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Uncomfortable
September 21, 2012 | 02:05 AM
This article made me uncomfortable.
At a minor, nit-picky level (it took me several reads of the relevant paragraph before I realised that Mr Card meant that American military dominance "prevented" (not "permitted") the breakdonw he speaks of).
And at a more substantive level (once again Mr Card trots out his "European intellectual elite" mantra - what is Mr Card's evidence that any such entity exists, let alone espouses the views he claims it does? I live in Europe, and I can confidently say that there is no such thing - in fact, there's barely such a thing as Europe, in any sense beyond the purely geographical, so to identify a Europe with sufficient coherence to have its own, monolithic intellectual elite, displays the same level of ignorance as that which President Obama is accused of in this article).
But mostly this article makes me uncomfortable because, in spite of various flaws, it resonates as being basically true. As someone who has indulged in America-bashing in the past (hey, I bash my own country too when I feel the need), and whose personal philosophy finds much of Republican dogma utterly abhorrent, it is not nice to have to admit it, but basically Mr Card is right - when it comes to foreign policy, there is too much of the Chamberlain about Obama. However, it is devoutly to be hoped that this does not result in the usual by-product of American bi-partisanism, namely a race to the extreme opposite end of the pendulum's swing. It will be interesting to see if Mr Romney is strong enough to resist that temptation. His history of flip-flopping (not that he is the only one guilty of that) would suggest not, but let's see...
Al
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