(no subject)

[dlgood]

Comments re:Anti-American sentiment and US diplomacy by Stephen Holmes of NYU Law. Emphasis mine.

We should not assume, without looking into it, that anti-Americanism will necessarily affect our national interests. Indeed, hatred of the U.S. should concern our national-security community only if it galvanizes individuals and groups with the capacity to harm us, either positively, by inflicting grave injuries, or negatively, by withholding the cooperation on which we depend to solve our most urgent problems. The latter method of inflicting damage merits special emphasis. WMD proliferation and offshore plotting by terrorist cells may or may not require active sponsorship by rogue states. But they can both benefit decisively from slovenly oversight by disorganized, distracted and incompetent states. Public officials around the world can inflict the most serious imaginable damage on the U.S. by simply being negligent. And negligence, it so happens, comes effortlessly to most human beings.

Man. Is that last sentence, not the most beautiful line. Negligence comes effortlessly. Yeah. It sure does.

Comments

Correct me if I'm wrong,

[bhadrasvapna.livejournal.com]

but I know that my husband and the President take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Much of the Security Community is former military. They have taken this oath. I am not sure how many in the Security Community outside of this have to. I would believe that the Secretary of State would as well. Our current one would have taken this oath as a member of the Armed Services. Do individuals such as Richard Armitage or any of the Undersecretaries take a similar oath? Did Condelisa Rice have to? I believe that the Vice-President also takes this oath. If they do, that is not only part of their job description, but it is an actual OATH they took. There is no better mission statement for the United States than the Preamble to the Constitution.

FDR recognized in his famous "Four Freedoms" address to Congress that national interest was tied to world affairs. That was 1941. It seems to have made such an impact on the current Security Community. Do you really think the rhetoric of some law professor in 2004 is going to have greater pull?

To that new order we oppose the greater conception --the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

Can it be said any better than this?

If these people see "social justice is an abstract concept" they aren't doing their jobs. They are poorly trained and need to understand the mission statement of our country. Their job is to defend and protect that country. We are not just the land or people, but our beliefs. If their policies conflict with those stated beliefs, which they have taken an oath to protect, they are not doing their job. Social justice as a natural right was set down in the Declaration of Independence. It is the very justification for being an independent country in the first place. To act contrary to that undermines the very foundation of our country. It isn't the terrorists that are the greatest threat to our country. It is the security community. They are worms eating the roots of the liberty tree that was watered by the blood of Patriots. They are the disease.

We don't need to counter these people. We don't need to convince them to behave. We need to remove them. They aren't the ones that need to realize they are wrong. The general population does. A government of the people can heal the liberty tree.