Posted on 01/29/2013 11:22:32 PM PST by Olog-hai
“A decade of war is now ending,” U.S. President Barack Obama declared Monday. Maybe that’s true in America, but it isn’t true anywhere else. Extremists are still plotting acts of terror. Authoritarian and autocratic regimes are still using violence to preserve their power. The United States can step back from international conflicts, but that won’t make them disappear.
Fortunately, there is another power that shares America’s economic and political values, that possesses sophisticated military technology and is also very interested in stopping the progress of fanatical movements, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. That power is Europe. …
A number of obstacles must be overcome before the European Union could become the world’s policeman. Although combined European military spending does make the EU the world’s second-largest military power, it still isn’t enough for a sustained conflict. Some Europeans, most notably the Germans, would have to overcome their post-Second World War abhorrence of soldiers. Other Europeans, most notably the British, would have to be convinced, as others have concluded, that Americans just aren’t that interested in NATO anymore. … These are big obstacles. But what’s the alternative? If America is to enjoy “peace in our time”—an expression now deployed by both Barack Obama and Neville Chamberlain—while the rest of the world remains at war, then someone else will fill the vacuum. …
(Excerpt) Read more at fullcomment.nationalpost.com ...
They are morally and economically bankrupt, and have become wussies who blanche at the thought of combat, and when they finally DO muster the will to intervene,,,, they cannot do anything meanigful unless they can get the USA to carry the load.
How does that add up to superpower?
“This is what happens when the USA abandons the role of world policeman.”
I feel no need whatsoever for the USA to be the world’s policeman. We should only intervene when a critical US interest is at risk. Not this modern theory that EVERYTHING is a critical US interest.
The Balkan war,,,No.
The Syrian civil war, Nope.
Africa? Nowhere. Somalia was a soviet client state,, why did we go there AT ALL?
Libya, no.
Rwanda, nope.
Falkland Islands,,nope.
I am beginning to wonder if it is possible for someone to have a war anywhere on earth that we cannot use sophistry to explain why it is a “critical US interest”.
The EU is an empire. An empire that is squashing a lot of freedoms within its borders too, e.g. freedom of the press, freedom of speech, habeas corpus, and so on. For this entity to take on the role of “world policeman” means something different from the US playing the role, and if they are given the power (and we have an administration only too willing to do just that), they will use it for war and conquest. Be very careful what you wish for.
I’m glad that France is taking point on the mess in Mali and Algeria since they helped create the underlying conditions. We have spent far too much money on keeping troops in Europe when they should have been paying for their own freight.
....France and Germany are going to save the world?
If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it. If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.Abandoning this mindset means ever-increasing trouble for the USA.
Amusing notion, but no, that is not their intent.
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization,
DesertRhino: “We should only intervene when a critical US interest is at risk.”
Bears repeating.
No more Team America: World Police!
Olog-hai: “Abandoning this mindset means ever-increasing trouble for the USA.”
There’s nothing wrong with going to war for vital American interests, but that doesn’t necessarily involve US troops acting like police instead of warriors. If we’re going in to destroy the enemy, I’m with you. Otherwise, no.
Yup. I thought this was a piece from the Onion.
What’s next? Greece is the banking capital of the world?
As witness the story now out (see thread elsewhere on FR) that the EU is prepared to thrust uncut homosexualism on British schools and curricula, and that any teacher resisting the homojuggernaut will be disciplined, up to and including prison.
How's about them apples? Wonder what Sir Francis Bacon would make of all that?
The founding fathers would be horrified at your suggestion that we become the worlds policeman and go fight endless wars without a critical US interest.
That quote clearly only meant one thing, and one thing only. That is that when a critical AMERICAN interest is threatened, we must be ready to fight.
It does not mean when a Hutu wants to go club his neighbors, there is no US interest.
It does not mean that when both sides of the Syrian civil war are evil, and we get nothing in trade from Syria, we MUST be involved.
In the Balkans, it was soooo critical to the peace of Europe, and ergo, it was an “American interest”. America was browbeaten for not intervening there. So then why weren’t Austria, the Czech republic, the Germans, The Dutch, the Belgians, the Swiss, and the Greeks invading?
If the whole region fell into the Ocean, America would not have been impacted in any way.
You are simply wrong to imagine that almost every war on earth is somehow a “provocation” against the US by it’s very occurrance. The founders were almost diametrically opposed to your stance.
Wars solely designed to spread our form of government to other nations would have seemed insane to them.
Trouble for the USA comes from intervening where we have no interests, but refusing to intervene where we have an actual US interest. (like Mexico)
Should read:
“It does not mean when a Hutu wants to go club his neighbors, there is a US interest.”
Obama is deceiving the public. His policy is to abandon hard-fought U.S. gains against the Islamists and their terror apparatus. He is destroying the fruits of victory, quite likely out of enmity toward the U.S., i.e. he is committing high treason and coloring it with the name of "policy".
Communists and Islamists have always wanted to impose pacifist policies on the West -- so they can attack at leisure. Obama is prosecuting that enemy policy right now, and the promise of "peace in our time" is a lie bigger even than Chamberlain's folly.
The French have never ceased their involvement there. They stopped Khaddafy cold when he tried to take over Chad 20 years ago. They've also been present in some of the failed states of West Africa when things got nasty.
The EU is incapable of tying its own shoelaces let alone assume the mantle of world superpower. “Someone” will indeed fill any power vacuum but it won’t be the EU. How’s your Chinese?
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