We WEREN'T in any Muslim nation before 9-11. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. All we did was try to keep the peace over there. We got Sadam out of Kuwait but left him in power in the early 90's under Bush I. Kuwaities love us. Kurds in northern Iraq love us. There have been Muslim extremists ever since Israel became a nation in 1948. There always will be. 9-11 is NOT our fault. We have always tried to be fair to all parties. Extreme Ron Paul supporters who are slinging dirt on the other Republican cantidates have made me change my mind. I now will NOT vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. It will have to be someone else. Newt does make the most sense. He, leading the congress in the 1990's got us a balanced budget and started paying off the national debt. Had 9-11 not happened, our total national debt would have been paid off by 2010-12. Afganistan was a needed invasion to find Osama, but Iraq was not. Iraq balanced power vs Iran. Helped keep Iran at bay. A good president knows how to pit our potential enemies against each other diplomatically to keep them off us. Terroists are different.
America is a republic, but it also is an empire whether it wants to be or not. We have 25% of the worlds economy, China is only 1/3 our size economically which is the next largest. China also has 1 billion people in abject poverty and will for a long time. They also are over extended in credit. Their businesses are in terrible shape and OWE too much vs what they produce and sell. It is only a matter of time before their bubble crashes, just like Japan in the 1990's and we thought Japan was going to overtake us in the 1980's. China is now approaching the same problem. About 40% of their total exports come to the US and the rest go to Europe. Europeans and Americans are cutting back and not buying as much which is going to put them in a crunch. Now back to us being an empire. We have to largest most powerful military in the world. Our navy can reach 90% of the worlds population centers with our aircraft carriers. All the navies in the world combined are only about half the size of ours. We have the largest air force, and a large specialised Army and lots of special forces. We are the economic engine that runs the world, we also have the military power, and our weak point is our political willpower. A good president can use this power to pit different sides against each other to keep power balances in the world. Reagan and Roosevelt knew how to do this. Bush II didn't, he neglected the home economic problems and overextended us in Iraq. He should have just left Sadam Hussen in power to balance out the Iranians. We are so powerful as an empire, when we sneeze economically, the whole world reacts. Even though we lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, we still make a lot of things, we also still have a lot of mining and oil production. We also have more nuclear power plants and we have more windmill power than anyone else. Maybe not percentage wise, but more overall. The European Union will probably come apart at the seams soon. Germany cannot finance the PIIGS (Portugal, Itally, Ireland, Greece, and Spain forever in their socialist ways. The PIIGS will eventually fall apart, thus tearing the EU apart. So that only leaves us as the empire of the world.
So no matter who gets to be president, even Ron Paul. We can never go back to being isolationist. We have too many businesses doing business all over the world and vice versa. We can modify our government and trade agreements to help us, but it will take a wise president to do so. Ron Paul might be ok for domestic problems and getting the government cut, but we can't abandon our allies who depend on us for trade and protection. We might could close bases in Germany, but probably not Korea because North Korea might get the wrong message, as just an example, and we can't put tarriffs on Canadian goods. We might could on China. I think Newt Gingrich has the best historical and most pragmatic view on what needs to be done, but his baggage is his problem. With the media we have that magnifies Republicans faults, but never mentions Obama's, it will take a good quick witted person, like Reagan, to bring America back.
