I will try to answer most here:
Regarding the quote from Teddy, it is relevant, since our objectives are right for the US and the World. You can sit around, all day long, and point out where "this and that" could have been done better, however, the US has once again taken the lead, the task, of bringing democracy to Nations like Iraq and Afghanistan. To not acknowledge the progress that has been made in these two countries, is mind-boggling.
Like President Regan, who in the early 80s?, laid out his "Sick Bear Theory" regarding the USSR, which resulted of the build-up that was needed to subvert the USSR?s poor economic situation, even though many critics came out and stated that Regan was a war monger and would bring in Armageddon, he pressed foreword and now, even his hardest critics agree Regan was right....So too, Bush is pressing foreword with a proactive Geo-political strategy that will benefit the US and many other Nations.
Do you want to be surrounded by a bunch of negative people who constantly say, "It can't be done," or by people who say, "It can be done," and who work to make it so? Bush spoke with vision when he said: "It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world, or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim, is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life. Human cultures can be vastly different, yet the human heart desires the same good things everywhere on Earth."
No longer is the goal of this war "regime change" or disarmament. For the first time, the president said that we're going to close the Islamic "freedom gap." This belief and faith in humanity comes from Mr. Bush's faith in God - at a time when the EU's biggest battle over a new constitution is whether or not to mention the Almighty. You can't keep freedom bottled up, or drip it out as the USSR tried to do. Remember, Reagan brought them down with his vision in the face of those who said freedom wasn't for Russians.
It is amazing the lack of vision some.
Regarding the Founding Fathers and Freedom and "what does this have to do with today...."Your view of their times is overly simplistic. Not just Britain was involved, but many European Nations hand a hand in the Territory and many agendas where present. The fact is the same virtues for the fight for Freedom that took place then, is as just as powerful and it was for WWII and the Cold War and the present. WWII was really none of our business, however, we understood the desire of peoples everywhere to be free. And the US has born the cost buy substantially funding NATO, UN and the general defense of Europe.
Again Teddy?s words really speak for some here:
"...who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat...."
Many are on the wrong side of History and the Iraq issue. Are there risks? You bet. But I have faith in the President, and all people everywhere who feel freedom is a worthy endeavor.
