Posted on 02/26/2005 11:16:52 AM PST by Ohioan
IMHO, Washington would have no problem with reaching out and "touching" those who posed a threat to his country. He had no problem with military activity along the frontier. If he had to kill people he would have. If he could change their policy through other means, he would have done that as well.
Washington was not vain enough to pretend to speak for what future generations should or should not do in specific situations other than to caution about "entangling alliances". The only such alliance I can think of today is the UN charter which entangles us with an organization that does not have our best interests at heart --- in fact, just the opposite.
Washington's Farewell Address is one of the most misused of our historical documents. It was produced at a time when THE MAJOR political issue in the US was agitation by the radical Jeffersonian party to ally with France and declare war on Great Britain. That would have been a disaster that would have likely ended the nation. Washington correctly warned against taking sides in that conflict since nothing but disaster could come from it for the United States. There was no upside. It was not in our interest.
He correctly understood that nations do not have friends, they only have interests, and in 1797, the interests of the US did not lay in war with England, just as France's interests (or perceived interests) today do not lie in war in the mid east. US interests in the Mideast lie in removing current threats to our nation AND in changing the status quo to preclude future more serious threats. France's interests, monetary and geopolitical, lie in maintaining the status quo. Removing various despots in that region would be removing many of Frence's biggest customers and long time business partners.
Washington's message today would likely be totally different than in 1797 --- albeit, he would still not think much of the French aside from Gen. Lafayette.
As the debate demonstrates, President Bush uses the term "freedom," in at least six different senses, some completely contradictory to others. For example, he adopts FDR's "Four Freedoms" approach, which is tantamount to accepting the Socialist value system. He also calls for moving America towards "equality." I do not know if the President really thought about what he was saying or how deeply. But he trusted either a pathetically confused speech writer, or one with very very dangerous, as well as confused concepts.
On the other hand, Washington's approach remains ideal for virtually every international situation. Why not just embrace it? It works perfectly fine with modern technology.
Thank you.
Washington's position in the debate--paragraph k, for example--advocates full preparedness. That is not the issue. But you make an interesting suggestion. What if Cornwalis, even in 1781, had been better equipped than al Quaida? Well, that would certainly have been a problem, since our French ally would never yave been able to withstand an attack on its fleet of wooden ships by Apaches. But just what is your point really. Today, the gap between our arms and our third world foes is far greater than any advantage we ever had before. We can systematically deal with al Quaida, without trying to play games with the culture of much of the rest of humanity.
Put another way, you do not fight a plague by selling comic books. And you do not isolate your fanatic enemies by coming across as ridiculously arrogant fanatics, yourselves, to everyone else. Frankly, the most offensive aspect of the President's approach to the future, other than the terrible problems that it is going to create for Americans for a long time to come, is the terrible cruelty that will result if it really succeeds in imposing Democracy in many Thrird World nations. It simply does not work out.
I think you're the one whose confused and can't see beyond your own cynicism.
But hey, you're entitled to your opinions.
Ohioan:It is not a benign mindset that keeps trying to justify such really contemptible experiments.
President Bush:The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
It is exactly what the president was referring to.
Well said.
I oppose proposals, in every area of public life, which are premised upon nonsensical ideas that people are interchangeable; or that the same system works for all peoples; or that all peoples have equal abilities; or equivalent personalities; or that people who succeed have somehow wronged people who fail; or that some form of World Government is desirable. In short, I oppose Socialism in all of its manifestations. And I have never, ever, considered Socialism or Egalitarianism idealistic.
William Flax
You take a short snatch of his out of context and a shorter snatch of mine out of context, and think you have made a point. Let us see:
President Bush: Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.
Here you have picked something that sounds reasonable--until put into the context of the rest of the speech, where he uses Freedom in many and conflicting senses. But consider the implied premise, even in this one brief tempering passage--he has already formed the judgment that many of the peoples he is concerned with have not already found "their own voice," attained "their own freedom," and made "their own way." You know, every strong Government is not hated by its people. Many monarchies, for example, enjoy huge popular support. Just who is an American President to be judging, whether other peoples, in very different parts of the world, have or have not attained their freedom?
Consider our own history. Freedom for the Pilgrims in Massachusetts was the ability have their own Puritan society, where one could be put in stocks and humiliated for slight indiscretions that offended the religious dogma. Were they not enjoying the freedom they had attained by risking great hardship and danger, to be free of more permissive neighbors in the Old World?
William Flax
How are the United States, for example, dependent upon other lands for the survival of our institutions, which by their very nature grow out of our culture, not their cultures? We are stronger than the lands Mr. Bush would reform. How are we dependent upon their Governments for maintaining our own ways?
On the other hand, the spread of free elections in the Near East may pose some new threats to our existing relationships. We have friendly relations with both Israel and Egypt, since Jimmy Carter brokered a peace deal between the two. While an unopposed Mubarak and a politically fairly savvy Israeli electorate both see their interest in getting along with America--actually we have been bribing both for 25 years to do so--the Egyptian public could quickly prove a loose cannon, as Demagogues vie for advantage, and play the Israelis as a scape goat for Egyptian problems. Do you think that an elected Nasser type, perhaps closing the Canal to our shipping as part of a statement, would make American interests more secure than Mubarak?
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