Wide Rift Within the Democratic Party on Foreign Policy

[Nym90]

I'm definitely a liberal internationalist.

[Nym90]

I agree 100%, Lewis. We can kill people like bin Laden and Abu Musab al Zarqawi, but someone will always pop up in their place, at least until we figure out the "why" aspect to terrorism.

In my opinion, the War on Terrorism is more of a war on an ideology. The War must be balanced with both effective military strikes and addressing the problem of terrorism. Currently, the Iraq War has destroyed both of those things, as has Bush's ineptitude in Afghanistan. We can kill all the terrorists we want to, but more will keep popping up. 

I honestly don't quite know why terrorism exists or the driving forces behind it, so I can't really address the issue on how to defeat its ideology. However, militarily, I believe NATO is the key. When the United States teams up with our Western European allies (Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, not crap like Poland and Bulgaria), we are essentially invincible. The Iraq War has destroyed relations with these nations, but nevertheless, we share many things in common. I strongly believe that the 9/11 attacks were not just an attack on the United States; they were also an attack on Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Norway, etc. Likewise, the same applies to the Madrid and London bombings.

But alas, when dealing with any issue about terrorism, we must first deal with Iraq (due to the amount of resources it's consuming) Iraq may not have been part of the War on Terror in 2003, but, thanks to Dubya's incompetence, it sure as hell is now. Withdrawing from Iraq won't work, nor will setting a time table. Anyone who thinks staying the course will work is on LSD and Shrooms. Unfortunately, I see Iraq as a lose-lose situation, and with that, the War on Terror also translates into a similar result.

Great post. I agree with everything you have said here. I was going to post my own statement of my beliefs on this topic but this sums it up as well as or better than I could have.

[Nym90]

Liberal internationalist (or interventionist, in my case) but I don't really consider myself liberal on foreign policy at all

Dave

Well you wouldn't be as the term is defined today (although I've always maintained that the vast majority of liberals don't support what conservatives like to call liberal foreign policy, but that's for a different thread).

But as the article defines it, you certainly would be. Traditionally liberal foreign policy supported the idea that the United States has a moral obligation to make the world a better place, while conservative foreign policy traditionally was more focused on the idea that we shouldn't care about anyone else and focus on ourselves.

But the article does make a good point, in that there are essentially two very different types of isolationsists; those who view "Americanization" of the world as doing more bad than good, and the far more common type, which, as I mentioned, basically don't give a damn about what goes on outside of our borders.

Likewise, interventionists can be both those who view the United States as a force for good in the world, or those who want to make the rest of the world more like us so as to better serve our interests.

[Nym90]

Well put Frodo, I agree with all of your proposals.

Number 3 in particular would go along way toward addressing the fundamental problem. The best thing we can do for long term national security is to marginalize the improtance of the Middle East by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Unfortunately the current Administration has little or no incentive to do this, and in fact perhaps a disincentive.

Likewise, I didn't support Iraq; I didn't think that the costs, both in terms of lives and dollars, would be worth it for the benefits, and I feel I have been proven right on this. I wasn't opposed to the concept of removing a dictator (I strongly support democracy and strongly oppose dictatorship), but I didn't see Saddam as any worse than the multitidue of other dictators in the world.

But likewise, to pull out now would be a very bad idea. Unfortunately we are stuck with the mess and have to clean it up.

[Nym90]

But the article does make a good point, in that there are essentially two very different types of isolationsists; [1] those who view "Americanization" of the world as doing more bad than good, and the far more common type, which, as I mentioned, [2] basically don't give a damn about what goes on outside of our borders.

Likewise, interventionists can be [3] both those who view the United States as a force for good in the world, or[4]  those who want to make the rest of the world more like us so as to better serve our interests.

Or as the highly-flawed yet interesting Christian Science Monitor article of 2004 put it...[1] = Liberal; [2] = Isolationist; [3] = Neoconservative; [4] = Realist.

Ah, Rome. The vilest motherfucker in earth history. Rome well deserved all the hate it got and something extra, you know that? Believe you me, you don't want to take Rome as your role model, because if you do, that'd really be the end to whatever civil liberties you got left.

Well, to be technical, the Roman Republic was pretty damn good, especially by the standards of the era - you had places rebelling in order to become Roman citizens. Once the transition to the Roman Empire took place, things headed south in a hurry. My source, BTW, was my always-entertaining libertarian Ancient History professor back in my undergraduate days, whose specialty was Greece and Rome.

I actually would flip flop 3 and 4. The difference between them that I was trying to articulate was that liberal interventionists view us as having a moral obligation to improve the rest of the world by making them more like us, where as neocons generally want to do so as a means of improving America's national security. The difference is on who the intervention is primarily intended to help, though obviously many if not most such interventions will be helpful to both America and the country we are aiding as well. However, when a proposed intervention would primarily help one country far more than the other, that is where you would see these two types of internationalists generally seperate.

[Nym90]

Liberal internationalist (or interventionist, in my case) but I don't really consider myself liberal on foreign policy at all

Dave

Well you wouldn't be as the term is defined today (although I've always maintained that the vast majority of liberals don't support what conservatives like to call liberal foreign policy, but that's for a different thread).

But as the article defines it, you certainly would be. Traditionally liberal foreign policy supported the idea that the United States has a moral obligation to make the world a better place, while conservative foreign policy traditionally was more focused on the idea that we shouldn't care about anyone else and focus on ourselves.

But the article does make a good point, in that there are essentially two very different types of isolationsists; those who view "Americanization" of the world as doing more bad than good, and the far more common type, which, as I mentioned, basically don't give a damn about what goes on outside of our borders.

Likewise, interventionists can be both those who view the United States as a force for good in the world, or those who want to make the rest of the world more like us so as to better serve our interests.

If you word things like that, I think you'll find a lot of anti-Iraq war people show up in the first interventionist catagory.

I absolutely agree. I myself am certainly in that camp. I support the idea of the United States promoting democracy and taking down dictatorships in theory (primarily because I view democracy as moral and dictatorship as immoral, plus it does have the definite benefit of increasing the security of all freedom in the world to eliminate tyrrany and oppression), but I think Iraq was way too expensive in terms of both lives and dollars for the gain that was made; if we can't install a functional democracy, there will have been no gain at all, or perhaps even a net loss.

So I have always been opposed to the Iraq war, although I do not fundamentally disagree with its purpose. I simply view it as a massive waste of money that could be better spent on other priorities.

[Nym90]

I would personally put realists into a totally different category. I may be misinterpreting the term, but I think of realists as analyzing the pros and cons and weighing the costs and benefits of each individual action on its own and thus not necessarily adhering ot any particular philosophy of interventionism or isolationism.