Quote:
Originally Posted by Reverend_Hellh0und  They are not "for peace" and they do not understand the value of peace. We do. We are the peace makers, and we know that peace is not the absence of war but the presence of Justice. |
The is exactly the case. I would absolutely love to be able to state that the absence of war at any cost was only a Cold War attitude, but it would be erroneous.
- Our attitudes after World War II was criminal. We condemned and abandoned Poland behind a wall of oppression for fifty years simply because the prospect of further war to free those we sought to free from a fascist empire in the first place was too much to bear.
- Throughout the Cold War we offered support towards some dictators just to deny their allegiance to the Soviet Union. We also allied with religious warriors simply to deny the Soviet Union their bold entrance into the Middle East. Along the way, we tried to hold true to our values by attempting to be-friend the players on both sides of the modern day Arab crusade in the desert while our red counterparts sought only to introduce turmoil and descension in order to give themselves the edge.
- In Vietnam, we fought for the Vietnamese against their northern communist oppressors without any consideration of the corrupt and useless government we were defending in the south.
And then came the period of history where we became really confused about our role in this world. We encountered a situation that was a first. When the Kremlin fell, the world saw for the first time a truly global domination by one nation. We had truly become the indispensable country (better us than somebody else). All three President's ever since has struggled to define our role. And they have had so much trouble because they are dealing with outdated customs and expired notions of organization at every level in our government and in the international organizations. The first President Bush showed how to unite the world against a tyrant, but failed to push the world beyond their intellectual thinking that had provided Saddam Hussein his magic carpet ride back to Baghdad to continue his local terror unmolested. President Clinton provided the world with the rhetoric of a new world order of humanitarianism and good will, but failed to come through on his promises as terror went unchallenged and endeavors half-assed. The current President Bush finally took steps to act on our values, but failed to understand the local cultures or the concept of values that the world has created for themselves. The concept of "good" as defined by taking out a tyrant that we (all the world) relied upon for our sense of "peace and stability" was trumped by a concept of "good" that has been defined by obeying UN rules that protect the dictator.
We continue to struggle with those words "stability and peace." Stability does not mean peace, but
true peace will always mean stability. And this is what we have to start understanding. We have to start acknowledging that supporting the dictators (and standing by as they terrorize is supporting them) only ever offerred us temporary stability against a larger threat. In the end we have turned an already backwards, volatile, and religiously radical civilization towards us instead of towards their own governments and culture or towards those outside nations that truly sought to oppress them.
Considered "an eminent representative of the liberal political tradition, "
Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that
"America is great because she is good, but if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." But what defines "good?" The support of the dicatator or the denial of him? The oppression of millions or their freedom? Somehow, "good" for many has been defined as simply obeying an organization largely made up of oppressors, abusers, and dictators. Somehow, nations like China and Russia are supposed to have an equal vote into what free nations decide is best for the world. And somehow, free people in our free nations have offerred them total adherence simply to cling to their notion of what we are supposed to do. By the way, Tocqueville wrote this about America in 1835 when America was celebrating slavery and oppression within its borders. His idea of "good" continues to plague the international community as they pervert their values and jeer us when we attempt to break from their traditional thought.
If taking out a dictator is considered wrong then what exactly does that mean for nations who fought us diplomatically to preserve him? And what does that say about the people who thought the same? They are wrong and they are the plague. I would argue that it is our own backwards intellectual habits of thought that are the true threat to "peace."
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