poncho said:Reading the neocon's essays and policy papers from the past one might get the impression that their goal is world military and economic domination. (their words) Is that an American value or virtue? What gives us the right to tell others how to live, and threaten them with certain destruction if they don't do things our way, especially after we have forced some of the world's worst tyrants on them ourselves? Saddam was another one of "our" creations, just as Bin Laden and Al Qeada was created by our own CIA and the Pakistani ISI who also helped to create the Taliban.
Now we're busy creating even more enemies to fight later on and making them more powerful and dangerous by funding known terrorist groups to destabilize Iran. Is that you're idea of the road to victory? Creating a never ending supply of enemies to fight? Seems more like insanity than a way to victory to me. Why do you suppose our "failures" always seem to benefit our big brother government/police state and the military/energy industrial complexes and never the people?
What gives any of us the right to tell anyone else how to live or to threaten them with consequences if they don't do things our way? Justice, security, freedom, and liberty all require - demand - that we do this. This is why, in our own country, we exercise control of one another while carefully guarding and preserving as much individual freedom as is possible. When some among us misbehave in a manner so as to impede justice, threaten security, trample on freedom of others, or disrupt the order that fosters liberty we react to them with whatever force of law - including deadly force - as is required. Internationally, it is fundamentally the same. We don't demand that all nations do exactly as we do. We don't demand they all have the same type government as we do. We don't even demand that all people have the same freedom. We do, however, demand that they not misbehave in a manner so at to harm or threaten to harm our own. History has taught that this is necessary both among neighbors and among nations. It is a consequence of the sinful nature of mankind. We will always have enemies and we will always struggle with giving them room among us or countering them as needed to maintain a balance between needs.