Really hungry? Did you get Chinese?

To answer your question about why we don’t do all that, it’s because even if we had the military capability to do so (which we don’t) military interventions don’t necessarily solve humanitarian crises. They can, and often do, but oftentimes they only exacerbate matters.

And speaking for myself, I never said I believed in the whole Wilsonian idea of spreading democracy as a foreign policy goal, nor did I ever say I was for the Iraq War (I was against it, btw).

What I was saying was that we have to consider the effect of our actions or lack thereof on other people. Jessica gave us a great example of the suffering that was visited on the Vietnamese people after our withdrawal. I think that’s something important to consider when we’re discussing our policy in Iraq.

What anonymous seemed to be saying was “to hell with the rest of the world,” let’s just look out for ourselves. That’s an idea I reject, and an idea that I hope many people besides starry eyed Wilsonian idealists also reject.

-Interventionism only feeds the warfare-welfare state or the military-industrial complex or what ever you call it. We have runaway deficits and will have to keep our high taxes to ever get out debt.

-It is a policy predicated on fear. Fear of foreigners, not a humanitarian mission. It encourages us to give up our civil rights and invites the nanny state and the executive to interfere in our lives.

-Staying in Iraq is just plain stupid. It has been one big embarrassment after another. It is costing American lives.

James and Jessica, lets be reasonable.
….”What I do believe is that all of us are endowed by our Creator with a few inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”…

Then why don’t we invade our pal Saudi Arabia? Why do we support dictators in Central Asia? Why do we support General Musharaf? Why don’t we invade Belarus? Why don’t we take out the government of Israel and normalize life for millions of Arabs under their boot? Why don’t we invade Burma and reverse the coup in Thailand?

This list can go on and on. The US has made realist choices before and there is no impending break in policy in leaving Iraq. (And where was all this democracy talk back in the 1980’s when we supplied Saddam with chemical bombs to use on Iran and his own people? I wonder how often people in Baghdad are asking this today.)

BTW, I looked you up on facebook, you’re pretty cute. Too bad your foreign policy sucks.

If “craving freedom with all your heart” is (as you suggest) both 1) a legitimate justification for intervention, and 2) common in all people, you essentially make the case for the US to become world police. Excuse my language, but that bullshit garbage does not belong in a supposed “conservative” publication.