Michael Kinsley: Where Do We Meddle Next?

[dajoki]

WP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/13/AR2006041301664.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Where Do We Meddle Next?
A Half-Century of Protecting Our Interests

By Michael Kinsley
Friday, April 14, 2006; Page A17

So, after more than a half-century of active meddling -- protecting our interests, promoting our values, encouraging democracy, fighting terrorism, seeking stability, defending human rights, pushing peace -- it's come to this. In Iraq we find ourselves unwilling regents of a society splitting into a gangland of warring militias and death squads, with our side (labeled "the government") outperforming the other side (labeled "the terrorists") in both the quantity and gruesome quality of its daily atrocities. In Iran, an irrational government that hates us with special passion is closer to getting the bomb than Iraq -- the country we went to war with to keep from getting the bomb -- ever was.

And in Afghanistan -- site of the Iraq war prequel that actually followed the script (invade, topple brutal regime, wipe out terrorists, establish democracy, accept grateful thanks, get out) -- the good guys we put in power came close a couple of weeks ago to executing a man for the crime of converting to Christianity. Meanwhile, the bad guys (the Taliban and al-Qaeda) keep a low news profile by concentrating on killing children and other Afghan civilians rather than too many American soldiers.

When the United States should use its military strength to achieve worthy goals abroad is an important question. But based on this record, it seems a bit theoretical. A more pressing question is: Can't anyone here play this game?

<<snip>>

So we marched in and got rid of the Taliban. Then we marched into Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. Now we're -- well, we haven't figured out what, but we're hopping mad and gonna do something, dammit, about Iran.

And they lived happily ever after.

[tularetom]

1. Perhaps this is the silver lining to the Iraq cloud

these idiots have tied up so much of our military capacity there we don't have the money or the manpower to meddle anywhere else. Oh sure * can mouth a lot of cowboy talk about Iran but nobody is gonna let us nuke them and we don;t have the forces for conventional warfare there. Our Chinese bankers will pull the plug on us before we can start anything that would disrupt their oil supply.

[dajoki]

2. Hopefully something stops him n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

3. And as counterpoint .... there's Darfur