Posted on 05/27/2008 11:07:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Senator William Turner wants to make his vision of the American Dream a reality. The costs of his program are high. He pledges to pay for them by completely withdrawing the U.S. military from foreign soil.
"If we slashed our military budget in half we'd have funds for fuel-cell plants, homeland defense, and universal healthcare," Turner tells reporters while announcing he's running for president. "Germany, Japan, South Korea -- three of the wealthiest nations on earth. Why is our military defending them?"
Turner, a lightly fictionalized combination of Ron Paul and Barack Obama, then wins and implements his plan. This serves as a vehicle for documentary director Mitch Anderson to explore the question: Just what would the world look like if America withdrew?
To find out, Anderson seeks out the opinions of scholars and journalists from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Here's a rundown of what he finds out, as related by his new docudrama The World Without Us:
Europe: Since World War II, Europe has let the line go slack on security. During the Cold War it was understood that America would deter and if necessary defend against Soviet aggression.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I understand all the strategic reasons for our presence all over the world..but who hasn’t said to themselves, “why are we over there anyway,” and wondered, while we’re being lectured about our imperialism, why we don’t just pack up and go home. Let X garrison their own country. Then one thinks about all the havoc that would be wrought by the world’s bad actors once the cat was away...can you imagine the carnage?
Faulty, failed foreign policy has a direct bearing on our having to stay overextended and funnelling so much into overseas military operations to protect from rogue regimes we should have long ago toppled, not "negotiated with".
In addition I think we should retrieve our navy from places we have little national interest in and redeploy them to the places/routes we do.
The rest of the world needs to step up to the plate and be responsible for themselves instead of taking swings at us for providing the peace at great expense.
Can’t argue with that.
USA - safeguarding the world while it’s own borders are freeways.
bump
Unfortunately our interests include keeping the world's sea lanes open to international shipping. If we didn't the increasing piracy would shut it down.
I hear about our men in Iraq being evacuated to Germany all the time. Let it be. Korea hates us, let them take care of themselves. Japan is a big boy now, let them take care of themselves or pay us.
Fuel-cell plants, best to let private enterprise take care of that.
Home Defense. If your excuse for not implementing our laws against illegal aliens is because you dont have enough money, put the word out and you will be flooded with private donations because nobody wants them here.
Universal Healthcare is just a tax deduction away.
Issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal and let the free market take care of the piracy problem. http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Garden/5213/marque.htm
Interesting idea, but I think at this time it would be a hard sell internationally.
Oh, it doesn't meet the "global test"? LOL
“US Government to License Pirates” is the headline that comes to mind.
Much of our problem is worrying about what others think of us, don’t you agree? I proposed the Letters of Marque half in jest, but why do we care what smaller, weaker countries think of us? Did ancient Rome worry about their public relations?
Hm. Many people just do not understand the importance of the Navy. To them, it is old and archaic.
They don’t understand the maritime commerce is the lifeblood of our country. Nobody reads “The Influence of Seapower upon History” anymore unless you go to the Naval Academy.
But it always seems like a good idea to people to draw down the Navy.
few things are as completely void of sound logic as the utterances of those whose hatred of latinos seeps from their very pores. The proof, once again, is in a goofball remark like this.
Attempt to read. No ethnic group was mentioned on my part. Since your literacy is questionable, practice reading about illegal aliens crossing the International Bridge, Blue Water Bridge, Ambassador Bridge, and the Detroit Windsor Tunnel. You probably never heard of Dearborn-that’s too big of a word for you.
Agreed 100%. I can think of few places, other than Israel, that I think we should support militarily. Let the Eurosocialists and Islamic fascists kill each other while we develop our own energy resources and defend our own border from the incoming illegal multitudes.
The world can pay us for protection if they want it. Otherwise they can pay for their own.
Why we give it away, along with other aid, to become a despised “bully” in many’s eyes is really beyond my understanding.
Puzzling ain’t it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.