The question in the Dems debate was focused on events in Pakistan. It is a very good question. Which is more important
should decisions made by our President be soley determined by the security of the USA or the human rights of citizens?

Human Rights Globally vs. American Security, Which is more important?
Should we allow actions that run counter to our beliefs be allowed and justified with excuses like "collateral damage happens" or "needing" to prop up tyrants in foreign lands because they are the current enemy of our enemy or strategically valuable?




"Freedom is never free" is a phrase hurled out by the right ad nauseum when they try and make opposition to the war somehow wrong or actions of the current administration somehow above reproach.
Soldiers indeed make a choice to sacrifice their lives in wars they wholeheartedly believe to be meaningful.
Is the average citizen at home immune?
If an action designed to secure this nation draws on all the things we "theoretically" these days seem to hold as anathema; torture, murder, killing large number of civilians, removing the basic rights we proclaim to cherish and imprisonment without end or justified reason, is the resulting security it may bring worth the cost in terms of sacrificing the very ideals that have made us who we are as Americans?
I agree that freedom is never free; but that goes for you as well--and yes even our children. There is a cost indeed for what we are and what we have. There is a cost for the kind of world we hope to someday bring about and that cost is having the honor and courage to maybe die because some lunatic decided a car bomb was the course to take. If you sacrifice our ideals to maybe? catch a few of the bad guys i believe it is a choice which continues on and eats away fatally at who we are.
I am all for taking a hard line against our enemies but I will never act like them. I believe that that will be more important in the long run of bringing the world we desire to fruition. Acting contrary will simply breed more of the same evil in the world in response. Deals with the Devil always turn out in his favor.

First one must realize that no other nation on earth has been more responsible for freeing more people and spilling more blood while doing so than the United States of America. Freedom is a right granted to "all" mankind by the creator. We believed in this concept so much that we actually placed the words thereof in our own "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE". One must ask himself in all all honestly is the US an imperialistic nation? The obvious answer would be YES, by all means, but what we seek is not the conquest of other nations at the expense of other peoples and nations with this imperial quest but the spread in our belief that freedom is a God given right.

To make a flat out blatant statement that imperialism is wrong, is just a matter of opinion, as the imperialistic nature of the US is what many nations owes their very existence to. All of Europe, not once but twice has been saved from another type of Imperialism, that of despotism and totalitarianism and rebuilt at the expense of our blood and treasure, but the attitude of many is what have you done for me lately? American footprints can be seen all around the world and by majority they are filled with the blood of our brightest and best, our youth. But in their wake one can see our ideology of freedom at work, In Europe, In Asia, even in Russia. In fact I will be the first to say that our Imperialistic nature is directly responsible for the current war that we are now engaged in with terrorism and the fundamentalists of 14th century theological despotism, as it is the direct result of many of the people in the middle east having just a taste of the many freedoms that we as Americans enjoy in our country. While dealing with the people of that region in doing business is securing oil trade, both legally and honestly using the tool of capitalism and purchasing the rights thereof the people have been exposed to many of the traits of our western culture. Things such as equal rights for women, fair pay for fair work, the right to worship or not worship as one sees fit not by government mandate, all have been carried into and across borders that once the people thereof were totally unaware that such things even existed. This is the root to the conflict that we are now engaged in, as the theological despots of that region blame us for the introduction of our culture, and wish to now expel us after having gained both the power of wealth and technologies that we have provided in bringing them out of the middle ages. If it were not so, that this is the root cause and the despots feel threatened by our culture and the eventual loss of their power base and wealth, as the people are becoming evermore exposed to a simple taste of equality, then answer one simple question. Why is it that all the 'CONFLICTS" of that region are being conducted inside and around the borders of only young "democratic" nations, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, and now the uprising in Pakistan?

Yes indeed there are distinctly 2 different kinds of Imperialism, and it is time to stop playing the semantical game of politics and choose just which one do you as Americans wish to endorse. That of freedom and equality or that of some Theological Despotism system that wishes to hold all the peoples of the world in the 14th century? By simply tuning into the nightly news on network outlets one would indeed think that the media has chosen the wrong side of history once again, as they have tried to make Theological Despotism stand on an equal footing with the God given right of freedom, and simply put, as I being from the South and Damn proud of both my American roots and heritage, THAT DOG JUST WONT HUNT, with the majority of true Americans. RD

RED DEVIL, some questions for you that might be off-topic.

1. You claim United States have "been more responsible for freeing more people and spilling more blood" then any other nation on earth. Explain in detail please, what are you talking about? Which people? When? How?

Give detail about this claim which i am totally unaware off, i guess i lived in a bubble, i apologize, enlighten me.


2. Who is this "creator" you are talking about? Are you referring to your god? Or someone else? Is this relevant, or rather, is your religious beliefs not totally irrelevant to this topic?


3. You claim that United States are "spreading freedom", well, that would be debatable would it not? More then half a million lives have been killed in Iraq alone, you mean they are "free" (dead) now? Please, The U.S entered the war for financial reasons, maybe you were not aware that the United States are very dependent on Oil, and that Iraq have oil, and that United States is by any definition a poor country living on borrowed money. Oil is needed. But that isalso debatable, but still, this not irrelevant?



To the Topic:

Human Rights Globally vs. American Security, Which is more important?
Should we allow actions that run counter to our beliefs be allowed and justified with excuses like "collateral damage happens" or "needing" to prop up tyrants in foreign lands because they are the current enemy of our enemy or strategically valuable?

No.

The United States are sponsoring torture, genocide and everything between for whatever reason. The reason they can is because of poorly educated populace. Americans have very bad education, and a 50 year old indoctrination to face, its hard to fix that in a year (so to speak). Education and proper understanding in the world is needed, so they understand that their country is not the "best in the world", and that the rest of the world is not "evil", and that their culture is not "superior" to others.

Education, thats what its all about, and then there would be a revolution, lets hope it happens, soon, before they take us all down with them, they have access to nuclear weapons, and thats scary as a none-american youknow.

Thankyou.


-JE


P.S: Love BigMac´s

Let's put this into context. Right now, the majority of the world lives under either oppressive and/or semi-oppressive governments, as we (and Human rights watch) would define them. How do we proceed from there? Do we refuse to work with anyone who doesn't act exactly as we would like them to, or do we try to work with some and simultaneously attempt to change the way they do things? A good recent example would be Uzbekistan. We had (and still have) a legitimate security interest in working with Uzbekistan. We offered them carrots in return for both help and accompanying changes in the humanitarian rights area. When it became apparent that the government would not change its ways in spite of those carrots, we moved out rather than silently tolerate the continued human rights violations. It's a matter of costs to gains (and urgent versus important*).

The best example of all of course is Stalinist Russia (also the Vichy French forces..almost forgot them) during WWII. Anyone think we did the wrong thing "dealing with the Devil" there? I doubt those that do fully appreciate the consequences had we not done so.


Edited to add: Hate big macs.

*Urgent generally supercedes important. If your baby son was having his bones broken one by one every hour and the person in front of you knew how to stop this, what would you do? The honest answer is, whatever it takes. Fortunately, there are few such situations and the legal answer will always be that awful measures are always wrong.

Sorry for the graphic example to make the point, but there are people alive today who have been faced with this personal dilema. I personally know some of these people. Talk to your average Serbian/Cuban/Vietnamese/Cambodian/Somalian/Ethiopian/Rwandan person over the age of sixty. Talk to Europeans in their mid-seventies and older. We are so very spoiled here.

Human Rights Globally vs. American Security, Which is more important?
Should we allow actions that run counter to our beliefs be allowed and justified with excuses like "collateral damage happens" or "needing" to prop up tyrants in foreign lands because they are the current enemy of our enemy or strategically valuable?

Both and most US administrations have correlated the two. Free people do not attack others (in general). Despots and tyrants attack others.

One of the stated reasons for going into Iraq was freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam the dictator. It wasn't the only reason, it wasn't the main reason, but it factored in.

American assistance has freed millions of people and its intervention has probably killed millions. But compare this to the Russian Revolution which installed the Communists: 9 million dead. Russia under Stalin: at least 20 million dead. World War Two 55 million dead with 19 million of those being soldiers.

If we look at the "good war" that was World War Two where just about everyone agrees that the Axis were tyrants intent on world domination (and not for democracy), we see that 36 million civilians died so that millions more could enjoy a brighter future.

Now, the question seems to want us to focus on activities that run counter to our ideals. Torture, for example. Of course, the administration denies that we use torture, but for the sake of argument we'll agree that the administration uses a limited amount of torture on terrorists (I don't think most people think that we use widespread torture on ordinary citizens, for examples). Is this okay?

Now the stock argument is that war is hell and we need to do what we need to do. This is true as far as killing enemies but I don't think it holds water with regard to information gathering. The problem is the unreliable nature, according to many, of information gathering using torture. Obviously there is some disagreement with this as some interrogation experts must feel that it is useful or else it would not be used.

How far should the government go in pursuit of "protecting Americans" from the enemy? That is up to the American electorate to decide. Like it or not, I think the majority would support treating the enemy badly in order to protect us.

The problem is the "we" definition leaves something to be desired, especially when propaganda comes into play. What is amazing is through the improper use of air power an increasing number of Afghans would rather return to the bad old ways of the Taliban and their repressiveness rather the enjoy democracy. American security is not synonymous with host security. Then again the question places more emphasis on "us" instead of "them" so maybe our concerns are the only ones that matter?

Further, considerations must be made when comparing a national government to a rag tag group. The level of organization and resources are tremendously different. The threat assessment isn't even remotely comparable. That's an awful example. In fact Stalinist Russia is so far removed from shadowy muslim extremism I'd identify this as a textbook case of twisted perception. Our failure to clearly perceive was exactly the opening Mr. Bush used to promote his case for war.

Human Rights Globally vs. American Security, Which is more important?
Should we allow actions that run counter to our beliefs be allowed and justified with excuses like "collateral damage happens" or "needing" to prop up tyrants in foreign lands because they are the current enemy of our enemy or strategically valuable?

I'll limit my response to the first question because of time.

Invasions of any type are wars of aggression. You've asked me should human rights take a back seat to preventive war???? The preventitive war has been called the supreme crime for it provides the catalyst and umbrella for all other crimes of war to occur. If you are comfortable with leaving the decision making in the hands of the few you would also be comforatble with someone else doing the same thing?

The criteria we use for classifying and justifying external interventions must be changed. We need to back away from intervening under humanitarian guises and then flooding the region with arms. It really is that simple. To accept the security arguement, we allow ourselves to see only the short range consequences of our actions. We also risk large powers pulling the same stunt like Russia with Chechnia or China with Tibet/Taiwan. At that point we risk a 19th century of polarization where everybody on the A team lines up against the B team. If we accept American security as it is practiced today, we are in for many unintended consequences.

Amlord and Mrs P.
When it comes to examples where a person would get extreme in response to another's extremity its easy to understand the response one would have when it involves another they might know.
I would do the same. But they were commiting the act and not just possibly planning or had heard someone say they might know a guy who knows this guy.

The problem is when you begin to justify and make loopholes. Then it just continues. This is why vigilante justice can never be allowed. because then who decides what is needed becomes arbitrary. If we justify torture as a means of information gathering what excludes our enemies from claiming the same need. If they did how can we protest? Do as i say not as i do? Do they anyways? Yes. but it goes larger than that. How do we say to China or any other country out there they should not violate the rights of their citizens?

"But we need to protect our national interests America, just as you do!"
"We needed to know their plans to safeguard our security"
"They had made threats in the past and we needed to strike first"


When we support the tyrants and they mistreat their people do you think they won't remember who sponsored their actions?
Todays rape and beating was sponsored by America. America. You get to die so we don't have to!


Your families get slaughtered and you know the guys who did it are untouchable, and all you hear from those who support them is that someday your family's death will be for the greater good, are you going to feel pride or learn to make bombs?

and when the monsters finally get so bad they scare the world and the supporters show up and clean up THEIR mess and then have the gall to claim they are now owed because of their grand sacrifice and noble deeds you going to give them a parade with flowers?

Human rights globally vs. American security, which is more important?
Human rights. Most pragmatic people would answer security is more important than human rights, but their pragmatism is short indeed when they consider steps Russia is taking to balance against U.S./NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. Security is no longer reasonable when other states with competing goals act on their interests. Security is an excuse to stop the spread of democracy, keep people down, expand government powers, etc.

Distrust among states is a feature of international relations. Friends spy on friends. The less we have in common the more distrust between us. Look at the bloody history between democratic and non-democratic states. The peace between democratic states is not extended to peoples outside our exclusive club. The fact that democratic states don't attack each other is not as significant as the fact that democratic states have attacked more non-democratic states than the other way around. It's also, in my not so humble opinion, ridiculous to assume wars will cease or greatly decrease if every state transformed itself into a democracy tomorrow. Democracies can't stop the greatest reason why states go to war: scarcity.

American security to me has very little to do with our physical security and is synonymous with accessing new markets at the price of shortchanging human rights and democracy. Everyone wants peace on his own terms and people have no idea how vital a healthy economy is to a stable democracy (the magic number is around $4,000 per capita annually), and our dependence on commodities drive American security.

This economic reality dictates we go back on our word and eventually come around to supporting the same regimes the government criticizes to gain public support for its foreign policy in the first place. This, by the way, is a great recruiting tool for terrorists. They know we pay attention to the Middle East because of oil, people there know we pay attention because of oil and terrorists exploit the resentment.

The more security commitments we agree to the stronger our economy needs to be to sustain a growing military-industrial complex managing our global security umbrella. At some point we are going to overextend ourselves if we haven't already. It's really unfortunate that more than any other ideology, for modern American conservatives patriotic language trumps the natural understanding that people resent having their sovereignty challenged and sometimes ignored for someone to get their way because they have the means.

So what does American security look like when our intentions are benign, our goals unimpeachable? You don't need to worry too much about making sure democratic reform expands outside traditional Western states to decrease conflict because we, unlike everyone else, have the world's best interests at heart. If that means we have to support dictatorships to maintain the international pecking order with us at the top (so we think) it's the lesser of two evils. The world will eventually come around to seeing things our way and we will eventually stop having to ignore the will of foreign peoples.

Colonel W. Patrick Lang: Pakistan is prone to religious fanaticism, tribal unrest and the rule of warriors? What a surprise! This is the traditional pattern of government throughout the Islamic World. There are places where this pattern does not exist; Jordan, Morocco, the UAE, Oman and a few more. The crowd will roar but I would include Egypt in this group. Strong, traditional rulers who govern with a modicum of common sense are the pattern in such places. Do we applaud their methods in such states? No! We Westerners typically seek to undermine them because they are not what we think they should be. What is that? Exactly like us, that is what we think they should be. For all our talk about the "blossoming" of freedom in locally acceptable forms, we Americans (and a lot of others) do not believe in that for a minute. We want people to be exactly like us.

1. It depends from which viewpoint you approach this question.

The President of the United States' first and foremost task is to make sure that the country and its citizens will be secure and safe against any possible outside threat. So many desicions made by the President will be more determined by the security of the USA than by the human rights of people in other parts of the world.

From a more "objective" moral and ethical viewpoint one could of course answer it in a different way. Is the life of a U.S. citizens more worth than the life of citizens in the rest of the world? The most obvious answer is of course: no, the lifes of every human being in the world is equal. From this perspective one could argue that human rights globally is most important.

2. To some degree we could justify some actions that normally run counter to our beliefs and morals, it all depends what the nature of these actions are and which purpose they fulfil. Propping up a tyrant could be explained and prooven to be the best solution to complex problems we are faced with in some circumstances. It may be on the edge of the acceptable, but in some cases there is no other way. Torture, extraordinary renditions and secret detention camps (things done in this so-called war against terror), in my opinion, go too far and are inexcusable and impossible to justify. These are actions that go against so many basic beliefs and against basic morality that they should never be allowed.


I am not sure if Uzbekistan is such a good example as you like it to be.

link

In short, U.S. improved relations with Uzbekistan as part of their "war against terror"/extraordinary rendition program/human rights abuse tactics. The U.S. did not move out when they saw that Uzbekistan continued the human rights violations, instead they used the horrible conditions in this country for their own illegal extraordinary rendition program.

I think Uzbekistan is a good example. This article is outdated. Our forces moved out of Uzbekistan two years ago. And there actually had been small but measurable improvements in the area of human rights while they were in Uzbekistan. However, they were not sufficient. It should also be noted that aid assistance to the Uzbek government was conditional on that government’s efforts to improve its human rights record.The Uzbek government had to prove that it was making progress in meeting commitments that it agreed to under a joint Declaration on the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Framework, signed by Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

So we had a signed declaration and aid contingent on good behavior. The Uzbek government failed in their obligations and we stopped aid and pulled out. Had it worked and the Uzbek government improved due to working with us that would have been a very good thing for everyone. And we had, and still do have a security interest in working with Uzbekistan. We dropped it because of the way the Uzbek government operates.

I've learned that nearly unequivocally the difference in a liberal versus a conservative is how they view debate. I believe that liberals discuss feelings and emotions, while conservatives value objectivity and factual information.

No one has ever or will ever advocate the killing of innocent people. The unfortunate part about Iraq is that there is a blurred line. People argue absurd numbers as high as $650K Iraqi's dead, but how many of those were combatants? How many of those were Iraqi Army that fought us? Saddam supporters?

How many of those were killed by insurgent acts? How many died under Saddam's rule?

My ultimate thought is that in this case, Iraqis and the media will publish whatever seems to fit their agenda. History will write the story as it happens, and only time will tell whether we were liberators and changed the fate of Iraq or made a mess and killed thousands of people needlessly.

It's impossible to state objectively what the outcome will be at this point.

No one can say how Iraqis really feel about American involvement as a whole, in that who has taken an objective poll? Where are the statistics coming from? Basically, just like anything, someone can skew the facts or lack there of to support their claim. I believe wholeheartedly that the 5 o'clock news doesn't make any of us experts on this situation.

Human Rights Globally vs. American Security, Which is more important?
Should we allow actions that run counter to our beliefs be allowed and justified with excuses like "collateral damage happens" or "needing" to prop up tyrants in foreign lands because they are the current enemy of our enemy or strategically valuable?
Obviously security is paramount for any country and war a last resort to most political situations.

During the cold war we did “prop up” far right regimes opposed to Soviet Russia. Few allies will ever be “perfect” and in a world of constant conflict compromises have to be made.

No war has ever taken place without “collateral damage” and never will. If war is inevitable the US clearly has done more to limit “collateral damage” than any country on earth – including the US in the big nasty wars of the last century.

I don’t think we have “sacrificed our ideals” in any way – to the contrary.

The topic indeed has been addressed as "self defense", and the God given right to secure our many freedoms that we as a nation have been fortunate enough to have gained, not by appeasement but by applying the principal of "peace through strength". There indeed are many nations on the face of the earth that owe their very continued existence to the STRENGTH and conviction of the United States of America. To name but a few, ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, GERMANY, JAPAN, KOREA, MANY NATIONS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC and as I said before even RUSSIA. All of the above mentioned have been molded in some form or another by the direct influence of American strength and values, in the case of Europe, not once but twice their proverbial tails were pulled directly from the chopping block of despotism. Even our neighbors to the north, that like to boast of their socialist success. I would state that the only reason that they are "allowed" to spend so much and tax their citizens to the extreme to pay for the socialist platform is in fact because they have as their "neighbor" the baddest, meanest guard Dog on the planet and thus they are allowed the luxury overextending their social platform at the expense of their own defense. For an example of some of the many nations that have realized to late that "socialism" at the expense of defense is a lost cause, just look to the nature of the former USSR, or our neighbors to the south Cuba, booth on brink of going "belly up", all due social communism. In fact look at the course that France has decided to turn after recent extremist uprisings in which the Government of that country were defenseless to stop, they are now turning toward a more conservative and capitalistic approach to governing.

As far as the conflict in the middle east, it has indeed, a direct bearing on our NATIONAL SECURITY, whether you deem it as politically correct or not, there remains an all to real and imminent threat to both our national interest and the security of our citizenship, and damned what the world at large thinks about it....it is our tails that are on the line, and if several thousand US citizens laying dead in our streets due to the hatred of an ideology that rests and gestates right square in the middle of were our troops are now deployed is not ENOUGH to convince you that we are justified to take whatever measures are needed to secure both our interests and freedoms from the threat of terrorism, time and history will tell which "Ideology" is the correct course of action to take, one of "APPEASEMENT" at any cost, or one of "ACTION" through strength, in which we have placed boots on the ground right in the heart of the beast that gestates such ideology of murderous intent. Indeed our mission in the middle east is of up most importance to our defense. Or, do you perhaps think that having the geographical HIGH GROUND in preparation for continued aggressions of the theological despots of that region I.E....Iran and Syria is one of pure random circumstance? Then, just take a look at the map of that region, US boots on the ground in the Afghanistan region on the Eastern Border of Iran, Then Iraq, US boots on the ground on the Western Border of Iran, and further to the West you find Syria and just south and West of them, our allies, Israel. Both future threats to world peace in that region are surrounded by MILITARY MIGHT. Random circumstance? No, the hard facts are as such that we need to keep and maintain troops in the nation of Iraq, as friends and supporters or as those that are being "OCCUPIED", we have done everything in our power to offer them the freedom of democracy, the choice in the end is theirs to make, not ours. But either way, the presence of the US military will be in that region until such time as it is no longer deemed a threat to the world at large and ultimately to the US and its interest.....period.

As far as what "CREATOR", the answer to that is, why of course God. There is only one God, period. There are many and distinct ways in which people my chose to worship Him, but the same creator that declares that freedom is a God given right is the same God for all people. RD

While I applaud and even admire your resolve I hardly take it to heart as some honest description of reality. In one example if I occupy someone’s house, with only the intent of doing them "good" should they have no right to desire me leaving and even using force against me? You may say its different but giving the reality of Iraq I can hardly view that place as a place that full heartedly desires a U.S troop presence. In all reality I can strike that word as a good of enough depiction as to why our troops happen to be dieing constantly in this never ending war as easily as you can say they are dying to protect U.S freedoms. As far as intelligence is concerned in military application I still do not see any trace of WMD, nor plans for future WMD, nor reason for presence in the first place past taking down saddam. In reality though Iraq hardly seems the threat that needs to be countered. Iran historically is far more a positive reality for anti U.S terrorist activity then Iraq ever was plus they are actively pursuing nuclear weapons right now. Giving the scales on why we invaded Iraq and the subsequent reality of Iraq compared to the image of Iraq put forward by the current administration in order to gain support for the war hardly makes any sense if not being nothing more then a hypocritical paradox.

Also I find it hard to believe that so much U.S resentment at home could come to exist on a matter if it were truly so dire as you would frame it.

We discarded all the good fortune that day and went on to commit the historical mistake of Iraq. Its all been rather bad the whole time but of course it would be unpatriotic to question any of it, more so when countless lives have been destroyed by a war with no end in site and almost the same for answers if you would even call them that. We have been lied to in the amount of pages worth of dialogue, and this is openly known anymore. Its been so long since I can remember any kind of peace as in actions from our current admin. Its just been a war on everything it seems like. I mean they went as far as to silence scientists, to me that means no care but for personal vision. This makes sense considering the amount of stonewalling to behavior even at the U.N.

Maybe this is in reference to the question posed to the dems at last night's clash.

I found these last debates to be the worst -- Wolf Blizzard seemed obsessed with wedging candidates into "gotcha" moments, and I think his whole approach was anti-intellectual. Which is to say, CNN-style. For example, at one point he said "triangulation -- whatever that means." And I thought: "Bud, you are political journalist. If you can pretend like you don't know what triangulation 'means,' then you are pandering worse than Bill Richardson. Pandering, I might add, to an audience that is not as dumb as you give it credit for."

I digress, but not really.

This question, which has been again posed here, is a perfect example of a weighty and complex issue narrowed down to an unanswerable multiple choice.

I say that there are complex differences between situations.

If we are talking about the totalitarian tyranny of Hitler -- a machine that was capable of recking violence that is exponentially greater than anything America faces in the guise of non-nuclear terrorism like the 9/11 attacks -- then I think we were sincerely justified in violating human rights throughout the war. I think it's worth noting that, when we violate human rights even under the direst of circumstances, the cost is not shouldered by the victim alone. When America violates human rights, Americans always pay a part of the cost. The malaise of the 1970s, the culture wars, and the current collapse of all civility within the legislative branch have been items on that bill.

The tragedy to me, is that national security has at least since the Monroe Doctrine, been so loosely and selfishly defined. And our actions have been rash and short-sighted, perhaps because our presidential term limits roll Eisenhowers problems off of JFk's back, onto LBJ, Nixon, then Carter.

For example, I don't think there'd be a Pakistan problem if America had behaved differently in the Middle East, if we'd contextualized the severity of a threat like Iran and considered the long-term problems associated with sponsoring a goon like Saddam Hussein. Until the day Iran possesses nuclear weapons, the nation simply will not constitute a threat to our security that would excuse the base denial of human rights that we exemplified in sponsoring the Shah, training his secret police, then sponsoring Saddam Hussein when the revolution backfired on us.

Secondly, I think there is a fundamental flaw in the way we expand the definition of national security: National security is not the same thing as "the security of our interests in faraway parts of the globe where free-trade capitalism would better serve the American economy." If there is one thing I really like about Ron Paul -- and there are several things I like about him -- it is that he has made that point utterly clear to an establishment that has never questioned that logic. Maybe if America strove, over the long haul, to be an economically more independent nation, we would be a better force for democratization in the world. I'm not an isolationist -- I think there are too many places where small crumbs of American capital could make a world of difference -- but I do think that our economic involvement in places like China, the Middle East, and Latin America hinders our ability to push for democratic rights. It's hard to preach democracy when you support the Saudi royal family.

In short, I think our national interests are best served when America is seen as generally a force for good in the world. We'll never be perfect. But we do have some serious flaws that we can address, such as our misleading belief in the exceptionalism of America:



27 million Soviets died fighting Hitler, often with rocks-- maybe only 10 million of those casualties were registered soldiers. That those Russians died defending a system that was objectively tyrannical is secondary to the fact that they, more than any other nation extinguished the threat of Hiterlism. While we were recoiling from our shattered innocence at Pearl harbor, Londoners were preparing to spend years' worth of nights in the tube tunnels to shelter themselves from nightly bombs. Freedom is a human desire, not an American pre-occupation, and other nations have stood up to claim it in greater numbers than ours. Over the past 50 years, other nations have made sacrifices in the name of freedom that most of us cannot even begin to comprehend from our distance: Algeria, for example.

That might seem like a moot, off-topic, or needlessly anti-American point, but its none of those: the fact is, in many parts of the world, people the age of 50 can remember serving the British as colonial subjects. I don't devalue our efforts or our own tremendous sacrifices-- we made de-colonialization possible on an economic level -- but I think we would be self-centered to think that we, more than any other "nation on earth [have] been responsible for freeing more people and spilling more blood while doing so." I think Gandhi freed more people than ten US presidents combined, and our own noteworthy efforts were still only one intricate part of a global, interconnected drive for nationhood that characterized the second half of the 20th century. This is exactly why I thought Ken Burns' The War was a waste of perfectly good PBS time.

I think we would become a more conscientious nation, and consequentially a safer nation, if we honored the way other nations have stood up to die for the same rights most of us have enjoyed from birth. Wouldn't it be great if America had a 'world veterans day'? If God and the inalienable rights of man come before country, then why don't we reserve some celebration time to those non-Americans who have fought for the same inalienable rights as we enjoy here at home. I think that would enlighten our understanding of humanity, and make our own democracy so much more meaningful if we remembered what people have sacrificed to emulate it.

In turn, that would make us think with greater clarity and seriousness when we consider the costs of violating human rights abroad.

Human Rights Globally vs. American Security, Which is more important?
Should we allow actions that run counter to our beliefs be allowed and justified with excuses like "collateral damage happens" or "needing" to prop up tyrants in foreign lands because they are the current enemy of our enemy or strategically valuable?

Nobody is going to be elected president who answers this question by answering global human rights are more important than national security.

Our national security is directly in the job description of our federal government.

However, the advocacy of human rights is the advocacy of stable, self-determined governments and that often is in the best interests of the United States in the long run. We too often have eschewed human rights today and created our enemies of tomorrow.

Our best policies promote national security by doing things that make the majority of people in other countries feel good about the United States government while making sure we have a safe nation. When one must be sacrificed, it must be human global rights. Good policies do not lead us down a path where we have to make this choice.

You miss that fact that they really want us to STAY.

http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2007/cyb20070306.asp#1

Iraqis are now returning for Syria and elsewhere.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 7, 2007

(CBS/AP) The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the Iraqi spokesman for a U.S.-Iraqi military push to pacify Baghdad, said border crossings recorded 46,030 people returning to Iraq in October alone. He attributed the large number to the "improving security situation."

"The level of terrorist operations has dropped in most of the capital's neighborhoods, due to the good performance of the armed forces," al-Moussawi told reporters in the heavily-guarded Green Zone.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/07/...in3463847.shtml



I agree wholeheartedly and with any luck we will leave Iraq as a stable friend in a vital region critical to out security and self interest.

If we cannot do that the opposite will be true and we will have to deal with the results of that failure at a future date.

I don’t think I am leaving anything out. How many links do you think one could supply to show a variety of situations to the overall reality or environment of Iraq. One link really is just a drop in a giant bucket of uncertainty which is this conflict overall. I mean from the reality that no end is in site how can you realistically then agree to anything anyone speaks about on the war to nothing more then a short lived or decaying process with historical implications no one really can discern?

All I know surely is Iraq was not what was put forward for the reason for invasion. Subsequently the reality of Iraq post mission accomplished has been one of no control overall and even less in regards to understanding. So in all reality support of this conflict rests on a faith, not an understanding. Its support I draw into question because I simply do not see how Iraq even if democratic would or could support ending terrorism. One only has to look at the mideast in general to see what I mean. The other idea is that these people, the terrorists, or if you want to get larger in scope Muslims in general seem to migrate freely about the world in general like people in general. If the reality of why Iraq would be better off and at the same time dealing a crippling blow to terrorism had any validity for this invasion such would have already surfaced. I agree there is a large problem of security with terrorism, I do not however agree to any extent to current means of combating such and I have disagreed with Iraq when it was in the stages of being only a political speech.

So do I support faith really in an uncertain future which is causing not only wide scale death and suffering but typically lacks any real understanding? Well I certainly don’t really. If you can say that this conflict is more then I described then surely I must simply be at fault because I do not see it as more then such.

The war on terrorism should have taken a different course a long time ago in my opinion.