...and so was George Bush, 8 years ago. Yes, when President Bush was just a former governor running for president, he was asked in a debate about his views on the role of the military. He stated, in no uncertain terms, that the military was not to be used for nation building.
Now for some reason, President Bush has revised that belief he stated 8 years ago, but this is exactly the stance that Ron Paul took, which many people scoffed at during recent debates.
Granted, Ron Paul took an even more extremist view in that he believed that our military should shut down all it's bases abroad and come back home. To be honest, I don't know why more people didn't love that viewpoint...but it made Republicans leery.
But the overall premise stays the same. The military is designed to fight wars...or more accurately, protect America. It should not be and isn't designed to rebuild nations. So we should have been looking to withdraw our military in a quick and orderly fashion long ago...once we discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
That's not to dismiss the "we broke it, we fix it" crowd. But our military doesn't do that...we have the Peace Corps, and hundreds of other government and private humanitarian aid organizations for that.
Had we followed that plan, it would have likely feed the conspiracy crowds with all kinds of outrageous accusations, but our country wouldn't be as broke as it is. And as much as I'd love to help others, if we aren't in the position to help ourselves, it makes it hard to help others.
I know that the parties are nearly set...but it makes you realize that neither John "another 100 years" McCain, nor Barack "I'm pulling out for the sake of pulling out and because I was right before the war started about no war except that I was a state senator not a US senator who would privy to more detailed information" Obama have it right.
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