result you have the seeming contradiction of public handwringing and bawling when 2,000 Iraqi citizens die as a result of American bombing raids and taciturn objectivity over half a century during the slaughter of millions of Russian, Chinese, and Southeast Asian peasants.
The latter of the two explanations which I have offered here is more likely. I do not believe the posturing of the control freaks. Since the French Revolution, they have been about their beehive building. It is an endeavor that attracts huge god-wannabe egos. You will always find Plato's Republic, Thomas Moore's Utopia, B.F. Skinner's Walden II, and Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation on their desktops.
Adieu
Whereas the right have always been stunningly correct and unhypocritical. I mean, it's not like they've railed against fundamentalist Islam for years while ignoring Saudi, or called for a ban on biological and chemical weapons while continuing to develop them, or talked about free trade while imposing steel tariffs, or bitched about Clinton once smoking pot and lying while ignoring Bush's coke habit and lying, or talked about democracy while setting up dictatorships in South America, or...well, I think you get my point
Pat Brown: The _style_ of your analysis! I, too, am an enemy of Utopia.