Time For the U.S. To Get Comfortable With Ideology
Time For the U.S. To Get Comfortable With IdeologyPeter Robinson, a Reagan speechwriter in the last years of the Cold War, posed an interesting question the other day. He noted that on Feb. 22, 1946, a mere six months after the end of World War II, George Kennan, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow, sent his famous 5,000-word telegram that laid out the stakes of the Cold War and the nature of the enemy, and that that "Long Telegram" in essence shaped the way America thought about the conflict all the way up to the fall of the Berlin Wall four decades later. And what Mr. Robinson wondered was this:
"Here we are today, more than six years after 9/11. Does anyone believe a new 'Long Telegram' has yet been written? And accepted throughout the senior levels of the government?"
Answer: No.
Because, if it had, you'd hear it echoed in public – just as the Long Telegram provided the underpinning of the Truman Doctrine a year later. Kennan himself had differences with Truman and successive presidents over what he regarded as their misinterpretation, but, granted all that, most of what turned up over the next 40 years – the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam war, Soviet subversion in Africa and Europe, Grenada and Afghanistan – is consistent with the conflict as laid out by one relatively minor State Department functionary decades earlier.
Why can't we do that today?
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posted by VerityINK at 3:25 AM
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3 Comments:
So much for cultural relativism. People just don't believe; multi-cukti is too important to them.
OUTSTANDING article DONAL! Mark Steyn truly hit a home run with this one. He laments (in a nutshell) that we've yet to clearly state through our elected leadership-preferably the President-that we are at war with a form of radical islam (Wahhabism).
Curiously enough in the same article he also answers his own question of "why" the President has shown this reluctance. The quick and dirty answer? The House of Saud and General Mushy in Pakistan are LITERALLY one big street demonstration away from having their heads chopped off.
Does ANY cogent Westerner want radical muslims in Pakistan in charge of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal? Uhhhhh no.
So what do we do? I understand both sides of this argument, as do other thoughtful adults. DONAL I've heard you beautifully articulate to the leftist Lesisblack the consequences of invading northern Pakistan just to go after Osama. Les is a prototypical emoter in that he emotes FIRST, while others clean up the disastrous messes for which he conveniently never takes responsibility. For proof of this look at Vietnam and Cambodia.
In retrospect it MIGHT be arguable that Saudi Arabia would have been the best place to invade. They are the well-spring and continuing source of Wahabbist spiritual and financial support. We could have landed Marines recon, SEALS, and Rangers at all of the refineries and pumping fields and mopped up the cities in less than two weeks.
What are the consequences of such an action? Well that's the wild card, isn't it? What does America do around the world? WE TRADE! Not only is it the source of our amazing wealth, but also the true source of our international influence.
Ostensibly the Saudis are our allies. We've made that very clear in our public pronouncements, and yet we invaded their country? So what does the Governor of Sri Lanka say to the American hotel and resort owner about a property tax dispute that he genuinly feels he's right about? If the American resorts on the island are 155 million dollars in arrears on their tax payments does the Sri Lankan Governor demand payment? Or does he just shut the resort down? Either way he knows that we've invaded an ally over what he thinks is a financial issue. After all the world media is spouting that we invaded Saudi Arabia to steal her oil...
My poorly made point is this. While invading the miserable Saudis would have accomplished a few laudible goals by cutting off the biggest source of Wahhabist support, the consequences of such an act MAY have been economically disastrous. Ladies and gentlemen this is NO easy question.
One thing is for sure. We have established a beachhead of human freedom in Iraq, and radical islam CANNOT let it stand. Why do you think they continue to send allh's gangsters there to fight us? True patriots know that we have picked the battlefield and the bad guys have accommodated us by showing up.
Am I the left only one wishing that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and their ilk would just don a turban, grab an AK47 and go join their true allies in Iraq? The knives we get in the back hurt FAR worse than the bullets to the forehead.
Morgan
So what's going on with those two teams of yours? You got me into pulling for both of them and so far it seems that they're underachieving. No worries though, there's still TEN games left! That's an eternity in football.
Morgan
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