Comments on: Forging a Bipartisan Foreign Policy Consensus

By: Across the Aisle » Sen. Glenn on Bipartisan Foreign Policy Consensus

Across the Aisle » Sen. Glenn on Bipartisan Foreign Policy Consensus — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:33:51 +0000

[...] I was at the American Political Science Association panel on foreign policy bipartisanship that Chris Preble organized last weekend (see his descriptions here and here). And I was struck by the consensus on the panel: essentially everyone agreed that the Republicans and the Democrats pretty much agree about foreign policy strategy (they disagree about tactics — more on that in a second). But I thought that Peter Feaver had the most interesting comment. Not the one that Steve Clemons, who was on the panel, blogged about (in which Feaver responded to my question by challenging the world to find instances in which the Bush administration had ever questioned its critics’ patriotism). Peter’s most interesting point was one that I think most people in the room agreed about, rather than the one that shocked the audience. [...]

By: Roger A. Wehage

Roger A. Wehage — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 14:48:38 +0000

You said, “There will be no timeline for troop withdrawal. U.S. military personnel will remain in Iraq until the conditions improve. And, as we have been waiting for conditions to improve for over three years now, it is not unreasonable to assume that there will be U.S. troops in Iraq for many years to come.”

That statement seems quite shortsighted to me.

Americans are compassionate people, but their compassion can only stretch so far. In the past, American compassion was for the faceless Iraqis dying at the hands of Hussein’s thugs. Today, American compassion is rapidly switching to real people (Americans) dying at the hands of faceless people. Americans dying at the hands of faceless people is much more important to compassionate Americans than faceless people dying at the hands of faceless people.

So, if a significant number of Americans are still dying at the hands of faceless people by late 2007 or early 2008, then we can expect promises of withdrawal from Iraq, if not unilateral withdrawal, in all political party platforms. Let us not forget the power of American compassion in the waning days of the Vietnam war.

http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrBeyondVietnam.htm

Try to imagine what good that half trillion dollars that we will have wasted on this war by the end of 2007 could have done for this country’s future. Suppose that money had been invested in preparing for the inevitable day of world economic collapse, leading to the Second Great Depression, which promises to be an order of magnitude worse than the First Great Depression. At least in the First Great Depression we still had “unlimited” oil and gas reserves. But, in the Second Great Depression we will be scraping from the bottom of the oil barrel, and our gargantuan car and truck fleet will be worthless. Unlike much of the world, we will have in place no alternative means to survive.

http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS7.pdf

For a look at how the Cubans coped with our idiotic policies, see

http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS2.pdf
http://www.communitysolution.org/cuba.html

By: THE DIPLOMATIC TIMES REVIEW

THE DIPLOMATIC TIMES REVIEW — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:48:31 +0000

Is A Bipartisan Foreign Policy Consensus Possible In The U.S.?

Christopher Preble, director of Defense Policy Studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, declared in an August 25th, 2006 article at the Partnership For a Secure America blog, Across The Ailes: “More evidence pours in of the public’s fru…