quote:

Originally posted by PolicyWonk:
RE: http://www.military.com/opinio...15202,240933,00.html

frankly, while all the questions posed in Mr. Brooks editorial are fair, one has to wonder why his curiosity is piqued now three years after this administration took office. Mr. Brooks and his colleagues at the heritage foundation, cheered on this president's predecessor while he was in the process of creating many of these extraordinary foreign-policy problems.

Unlike his predecessor, this president tries to gather all the information he can, rather than make rash, shoot from the hip style decisions. This nation is better off with a president that actually considers what the ramifications of his actions might be. It is also important to keep in mind, that this president inherited a military at its lowest state of readiness since Vietnam, not counting the economic and financial disaster that shook the foundations of the entire Western world.

Hence the options that this president has at his disposal are subsequently much more limited, as these are problems that cannot simply be fixed with a magic wand. Eight years of managerial incompetence on the scale visited upon this nation, as much as we all might wish otherwise, are going to take years, maybe decades to repair.

If one considers the history of the past 10 years during which the heritage foundation, the neoconservatives, and the Bush administration were happily stirring up hornets nests in every corner of the globe, it was obvious that no one was considering a long time ramifications of their actions. As Colin Powell pointed out before we invaded Iraq, it is much easier to start a war that it is to conclude it as planned. That administration and the neoconservative cabal would have been wise to heed his advice. Because all they left behind was a vastly more dangerous world, and a clear unwillingness to admit any fault in the problems left behind for this nation, let alone those of our allies.

When I look at the field of Republican candidates for president, and where the current president is hardly perfect, he is far and away superior to anyone that the Republicans have offered as an alternative. It is the Republicans that created a large number of the foreign-policy problems that we're facing today, including the unrest in Iraq, the rise of Iran as a regional power, and the creation of a nuclear armed North Korea.

United States military has deemed energy independence as a strategic necessity for this nation, and is investing heavily in green technologies. While not every investment will come out with a positive result, it is in our national interest to research and develop new technologies that will contribute to the security of the United States. Furthermore, it is high time to make it disadvantageous for manufacturing firms to move their operations overseas, especially to China. While I am personally in favor of free trade, countries that either manipulate their currency, or otherwise subsidize manufacturing operations to provide advantages to their economy, should be penalized with tariffs to level the playing field for American manufacturers and American products. This is often considered heresy in conservative circles, but Pat Buchanan spent years writing editorials lambasting the previous administration for its policies that encouraged manufacturing companies to move their operations overseas. This nation is now in the unfortunate situation of fueling China's military buildup and economic power at the expense of the security of the United States.

The demanding of action on the part of the conservatives, especially when taken in the context of their long list of foreign-policy failures and catastrophes during the previous administration, would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic. And while Mr. Brooks is asking some good questions, I do not envy this president and the options that he has at hand to answer them. It may simply boil down to choosing the lesser of available evils.