I've been trying, the last few days, to come up with something to say about Tom Lantos and his claim that "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy." Preferably my comment would be pithy, rooted in American history and constitutional law, and gently point out the Congressman's error in an eminently reasonable fashion.
Unfortunately, every time I start thinking about this deeply stupid statement I boil over. It might strike Congressman Lantos as good clean fun to chip away at the corner stones of our nation but, as he of all people should realize, if you bring down the edifice the first people who will be hurt are those sheltering beneath it. The very idea of a political party acting on a foreign policy at odds with the policies of the government is ... is ... is ...
I give up. It is bad. It is so bad that I can't even say how bad it is.
7 comments:
You know, if we really are going to hell this time, then what we need is a faster handcart. Nobody learns anything useful from a long, slow collapse.
"[M]y own income tax code."
Now, there's a movement I can get behind.
Peter, the last thing I ever posted at oj's place, before he banned me, went something like this: Diagnosis, not argument, is the only proper response to that. As I am not qualified, here we shall stop.
Can't do any better with Congressman Lantos. Sorry. I have got no idea what's going through these people's heads.
. . . as bad as Bishop Walsh's peacemaking?
Peter, the only reason the US has proven itself no match is that it hasn't played. If the other side wants asymmetrical warfare, we can make it as asymmetrical as anyone could imagine.
We will, too, eventually. Nobody can say he hasn't been warned.
Maybe we should cash in a carrier group and buy every Iranian a trip to Hiroshima, with me as tour guide.
What Harry said.
The U.S. have been playing with Marquis of Queensbury rules; the opposition in Iraq and Afghanistan have been using the customs of 19th century Mississippi river bargemen.
The American secondary goals of not too-badly offending European sensibilities, and of leaving behind a working Iraqi society, cause the conflict to be mostly about policing, from the American perspective.
Should the U.S. stop worrying about those secondary goals, then any opposition will find out what "just keep on coming" really means.
They could watch the movie Terminator to get a preview, keeping in mind that there won't be any hero-from-the-future for them. (Mostly because they have no future, irrespective of what America does. They're dead-enders, like the parrot-hunting Stone Age tribes of the Amazon).
What's really sort of surprising is that they (the Democrats and our enemies) expect us to act better than they do -- and we do.
True, up to a point.
I was going to say that it's perhaps past time to be surprised about it. We have, after all, considerable experience now. We should be able to anticipate how other people will behave.
Or they should. I guess I am surprised that they think they can poke the lion's flank endlessly without the lion ever turning around to face them.
More faith or more ignorance?
There's not much justification for them to be ignorant.
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