I know, how about we abandon the civil war in Iraq and let the sunnis and shiites go about wiping each other out; and go get mixed up in some of the many civil wars in Africa.

Give a call to the French or the Germans, they aren't using their armies anyway...

The other option is to send in a peace-keeping force and hope that the President isn't gutless enough to "pull out to soon" like in Somalia.

Worry not Americans! This election will not be rigged, it will be bought!

I know, how about we abandon the civil war in Iraq and let the sunnis and shiites go about wiping each other out;

That works for me. These are tribal people who have been killing each other for centuries. We're not going to stop that by popping in with an offer of democracy, and anybody who thinks so is naive.

> Personally, I think it's the
> U.N.'s job to quell
> humanitarian crises

That says nothing. The UN is peopled with [A] the syphilitic nephews of corrupt kings and murderous potentates (most nations); [B] literate but impotent democracies whose military incompetence has been acceptable to the United States for various reason (Europe); and [C] assholes (China).

The rest of the world is never, ever going to spend or risk anything to defend anyone else... Especially through the United Nations. They're too poor, they're too dim, they're too corrupt, and they're too cowardly.

I'm repeating myself.

There was a convincing article from Krauthammer a few years ago about Somalia... I can't find the link now (will post later if it turns up), but the gist was that although it pained him to say so, Clinton had done the right thing in Mogadishu. The descent of that nation into chaos was not something that a moral superpower could watch happen, and so he tried to put a stop to it. Yet we had no vital interests there; so when our nose was bloodied (18 American deaths and one Malaysian death in the UN force), we withdrew. Good call, said Krauthammer.

Relevant passages found while looking for the original piece:

>> In Haiti and Kosovo, Bill Clinton wisely chose casualty-free battle plans. In the absence of any strategic necessity for these adventures, he knew that with even a few American casualties he'd pull us out, as in Somalia.

>> The essence of foreign policy is deciding which son of a bitch to support and which to oppose--in 1941, Hitler or Stalin; in 1972, Brezhnev or Mao; in 1979, Somoza or Ortega. One has to choose. A blanket anti-son of a bitch policy, like a blanket anti-ethnic cleansing policy, is soothing, satisfying and empty. It is not a policy at all but righteous self-delusion.

Sheesh- Somalia gets mentioned before I can even get a comment in.

Listen, the United States isn't like other nations. Yes, it's been a shitty decade. But it's a shitty planet... And for the record, I know many Americans for whom these nine years have been the best of their lives, and the best anyone in their family has ever had. And I think American influence on people overseas has, on the whole, been a tremendous blessing in this time as well.

(If you think that's not true because of Iraq, then I think you don't recognize how deeply our presence sets the tone for this globe. Educationally, nutritionally, medically, politically, feministic-ally....)

But our recent shortcomings seem to have convinced many people that the American experiment was badly composed, and that it didn't allow for central truths about human nature for which other nations have made better arrangements.

So then you ask these freshly-humbled and seemingly-wizened patriots where else they'd wanna live, and which freedoms they'd be willing to surrender in order to fit into a new home, and they offer no answer. Silence.

I remember a few years ago, probably just after the attacks, when Reynolds and Kaus appeared at a panel at UCLA discussing these newfangled blogs. Reynolds was introduced (if memory serves) by Volokh, who I'd never heard of. (Reynolds actually let Volokh do some short posts on Instapundit that day, which he'd never let anyone do before. But a theme of his talk was that he didn't let others stand on his blog as their own soap box. Soon enough, the Californian had his own site up and running.)

There was something challenging about Volokh that I couldn't put my finger on. It wasn't just the brains: I grew up around academics and know better than to be impressed. It wasn't that he was stunningly handsome, or athletic or well-dressed (he's a law prof, fer Chrissakes). But it was a body-language thing. Later I learned that he was a first-generation Russian immigrant, and that he'd hosted a bunch of (lefty) bloggers on a visit to the firing range, and it all became clear-- He felt the power of his freedoms more deeply than other people, even when just walking around a mundane American lecture hall. He loved American freedoms, and he was going to embrace every last one of the little mothers.

We got nowhere else to go, and we got no one else to be.

Should The U.S. Be The World's Police Force?

Hell, no!

What's getting your neighbors killed right now is this damned idiotic idea.

I served in the Navy. I have friends who are active duty right now, and others who have rotated into and out of Iraq. The American forces are literally unstoppable anywhere a nuke doesn't get used - providing some harebrain doesn't start confusing the battlefield with a courtroom, confusing the other side with a law-abiding people.

Any jackass who puts a restraining hand on a soldier to impose the Made-For-TV-Movie stunt of "do not fire unless fired upon" is simply an evil, sick and ignorant empty suit who learned about battle sitting in the dark with popcorn in his/her lap.

You send the military to kill people and destroy the ability of an enemy to make war. If you do not want to do that, you need to think about what the hell you're doing and change that.

You forget that, you, yourself, enable the body bags to come home, to a house near you.

Congress has the Constitutional duty to declare war. Doing so would not only end the decades of malfeasance of office Congress has committed (enjoying the interns and pages, secure in the knowledge that the public only knows the name of the President so he can do the "dirty" work under the War Powers Act), it would also clarify and enable laws pertaining to the handling of prisoners and the act of treason.

Oh. You might not know what the word "prisoner" means, so eager we are to hide that we have them. You might have heard of this by the name, "detainee". Barf!

We can't be the world's police when we don't allow our soldiers to do what's needed. Telling them to patrol and be visible but not fire, for example.

I like the concept of the US being a force for good, but we can't do it alone. We haven't the money or the lives.

Maybe we need to do what I do as a parent: "If I need to come in there and solve it, neither of you is going to like the solution"

Maybe if we'd been a bit more aggressive in the face of terrorist attacks in the past we wouldn't be in the pickle we're in today.

Just a thought.

It is very sad that people are killing each other in Darfur. It is very unfortunate and tragic.

I do not think we should go in.
a) I am not convinced it is our moral obligation to fix other people's messes. Have we even been asked by the Sudanese to help?
b) I am not convinced that if we DID go in, we would help matters. We might fuck it up worse. Or at least prolong the current fuck.

Unless it is in our national interest, and will benefit the bulk of the American people in an important way, (not just a few at the top), we should not go fight in wars.

There may be times when there is national and international consensus on clear humanitarian issues.
* Then the U.S. should be a contributor to Multi-lateral world policing efforts.
** Flawed as it is, the UN represents the best international consensus system ever established and we should fix it as possible, not scrap it. (I agree with Amy?)

We cannot afford war on our own (unless we are directly, DIRECTLY, threatened).
* Our domestic and economic goals are always compromised by ill advised involvement in foreign conflict.
** e.g.: price of oil, economic meltdown

Without great degrees of consensus, we shouldn't do it.
* Lack of consensus has shown (Iraq and Viet Nam) that
we do not reliably understand the conflicts and dynamics all around the world.

Viet Nam, and now Iraq, are examples of our getting sucked into countries where a post colonial power shake out has been magnified by US involvement.
* In Iraq, removal of Sadam's regime cannot justify the death and destruction toll we brought to the situation (100K dead).
* In Viet Nam we added large quantities of death and destruction to a situation that ended up worse 10 years later, than if we had just stayed out of it 10 years earlier.
** Rumor, probably not true, JFK was killed for thinking about leaving Viet Nam, who really knows.

We can't fight for democracy if we can't respect the Palestinians when they vote overwhelmingly for Hamas.
* We don't understand democracy as well as we think we do.
* Do we understand how big oil pushed us into Iraq, right through our democratic system.
** WMD my @$$
** Don't we feel used??
* And don't forget the holy alliance of end of days people and Zionists, fulfilling their bibles war prophecies through our democracy.

Guys, take a last look at that Krauthammer passage above, OK?

Know what you got when you turn bravado upside down? You got bravado, only upside down.

Compared to much of the world, the United States is a tiny island of sanity and decency and cleanliness. Partly that's because we've played our cards right, and partly it's because we're insanely fortunate. Either way, people here know that it's cosmically unjust to let huge populations in the rest of the world wallow in squalor while we stand around burping burrito vapor and trying to get a peek down Scarlett Johansson's blouse. So we make tremendous efforts to maintain the safety of our friends and commons through strength and through kindness.

We needn't pretend this is entirely humanitarian. The attacks of 9/11 were the product of social frictions (in Saudi Arabia, mostly) created by our presumption that we could keep all the nasty things far away while just bringing the sweet stuff (oil) back home.

What exactly do you guys think is going on in Afghanistan right now? Do we have any interest in that country at all? Does anyone have any "interests" there? They got nuthin. They got rocks and they got warlords, and that's it.

(Well, they also got poverty and illiteracy and filth and the occasional poppy blossom.)

The reason we're there is it's such a hellhole that bad guys will hide out there unless civilization (meaning you-know-who) maintains a constabulary presence. We're not just doing this for ourselves, though it certainly provides a benefit to us... The rest of the civilized world is protected as well, whether they chip in to the effort or not. (To say nothing of what it means to schoolgirls in Kabul.)

Yeah... We're the police. Don't kid yourselves. In a room full of children, a grown man is guardian, always.

Listen, you've had a bad week... There's the irritation of the campaign sloganeering, the nightmare of our financial crisis, and the simmering horror of the war in Iraq. You're entitled to some indulgence, OK? If you wanna spend the weekend with your wrists perched on your knees chirping that "We're not the world's policeman!", go ahead. But sometime near dusk on Sunday, start reeling it in, OK? We've got new challenges on Monday, like always.

Being World Police is an admirable goal, but there must be a cheaper and more effective way to do it than sending troops in. The US has no money now, so it's probably a good time to start thinking about that. I think the CIA was doing a good job, as they would just kill any dangerous petty dictator, no fuss no muss. It also kept the US from being such a visible target, so you'd avoid all those ugly demonstrations.

World Police or World Bullies? Sometimes it really does seem like we're out to force the rest of the world to live just like us whether they like it or not and that's not democracy, that's totalarism. It is no wonder we're as hated as we are. Probably wouldn't be if we'd just leave the rest of the world the fuck alone.

Yes, I'll give you that it's a hard choice to make. We look at what's happening in Darfur and human compassion kicks in and it's hard to see why we should ignore something horrendous, hard to admit it's none of our business. When do you ignore a potential Hitler and when do you stop him in his tracks? And how do we decide? (And note that we did not get involved with WWII until we were attacked.)

These thoughts that do occassionally keep me up at night is why I can't phatom why anyone would want to be President. It's a tough line to draw.

But, overall, I think we get involved too often and we could take a page from all those countries who have the sense to mind their own business. Cowardly? No, they are looking after their own interests and that's entirely justifiable. Charity begins at home for a reason. Take care of your own first then if you have extra and are so inclined, share with your neighbors.

But giving the shirt off your back is just plain stupid. As is not putting enough aside for your future including a nice stockpile (savings in modern form; the lives of our own soldier citizens and their offspring in the agenda we're discussing) in case shit happens.

We are asking our soldiers to put their lives on the line. We should put their lives before the lives of people in foreign lands involved in civil wars, etc. Or do we really think we have enough young men to throw away on all these foreign lives? Tell me that we do and then still try to explain to me with a straight face that it's a humanitarium effort. And if you can do that, please explain to me why the lives in those foreign lands are more valuable than the lives of those young men and women we're sending over there.

For once, I agree with the Ayn Rand Institute.

And humanitarium? Bullshit. What we're currently doing is offering human sacrifices to the oil gods.