A bold president, indeed

TownHall.com ^ | 2/12/03 | George Will

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON--For America's enemies, and for some semi-allies, a just-published U.S. document should be mandatory reading. President Bush's fiscal 2004 budget has little foreign policy content but, properly understood, has immense foreign policy implications. If Baghdad, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Seoul understand this administration's comprehensive boldness, they will understand not only that regime change is coming to Iraq, but also that the end of NATO as we have known it, and the removal of U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula, are not unthinkable. The budget evokes 1862. In that (BEG ITAL)annus mirabilis, with the national government's writ severely restricted and the entire American project in doubt, Lincoln and Congress nevertheless enacted the Homestead Act, which sped the settlement of the Great Plains, the Morrill Act that begot the land grant college system, and the law that ignited construction of the transcontinental railroad.

[sourcery]

"In the famous formulation of one of NATO's founders, the alliance's purpose was to keep the Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in. Well. The Germans are firmly held down by their own enervating attitudes and welfare state policies (unemployment is 10.3 percent and rising). Which is to say, Germany has its boot on its own neck, for a change. The Russians are out of the great power business. And Americans are increasingly wondering why they are in Europe."

NATO is history.

[DB]

The world "as we know it" is changing very rapidly.

I pray it goes well...

[spodefly]

BTTT. This is a great article by Will.

[sourcery]

The world "as we know it" is changing very rapidly.

I pray it goes well...

Hope for the best, expect the worst. I think things will get much worse before they get better.

[Elkiejg]

Excellent article - I will need the number crunching folks to explain the budget to me tho'. If the budget is as Will states - US forces out of Germany and S Korea - I say good! I'm sick and tired of funneling our tax $$ to these ungrateful nations. Let them fend for themselves and see how they like it.

[MeekMom]

"NATO is history"

When's the party starting?
I'll bring the punch!