Adam Baney continues our conversation on war and peace. He uses arguments we've heard before, so let's address the counters:
You write as if this country is somehow autonomous, and not affected by world events. It's not that we need to act as the world's police force, but being visible on the world's stage can play an overwhelming role in deterrence.
No, the US is most certainly NOT "autonomous." It's a highly interdependent world, including for the US. War interrupts the free flow of trade, people and ideas. Contributing to the war footing, I suggest, makes our interdependence and global prosperity worse, not better. Being "visible" is, IMO, a squishy concept. Coca Cola and McDonald's hold high the US banner far better than troops in a place like Germany, which is a massive drain on the US taxpayer and I believe history shows empire-like efforts increase the likelihood of war rather than decreasing it.
Had we stopped Hitler in a pre-emptive strike, history may have read that invading Germany was wrong.
Baney points out that there are no crystal balls. My goodness, do I ever agree. Had the US not turned back the ships carrying Jews deported by Hitler from Germany, perhaps the Holocaust could have been averted. Had the US not provoked the Japanese with oil embargos, perhaps war with Japan could have been averted. Had the US not joined in the European theater of WWII, perhaps Stalin and Hitler would have exhausted themselves. Had that happened, perhaps the millions slaughtered by Stalin and Mao could have been averted, a far more murderous Holocausts than Hitler's. Does Baney seriously suggest that the US should have intervened in a border squabble over Czechoslavakia? On what basis? The question has to come down to more fundamental principles, as I see it. Nation's -- even when well meaning -- should avoid the temptation to butt into other nations's business. Perhaps that should be somewhat elastic, but more often than not, intervention leads to unintended consequences that are far worse to human life and happiness.
If anything, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 both occurred while we sat back and kept our nose out of world affairs.
Sorry, false on both counts. The US embargoed oil to Japan. And the US has a long history of interceding in the affairs of the Middle East. 9/11 is a straw man, in this case, anyway. No nation was involved. It was -- conspiracy theories aside -- a small network of radicals, bent on disrupting our way of life. How can that have possibly been anticipated or stopped?
Whether you like it or not the world's problem's are also our own, and the "stick to our own business" idea is a garbage approach, riddled with flaws.
The definition of insanity is repeating something and expecting different results. Repeating Vietnam is sheer lunacy. That is what does not work, not the Iraq War, IMO. And, increasingly, the voters' opinion.
-Robert Capozzi