[lsbskins1]

Quote by: rmnunez sounds like a good policy for the US government to pursue, certainly better than seeking to work against those principles and interests.

The problem is not seeking to promote your principles (which one can make a very powerful argument that they, the neo-cons, ignored rather than promoted) and your interests. The problem is that they felt it was the best policy to do this through force rather than persuasion. That is the stance the document takes if you do not cut and paste, but rather read it as the complete statement it is.

Quote by: rmnunez Whether US principles and interests can be best furthered by military action is debatable. I think they can, but only as long as force is used morally.

And it was not. And morals were never their concern, unless you consider it moral to expect to dictate to friends and foes the actions they must take. It is not that I do not believe the US should attempt to promote it's own interests. It's that I expect the US to play by the same rules everyone else plays by. Might does not make right. they expected to say,"This is how we want it, if you are our friend you will agree. If you disagree, that means you are our enemy and we will crush you." That is a course of action bound to generate animus. Bad policy. In the end, as we can see, it is counter-productive.

Quote by: rmnunez Nothing wrong with this, its moral and sound.

Except they thought they could dictate. That stregnthens nothing. And challenging foes by throwing all of your principles out the window is stupid.

Quote by: rmnunez Another loable pursuit, morally sound too.

Only if your actions actually accomplish this end. Another failure. This is them paying lip service to an ideal. It is not what you say, it is what you do that matters.

Quote by: rmnunez This makes sense too, unless you found US interests, principles, prosperity and security inherently bad.

Nope, but see all of the above.

Quote by: rmnunez Iraq under Saddam certainly was contrary to US interests and principles, apparently it wasn't as much of a security threat as was believed. Saddam's continued existence was a threat to international order, to US allies and friends, to political and economic freedom and prosperity.

And there were a million better ways to deal with what is true about the above statement. Choosing a horrible solution to a real problem gets you no points in my book. You wouldn't give the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who solved the problem in Darfour by invading, killing millions and then turning the country over to a dictator who made sure the mass slaughter stopped by putting everyone on one side of the conflict in jail. The solution to the problem must be reasonable.