"This is playing with fire. In (that area), signs of impatience can be misinterpreted as symptoms of weakness. We cannot afford that in a region where weakness attracts vultures."
Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under President Clinton, to Senator Byrd, who wanted to limit US involvement in the Balkans.
Ms. Albright went on, "We will not achieve our goals in Southeast Europe if our eyes are always on the clock and our focus is solely on what others do. We are more than bookkeepers and spectators. We are leaders, and our fundamental objective in Southeast Europe is not to leave. It's to win."
How soon they forget.
3 comments:
I have long felt that the controversy about the Iraq war isn't so much philosophical as it is political. I think most of the opposition is more interested in garnering votes than it is in some deep-seated opposition to war in general. It appears to me that the Democrat leadership is devoid of principles and occupied with solidifying their power.
As the adversaries are so enamored with their Vietnam comparisons, let's explore this one. The fact that our country lost its collective will in Vietnam contributed to stupidity in fighting that war, the ill-advised pullout in 1973 and the refusal to assist the South in 1975. Combine this with two inept presidents and you have an untenable situation. This forced thousands of people to flee the communists and thousands upon thousands more died at their hands. No one made a decision to fight the war to win it. It also led to the demoralization of our military. I know I was one.
I fear the same mentality is taking hold today. Vietnam was a quagmire because of the unwise, poll-driven decisions of politicians who refused to let the military fight the war. As Yogi said, "Deja vu all over again."
The opposition to the war in Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Grenada all spring from the same source: a desire to prove moral and intellectual superiority coupled with necessarily low standards of evidence.
Start out with the observation that war is bad. Thus anyone who supports war, any war, is bad and stupid and anyone opposed to war is good and smart.
It follows, and is unarguable, that good, smart people should govern otherwise bad, stupid people might govern, resulting in all sorts of tragedy.
It's actually the responsibility of the good, smart people to acquire political power lest political power fall into the hands of bad, stupid people. That responsibility is taken very seriously, so seriously that it's clearly justification for taking practically any action.
Certainly nothing as trivial as the law should be an impediment to smart, good people acquiring political power to thwart the evil designs of bad, stupid people.
This explains the attraction of the United Nations.
The UN is viewed as a proto-world government which is important if you consider the weighty insight that governments start wars. If there's only one government there can be no more war. After all, will a government declare war on itself the American Civil War not withstanding? Thus, anyone opposed to the UN must favor war and anyone who favors war is bad and stupid, etc.
See? It all makes sense.
I share your distrust(?) of the UN. It is a failed experiment. Wilson wasted his lifeblood on the League of Nations, nearly killing himself, in the vain hope that people are really good and given some guidance will do the right thing. Rousseau aside, people are human, some are good, some are evil. We are confronted by evil and how we respond will determine our survival. Sound dramatic. Good. I just saw a video of a 17 year old girl being stoned to death because she fell in love with a boy of the wrong religion. It took the 8 or 9 men 30 minutes to kill her. These are the people we are dealing with.
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