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New World Order
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Title: What Are the Purposes of a Foreign Policy?
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.theamericanconservative. ... -purposes-of-a-foreign-policy/
Published: May 12, 2012
Author: By Robert A. Taft
Post Date: 2012-05-20 16:06:48 by We The People
Keywords: None
Views: 12812
Comments: 32

Anna M. Bremmer / shutterstock
Anna M. Bremmer / shutterstock

No one can think intelligently on the many complicated problems of American foreign policy unless he decides first what he considers the real purpose and object of that policy. In the letters which I receive from all parts of the country I find a complete confusion in the minds of the people as to our purposes in the world — and therefore scores of reasons which often seem to me completely unsound or inadequate for supporting or opposing some act of the government. Confusion has been produced because there has been no consistent purpose in our foreign policy for a good many years past. In many cases the reason stated for some action — and blazoned forth on the radio to secure popular approval — has not been the real reason which animated the administration.

Fundamentally, I believe the ultimate purpose of our foreign policy must be to protect the liberty of the United States. The American Revolution was fought to establish a nation “conceived in liberty.” That liberty has been defended in many wars since that day. That liberty has enabled our people to increase steadily their material welfare and their spiritual freedom. To achieve that liberty we have gone to war, and to protect it we would go to war again.

Only second to liberty is the maintenance of peace. The results of war may be almost as bad as the destruction of liberty and, in fact, may lead, even if the war is won, to something very close to the destruction of liberty at home. War not only produces pitiful human suffering and utter destruction of many things worthwhile, but it is almost as disastrous for the victor as for the vanquished. From our experience in the last two world wars, it actually promotes dictatorship and totalitarian government throughout the world. Much of the glamor has gone from it, and war today is murder by machine. World War II killed millions of innocent civilians as well as those in uniform and in many countries wiped out the product of hundreds of years of civilization. Two hundred and fifty thousand American boys were killed in World War II and hundreds of thousands permanently maimed or disabled, their lives often completely wrecked. Millions of families mourn their losses. War, undertaken even for justifiable purposes, such as to punish aggression in Korea, has often had the principal results of wrecking the country intended to be saved and spreading death and destruction among an innocent civilian population. Even more than Sherman knew in 1864, “war is hell.” War should never be undertaken or seriously risked except to protect American liberty.

Our traditional policy of neutrality and non-interference with other nations was based on the principle that this policy was the best way to avoid disputes with other nations and to maintain the liberty of this country without war. From the days of George Washington that has been the policy of the United States. It has never been isolationism; but it has always avoided alliances and interference in foreign quarrels as a preventive against possible war, and it has always opposed any commitment by the United States, in advance, to take any military action outside of our territory. It would leave us free to interfere or not interfere according to whether we consider the case of sufficiently vital interest to the liberty of this country. It was the policy of the free hand.

I have always felt, however, that we should depart from this principle if we could set up an effective international organization, because in the long run the success of such an organization should be the most effective assurance of world peace and therefore of American peace. I regretted that we did not join the League of Nations.

We have now taken the lead in establishing the United Nations. The purpose is to establish a rule of law throughout the world and protect the people of the United States by punishing aggression the moment it starts and deterring future aggression through joint action of the members of such an organization.

I think we must recognize that this involves the theory of a preventive war, a dangerous undertaking at any time. If, therefore, we are going to join in such an organization it is essential that it be effective. It must be a joint enterprise. Our Korean adventure shows the tremendous danger, if the new organization is badly organized or improperly supported by its members and by the public opinion of the people of the world.

The United Nations has failed to protect our peace, I believe, because it was organized on an unsound basis with a veto power in five nations and is based, in fact, on the joint power of such nations, effective only so long as they agree. I believe the concept can only be successful if based on a rule of law and justice between nations and willingness on the part of all nations to abide by the decisions of an impartial tribunal.

The fact that the present organization has largely failed in its purpose has forced us to use other means to meet the present emergency, but there is no reason to abandon the concept of collective security which, by discouraging and preventing the use of war as a national policy, can ultimately protect the liberty of the people of the United States and enforce peace.

 

2

I do not believe it is a selfish goal for us to insist that the overriding purpose of all American foreign policy should be the maintenance of the liberty and the peace of the people of the United States, so that they may achieve that intellectual and material improvement which is their genius and in which they can set an example for all peoples. By that example we can do an even greater service to mankind than we can by billions of material assistance — and more than we can ever do by war.

Just as our nation can be destroyed by war it can also be destroyed by a political or economic policy at home which destroys liberty or breaks down the fiscal and economic structure of the United States. We cannot adopt a foreign policy which gives away all of our people’s earnings or imposes such a tremendous burden on the individual American as, in effect, to destroy his incentive and his ability to increase production and productivity and his standard of living. We cannot assume a financial burden in our foreign policy so great that it threatens liberty at home.

It follows that except as such policies may ultimately protect our own security, we have no primary interest as a national policy to improve conditions or material welfare in other parts of the world or to change other forms of government. Certainly we should not engage in war to achieve such purposes. I don’t mean to say that, as responsible citizens of the world, we should not gladly extend charity or assistance to those in need. I do not mean to say that we should not align ourselves with the advocates of freedom everywhere. We did this kind of thing for many years, and we were respected as the most disinterested and charitable nation in the world.

But the contribution of supplies to meet extraordinary droughts or famine or refugee problems or other emergencies is very different from a global plan for general free assistance to all mankind on an organized scale as part of our foreign policy. Such a plan, as carried out today, can only be justified on a temporary basis as part of the battle against communism, to prevent communism from taking over more of the world and becoming a still more dangerous threat to our security. It has been undertaken as an emergency measure. Our foreign policy in ordinary times should not be primarily inspired by the motive of raising the standard of living of millions throughout the world, because that is utterly beyond our capacity. I believe it is impossible with American money, or other outside aid to raise in any substantial degree the standard of living of the millions throughout the world who have created their own problems of soil destruction or overpopulation. Fundamentally, I doubt if the standard of living of any people can be successfully raised to any appreciable degree except by their own efforts. We can advise; we can assist, if the initiative and the desire and the energy to improve themselves is present. But our assistance cannot be a principal motive for foreign policy or a justification for going to war.

We hear a great deal of argument that if we do not deliberately, as part of a world welfare program, contribute to the raising of standards of living of peoples with low income they will turn Communist and go to war against us. Apart from such emergency situations as justified the Marshall Plan, following World War II, I see no evidence that this is true. Recent wars have not been started by poverty-stricken peoples, as in China or India, but by prosperous peoples, as in a Germany led by dictators. The standard of living in China or India could be tripled and yet would still be so far below the United States that the Communists could play with equal force on the comparative hardships the people were suffering. Communism is stronger today in France and Italy than in India, though the standard of living and distribution is infinitely better in the first two countries.

However, I think as a general incident to our policy of protecting the peace and liberty of the people of the United States it is most important that we prevent the building up of any great resentment against the success and the wealth which we have achieved. In other words, I believe that our international trade relations should be scrupulously fair and generous and should make it clear to the other peoples of the world that we intend to be fair and generous.

For the same reason, and as a contribution to the world economic progress, I believe that some program like the Point Four program is justified to a limited extent, even if the Russian threat were completely removed. I supported the general project of a loan to Brazil to enable that country to build up a steel industry to use the natural resources which are available there. I believe that the policy not only assisted the development of that country in some degree but that in the long run it contributed to the growth of trade between Brazil and the United States and therefore to our own success in that field. But such programs should be sound economic projects, for the most part undertaken by private enterprise. Any United States government contribution is in the nature of charity to poor countries and should be limited in amount. We make no such contribution to similar projects in the United States. It seems to me that we should not undertake any such project in such as way as to make it a global plan for sending Americans all over the world in unlimited number to find projects upon which American money can be spent. We ought only to receive with sympathy any application from these other nations and give it fair consideration.

Nor do I believe we can justify war by our natural desire to bring freedom to others throughout the world, although it is perfectly proper to encourage and promote freedom. In 1941 President Roosevelt announced that we were going to establish a moral order throughout the world: freedom of speech and expression, “everywhere in the world”; freedom to worship God “everywhere in the world”; freedom from want, and freedom from fear “everywhere in the world.” I pointed out then that the forcing of any special brand of freedom and democracy on a people, whether they want it or not, by the brute force of war will be a denial of those very democratic principles which we are striving to advance.

The impracticability of such a battle was certainly shown by the progress of World War II. We were forced into an alliance with Communist Russia. I said on June 25, 1941, “To spread the four freedoms throughout the world we will ship airplanes and tanks and guns to Communist Russia. If, through our aid, Stalin is continued in power, do you suppose he will spread the four freedoms through Finland and Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania? Do you suppose that anybody in Russia itself will ever hear of the four freedoms after the war?” Certainly if World War II was undertaken to spread freedom throughout the world it was a failure. As a matter of fact, Franklin Roosevelt never dared to go to war for that purpose, and we only went to war when our own security was attacked at Pearl Harbor.

 

3

There are a good many Americans who talk about an American century in which America will dominate the world. They rightly point out that the United States is so powerful today that we should assume a moral leadership in the world to solve all the troubles of mankind. I quite agree that we need that moral leadership not only abroad but also at home. We can take the moral leadership in trying to improve the international organization for peace. I think we can take leadership in the providing of example and advice for the improvement of material standards of living throughout the world. Above all, I think we can take the leadership in proclaiming the doctrines of liberty and justice and in impressing on the world that only through liberty and law and justice, and not through socialism or communism, can the world hope to obtain the standards which we have attained in the United States. Our leaders can at least stop apologizing for the American system, as they have been apologizing for the past 15 years.

If we confine our activities to the field of moral leadership we shall be successful if our philosophy is sound and appeals to the people of the world. The trouble with those who advocate this policy is that they really do not confine themselves to moral leadership. They are inspired with the same kind of New Deal planned-control ideas abroad as recent administrations have desired to enforce at home. In their hearts they want to force on these foreign people through the use of American money and even, perhaps, American arms the policies which moral leadership is able to advance only through the sound strength of its principles and the force of its persuasion. I do not think this moral leadership ideal justifies our engaging in any preventive war, or going to the defense of one country against another, or getting ourselves into a vulnerable fiscal and economic position at home which may invite war. I do not believe any policy which has behind it the threat of military force is justified as part of the basic foreign policy of the United States except to defend the liberty of our own people.

 

4

In order to justify a lend-lease policy or the Atlantic Pact program for mutual aid and for arming Europe in time of peace or the Marshall Plan or the Point Four program beyond a selective and limited extent, any such program must be related to the liberty of the United States. Our active partisanship in World War II was based on the theory that a Hitler victory would make Germany a serious threat to the liberty of the United States. I did not believe that Germany would be such a threat, particularly after Hitler brought Russia into the war, and that is the reason I opposed the war policy of the administration from the elections of 1940 to the attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The more recent measures for Marshall Plan aid on a global scale—and to the extent of billions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money—and the Atlantic Pact arms program are and must be based on the theory that Russia today presents a real threat to the security of the United States.

While I may differ on the extent of some of these measures, I agree that there is such a threat. This is due principally to the facts that air power has made distances so short and the atomic bomb has made air power so potentially effective that Russia today could do what Hitler never could do—inflict serious and perhaps crippling injury on our cities and on our industrial plants and the other production resources which are so essential to our victory in war.

Furthermore, the Russians combine with great military and air power a fanatical devotion to communism not unlike that which inspired the Moslem invasion of Europe in the Middle Ages. The crusading spirit makes possible a fifth-column adjunct to military attack which adds tremendously to the power and danger of Russian aggression. The Russian threat has become so serious today that in defense of the liberty and peace of the people of the United States I think we are justified in extending economic aid and military aid to many countries, but only when it can be clearly shown in each case that such aid will be an effective means of combating Communist aggression. We have now felt it necessary in order to protect the liberty of the United States against an extraordinary special threat to adopt a policy which I do not believe should be considered as part of any permanent foreign policy. We have been forced into this not only because of the power of Soviet Russia but because the United Nations has shown that it is wholly ineffective under its present charter. The new temporary policy may be outlined as follows:

1. We have had to set up a much larger armed force than we have ever had to do before in time of peace, in order to meet the Communist threat. I believe this effort should be directed particularly toward a development of an all-powerful air force.

2. We have had to adopt as a temporary measure the policy of extending economic and military aid to all those countries which, with the use of such aid, can perhaps prevent the extension of Russian military power or Russian or Communist influence. We have backed that up by announcing definitely to Russia that if it undertakes aggression against certain countries whose independence is important to us it will find itself at war with us. This is a kind of Monroe Doctrine for Europe.

3. We have had to adopt a policy of military alliances to deter, at least, the spread of Communist power. To control sea and air throughout the world, the British alliance is peculiarly important. Again, we hope that with the decline of Russian power and the re-establishment of an international organization for peace such alliances may be unnecessary.

I opposed that feature of the Atlantic Pact which looked toward a commitment of the United States to fight a land war on the continent of Europe and therefore opposed, except to a limited degree, the commitment of land troops to Europe. Except as we find it absolutely essential to our security, I do not believe we should depart from the principle of maintaining a free hand to fight a war which may be forced upon us, in such a manner and in such places as are best suited at the time to meet those conditions which are changing so rapidly in the modern world. Nothing is so dangerous as to commit the United States to a course which is beyond its capacity to perform with success.

In the course of later chapters I shall discuss the wisdom of this temporary policy and apply it to the particular situations which we face throughout the world. But it must always be considered, I believe, as a temporary expedient. It cannot avoid the possible danger of involving us in war with Soviet Russia, but it should not provoke a war which otherwise might not occur.

 

5

The main point of this preliminary statement, however, is to emphasize that our foreign policy must always keep in mind, as its ultimate goal, the peace and security of the people of the United States. Most of our presidents have been imbued with a real determination to keep the country at peace. I feel that the last two presidents have put all kinds of political and policy considerations ahead of their interest in liberty and peace. No foreign policy can be justified except a policy devoted without reservation or diversion to the protection of the liberty of the American people, with war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 22.

#1. To: We The People (#0) (Edited)

------------------

“The skilful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting.”

Sun Tzu, Art of War

--------

"Si vis pacem para bellum." ("If you seek peace, prepare for war.")

Various Romans, inc. Cicero, general Vegetius

-----

"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."

Niccollo Machavelli

----

“Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”

Lord Palmerston

----

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."

George Orwell

Review of A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays by Herbert Read, Poetry Quarterly (Winter 1945)

Mad Dog  posted on  2012-05-20   16:56:43 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Mad Dog (#1)

1. “As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral.” -U.S. WWII General Omar Bradley

2. “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” -James Madison

3. “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” -James Madison

4. “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. ” -James Madison

5. “Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.” -James Madison

6. “The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.” -James Madison

7. “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” -James Madison

8. “Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.” -Thomas Jefferson

9. “The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.” -Thomas Jefferson

10. “The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.” -Thomas Jefferson

11. “Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.” -Thomas Jefferson

12. “I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.” -Thomas Jefferson

13. “Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.” -Thomas Jefferson

14. “If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.” -Thomas Jefferson

15. “Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.” -Thomas Jefferson

16. “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.” -Thomas Jefferson

17. “A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” -Thomas Jefferson

18. “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.” -Thomas Jefferson

19. “War…is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.” -Thomas Jefferson

20. “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.” -Thomas Jefferson

21. “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” -George Washington

22. “The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.” -George Washington

23. “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” -George Washington

24. “It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” -George Washington

25. “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force…Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” -George Washington

26. “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.” -George Washington

27. “My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” -George Washington

28. “Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.” -Benjamin Franklin

29. “A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.” -Benjamin Franklin

30. “I hope….that mankind will at length, as they call themselves responsible creatures, have the reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats…” -Benjamin Franklin

31. “When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?” -Benjamin Franklin

32. “All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.” -Benjamin Franklin

33. “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” -Benjamin Franklin

34. “Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Benjamin Franklin

35. “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.” -John Adams

36. “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak…” -John Adams

37. “A people free to choose will always choose peace.” -Ronald Reagan

38. “The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor.” -Ronald Reagan

39. “History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” -Ronald Reagan 3430706598 74b7023e8d m 100 Great Anti War Quotes

Ronald Reagan

40. “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” -Ronald Reagan

41. “…no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.” -Ronald Reagan

42. “People do not make wars; governments do.” -Ronald Reagan

43. “We must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.” -Ronald Reagan

44. “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

45. “How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

46. “We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

47. “We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

48. “Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

49. “You can’t have this kind of war. There just aren’t enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

50. “War settles nothing.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Continued... breakthematrix.com/war/100-great-anti-war-quotes/

We The People  posted on  2012-05-20   17:11:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: We The People (#2)

.

btw; Just because I KNOW what reality IS, does NOT mean that I F'ing LIKE it.

But you can NEVER get anywhere if you LIE to yourself.

What is IS.

You think you have something new?

You don't.

I wish you did.

Mad Dog  posted on  2012-05-20   17:34:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Mad Dog (#4) (Edited)

You think you have something new?

You don't.

I'm not sure what you mean in your last post. I think I do, but I'm not sure.

I'm quoting the above because I believe it encompasses your post and meaning...

I don't think I have something new, I know that I do. I have the founding American ideology, only 230 some years old, as put forth in our founding documents and writings of those authors that everyone will say they believe in, but no one wants to follow.

It's like Bush saying, "We have to abandon free market principles to save the free market".

The original, traditional American position is anti-war. That doesn't mean that we roll over and let the rest of the world dictate to us, it just means we don't have to go to war every time a breeze blows through another country or some revolutionary leftist gets scared of a group of goat herders 10,000 miles away.

It doesn't mean we don't need the most powerful military on the planet, it just means we don't have to pull the trigger if our own life is not in danger.

Americans should look more to the writings of the founders of THIS country and less to the writings of the rest of the world.

We The People  posted on  2012-05-20   18:43:53 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: We The People (#5)

: Mad Dog You think you have something new?

You don't.

I'm not sure what you mean in your last post. I think I do, but I'm not sure.

I'm quoting the above because I believe it encompasses your post and meaning...

I don't think I have something new, I know that I do. I have the founding American ideology, only 230 some years old, as put forth in our founding documents and writings of those authors that everyone will say they believe in, but no one wants to follow.

It's like Bush saying, "We have to abandon free market principles to save the free market".

The original, traditional American position is anti-war. That doesn't mean that we roll over and let the rest of the world dictate to us, it just means we don't have to go to war every time a breeze blows through another country or some revolutionary leftist gets scared of a group of goat herders 10,000 miles away.

It doesn't mean we don't need the most powerful military on the planet, it just means we don't have to pull the trigger if our own life is not in danger.

Americans should look more to the writings of the founders of THIS country and less to the writings of the rest of the world.

What gets me is how you act as if I disagree with you in principle. I don't.

BUT I do live in the REAL world, and in the REAL world, WAR is a matter of NORMAL HISTORICAL HUMAN interaction. It doesn't matter how you "feel" about that simple terrible FACT.

What you are arguing for is for 18th century ISOLATION.

Unfortunately we are several hundred years past the two ocean solution.

Even Jefferson who foreswore foreign entanglements, who you quoted in favor of peace and against WAR, (and who the fuck isn't btw), SUPPORTED the Barbary Coast WARS.

Do you know why?

Because Jefferson lived in the REAL world, he wanted us as a nation to quit paying pirates tribute.

Spare me your absurd attempts at achieving some sort of "moral high ground" or "outrage" re WAR in the REAL world. You are just "morally" masturbating in public, looking for approval.

You and your ilk are arrogant fools. You haven't an original thought or idea about how to STOP or modify the HUMAN trait and habit of WAR.

Then you TRY to act as if the rest of us like the way it has ALWAYS been.

OUR founders were well aware of ALL aspects of WAR.

They weren't Polly Annish children TRYING to lecture free adults on OBVIOUS points of HUMAN history; and they sure as fuck never did so as a POSE to look "morally superior" to others.

As soon as you come up with a NEW and WORKABLE way to end WAR let us all know.

Until then ....

Mad Dog  posted on  2012-05-20   19:33:25 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: Mad Dog (#7) (Edited)

BUT I do live in the REAL world, and in the REAL world, WAR is a matter of NORMAL HISTORICAL HUMAN interaction.

Does the last 20 years seem normal to you?

Defeating the Barbary pirates was normal, we didn't go looking for that. The war of 1812 was normal, due to British meddling over here.

The Mexican–American War was normal, since Mexico wouldn't relinquish the land after the 1836 Texas Revolution and Texas wanted to join the US.

Was invading Iraq normal?

Is what is happening now with Iran, Libya, Syria and Yemen normal?

We The People  posted on  2012-05-20   20:34:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: We The People (#13)

Does the last 20 years seem normal to you?

Uh yeah it sure fucking does.

I grew up with KOREA and the post WW2 WARS.

WE were hiding underneath our fucking desks because the CCCP was going to fucking NUKE us.

There hasn't been one fucking second of my life that we were not at WAR.

Why? were you born on another fucking planet?

You honestly think that the last twenty years of human history has been abnormal HUMAN WAR wise?

REALLY?

Then you have no idea about what you are talking about.

I see your point that WAR is BAD and that peace is GOOD, of fucking course, MOST HUMANS do also.

So fucking what?

I'm just telling you what you should already fucking know about HUMANITY and HUMAN HISTORY and HUMAN NORMAL BEHAVIOR.

Oh yeah, I forgot .... you're "special".

Oh yeah, you betcha.

Too bad that the objective TRUTH for ALL of us lesser HUMANS remains ...

"ONLY THE DEAD HAVE SEEN THE END OF WAR"

Mad Dog  posted on  2012-05-21   0:15:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: Mad Dog (#18)

Oh yeah, I forgot .... you're "special".

Oh yeah, you betcha.

Too bad that the objective TRUTH for ALL of us lesser HUMANS remains ...

Man, come on.

Can we just have the discussion without making it personal? You don't have to hate me just because we disagree on a topic. We probably have more that we agree on than we disagree on.

The foreign policy of this nation is a very serious topic, and we have a chance here to outline some differences. I don't know about you, but I enjoy these discussions.

We The People  posted on  2012-05-21   6:19:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: We The People (#20)

Oh yeah, I forgot .... you're "special". Oh yeah, you betcha.

Too bad that the objective TRUTH for ALL of us lesser HUMANS remains ...

Man, come on.

Can we just have the discussion without making it personal? You don't have to hate me just because we disagree on a topic. We probably have more that we agree on than we disagree on.

The foreign policy of this nation is a very serious topic, and we have a chance here to outline some differences. I don't know about you, but I enjoy these discussions.

Point taken.

I sure do not "hate" you. In fact you seem to me to be one of the most decent and SANE people on these forums.

But I sure do HATE some of the nonsense you come up with.

I go sideways when well meaning people channel Polly Anna and affect policy so that our people in the field DIE because the America public hasn't got the balls to do what MUST be done.

There is NO part of actual WAR that is decent or moral.

Except SURVIVAL.

Seeing adults incapable of understanding THAT, who TRY to deny what WAR is, does for sure piss me off.

BECAUSE it results in DEATH and life shattering wounding of OUR PEOPLE for NOTHING.

IMO IF you/we send them, then by F'ing GOD YOU STAND BY THEM IN ALL THINGS.

If NOT, BRING THEM HOME YESTERDAY.

FTW.

Mad Dog  posted on  2012-05-21   13:52:24 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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