Reply #33: U.S. military budget roughly equals the rest of the entire world's [View All]

[Douglas Carpenter]

combined together. There are plans for a whole new generation of nuclear weapons and advanced spaced based systems. Is this "liberal internationalism"? How on earth would that help prevent another 9/11, much less help spread democracy and freedom?

I'm even more concerned about Mr. Beinart's phrase "fighting Islamo-fascism" than I am concerned about his call to purge moveon and almost he entire progressive wing from the Democratic Party. Can anyone seriously maintain that this phrase does not elicit racist and jingoistic emotions? And what does this phrase mean? If it means Al Quada, well fine. But if he means possible military action against a whole range of theocratic movements in the Islamic world, the U.S. is going to find itself in a never-ending state of conflict with a large portion of the peoples of the world. Let's reflect on the events and sometimes sponsors that created these movements in the first place.

The simple fact is that the vast majority of the Islamic world, like the vast majority of Latin America and in fact the vast overwhelming majority of the whole world is not going to believe that U.S. foreign policy is being driven by altruist motives or even legitimate motives of self-defense. I would dare say that if one tried to sell this line to ordinary people anywhere in the Middle East, Latin America or almost anywhere else, one would be greeted with a chorus of laughter and ridicule even from the more conservative and relatively pro-western elements. I have lived close to half my life abroad; Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, so I do know this from experience--and I am talking about the relatively pro-western elements.

It is not isolationist or utopian to recognize the simple historic reality that military conflict creates a ceaseless series of new enemies and new military conflicts. It is realist. It is not pacifist to recognize the absolute horror of war along with its short-term and long-term after affects and to face the fact that war almost always creates as many or more problems than it solves. It is realist.
It is not utopian to recognize the words of former President Eisenhower who said that there is a point were military spending becomes so wasteful that it weakens the nation and that we simply cannot afford to continue down the same tract and also hold together America's social cohesion. It is being practical and far-sighted. Given the monstrous capabilities of the weapons of the world today, it would do America well to learn quickly what it took our European friends centuries to learn.