Re: New poll sugests majority of Americans want off world st
roverroad wrote:A new poll is suggesting that for the first time in over a decade, a majority of Americans want their government to be less aggressive on international politics. That we should stop being the worlds police and even that America shouldn't always take the leading role. What are your thoughts on this?
The Article
This from the poll:
"The public was more likely to say the United States should remain the only superpower..."
This is what you would call having your cake and eating it too, and proof that it is a damned good thing we don't have a system of pure democracy in this country.
We are not niche players like Switzerland and Canada.
Al Qaeda attacked us because we are sticking our noses in
their business as they have attacked other nations like England, Australia, Spain and now Jordan. If we withdrew within our borders and stopped sticking our noses in everyone's business - including Al Qaeda's - where might we likely find ourselves within the next ten years?
There is a high probability that the world would have seen it's first nuclear war, and people like roveroad would be cursing the then administration for policies that resulted in the deaths of millions and the poisoning of a large part of the world.
Without America sticking its nose in the business of the Middle East, it and a fair portion of Western Asia will become controlled by Radical Islamists. Since many experts today say that nuclear weapons in Iran is almost inevitable, just imagine what the likelihood would be in a Post-Imperial America world. Pakistan would almost certainly fall to radical Islamists and they already have nuclear weapons. Without the US sticking its nose in North Korea's business, it's a near sure thing that would eventually sell their nuclear secrets to an Arab Caliphate in the Middle East.
It really would be foolish to assert that with a withdrawn America, the Islamists in the Middle East and Western Asia would be satisfied to live within their current borders and in peace with the rest of the world, but even if they did, the centuries long enmity between Sunni and Shiite moslems would reach a boiling point. Persian Shiite Iran will never allow itself to be ruled by any Arab Sunni entity, and it is hard to imagine that either group will resist the urge for unification.
And how will Israel react to the withdrawal of military support from the US and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Islamic fundamentalists who have long vowed to wipe her from the face of the earth? Will Israel wait for the first Muslim nuke to fall on Tel-aviv? Somehow I doubt it.
And think of the escalation of hostilities between India and a fundamentalist Islamic Pakistan without the US to rein in these two nuclear powers? How many horrendous terrorist attacks will India endure?
But what about the rest of the world? Wouldn't they step up and take over the role of international policeman?
Sure they would.
Europe would be too busy fighting internal battles with insurgent Islamic citizens or too afraid to risk such battle by taking on a robust Islam in the Middle East. China and Russia have shown themselves to be rather hamfisted when it comes to intervention, and both nations face threats from radical Islam within their spheres of influence, if not their borders, and therefore it seems unlikely that they would exercise much restraint when squaring off against a nuclear Islam.
Put all these ingredients together and a boiling stew of nuclear possibilities is the result.
A policy of American isolationism is a policy of disaster for America and the world.
How engaged America must remain is subject to debate, but I say in for a penny, in for a pound.
