I don't know.
A recent exchange in another forum:
You know (tvd), being a liberal I'm not naturally an isolationist and I'm not opposed to improving human rights throughout the world, and nation building as a concept.Funny, however, that nation building was not given as a reason for our toppling of Saddam...
"Nation-building," in its accurate sense, is us going in with troops to try and straighten out some dysfunctional and irrelevant country, like Haiti recently, or the former Yugoslavia.We do it every 10 or 20 years in Haiti, with shocking regularity. It never seems to stick.
Now, I had the impression you were actually a pacifist by principle. I respect pacifism deeply, in the Quaker or Buddhist sense, or even in the Jesus sense. Put away your sword, he who lives by it dies by it, turn the other cheek and forgive your brother seven times seven times, etc.
I'm a believer.
So I ask you, leaving out the current issues, how many American lives would it have been worth to stop the murder of nearly a million people in Rwanda in 1994? 5? 500? 5,000? 50,000?
Ready to talk about 2 million dead in Sudan and 3 million in Congo? It is Africa's hate of colonialism and Europe's fear of charges of neo-colonialism that makes the body count rise every day.
To me, it's only the anti-imperialistic Left, the anti-militaristic Left...you...who can cut through the fear and the PC and effect action.
People like me? We can barely make the case that removing a fascist, expansionist dictator who violated his peace treaty, killed 300,000 of his own people, paid rewards to terrorists across the world, and tried to assassinate one of our former presidents should be deposed.
People like me have no credibility.
