In fact, it would be unfair to suggest that he got all his ideas about the world from his brother and father. It would be equally off-base to suggest that he has any of his own. What he, like most of the other Republicans who may run for president, has are muscular-sounding bromides that substitute for understanding.
This is from Steve Chapman, “Jeb Bush’s Empty Indictment,” February 23, 2015. The piece is excellent.
Responding to Jeb Bush’s claim that “We definitely no longer inspire fear in our enemies,” Chapman writes:
We no longer scare our enemies? The United States is a superpower that has been at war for 13 years, has brought about regime change in multiple countries, and is currently leading an air campaign against the Islamic State while conducting drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. If those facts give our enemies no anxiety, our enemies are exceedingly dim.
I don't know if the US government scares the enemy, but by God, they frighten me.
(With apologies to the late Duke of Wellington who was speaking of British troops during the Napoleonic wars.)
Well said.
Osama bin Laden had an explicit strategy of asymmetric warfare. In other words, stage low cost attacks on the Empire, thereby inducing the Empire to stage high cost attacks in response. The goal was to bleed the Empire dry economically.
Osama bin Laden is dead, but ISIS has arisen to carry on his strategy. So, if the Empire is waging expensive war everywhere, thereby proving that the strategy is working, why would the enemies of the Empire be afraid?