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Krauthammer "Democratic Realism" (Must read and bookmark!)
A E I ^ | February 12, 2004 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 02/15/2004 12:02:50 PM PST by Dutchgirl

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To: Dutchgirl
Moreover, the doctrine of preemption against openly hostile states pursuing weapons of mass destruction is an improvement on classical deterrence. Traditionally, we deterred the use of WMDs by the threat of retaliation after we’d been attacked--and that’s too late; the point of preemption is to deter the very acquisition of WMDs in the first place.

Whether or not Iraq had large stockpiles of WMDs, the very fact that the United States overthrew a hostile regime that repeatedly refused to come clean on its weapons has had precisely this deterrent effect. We are safer today not just because Saddam is gone, but because Libya and any others contemplating trafficking with WMDs, have--for the first time--seen that it carries a cost, a very high cost.

What is really scary is that we are probably only one more RAT administration away from having the problem of WMD's and rogue states spin totally out control. IMO it is impossible to envision any RAT who could actually win their nomination within the next 10 years having the political courage and determination to launch a preemptive strike on another member of the Axis of Evil or any number of other rogue/terrorist organizations that pose a serious threat to the people of the United States if that is what is required.

The real definition of an "imminent threat" should be any WMD program that can be developed within the time frame of the next RAT administration. Bush can't say that, but it is true.

We will have to hope and pray (and vote for) that Bush wins a second term so he can continue to neutralize the most serious threats on the horizon( N. Korea, Iran, Pakistan, etc. ,etc.) . I'm not totally satisfied with Bush43 (Too much spending on non-security related programs,weak on the immigration problem, etc), but overall I think he has performed well, especially with regard to national security. That issue trumps everything else.

81 posted on 02/15/2004 10:06:43 PM PST by Norman Arbuthnot
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To: Dutchgirl
Reading later.
82 posted on 02/15/2004 10:07:47 PM PST by BunnySlippers (a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com" target="_blank">miserable failure)
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To: nopardons
bookmarked and bumped

Excellent analysis. Listening to the latest BushBashFest tonight, any one of those candidates would sell us out to the UN in a NY minute.

God, the thought of having to grovel to the likes of Libya, Sudan, Cuba, Rwanda, China, Syria, Iran,not to mention France or Germany, makes my skin crawl.

What in the world in so wrong about doing what is in our best interest as a nation? Too selfish? Cry me a river.
83 posted on 02/15/2004 10:11:49 PM PST by baseballmom
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To: Norman Arbuthnot
That issue trumps everything else.

Ditto that, and BUMP.

84 posted on 02/15/2004 10:12:38 PM PST by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet ("Lashing out" at Democrats since 1990.)
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To: Dutchgirl
BTTT
85 posted on 02/15/2004 10:20:17 PM PST by Right_in_Virginia
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To: Dutchgirl
Bump for later.
86 posted on 02/15/2004 10:22:03 PM PST by Bernard Marx (In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is.)
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To: Torie; jwalsh07; M. Thatcher; William McKinley; Southack
Ya'll might find this of interest. Thoughts?
87 posted on 02/15/2004 10:26:45 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat
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To: Dutchgirl
Bump for later read.
88 posted on 02/15/2004 10:50:33 PM PST by PA Engineer
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To: Diddle E. Squat; RJayneJ
"But that, you see, is the whole point of the multilateral enterprise [& Communists, & liberals]: To reduce American freedom of action by making it subservient to, dependent on, constricted by the will--and interests--of other nations. To tie down Gulliver with a thousand strings. To domesticate the most undomesticated, most outsized, national interest on the planet--ours."

That's his money paragraph.

What the liberals want is to destroy the existing American culture. They want to destroy our power militarily, economically, and morally.

They want our military to be subservient to other nations via the UN. They want our economy to be subservient to other nations via ridiculous treaties such as those that redistribute wealth from the U.S. to 3rd world kleptocracies (e.g. the fines in the Kyoto Global Warming nonsense). They want to legalize gay marriage and abortion on demand in order to further destroy our nuclear family concept.

They want to destroy our concept of art, too. They want to claim that welding together rusted pieces of scrap iron is somehow "beautiful." They want such trash displayed in as many public places as possible, and in the meantime they want all forms of patriotic, religious, and/or truly beautiful art to be banned from public display.

They want to destroy our concept of *who* looks good, engaging in attempts to pass off starving waifs as sex symbols, and they want to destroy our confidence in what we eat...capriciously claiming that one food after another is "bad" for us, etc.

They want our nightly news to focus on the "bad" in the world, commercializing the politics of personal destruction as well as broadcasting every tragedy that makes the daily police blotters...all in an attempt to somehow sour Americans on our own culture and communities.

Thus, our enemies both foreign and domestic want to hamstring America with treaties and regulations that are painful for us to abide by...our "art" is tarnished with public displays of literal trash...our food supply and eating habits are constantly "questioned"...and the drumbeat of our local news is always to the sound of an imminent trainwreck.

89 posted on 02/15/2004 10:56:45 PM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack; JohnHuang2
The picture he painted of Gulliver being tied down is so compelling..

John, I don't want you to miss this one.
90 posted on 02/15/2004 11:10:50 PM PST by MEG33 (John Kerry's been AWOL for two decades on issues of National Security!)
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To: Dutchgirl
BTTT...Just excellent!
91 posted on 02/15/2004 11:24:12 PM PST by lainde (Heads up...We're coming and we've got tongue blades!!)
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To: Dutchgirl
Krauthammer continually and conveniently ignores, handwaves, the real moral problem of both the neocon and liberal policy he describes, Communist China. It's almost like a holy friggin' 3rd rail.

92 posted on 02/15/2004 11:32:19 PM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1
Read the speech again."Targeted,focused and limited."One thing he empahsizes is that we don't just go in and smack them,we want to leave them with something..democracy.

There are different methods dealing with different countries...and the now our focus should be be on the Islamic Crescent as he names it.

He says in years to come China will strengthen and Europe will decline.(China would take a book to discuss!)
93 posted on 02/15/2004 11:44:42 PM PST by MEG33 (John Kerry's been AWOL for two decades on issues of National Security!)
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To: Dutchgirl
the end of communism, of socialism, Well, not exactly, they've holed up in our media, our environmental organizations and on our campuses, as well as in the "black leadership." In fact the entire Democrat Party is more dominated by redistributionism than ever.
94 posted on 02/15/2004 11:58:20 PM PST by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them, or they like us?)
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To: Don'tMessWithTexas
The only problem is that our guys are more worried about how much Saudi money they can stuff in their pocket as soon as they are out of office than they are about promoting 'democratic globalism'.

Bob Baer in his book 'Sleeping With the Devil' makes it abundantly clear that our worst enemy, Saudi Arabia litteraly owns this country and most of the politicians. Yes even Condi Rice. She sat on the board of a major oil company and will go back to work for big oil as soon as she gets out of this administration. ( which will be soon if the rumors are true)

We created Saudi Arabia. We literally fashioned it into the inhuman place it is and all for graft .... and I suppose cheap oil.

Our side supposedly understands what Krauthammer points out in this very good article .... but our guys are corrupt. The Bush family is wholly sold out to the House of Saud. We still have no human intel throughout Islam. We have no means of building it. Our CIA is incompetent and our State Department is a nest of treasonous eletes.

We are massively effed.
95 posted on 02/16/2004 12:15:05 AM PST by mercy
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To: mercy
Mercy,me,does your car use hydrogen?

If you are so concerned about Condi working for Big oil..would having little oil be OK?
96 posted on 02/16/2004 12:26:23 AM PST by MEG33 (John Kerry's been AWOL for two decades on issues of National Security!)
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To: TruthShallSetYouFree
bump for later
97 posted on 02/16/2004 2:50:54 AM PST by tom paine 2
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To: Dutchgirl
bump to read later
98 posted on 02/16/2004 4:42:53 AM PST by M. Thatcher (.)
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To: Vision Thing
You're missing the point.

I don't think I missed the point at all, despite my tangential remark. See my Post #17.

This is one of the best articles I have ever seen on this subject. Krauthammer has a first class mind and this article is one which should be required reading for everyone who is elected or appointed office before they are allowed to draw their next paycheck.

99 posted on 02/16/2004 6:18:44 AM PST by Gritty ("Wherever you have Islam you have war. It grows out of the attitude of Islamic civilization-M.Sharon)
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To: okie01
Liberals know that, entrusted with such power, they would assuredly abuse it. Consequently, they assume others would, as well -- especially the "evil" conservatives.

Thus, the liberal objection to American unipolar power is based solely upon a projection of their own moral weaknesses.

I can certainly agree that liberals project their moral weaknesses onto conservatives. But they are also flamingly self-righteous; maybe that's the same thing. Evade your own weakness by attributing it to someone else.

The Bush Doctrine is that

The political/religious principles of the Constitution (e.g., the First Amendment) are under attack, and

Propagation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence is not merely "a good" offense which is "the best" defense of the Constitution--it is a great offense--and the only defense of the Constitution of the United States.

Undemocratic regimes can only view propagation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence as America's "offence."
They see [the use of our unipolar power] for anything other than humanitarianism or reflexive self-defense as an expression of national selfishness."
What strikes me in that quote is that what "liberals" style "national selfishness" is nothing other than the use of the resources of the U.S. goverment to propagate American principles. "Liberals" are no part of the solution, because they are themselves the heart of the problem.


100 posted on 02/16/2004 6:32:49 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (Belief in your own objectivity is the essence of subjectivity.)
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