I agree with Bush foreign policy

by phil on Thursday Oct 2, 2003 1:32 PM
geopolitics_old

Some disclosures: I'm a leftie and I want Bush out of office. Nonetheless, I want to argue that Bush's foreign policy is OK.

The fundamental challenge after 9/11 has been the following:
"How can you respond to terrorism without asking the question, 'why do they hate us.'"

You can't respond back with incredible force because that'll only incite more terrorism, but if you give into terrorists' demands, then you encourage others to follow suit.

What's the US to do? Both.

I feel that the underlying reason to go to Iraq was to remove Saddam, which allowed us to remove troops from Saudi Arabia, which was bin Laden's primary concern.

However, if you sold that point to the American public or the world, then it'd look like we automatically give in to terrorists. Hell, bin Laden was happy that we went to Iraq... so all this nonsense that Gulf War II will create more terrorism than less is wrong. Maybe that region will become more unstable, but al-Qaeda has been appeased.

This was Paul Wolfowitz's line of reasoning but it was immediately withdrawn since it's clear that this concept is confusing to Americans.

What are the alternatives? Well, less reliance on oil from that region, but you can't accomplish that overnight. Bush has started supporting fuel cells and what not, but that'll take 10 years to take effect. A short-term solution would be to propose "energy-saving tips" like Carter did or not buy oil from the middle east, but that would upset Americans.

What about international cooperation? The Bush administration did have a point that all this coordination with other nations was making it diificult to protect it's interests. Especially imagine in this tricky situation, how could you get the UN's permission to fight a war in one country so you could remove troops from another country to appease a terrorist hiding somewhere else? Plus, we're not even supposed to appease terrorists in the first place.

I hear this talk that, "oh, we had the support of the whole world after 9/11." Hah, yeah right, that was just a natural reaction of people toward the immediately wounded. Nobody felt the pain of 9/11 like America felt the pain, there is no way they would care as much about solving the terrorism problem as we do. Only when the big buildings of London come down will there be some serious collaboration.

The president is supposed to represent the best interests of his country's citizens, and I think that american's top priority after 9/11 was their personal safety. By appeasing al-Qaeda while giving the appearance of a wild and irrational warthog, Americans are safer. Plus every war we get into improves our military technology which also makes us safer.

However, I personally say that our security interests are not as necessary of a concern as caring for the lives of other people from other countries. But I don't know what it's like to be attacked, I've been too blessed with safety to be afraid.

Whatever, regardless of my personal values, the question is whether the president is doing his job in keeping America safe from foreign attacks? The answer is, yes.

I hear all this talk from the Democrats about how wrong Bush is on foreign policy, but I want to take them to task and find out what would be the first things to do after 9/11. The most common thing I hear is, "We would establish an international committee to blah blah blah" that won't get rid of bin Laden, and that won't answer the question, "why do they hate us." Hell it might answer that question by coming to the conclusion that we should have less of a presence in these regions, but once again, American saftey depends on the appearance of American strength, so withdrawing makes it look like we're weak.

Comments

Rachid said on May 12, 2004 5:00 AM:

Iam moroccan and am agree with the article