Friday, February 23, 2007

You Want to Talk Moral Authority??

Madeleine Albright told some 6500 Emory University students yesterday that the United States has lost its moral authority and that it was up to the next President to restore the “goodness of American power.” The fact that she was on the program with Jimmy Carter tells you how she feels. I know that’s a sweeping generalization but she was agreeing with Carter and joining him in attacking the US in a time of war. I’m right, get over it.

Exactly what moral authority is she talking about? Is she speaking of her impotent boss Carter from when she was in national security? Let’s see, if I remember correctly, under Carter we cowed to the Soviet Union, let the Saudis wreck our economy, and allowed our embassy to be taken hostage for over a year by truant college students. All that was done in response was a flaccid attempt to rescue them that ended in disaster because the Dems had gutted the military of funding and the equipment was marginally functional.

Perhaps she’s speaking of the moral authority of her most recent boss, ‘let me show you my’ Slick Willie. I remember he was high in moral authority. No wait, he wasn’t. He said that he didn’t inhale. That’s right; he had interns under his desk while he discussed foreign policy and national security issues with congressional leaders and heads of state. He managed to bomb and abandoned aspirin factory. He did start a war in the Slavic nations to take his peccadilloes off of the front page. Lots of morality there.

But most important, since when do we need the tacit approval of any country to defend ourselves from attack? Yes that means that sometimes we have to be preemptive. We need no moral authority from any other nation on the planet to act in our own best interests. I have read lots of stuff about this being an American empire. The difference between this and British, Roman, Persian, Babylonian, or Alexandrian Empires is that we don’t require other governments to capitulate to our government. We aren’t spreading our borders and government to other countries. We have influenced other countries to embrace self rule.

The difficulty in Iraq is that we had to show them what that looks like. It hasn’t worked. Finally they are developing their own version of democracy. It has some corruption. It has opponents who would seize power for themselves. They are the ones responsible for the thousands dead in the sands of Iraq. But they are fashioning a democracy in their image. We are there to fan the flames of that democracy and protect it until they are capable of protecting it themselves. That is the most moral thing that we can do. Authority be damned.

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