How could anyone forget the clarion call after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on that fateful day on December 7, 1942 and the awakening of America’s incredible industrial strength? The response was breath taking as this country unleashed its production at a pace never imagined in response to injustice and fascism that threatened the world. As over 4000 ships sailed toward the Normandy coast, the world was about to get a taste of the incredible ability of this country to sustain a war event unparalleled in the history of the planet. In the end America responded and it was the tipping point in turning back an era of dictators and fascists that had designs of parceling up the world to their own designs. America emerged as the preeminent World Power and looked upon as a beacon of liberty around the world. It was one of its finest moments.
Since then America has indulged itself in a prescribed notion of national interests with mixed results. The Korean War with it’s continuing effort to contain the red threat and ill conceived acts by General MacArthur to draw China into a world conflict. In the end we found a divided Korea one ruled by an iron clasped Communist dictator and the other in the south by yet another dictator. It took many years before South Korea saw the emergence of Democracy but this division still stands today as a potential flash point of engulfing into a regional nuclear nightmare and beyond. In Iran where America propped up a dictator for many years, it resulted in a take over by extremists and the taking of American hostages. And now today again a new threat has emerged that has handcuffed the region into how to deal with a leader determined to follow its own rightist ways however ill conceived it is. In Vietnam where they pleaded with America for it’s independence with a constitution designed similar to our own and where they derived most of their ideas. In the end, it was ignored because of France and their interests in this once thought insignificant part of the world. With increased funding from America to sustain the French effort, Vietnam needed resources to oust the foreign influence and turned to the Communists countries of China and the Soviet Union to not only defeat the French but drive out America in an inconceivable war that cost the country billions of dollars and almost 60,000 American lives. We failed in the Vietnam because of saying one thing while masking leaders in the south of not being what they really were, dictators. And now we find ourselves hunkered down in Iraq with a situation yet still to play it out. Ill conceived yes indeed, we’re left once again in adventurism that leaves us with unsure goals such as we seen in Korea, Iran and Vietnam. And with this approach we’ve found out that things may turn out not like we’d like them to. Adventurism, we choose it and because of its ill defined goals, we let unseen forces lead us down roads of sometimes adverse results.
We can speculate further on adventurism on America’s propping of dictators in the last fifty years in Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Philippines, Honduras and the list goes on. Some have made their way to democracy but at a cost of immeasurable human lives. Who can forget Batista stumbling out of Cuba inebriated calling his former country and people of bunch of idiots.
All of our presidents since World War 2 have led us down this path and there’s no distinction of any particular party. It’s been both Democrats and Republicans who have journeyed into the unknown protecting our national interests so they say. I’ll defer for now whose interests they really were. We are now on yet another of our adventures with no certainty of outcome and a question of if it really had any part to play in of national interests at the time. Our only certainty is it will continue to cost use billions and dearly in the cost of American lives.
As I watched George Bush give his State of the Union Address and viewed as our elected officials rose to his empty and uninspiring speech, I couldn’t help but wonder for our country. Then as Joe Biden the hair transplanted member of the Democratic Party respond to his address, I really wondered. I concluded that the adventure continues for Americans not only in Iraq but in our own country. That old Beatle song, “Fool on the Hill” kept coming to mind as I thought of our Representatives in Washington. So what is our national Interest? It’s hard to tell because both the left and right in this country are so focused on selling an agenda and it’s this divisiveness that has left us bankrupt of ideas. But one thing has remained consistent since World War 2, our adventures in the word of national interest has led us nowhere and quite honestly appear in some interests to have come to fruitation. America is no longer looked upon as the great beacon of hope in the world, but in some countries it is the greatest threat to peace in a world. Thus we have completed and indeed come full circle at the expense of our continued adventurism.
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the war was nearing completion and it would have been possible to stall hitler or booby trap all the trucks but the allies were out for blood and glory.
I agree with much of the world. I think we ARE the biggest threat to world peace. How ironic is that!
Not really isolationism, but I would like to see America get to a point that we do not get involved in others- "problems."
What can you do when another country asks for help? How will you know if this other country, that you help, will remain "good" tens years down the road?
Good Post!
Adventurism is a good word. It may be reckless, but not necessarily without thoughtful plans. Of course, there may be "blowback." The powers that move us
to take risks do so because they have an agenda, which may or may not be fruitful.
When we funded France in her attempt to regain Vietnam, why did we do it? When we place an embargo around Cuba, why do we do it? When we intrude on the affairs of Haiti, why do we do it? When we conspire to dump an elected socialisr in South America, why do we do it? When we went into Iraq instead of pursuing Osama bin
Laden, why did we do it?
PS: I was having Sunday dinner at my girl friends home when the attack on Pearl Harbor came over the radio. "Where the hell is Pearl Harbor?" we asked. Then we found out. And it changed our lives.
Voltaire[THUMBUP]
Thanks