How do we measure a society?
Authored: March 25th, 2009 @ 2:19 PM
Someone once said that you could measure a society by how well it treats its criminals. I begged to differ, claiming it is much more important how you treat societies weakest members. As long as the debate over the merits of our overseas involvements is driven by body counts, and not by measures of liberty, we will forever find that we are leaving underprotected the poor and needy in this world. A local college hosted a “Peace Vigil” to protest our involvement in Iraq, focusing on body counts.
Meanwhile, Doug Jones has put together a counterpoint to that protest in an open letter to Rep. John Kline, which we share with you here.
Yes, U.S. involvement in Iraq (both the war against Saddam and the war on terror) has lasted longer than the Civil War, WWI, or WWII, and nearly as long as US involvement in the Vietnam War.
And now President Obama is sending 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, a territory 4X as big as Iraq. And the Obama Administration has just concluded that the risks and the challenges rest as much in Pakistan as in Afghanistan.
So let us give thanks to President Bush and Congressman Kline that they and we persevered in Iraq. We are leaving behind the only functioning democracy in the entire Middle East outside Israel. Especially we should be grateful that we are not leaving like Dunkirk, or like the exit from Saigon or Cuba, with a fleet of desperate refugees risking death at sea over worse at the hands of their new government. Thank God we are not facing a mass exodus of Iraqi refugees, whom neighboring countries and the UN would without a doubt try to make America provide shelter for.
So we now have Obama’s new team signing on for the long road ahead between Iraq and India, and in need of support from the realists in their party, so recently excited by candidate Obama to an anti-war fever pitch. Instead of the effective negotiation by John Burton with the rogue nuclear threat in North Korea, we see Hillary Clinton in her daily new designer outfits, jetting between capitals, “making nice” to all the Europeans and other “free riders” who accept American protection while attacking us in the press at every chance.
But where is Hillary when Cezar Chavez, new communist leader for life in Venezuela expropriates all foreign business except those from communist China and Russia? Where is the concern for the people of Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and now, El Salvador as Chavez’ petrodollars export communism to their countries? Where is Hillary when the U.S. Congress passes bills abrogating the NAFTA treaty with Mexico and Columbia?
What will Hillary do or say if and when North Korea fires another long range ballistic missile over Japanese air space in a few week? Will she say or do anything in support of the new government in South Korea?
Meanwhile the financial crisis threatens instability in Eastern Europe, not to mention all the less-developed-countries, that Billionaire George Soros (who effectively bankrolls the entire budget of the DFL in Minnesota) wants the US to bail out through the IMF. Remember, George Soros, hedge fund manipulator of countries, lives in New York City but runs his business through Bermuda and pays minimal taxes. In 2007 alone he made a billion dollars and, he bragged in Davos, he made a 10% return in 2008. But he wants American tax dollars to bail out the third world.
Hey, George, why don’t you leave your ill gotten loot to the IMF?