Posts by Delaware Dem

I find it very interesting that both political parties are pulled in two different directions (and sometimes three) on the issue of Syria. On the Democratic side, you have the peace movement, the adherents to which believe the use of any military action anywhere is wrong and should never be pursued, even for humanitarian reasons. And then you have the Liberal Do-Gooders, who sometimes want to be the world's policemen to stop atrocities like what happened in Yugoslavia and the Rwanda in the 1990's, and what is happening now in Syria. And then you have those Liberal Warhawks who believe, just as most Republicans do, that the military option is generally preferable as the first tool of our foreign policy, not the last resort. The difference between them and the Neocons on the Republican side who believe the same is that Liberal Warhawks are generally followers, scared and scarred into sounding and acting tough on foreign policy through the experience of Vietnam and Republican attacks on "Democratic weakness" that followed. On the Republican side, you have the aforementioned Neocons, who literally are war pigs. They want to be at war all the time. This is not hyperbole. They wanted to invade Baghdad in 1991. And again in 1998. They truly want the American flag flying over the capitals of all the world, but most importantly, in the Middle East. There is not a war they will not fight, or a fight that they will not turn into a war. They dominate the Republican Party, and they have scared many Democrats into acting the same way as well. This group was born during World War II, got high off American superiority then and during the Cold War, and now believe that if America is not leading the fight and winning a war everywhere, it is losing everywhere. Making more noise recently is the other force at work in the Republican Party: the libertarians, which I think includes the former isolationists or non-interventionists. I will let Steve Newton take it away....