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Friday, August 15, 2008

Francis Fukuyama Wrong Again

In his 1989 book The End of History and the Last Man (which we were forced to read as political science students) Francis Fukuyama wrote:
"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
He was wrong then, and today (in his WSJ editorial) he's wrong again.

Today, Fukuyama writes:
The Bush administration this week rebuked Russia for its disproportionate military intervention in Georgia; many rightly suspect Moscow's real goal is regime change of the pro-Western, democratic government in Tbilisi. But who set the most recent precedent for a big power intervening to change a regime it didn't like, without the sanction of the U.N. Security Council or any other legitimating international body?

Mr. Fukuyama, while I reject your naked assertion that the US went to war "without the sanction of the UN Security Council or other legitimate international body," let's assume arguendo that your statement is true. The precedent of going to war in such manner is as old as war itself. I don't remember Jefferson, McKinley, Polk, Reagan or any other President knocking on the UN's door before entering into armed conflicts.

There's only one function of the United Nations as it is comprised today, and that is to weaken and dilute America's influence in the world. The U.N. is without equal in its ineptitude and corruption. Its sole purpose is to justify the existence of its budgets and bureaucracies. As it squanders the worlds donations, it attempts to stand in judgment of the very nation that props it up.

But there's another thing that you do not understand, and that is that international organizations neither have authority nor legitimacy to restrain America's constitutional authority to wage war. America must not grant a veto over its power to the socialist countries of Europe or to every third world dictatorship which happens to belong to the U.N. A majority of Congress voted in favor of military action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and that war was waged with remarkable efficiency and success.

In light of the lessons from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which were not lost on President Bush, the Iraq War had to be fought. First, we would no longer would we allow failed nations to become havens for Islamic extremists, and Second, would we not allow rogue nations (ie. Iraq) develop weapons of mass destruction which they could then deliver to their Islamo-Fascist surrogates. Saddam Hussein both claimed the ability and had shown in the past the willingness to use WMD's. He had violated the terms of the Persian Gulf War for years, financially supported Palestinian suicide bombers, harbored and trained international terrorists and needed to be dealt with.

The real reason Fukuyama cringed when he saw the "mission accomplished" banner was not because he "knew" we would be fighting for five more year (he was wrong again by the way), but because professors like Fukuyama and the left (aren't those synonymous?) cannot stand a victorious American military. Rather, they want America hamstrung by international organizations and desperately yearn for China, the EU, Brazil or Russia to act as a counterweight to our influence in the world. Pray that day never comes.

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