I suspect the video is supposed to be making fun of McCain, but I give him kudos for not having the sadly all too typical American myopia that we can just sweep in anywhere, put in a few McDonalds and a Disneyland, and remake the country in our own image.
Our hearts as a nation are often in the right place, but our heads... that's another matter.
What some call hope and optimism, others would call myopic arrogance or just plain stupidity. The problems and tensions in this part of the world go back to a time when our WASPy ancestors were sweeping off the steppes of Asia and sacking Rome... or even earlier.
I don't know whether McCain has "the answer...," I don't even know that we're the ones to be giving "the answer" but at least he recognizes that there is no quick fix for millennia old problems.
Except for German and Japan post WWII (both of which had cultures which already had much in common with our own) we've totally tanked at nation building!
Our record with using money and food and advisers to do this is as abysmal as it is with guns and bombs and soldiers.
Mind you, I'm no isolationist... but who tries to fix a car engine without knowing the first thing about mechanics? (I did once... put 10W30 in the power steering fluid... NEVER AGAIN *grin*) Who tries to fix a country without knowing something about it? ANSWER: We do!
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I suspect the video is supposed to be making fun of McCain, but I give him kudos for not having the sadly all too typical American myopia that we can just sweep in anywhere, put in a few McDonalds and a Disneyland, and remake the country in our own image.
Our hearts as a nation are often in the right place, but our heads... that's another matter.
What some call hope and optimism, others would call myopic arrogance or just plain stupidity. The problems and tensions in this part of the world go back to a time when our WASPy ancestors were sweeping off the steppes of Asia and sacking Rome... or even earlier.
I don't know whether McCain has "the answer...," I don't even know that we're the ones to be giving "the answer" but at least he recognizes that there is no quick fix for millennia old problems.
Except for German and Japan post WWII (both of which had cultures which already had much in common with our own) we've totally tanked at nation building!
Our record with using money and food and advisers to do this is as abysmal as it is with guns and bombs and soldiers.
Mind you, I'm no isolationist... but who tries to fix a car engine without knowing the first thing about mechanics? (I did once... put 10W30 in the power steering fluid... NEVER AGAIN *grin*) Who tries to fix a country without knowing something about it? ANSWER: We do!
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