STATUS QUOISTS - like Scowcroft - who say that Saddam was contained, and Bush should've left him alone, and they argue that once al Qaeda is neutralized we can safely return to a pre-9/11 world.
REALISTS - who say Saddam was contained, Bush should've left him alone, and they argue that democracy won't work in Iraq because Iraqi culture and social disparities can't accomodate it. They think you can make deals/arrangements/treaties with the enemy, and co-exist with them - from Hamas to Iran to North Korea.
JIHADISTS - like OBL and Zawahiri and Zarqawi - who know that their totalitarian ideology can only be imposed by using horrific intimidation, and who know that only a robust USA can prevent them from imposing their repressive ideology and re-establishing the Caliphate under sharia.
PACIFISTS - who oppose the use of any deadly force - and even opposed the USA's entry into WW2.
POST-MODERNISTS - like Sheehan and Chomsky and Kucinich- who say that we deserved 9/11 and that we should withdraw from the Third World and return to them the wealth we stole as colonialists and imperialists and globalists, and that we should abandon our "colony" Israel and let Muslims run their own world.
OPPORTUNISTS - like Schroeder and Clinton and Biden and Hagel - who oppose Bush whenever they feel they can make a political gain.
And Bush - he's best described as an idealist or a UNIVERSALIST: Bush believes that all people everywhere deserve their innate, inalienable, universal human rights, and that the richest, strongest, most diverse and most powerful democracy in the history of the world has a duty to help lead a movement of all free nations to liberate all our brothers and sisters everywhere from tryanny, genocide, degradation - and the poverty and ignorance and racism which are bred by tyrnannies. (This USED TO BE called liberalism, but has become known as "classical liberalism" or neo-conservatism.)
Take your pick; choose which camp YOU want to be in. I know which one I'm in - the same one as FDR and Truman and JFK and Reagan - and Blair and Bush.
Only this last camp realizes that we are now counter-attacking in what will be a very LONG WAR - one that won't be over until the world's last truly evil totalitarian ideology is defeated everywhere, and every nation everywhere has a self-determined, self-styled democracy. Afghanistan and Iraq are merely the first two major campaigns in this war.
The status quoists, realists and pacifists would appease the enemy in the false hope that this would stall their plans. (Appeasement has never ever accomplished the goals which it sets out for itself - it has always only ever strengthened the enemy and made the inevitable clash worse than it might otherwise have been. ) The post-modernists would go even further and make sacrifices and reparations to the enemy. The opportunists... well, they could never be trusted to do anything based on any prinicple.
THE ONLY CAMP WHICH OFFERS ANY PROACTIVE STRATEGY OR ANY HOPE OF TRUE VICTORY IS THE UNIVERSALIST CAMP.
ADDENDUM: How this taxonomy plays out on the partisan-political landscape:
REALISTS - who say Saddam was contained, Bush should've left him alone, and they argue that democracy won't work in Iraq because Iraqi culture and social disparities can't accomodate it. They think you can make deals/arrangements/treaties with the enemy, and co-exist with them - from Hamas to Iran to North Korea.
JIHADISTS - like OBL and Zawahiri and Zarqawi - who know that their totalitarian ideology can only be imposed by using horrific intimidation, and who know that only a robust USA can prevent them from imposing their repressive ideology and re-establishing the Caliphate under sharia.
PACIFISTS - who oppose the use of any deadly force - and even opposed the USA's entry into WW2.
POST-MODERNISTS - like Sheehan and Chomsky and Kucinich- who say that we deserved 9/11 and that we should withdraw from the Third World and return to them the wealth we stole as colonialists and imperialists and globalists, and that we should abandon our "colony" Israel and let Muslims run their own world.
OPPORTUNISTS - like Schroeder and Clinton and Biden and Hagel - who oppose Bush whenever they feel they can make a political gain.
And Bush - he's best described as an idealist or a UNIVERSALIST: Bush believes that all people everywhere deserve their innate, inalienable, universal human rights, and that the richest, strongest, most diverse and most powerful democracy in the history of the world has a duty to help lead a movement of all free nations to liberate all our brothers and sisters everywhere from tryanny, genocide, degradation - and the poverty and ignorance and racism which are bred by tyrnannies. (This USED TO BE called liberalism, but has become known as "classical liberalism" or neo-conservatism.)
Take your pick; choose which camp YOU want to be in. I know which one I'm in - the same one as FDR and Truman and JFK and Reagan - and Blair and Bush.
Only this last camp realizes that we are now counter-attacking in what will be a very LONG WAR - one that won't be over until the world's last truly evil totalitarian ideology is defeated everywhere, and every nation everywhere has a self-determined, self-styled democracy. Afghanistan and Iraq are merely the first two major campaigns in this war.
The status quoists, realists and pacifists would appease the enemy in the false hope that this would stall their plans. (Appeasement has never ever accomplished the goals which it sets out for itself - it has always only ever strengthened the enemy and made the inevitable clash worse than it might otherwise have been. ) The post-modernists would go even further and make sacrifices and reparations to the enemy. The opportunists... well, they could never be trusted to do anything based on any prinicple.
THE ONLY CAMP WHICH OFFERS ANY PROACTIVE STRATEGY OR ANY HOPE OF TRUE VICTORY IS THE UNIVERSALIST CAMP.
ADDENDUM: How this taxonomy plays out on the partisan-political landscape:
There are only one or two universalists in the Democrat Party - which is home base for ALL post-modernists and pacificists. Status quoists, realists and opportunists make up strong minorities in both parties. If Bush wasn't a universalist then we wouldn't have EVER invaded Iraq. He is truly LEADING the Free World in The Long War. Only the universalists are hawks; all the other camps are basically doves.
The way things look now, opportunists will gain seats in the 2006 election. The result might be less bold actions - and more appeasement - in the Long War.
If - in 2008 - the USA doesn't elect a POTUS who is a universalist (and with Blair's chosen successor Gordon Brown being an unkown), well.... then the Free World will retreat (by letting Assad stay in power, letting Iran get nukes, letting Kim stay in power, by financing Hamas, and by seceding our foreign polciy to the UN and the EU) - until the next big terrorist attack.
A major jihadoterrorist attack HERE will make us feel like we're in a foxhole together. For a while. If at that time a "non-univeralist" is in the WH, then we will probably point fingers at each other rather than strike back as Bush did.
Because the Democrats have basically not supported the Long War, al Qaeda will do whatever it can to foment an Iraqi Civil War between now and the November election in the US - in order to try to get an appeasing/dovish majority - a DEMOCRAT majority - in one or both houses.
If they accomplish this, then I'd expect them to lauch a really MASSIVE attack against us and/or our allies - so their comrades in the MSM can spin it as a major loss LIKE THEY DID WITH TET. This will give the doves a pretext for blaming Bush and withdrawing, (like the doves did vis a vis Vietnam: They blamed LBJ and Nixon and suspended aid to the South Vietnamese Gov in 1975. This led to the Fall of Saigon, 1 MILLION Boat People, the rise of Pol Pot, and to 3.5 MILLION slaughtered by socialist genocide in SE Asia.)
Actually I'm a Jackson Republican when pushed into war respond with maximum violence. If you don't intend to win don't go.
ReplyDeletewell that's cool.
ReplyDeletemy point here is not everyone is willing to go to war fior the same things, and that some are willing to accept "dhimmitude."
only the universalists are willing to go to war to liberate their fellow humans.
this is what LIBERALS fdr, truman, lbj and jfk vowed - as well as conservative reagan.
the universalist agenda trasncends party, and the OLD left-right divide.
fukuyama has bailed out pn neoconservatism. but my point is that its the ONLY liberational political movement. and the best antidote to both all forms of tyranny and appaeaement - to BOTH jihadism and socialism.
all the best.