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Originally Posted by Willravel
There are places in the world that are still tribal, but the US is not one of them.
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I don't agree.
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Moreover, as societies progress, they eventually move away from tribalism as it's no longer necessary.
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In your view what is the progression? what comes before and after "tribalism"?
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The idea that there even should be a top dog is outdated, something left to people that haven't yet moved to a place where they can comprehend where the world is heading.
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In one of my previous posts I make it clear that I am deferring to Obama as our "top dog". I accept that he is in charge. I accept that he is President. I accept that he is what "we", as Americans want. Problems get created when people do not accept these things. Even Hilary Clinton has accepted this "order", after the primaries and even now she could be acting in a manner in defiance of that order and causing chaos. She is not, she accepted her role, she accepted Obama's role. By the way Hilary Clinton is not what i have been told is an "intellectual", I don't agree with her on many issues - but I clearly understand her.
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Europe is easily matched with the US economically and militarily, and soon the same will be true of China.
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Europe is a collection of nations, and on many issues they don't even agree with each other. Leadership by committee is not leadership. The "buck" has to stop somewhere. On virtually all world issues, it stops with the US.
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When we're looking at three equal powers, top dog has to be left behind so that we can move on to what's next: global democracy.
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It will never happen.
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I'm sure it seems that way, but the inspector program has actually been a sweeping success. The author of the article I cited in the OP was a weapons inspector and he obviously has insight that our own intelligence community lacks.
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Is this some kind of an oxymoron? The inspection program is a success because they successfully inspected the knowns to be inspected. Or the inspection program is successful until it fails or is proven to have failed.
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I don't think you have a problem with President Obama because he's intellectual. Others clearly do, but you're not that kind of conservative. Any problems that you have with him would probably be the same you'd have with a Willravel administration: we have fundamentally different ideologies.
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What is Obama's ideology? Your Ideology is clear. Obama has taken positions consistent with your ideology and in direct contradiction to your ideology and on some issues it appears that he takes both sides. For example he is against "torture", but supports a document that would allow it. He thinks torture is criminal, but he doesn't support the prosecution of those he thinks violated the law. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
---------- Post added at 03:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by dc_dux
Bush's game plan was no nation-building; yet he surrounded himself with neo-cons who gave him the justification to use 9/11 to make Iraq the central battleground on his war on terrorism at the expense of pursing al queda in Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan is not a place to wage war. Obama will soon come to understand that sending more and more troops into that territory is wasteful. A war in Afghanistan can not be won, Bush understood that. Obama saying Afghanistan was the "right" war was political campaign rhetoric and now he is trapped and has to figure a way out without looking like he politicized the war.