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WHO CAN WE BLAME WHEN THEY ACT LIKE US?
by Bill Wineke
Wisconsin State Journal, WI
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/column/index.ph p?ntid=252426&ntpid=2
Oct 23 2007
If you 've been reading the international news for the past couple
of weeks, you might have noticed things aren 't going all that well
for our side.
The Turkish government sought and received approval for Turkish
fighters to cross the border with Iraq and attack Kurdish "insurgents
" there. That 's not really good news. We don 't really need another
battle going on in Iraq, particularly not in the part of Iraq that
has been most stable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Iran and, basically,
proclaimed solidarity with the Iranian government. Putin also warned
the United States not to attack Iran militarily.
Virtually all of the candidates for president, Republican and Democrat
alike, refuse to take "any options " off the table when it comes to
Iran. One, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R.-Calif., even promised -- at a GOP
debate in June -- to "authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons
if there was no other way " to pre-empt Iran 's development of a
nuclear bomb. Until the Democrats took power in Congress this year,
Hunter was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Iran just
might have taken his threats seriously.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives seems to be backing off an
earlier plan to castigate Turkey for the "Armenian genocide " that took
place in 1915, China is mad at us because our government gave the Dalai
Lama a gold medal, and terrorists in Pakistan tried to kill former
Premier Benazir Bhutto and ended up killing more than 130 people.
Oh, and the American dollar is now worth less than the Canadian dollar.
Now, this bad news isn 't all our fault -- but policies we have put
in place in the past do come back to haunt us.
For example, we really don 't want Turkey to send troops into Iraq.
This can 't be a good thing.
But there is no question at all that Kurdish insurgents base themselves
in Iraq and then travel into Turkey and kill Turkish soldiers.
And we are the country that proclaimed a war on terrorism and, also,
assumed the right to invade any country we believe to be harboring
terrorists. So, I 'm not sure where we get the moral standing to tell
Turkey what to do about those who terrorize its people.
It most certainly isn 't helpful to us to have the president of Russia
fly into Iran and offer protection to the Iranian government at a time
when we keep saying that all of our military options are on the table.
But, a few weeks ago, when Putin asked Bush to refrain from putting
anti-ballistic missile sites in countries neighboring Russia, our
president told Putin to go fly a kite. Bush also told China that it
shouldn 't get its nose out of joint about the Dalai Lama and, at the
same time, asked China for help in making Myanmar less of a hellhole.
So far, China hasn 't responded.
Yes, it would be unfair to say all these recent foreign policy problems
are our "fault. " But our past arrogance hasn 't done a lot to defuse
them, either.
by Bill Wineke
Wisconsin State Journal, WI
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/column/index.ph p?ntid=252426&ntpid=2
Oct 23 2007
If you 've been reading the international news for the past couple
of weeks, you might have noticed things aren 't going all that well
for our side.
The Turkish government sought and received approval for Turkish
fighters to cross the border with Iraq and attack Kurdish "insurgents
" there. That 's not really good news. We don 't really need another
battle going on in Iraq, particularly not in the part of Iraq that
has been most stable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Iran and, basically,
proclaimed solidarity with the Iranian government. Putin also warned
the United States not to attack Iran militarily.
Virtually all of the candidates for president, Republican and Democrat
alike, refuse to take "any options " off the table when it comes to
Iran. One, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R.-Calif., even promised -- at a GOP
debate in June -- to "authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons
if there was no other way " to pre-empt Iran 's development of a
nuclear bomb. Until the Democrats took power in Congress this year,
Hunter was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Iran just
might have taken his threats seriously.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives seems to be backing off an
earlier plan to castigate Turkey for the "Armenian genocide " that took
place in 1915, China is mad at us because our government gave the Dalai
Lama a gold medal, and terrorists in Pakistan tried to kill former
Premier Benazir Bhutto and ended up killing more than 130 people.
Oh, and the American dollar is now worth less than the Canadian dollar.
Now, this bad news isn 't all our fault -- but policies we have put
in place in the past do come back to haunt us.
For example, we really don 't want Turkey to send troops into Iraq.
This can 't be a good thing.
But there is no question at all that Kurdish insurgents base themselves
in Iraq and then travel into Turkey and kill Turkish soldiers.
And we are the country that proclaimed a war on terrorism and, also,
assumed the right to invade any country we believe to be harboring
terrorists. So, I 'm not sure where we get the moral standing to tell
Turkey what to do about those who terrorize its people.
It most certainly isn 't helpful to us to have the president of Russia
fly into Iran and offer protection to the Iranian government at a time
when we keep saying that all of our military options are on the table.
But, a few weeks ago, when Putin asked Bush to refrain from putting
anti-ballistic missile sites in countries neighboring Russia, our
president told Putin to go fly a kite. Bush also told China that it
shouldn 't get its nose out of joint about the Dalai Lama and, at the
same time, asked China for help in making Myanmar less of a hellhole.
So far, China hasn 't responded.
Yes, it would be unfair to say all these recent foreign policy problems
are our "fault. " But our past arrogance hasn 't done a lot to defuse
them, either.