Santa,
Not doing anything is indeed a choice. A choice the VAST MAJORITY of nations belonging to the UN have made.
We have done things. Some everlastingly right, a few everlastingly wrong. But we DID act.
And what do we get for it but dead sons and scorn?
I expect no reward other than an acknowledgement that WE, unlike those that sat on their bleeding hands, TRIED OUR BEST. If that's just too difficult, a pox on all your houses.
Tell you what...
How about the US supplies the UN with an entire Air Wing, Navy Carrier Group and an Armored Division. Just the equipment, not the personnel. And the rest of the world can man the equipment and solve all the world's problems. We'll even supply the $$ to keep it all running.
Deal?
Didn't think so.
This isn't about support for any operation against Iraq. It's about acknowledging an honest effort and honest motives over many, many years.
You won't have to look very far to find the naysayers on those two items either. I expect they'll be along shortly.
OTOH, this is the crux of the issue for me and many of my fellow countrymen. If everything we do is castigated and derided, if all our actions are attributed to the basest motives....
a pox on all your houses. Do it yourselves then. You'll find it's not as easy as you would think.
Again I say look where our armies have been and what has grown behind them in their passage. Compare THAT to other world powers of the past.
I suspect that China will rule the world stage when we step aside as I hope we will. What tender mercies then await the world from the folks that brought you Tiananmen?
As to those on this board who've slammed the US for waiting so long to get involved in WW2, it once again simply shows a lack of historical grounding.
You even seem to overlook Wilson's "14 Points". Yes, the US was a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, an acknowledged starting point of WW2. But would that Treaty have been a cause of WW2 if Wilson's 14 points had been adopted in toto by the other "Great Powers"? Convenient to overlook that, isn't it?
The world was quite different then. There was no UN. The League of Nations was totally ineffective. It lost it's "relevance" (in the parlance of Powell and Bush speaking of the UN recently) when the League failed to oppose Nazi Germany's marching armies.
The American neutrality acts, passed successively by Congress during the middle 1930’s, placed increasingly strict controls on the ability of the United State to assist any parties that would become involved in the seemingly inevitable conflict on the European mainland. Roosevelt's hands were tied in many (most) respects.
The US population was still very isolationist prior to Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt was lucky to get Lend-Lease past the isolationists in Congress.
Even Britain itself had to hustle and draw up Mutual Assistance Treaty with Poland on August 25th -six days before the Germans invaded- in order to have a Causus Belli in an attempt to stop the Germans.
Countries just didn't jump into wars UNLESS they had treaties of mutual assistance with one of the combatants.
It's HOW IT WAS DONE then. The League of Nations had no real power. There was no UN. There were TREATIES between nations for mutual defense/assistance.
Any student of history is aware of the US Neutrality Acts and the near total lack of any US "mutual defense treaties".
We COULDN'T just "join in". There were our national laws and the laws of just war.
Interestingly, these same folks that think we were negligently late are often the very same ones that castigate us NOW when we take action... or even propose action.. unilaterally.
Yep. Scorn us for not acting unilaterally then... scorn us if we even discuss unilateral action now.
As to your comment on fighting WW2, remind yourself that it was only Hitler's idiocy that allowed Roosevelt a clear field to enter the European War. If Hitler had the sense Cod gave a goat, he'd NEVER have declared war on the US.
OUR war was with Japan; it was Japan that attacked us. Given that Hitler's declaration allowed Roosevelt to finally jump into Europe with both feet, the Pacific war took far longer than it would have and cost far more lives.
Had we concentrated solely on defeating Japan, it would have been a very short Pacific war. OUR war would have been very short.
I don't worry about those who would attack the US. I think we can handle them. The world won't like the way we do it.. but I believe that pressed hard enough we can convince everyone involved that it's best to just leave us the heck alone. In fact, I'm extremely confident of that.
Disillusioned and tired, feeling old and worn? I get this feeling, as if you've fought long, hard and brave, but simply does not have the energy for the fight anymore. I might be utterly wrong though.
Yep, you're utterly wrong. None of those things. More like a banker writing off a bad loan. To quote the old Godfather movie.. "it's just business". We've wasted a huge amount of resources.
Does the cost/benefit analysis include the economical loss that comes with losing big financial and national interests abroad?
Allow me to let a far wiser man answer. George Washington, as quoted above:
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest.
But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand:
neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things;
diffusing & deversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing;
establishing with Powers so disposed--in order to give to trade a stable course, to define the rights of our Merchants, and to enable the Government to support them--conventional rules of intercourse;
the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, & liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
We have a desirable market. Trade will occur. If we follow Washinton's advice, trade will bloom.
But as it is, the US is the only country which alone can stop ethnic cleansing anywhere on earth. As such, it has a responsibility to do it.
So it would seem as the Bosnia situation clearly illustrated. But even THAT took an illegal act by NATO to accomplish... because the UN WOULD NOT DO WHAT WAS NECESSARY. The world seems to need/use the US for the "wet work" so they can "disavow any knowledge" as they used to say.
I'm no longer interested in playing that role for the rest. Sorry.
We have families to feed right here. We have seniors that need food AND medical attention. We have schools that don't measure up. Time we looked internally at problems for a while.
As I said, I'd willingly give up the equipment for a "combined arms" UN unit and let our much more sophisticated brethren on Human Rights Commision of the UN save the world for a while while we tend our own neglected garden for some time.
I don't care if the wolf dies. You know, there's a reason mankind tried to eradicate wolves whenever they came into contact with them.
