Quote:
Originally Posted by rubicon
VK: America has lost its will to fight as witnessed during the vietnam era. It wasn't until Ronald Reagan re-energized the patrioism in Americans that Americans all felt good about themselves and believed in America's exceptionalism. Following 9/11 the Bush Administration in its belief and desire to protect this nation from its enemies engaged in battles with Iraq and Afganhistian. Predictably, like Vietnam the doves cried foul and politicians interferred with the military's ability to wage a winning war. The situations regarding both theatres of battle detoriated becaue they were poorly managed
Iran like North Korea have leaders who are unbalanced and could unhinge easily and this unpredictability is why North Korea continues to successfully extort favors with their idle threats. Iran has continued down this path and if anyone has any doubt that Iran will not stop until it has nuclear capability is kidding themselves. The thought that North Korea and Iran have this capbility and can sell it on an open market to anyone changes the dynamic.
We have a present Administration that has rejected America's belief in its exceptionalism and hence Americans need not be patriotic. This is internationalism replacing nationalism and so the need to face Iran's challenge will not be met by America. It will be met by the UN and IMHO the UN is useless and in fact a deteriment to our American way of life
What would I do? I would move hard and fast and shove those nuclear plants down the Iranian leaders throats and in the process aid those Iranians who have fought a brave fight for freedom. Because in the long run freeing Iran from their oppressors will return to us many dividends in that part of the world and assist in maintaining peace.
Now that I have committed to my belief the doves will come out of the wood work with all sort of accusations and it all comes down to the fact Americans have lost their will to fight for what they believe and for their their freedom. As with Iran and other similar situations they will say that this is not their fight. Well that is exactly what France said about Germany in WWII and it was Americans that baled France out. France also had this international concept and the fight wasn't theirs until it was theirs.
But a weak President has only exacerbated a weak America and the rest of the world knows it and it is why they either have lost hope of our support or ignore us placing us all in more dangerous world.
I opine others can decide.
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Your response was thoughtful and I appreciated reading it. I want to agree Rubicon, but my head nodding up and down is limited by a couple facts...
- We've entered three wars in the last fifty years and haven't won any of them. Not only haven't we won militarily, but we haven't achieved many of our original objectives for entering those wars. We can study and debate the military and political reasons for those results, but our failure to "win" is unassailable.
- In the process of fighting those three wars, we've killed and maimed thousands of young Americans. The result is that the American public has largely lost it's appetite for war. The sacrifices made by American families who sons and daughters fought hose wars are all in a very narrow slice of the American public, generally the lower income, less well-educated classes. If a vote was held today to question whether we should enter a war as you suggest, but that the human sacrifice be shared by all classes of Americans, it's almost certain that the answer would be a resoundingly 'NO'.
- And it's quite apparent that our war efforts in recent decades have cost the country so much treasure that it's arguable that we couldn't afford to finance another long war, which an attack on Iran surely would cause.
So as much as I'd like to agree with all that you've said, I'm afraid that we've reached a point in our national history where we're simply incapable of doing what you suggest. Or if we did, it would likely be the fourth consecutive losing effort, which would likely tip the county into complete bankruptcy.