Charlie Daniels is a country/western singer. He wrote "devil went down to Georgia" and a few tunes about the South rising again I think.
Not sure that he counts as astute in world politics, but he IS probably pretty well tapped in to the opinion of the average midwestern working class Joes who put Bush into office in the first place.
Maybe I am being overly naive here, but isn't North Korea's idea that "If we are a nuclear power then the rest of the world has to accept us and trade with us and coddle us" partly true? Again. perhaps my naivity shines through here, but isnt that what we do with China? They have "most favored nation" status right? And an absolutely atrocious civil and human rights record? No big surprise, might makes right in the world. Same thing applies with the US. If we were to withdraw from the UN, then it would crumble in hours. Same thing again; might makes right.
So how is this relevant? In my opinion the UN's stance of turning the other way while nations like Iran and Iraq and N.Korea develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs is basically giving these countries, who do NOT behave as befits civilized goverment, the exact wrong message. They have proven willing to starve their people,'s minds and bodies and run their nations into the ground in the name of increased military capacity. Why? Well if they have a big enough army with nasty enough weapons, then the world HAS to take them seriously right? Additionally, the UN would never approve military action against a nuclear power. Too much risk; just let them be and promote trade with them and they will eventually become modern and civilized. Isn't that our doctrine with China now?
The fundamental question here is: Is this a slippery slope argument, or is it reasonable? If reasonable (it certainly seems to be), then the timing of the invasion and regime change is largely irrelevant. Is Saddam in full compliance with UN resolutions now? No. Was he in blatant violation when he kicked out inspectors as "US spies" years ago? Yup. I don't think there is a statute of limitations on violation of UN resolutions.
The difference between the US and other large military powers throughout history is that we have NOT historically used our forces to conquer other countries and build an empire. Is this changing now? I am not sure. I think the whole "policeman of the world" policy is a bit misguided, but the real American empire is economic, and sometimes military force is needed to protect the global economic interests of our country. Does this mean we fight over oil or for money? Not exactly. It means that the US is well aware that the security of our nation and its future are directly connected to our economy, so protection of economic interests is in the national interest. This seems odd to the socialists I suppose, but then again the local ethic of "no one can be rich until the poorest of us are comfortable" seems pretty goddamned odd to someone with the potential to succeed financially who is living in a province with a large class of non-working/non taxpayers and low potential for turning this around.
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