A Little Political Morsel
Just walked by a television where, not particularly out of context, President Bush said our troops were currently “spreading peace.” Since musing seems the way to be these days, I mused: “Spreading peace through war…”
Sure, this has been done. World War II comes to mind, since when I think BMW and Hitachi I don’t really think of weaponry suppliers.
But, this domestic stuff isn’t exactly fighting Rommel in North Africa. It’s dirty, and the terms “losing side” and “surrender” truly only have precision when viewing military action as a sort of anti-idealized ethnic cleansing, which nobody but the bad guys really wants to do.
What I think we’re doing, strategically (but to be really nice, maybe not morally), is more concerned with stabilization than peacemaking. We all know now that the whole “Boo hoo, Bush is going to war to lower our oil prices” stuff is either horse-hockey (my guess) or was just such a colossal bungle that it backfired or something on that order. I’ll leave Michael Moore to fill in the gaps there.
My theory is that we really don’t care what the country looks like when (if?) we get through with it. Odds are it’ll be bombed to Hell and awash wtih American contractors trying to patch the holes.
What we’re really looking for, purely from our viewpoint, is somebody not completely insane that we can push around a little. Take Pakistan: the current regime is not particularly democratic and not particularly nice, but they have tanks and tend to point them in the correct direction, when they’re not threatening India.
Look at Bosnia and Herzegovina: although a democracy, the CIA World Factbook currently lists the country as having 45.5% official unemployment. Make that 25-30% if you include the gray market!
I guess this isn’t really all too earth-shattering, but it amounts to a request on my part: don’t say “democracy” when you mean “stabilization.” Would we care about North Korea if Mr. Il was a friendly trade partner, adoringly nicknamed “Little Kim” by the Bush staff?