This isn’t a post about right or wrong, good or evil, Republican or Democrat or any of that stuff. It is the result of a dream I had last night that felt more like a town hall meeting. The people were debating the effectiveness of Obama and the choices he made over the last 7 years. Some were talking about his dovelike approach to world politics and longing for the days of the American hawks storming the world stage guns blazing. I think the dream was my way of processing what I’ve been hearing out of politicians and the media as of late. There is a lot of talk about how America is not aggressive enough on the world stage and how that is costing us influence on the world stage. There is truth in that but is it the whole truth?
Remember a few years ago when all the new was about how terrible it was for us to be sending unmanned drones around the world bombing people we felt were terrorists? Popular opinion was that this was a bad thing. Obama’s drone army was the wrong approach to the war on terror. Fast forward to today and the same president is being bashed for not having a strong enough military response to what is happening in the middle east and the Ukraine.
I don’t have great answers. I recognize that we don’t have the troops to backstop Ukraine, Isreal, and battle Isis. I also recognize that drones aren’t going to be enough. On the other hand, I don’t know what is going to happen if we don’t get involved. The one thing I do recognize for certain is that our national arrogance has reached the point where we feel it is both our right and obligation to do something. Why? Because we are Team America: World Police?
It is at least important to acknowledge the arrogance here. Whenever there is a conflict in the world the question of ‘should we help?’ inevitably pops up. That help always comes at great cost to our nation in the form of wealth and lives. The benefits to us as a nation are always limited and fleeting. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that ISIS is ravaging the region we just left largely because the region has no interest in keeping the democracy we left there. Why would they suddenly want a secular government when they’ve been doing things a totally different way since long before Columbus landed on what he thought was India?
There is more to talk about here than 10 minutes allows, so I’ll add this to the list of topics that are to be continued…