"just as liberal-minded Europeans and Americans doubted the threats of Hitler and Stalin, enlightened Westerners today are in danger of missing the urgency of the violent ideologies coming out of the Muslim world. "
from salon.com
i hope others will read this. i would really like to hear your responses.
Found this particularly interesting:
One of the scandals is that we've had millions of people marching through the streets calling for no war in Iraq, but we haven't had millions of people marching in the streets calling for freedom in Iraq. Nobody's marching in the streets on behalf of Kurdish liberties. The interests of the liberal dissidents of Iraq and the Kurdish democrats are in fact also our interests. The more those people prosper, the safer we are. This is a moment in which what should be our ideals -- the ideals of liberal democracy and social solidarity -- are also materially in our interest. Bush has failed to articulate this, and a large part of the left has failed to see this entirely.
In fact, I didn't see any gross generalizations and bigoted statements at all. Are you sure you really agree with this author?
we certainly have done things that put power in the hands of the bad guys. but, we didn't create this. i'm reminded of something the wonderfully modest George Harrison said about Beatlemania. He said, kids were just looking for a reason to act crazy, and the Beatles were a great excuse. The terrorists are using America as a scapegoat.
Radical Islamsm was born out of a desire to regain the arab world's power. The problem is that they want to be powerful without moving forward. And i'm not talking about technology here. I'm talking about freedom, and women's rights, and being open to new ways. The radicals want to move forward, by moving backward. And that just doesn't work.
true, the united states is guilty of not incorporating liberalism into its foreign policy, but the left is as guilty of that as the right. the answer is not to turn a cold shoulder to atrocities in iraq (which, despite the noble face of war protestors, is exactly what they're doing). the answer is to promote liberalism and democracy and help it spread.
the article said that germany and france's boycott of the war is fine, but they should have people throughout the middle east promoting liberal policy. we should be aligning ourselves with the secular liberals of the middle east. instead, we're lining up against them. liberal, young america should be using their voice to make sure bush takes the new level of nation building we did in afghanistan to an even higher level in iraq.
all that said, i support the war in Iraq. there. i've said it. as far as i'm concerned, bush is finishing a job that his father should have finished 11 years ago. i simply don't believe that bush handled this situation as well as some of his predecessors would have.
by the way glitch...great post...10
But at what cost? In his first year in office he pulled out of a half dozen international treaties. On the road to war, he's damamged or strained relationships with a number of close allies. And this is while he has an individual on this staff (Colin Powell) who has (had?) the potential to be one of the greatest diplomats in history. And Bush has repeatedly hamstrung him.
Bush basically said, "Screw you all, we're doing what we want," when it came to addressing global warming. Note the emphasis.