What's the title going to be? "I Duh'd it My Way"?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Reagan took down one dictatorship -- Noriega's -- and stymied a Cuban takeover of Grenada, which certainly hardly deserved being sucked in by Cuba, of all places and régimes. Bush took down two dictatorships: Saddam's Iraq and the Taliban's Afghanistan, both of which were universally acknowledged to be worldclass examples of suckass misgovernment.

This is more zealotry for human liberty than very many here have shown, and more effectually than any Democratic President since Truman, and it's to W's credit. And of course, this is why you should share my zealotry for human liberty rather than the passive-ism that breaks out in buboes all over the American Left when it's time to make men free -- by making their enslavers cease and desist. Should you really tolerate suckass misgovernment solely because it's, er, someplace else? Some of the people who argue with me really seem to believe that one. Sounds about as smart as insisting the world is flat.

UG....Reagan didnt take down Noriega. He was still on the CIA payroll during the Reagan administration and helped funnel US funds to the Contras in Nicuagura. GHW Bush (who when he was CIA director also had Noriega on his payroll) took down Noriega.

I know you didnt mention Nicaragua, but Reagan's Iran/Contra scheme to promote democracy in Nicaragua broke the law....a number of officials in the Reagan administration were convicted of crimes in the pursuit of Reagan's illegal support of a more "democratic" movement in Nicaragua.

I dont even want to begin to discuss the lies, deceptions and potential illegal activities in regard to our invasion and occupation of Iraq.

We should absolutely be promoting freedom and human rights around the world....by supporting internal democratic movements and by working with allies (and even adversaries when appropriate) to isolate and pressure oppressive regimes, not by force of invasion and occupation....and NEVER by breaking our own laws or violating international treaty obligations to do so.

Zealotry that abuses or debases our democratic process in order to promote democracy elsewhere is immoral, unethical, anti-democratic and just plain wrong.

In the end, if history is a measure, the Reagan/Bush way generally comes back to bite us in the ass.

[Apollo]

I think I kind of like this tradition of ex-presidents writing books after their terms. It's like they feel that they have to answer to the decisions they've made during office.

Didn't the Greeks do something similar? It was something like... every leader had to "stand trial" at the end of their reign of power and be judged by some kind of committee of citizens? Or something like that...?

The two aren't really related at all I guess, and I might be wrong about the whole Greek reference, but this is the first time I've noticed the comparison.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's also a "tradition" for presidents to have read one.

Bush took down two dictatorships: Saddam's Iraq and the Taliban's Afghanistan

Bwahahahahahahaha, dream on. He blew that one, big time. That's why we're headed for a nasty war now.

[Apollo]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's also a "tradition" for presidents to have read one.

Agreed.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's also a "tradition" for presidents to have read one.

Bwahahahahahahaha, dream on. He blew that one, big time. That's why we're headed for a nasty war now.

Exactly.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Bwahahahahahahaha, dream on. He blew that one, big time. That's why we're headed for a nasty war now.

Meanwhile Clinton ended a dictatorship in Haiti without firing a shot, got Milosevic to literally negotiate his entire government out of office without any invasion, got N Korea to start a reentry into the world without overt threats, stopped wasting American soldiers in a civil war that could not be won (Somalia), may have averted a major war between nuclear powers Pakistan and India by personally intervening ... Amazing how smarter leaders don't waste good American soldiers in boondoggles for personal glory.

xoxoxoBruce properly defined what we can expect because some administrations had so much comtempt even for the American soldier.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Apollo

Didn't the Greeks do something similar? It was something like... every leader had to "stand trial" at the end of their reign of power and be judged by some kind of committee of citizens? Or something like that...?

The two aren't really related at all I guess, and I might be wrong about the whole Greek reference, but this is the first time I've noticed the comparison.

Quite right about at least some Greeks. IIRC it was part of the constitution of Syracuse that at the end of their term, every public official was subjected to a full (financial) audit and was required to account for all the decisions they had made. A large jury could then vote for various rewards or punishments, as they saw fit.

Damn good idea, I reckon.

The only problem with the books is, as already pointed out, they get to tell their side of the story, with no criticism, contradiction, or awkward questions.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Apollo

I think I kind of like this tradition of ex-presidents writing books after their terms. It's like they feel that they have to answer to the decisions they've made during office.

Didn't the Greeks do something similar? It was something like... every leader had to "stand trial" at the end of their reign of power and be judged by some kind of committee of citizens? Or something like that...?

The two aren't really related at all I guess, and I might be wrong about the whole Greek reference, but this is the first time I've noticed the comparison.

Actually a lot of those guys (Greeks) were bright enough to write because they enjoyed it. Their arguments and philosophies were actually worth something. I miss that. *sigh*

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Redux

GHW Bush (who when he was CIA director also had Noriega on his payroll) took down Noriega.

And not a Democrat, either. Democrats simply can't spread democracy any more, nor make fascism extinct, nor really anything worthwhile in foreign policy. Wholly worthless to men of freedom.

I know you didnt mention Nicaragua, but Reagan's Iran/Contra scheme to promote democracy in Nicaragua broke the law....a number of officials in the Reagan administration were convicted of crimes in the pursuit of Reagan's illegal support of a more [democratic] movement in Nicaragua.

I took the liberty of removing the quotes around democratic because the sociopolitical order in Nicaragua since the Contras won has been democratic, in substantive contrast with the Sandinistas' reign of Marxism alloyed with managerial incompetence. Even the revived Daniel Ortega can't raise a pimple of what had once been -- speaking of how much more democratic Nicaragua is today. A pseudodemocratic regime would have kept him imprisoned for life.

The laws you so approvingly cite were carefully designed to shield and perpetuate a Marxist dictatorship that couldn't keep the lights on even with no one particularly trying to put them out. Monetary policy was typical Marxist economic illiteracy, and the response to the increasing problem was the Marxist-bozo nostrum of organizing scarcity, not creating wealth. No, when the last Marxist dies a good deal of foolish miserymaking will have departed this world. Never back a grand theory of humanity in your political philosophy, and don't expect politics to ever be competent to cure humanity. Politics cannot be a curative agent, the chemotherapy of warfare aside. It's better understood as a metabolic process of the body politic, local or global.

You don't shield and protect a dictatorship if you're really a democrat. This seems mere horse sense. Sen. Kerry's record of doing exactly that is one reason I, a man of freedom, would not vote for him.

I dont even want to begin to discuss the lies, deceptions and potential illegal activities in regard to our invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Durn right you don't. On moral and Judaic grounds I'd cut your kishkas into the chopped tripas they stuff tacos with around here.

The "lies and deceptions" were those of the Ba'athist Iraqi government -- and they fooled how many assorted national intelligence services again? I count five, including that of Jordan. Right next door. Culturally similar. They'd have a feel for operating in their region.

For a practicing, identified Jew to disapprove of the demolition of a fascist-philosophy dictatorship that practiced genocide... well, that is wholly as beyond belief as it is beyond the pale. If you're not conscious of your sin here, you are kidding yourself, or are completely, unbelievably morally numb. For someone who gets it when it comes to Israel, your inability to understand that it's the very same battle that Israel fights that we fight in Iraq is -- not rational. What makes you so blind? Is it because you're a Democrat? Is Ann Coulter right about you guys all along?

Yuck, redux. I'm glad I don't think like you. I might not be able to push for human liberty.

We should absolutely be promoting freedom and human rights around the world....by supporting internal democratic movements and by working with allies (and even adversaries when appropriate) to isolate and pressure oppressive regimes, not by force of invasion and occupation....and NEVER by breaking our own laws or violating international treaty obligations to do so.

How many respected ancient rabbis have written that obeying a bad law is a bad thing itself? I think it's more than one... laws, after all, were a vehicle for destroying Jews in the Shoah, as is very well known. "Legal" has not always coincided with "right" or with "righteous." On our shores, try the Alien & Sedition Acts of the very late eighteenth century, or the Supreme Court Dred Scott decision of the middle nineteenth. Quite according to the law, a federal law upholding chattel slavery -- but right?

Leaving nondemocracies in existence, their oppressions to perform -- is that a righteous thing? Liberty and democracy for all human populations -- there's righteousness, and you should burn for it with a white heat. Have you ever noticed that totalitarianism and autocracy are always about crushing somebody? Visiting force upon them to their ruin? Democracies don't act like that, do they?

Zealotry that abuses or debases our democratic process in order to promote democracy elsewhere is immoral, unethical, anti-democratic and just plain wrong.

True. Problem with that argument is our democratic process was not abused nor debased by the action of prosecuting a war against those who are not democratic by any measure. This is not striking down a strawman -- this is a swing at a ghost.

If anything, that prosecution elevates the democratic ideal. If you want a good world, the nondemocrats have to surrender their power and become democrats. Since we cannot expect this to occur of itself out of the goodness of the human heart -- some humans being less good than others -- I say this surrender need not be voluntary, so important is it that democracy be the rule.

None of your rights have been impaired by the Bush Administration's prosecution of the GWOT or indeed in any other arena: your rights are almost exactly what they were in Clinton's time -- the difference is at present that you have a little more. During Bush, your gun rights grew. That "assault weapon" ban, that some hoplophobic maniacs are trying to bring back, went away, and there's the gun carrying in National Parks, the better to keep them from being hunting preserves for crazies willing to defy any ban to have just square miles of undefended helpless targets, so long as they can keep ahead of the cops. Bans in the parks are said to be an antipoaching measure -- can't say as a poaching problem had caught my attention; still, I could be wrong. Your rights under the 2nd Amendment grew under Bush. Is a change in that area with Obama a change you can believe in?

In the end, if history is a measure, the Reagan/Bush way generally comes back to bite us in the ass.

What history do you mean? History actually shows the opposite. Are there even effectual teeth in this assbiting you speak of and seem to dread so? While that doesn't mean antiglobalizationists (we're settled firmly in the globalization camp, from an economic force about as relentless as gravitation) can't kick up some trouble for us, that is not because Reagan/Bush did a thing (and didn't FDR (D, four terms) do a thing or two like that and in a big way?), but because empowered cranks like bin Laden do some other thing. You can say, "That was in response to X we did..." and I reply, "The other actor has a choice. He can act, he can take no action, he can choose bad or he can choose good." By which I mean it's free will and its occasional mistaken choices that muddle politics, and history.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

And not a Democrat, either. Democrats simply can't spread democracy any more, nor make fascism extinct, nor really anything worthwhile in foreign policy. Wholly worthless to men of freedom.

Tell that to the peoples of Bosnia after the end of ethnic cleasning and the establishment of democratic reforms during the Clinton presidency.

And I guess the only peace negotiated in the last 50 years between Israel and its former enemies Egypt and Jordan was a foreign policy failure of the Carter administration?

Thanks for the rest of your lecture on how I can be a better, more moral practicing Jew.