fayfreethinkers.com

The End of Cowboy Diplomacy
WHY GEORGE W. BUSH'S GRAND STRATEGY FOR REMAKING THE WORLD HAD TO CHANGE

Those who subscribe can log in and read the article here.

DOUG
Is our country starting to wake up from this nightmare? Are people finally realizing that it is a bad idea to invade other countries on trumped-up charges while thumbing your nose at the rest of the world?

What's really sad is that the lessons learned by this nation in the first half of the 20th century are having to be learned all over again in the 21st. W proved he didn't pay any attention in any of his history classes from 1st grade on, but the fact that close to half of American voters didn't either is very disheartening.

The lesson from WWI "don't intervene in European squabbles" was forgotten in less than 25 years. Apparently all it takes is one generation to forget that war is bad, especially when you have conniving politicians to whip people into a crisis-fueled frenzy.

Americans, even if they reject the neo-con Bush thing, will probably not reject interventionism. The War Party framing (by both factions) is: a choice between unilateral interventionism and multilateral interventionism. This false dicotomy, of course, hides the real alternative.

The lesson from WWI was to pay attention to international "squabbles" before they get so big they involve us - a lesson not just forgotten but totally repudiated until it had to be relearned in WWII.

That doesn't make sense; WWI didn't involve the US until Wilson chose to intervene. WWII didn't involve the US until FDR went to a lot of trouble to sucker the Jap State into attacking Pearl Harbor.

I guess this shows that the problem is not lessons learned and forgotten but more basically what is the lesson? Apparently you take the lesson to be invade and intervene early and often, to avoid a bigger war whereas I take the lesson to be avoid military intervention in foreign countries.