A Cop Without a Plan

http://watchingamerica.com/News/241226/a-cop-without-a-plan/

The United States relied solely on its military might in ending conflicts for far too long a time. That now haunts them — in Iraq and other locales as well.

A Cop Without a Plan
die Tageszeitung, Germany
By Bettina Gaus
Translated By Ron Argentati
23 June 2014
Edited by Lau­rence Bouvard

Glenn Beck is a self-confessed reactionary and is proud of that fact. A few days ago, the television moderator declared publicly that he had been wrong and his liberal colleagues right: Invading Iraq, he admitted, had been a mistake. One can never bring democracy about at gunpoint.

This view of military intervention is shared by many in the United States — even by those who think Beck is a right-wing radical lunatic. The conviction that military engagement by the United States will result in freedom and democracy in other lands is widely held by many Americans. Opposition to American troops is often considered to be a display of ingratitude.

Isolationist tendencies have solid footing domestically to back up the notion that the affected populations deserve neither U.S. troop support nor the sacrifices they often make. Some cases of success and gratitude can be found. The iconography of these wars support this view, from the “candy bombers” of World War II as a positive image, to the photos of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu as a negative example.

Geostrategic and economic interests aren't good selling points for war. In addition, people have lost faith that the terrorist threat can always be permanently defeated by invading foreign lands. Whoever happens to be the U.S. president, he or she will face a public weary of war. On top of that, a Nobel oeace laureate like Barack Obama has no desire to go down in history as the man who plunged his nation into yet another high-casualty conflict.