Definition of Insanity?
North Korea says they will continue to test their missiles. (As poorly as they have been performing, can you blame them?) Israel and the Palestinians are escalating threats of violence. I'm sure Iran doesn't like all these other natiosn gobbling up press-time, so you can count on Amhadinejad doing or saying something very loudly in the next couple of days.
Don't all these folks realize that whoever isn't with us is against us? Haven't they taken the lesson of Iraq that we aren't going to play nice anymore?
Maybe bullying is not a necessarily effective way of fighting the war on terror and keeping rouge nations at bay. And, while we're here, what makes them rouge nations, anyway? That they won't play by our rules? Those of the United Nations? Seems to me we pick and choose just what international treaties and declarations we will adhere to ourselves.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.
posted by Steve Heyduck at 7:31 AM
3 Comments:
I am in the middle of taking Multicultural Psych; in the process I had to read a book called "What Culture Is" --- can't remember the author just now. Anyway, the description is of culture as a tool that extends our ability to cope with the environment. There are several different ways that people can react when encountering a different culture --- assimilation, agreeing to live side-by-side (which usually results in some kind of assimilation), or war. It seems to me that the Muslim religion/culture (they are intertwined) has never found any type of assimilation acceptable. It's all or nothing. I think this is why they hate the West --- Western civilization is an open culture, in which subcultures are absorbed into and contribute to the larger culture. Islamic countries have been unable to completely keep out Western civilization --- especially since television, radio, the internet, and the discovery that lots of them are sitting on the oil that the West desires. Islam is unwilling to assimilate or be assimilated. Since they can't keep the West out, the only option they see is war. So many people in the West --- in Europe and in the Americas --- can't see this. They keep hoping that there is some sort of compromise possible --- that somehow we can assimilate Islam into our culture and that somehow they will learn to tolerate Western elements leaking into their societies. Ain't gonna happen.
One may ask all sorts of irrelevant questions regarding everything from lessons from Iraq or how a rogue nation is defined. Regardless, like Hitler and Stalin and a rogues gallery of similar criminals fools like Amhadinejad will still pop up and have to be delt with.
When dealing with such "leaders," bullying works far better than begging. If the UN would find enough backbone to take a stand and cut off fuel and food shipments NK would soon shrivel up and starve as it learned first hand just how little nutrition could be found in a warhead.
The Islamic world is no different. Like the hidden world of NK, their idealogy can not cope with the dynamic of western civilization and its pluralistic thought.
Now, Steve, as the son of a naval officer, you should know foreign policy always serves national interests, and often that necessitates a contradiction in integrity. That's just the nature of the game. In the final analysis, what differentiates a rogue nation from a nation like ours is not self-contradiction, but the willingness to conduct themselves responsibly in the community of nations. Do I believe the United States will ever execute a policy of ethnic cleansing with theromonuclear weapons? I sincerely doubt it. However, I do believe it is very possible that Iran will one day nuke Israel, just as sure as Iraq rained down on Israel Russian built Scuds during the 1991 US led Coalition invasion of Iraq, if Iran is ever allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal. In such cases, contradictions are profitable, just a surely as the lie of the Jericho harlot was profitable for the Israeli spies she covered for. Character of a nation isn't defined by nitpicky deviances in its behavior or speech, but in the general purpose and outcome of a nation. When the harlot lied to protect the Israeli spies, the ulitimate result was a nation that yielded the scriptures and the Messiah. The result of all the lies and contradictions of our nation (US) have worked to open trade, growth and prosperity for all nations in what Bush described as the new world order--free trade and globalization. Rogue therefore in our situation today would be those who are opposing our nation from accomplishing that goal, a goal that benefits every nation, even Iran and North Korea.
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