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Originally Posted by scaeagles
Let's look at Somalia. Our primary mission there was humanitarian, if not solely, even to the point that we wouldn't provide troops with armored personel carriers to avoid the appearance of looking like we were trying to be bullies. Did it do us any good? Not in the least. The result was the troops that were there to pass out food ended up getting shot at and killed.
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Let's look at the current situation in Palestine. And, because looking at an individual situation in isolation without looking at the larger world picture is particularly pointless, let's combine it with the larger world picture. In fact, let's start with the larger world picture which, for the last three or so years, has been about Bush's drum-beat about freedom and democracy. Freedom and democracy is the Middle East's path to being a player in the world economy without sanctions. Freedom and deomcracy is what we respect. Hold free, democratic elections, and the will of the people will guide your countries to happiness and prosperity!
Unless you elect Hamas.....
Do you see the inherent bullying b.s. of that attitude? Here we are in Iraq, dozens of people dying nearly daily, and our whole message is that we're bringing them the glory of free elections. And yet we turn around and pull the rug out from under the Palestinians, who have just held the freest elections the Muslim world has seen in a long time.
Now, I'm NOT saying I disagree with cutting off aid and political negotiations with Hamas. They are terrorists and until they move the way of the PLO, they should be treated as such. But the lesson that I think needs to be drawn is that we need to shut the hell up with this whole, "Our ways of democracy and freedom are your ticket to splendor" bullsh!t. It's the hypocritical attitude of "We're going to fight for your freedom...as long as it's our brand of freedom!" that gives the US its reputation. By all means, join in support of those fighting for freedom, but running around the world espousing free elections as the one, absolute answer for everyone is guaranteed to land us in this exact position, because there is no absolute answer for everyone.