Guess it’s time for the old “are we better off than we were X years ago” slogan. The answer seems pretty clear. And this is just foreign policy.
That “axis of evil”? It’s here now. Thanks, Mr. President
In his first State of the Union Address in January 2002, George W. Bush deployed the expression “axis of evil” to describe the governments of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Critics jumped on the president for his belligerent rhetoric. But the problem with Bush’s formulation wasn’t his use of the term “evil,” a perfectly apt description of the regimes of Saddam Hussein, the Iranian mullahs, and Kim Jong-il. The real issue was with the “axis” part. With the reference to the Axis powers of World War II, Bush suggested that there was some sort of alliance or cooperation among these three enemies of the United States. His turn of phrase indicated that they represented a unitary problem and implied that in taking on one, America would be dealing with all three.
Nearly five years later, we can see the damage caused by the president’s too-cute slogan and the muddled thinking behind it. By failing to distinguish clearly among the overlapping security threats presented by rogue states, nuclear proliferators, and supporters of terrorism, Bush helped bring his own nightmare to life. Thanks to his foreign policy, many of the world’s dictators do now function as a kind of anti-American axis, in a way they didn’t when he made that speech.
But the president’s biggest act of axis-enhancement was tying up our military in Iraq and antagonizing our allies. While the global cop was busy in Baghdad, the world’s other worst villains staged a jailbreak. They understood that Bush couldn’t readily respond to their provocations with force. The opportunity cost of occupying Iraq has also been felt in Syria and Sudan, among the other places where evil has gone unchecked for want of effective American leadership. At another level, our Bush- and Iraq-inspired unpopularity has spurred an informal new post-Cold War anti-American International, with Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and George Galloway running for General Secretary.
#16: “Basic of political science courses: leaders wanting to amplify their power, have, or create, a foreign enemy to scare people with, then offer to protect them at a cost. ”
The Republicans have used terrorism to have the masses follow them. What have the Democrats used? They’ve used the fear that the polar ice caps are going to melt and that the temperature is going to rise 2 degrees in the NorthEast. Thanks, Gore, NYC is too bloody cold in the winter anyway.
The Democrats should use the same fear tactics but use a different response to a terrorist act. For example, if a Democratic becomes president his cabinet should plan another inside 9/11 (09/11/09) like nuking Washington D.C. and then blame it on North Korea. Instead of going to war with them, Hillary Clinton could, instead, extend an apology for leaving them excluded from world events and invite Kim Jon Il to participate in world affairs first by having their own military rebuild a government capital in the U.S. This will show that America is STRONG. It will show forgiveness. It will show Morality. It will divert all the anger into a show of loving our enemies. With this type of response, who could attack again? No one. That is the point. We need a U.S. holocaust to wash away the cruely that America has done on others.
Pedro – Whaaaa!, Whaaa!.
Take it easy lil baby. Let’s all welcome the Rapture.