If the Muslim masses demanding political freedom and economic opportunity prevail, they will do so not thanks to but despite the United States. Yet by liberating themselves, they will also liberate us. Our misbegotten crusade to determine their destiny will finally end. In that case, we will owe them a great debt.
I have come to believe that just about every word Andrew Bacevich puts to paper is worth reading. This article is no exception.
3 comments:
Superb article, but I feel that calling for sackcloth and ashes to the assembled Neocon choir is as fruitless an endeavor as preaching Transubstantiation to a assembly of Campbellites.
I agree with Bacevich to a point. The policies of the Conservative part of our government and the military are threadbare and barely cover naked ambition and jingoism. However, the revolutions taking place in the Middle East are taking place aided by technologies developed on a pattern of an open society that we, for the most part, enjoy here in the US. It is also for a piece of the prosperity, made ubiquitous by our economic and social system, for which these people are reaching. This is the same thing that happened in the former Soviet Union and although I believe they still have some way to go to rid themselves of the corruption and power brokering that is a hold over from the Soviet system, Rome wasn't built in a day; neither was the US. In fact we are still building our nation, hopefully along more and more democratic and open lines.
Cheers,
Brent Rollings
Actually, there is nothing "conservative" about America's modern right wing. For one thing, they modern rightist has no real respect for the American culture he claims to be trying to conserve. Ask him how much great American literature he reads in a year, or how much Jazz (our one great contribution to the world of music) he listens to and you will draw a blank stare.
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