1. “The United States will not do everything in its power to maintain its unquestioned military supremacy.” In other words, if another country threatens to exceed our military supremacy in some way, we should not necessarily respond to this. Let’s see… despite the fact that the United States makes plenty of mistakes in the use of its military power, is it better for us, and frankly for the world, that we have military supremacy, or that some other country does? Do we trust other countries more than ourselves to use that military power wisely? Have we not invested tremendous blood, sweat, tears, and brainpower in building our ability to defend our country, and given the state of the world today, was that some kind of error?
2. “The United States waives a right to preemptive action.” How can anyone with an interest in our freedom and lives argue this? We have been attacked, will be attacked, and know that these attacks are supported in an essential way by other sovereign states. We support Israel, which clearly utilizes preemptive attacks, maintained a policy of pre-emptive attack during the Cold War through MAD (which, for all its flaws, seems to have resulted in our continued existence) over liberal and conservative Presidents alike. Preemptive action must be used cautiously and wisely, but that doesn’t mean that as a sovereign state we should not have a right to use it where we see fit (and to accept the consequences for doing so).

Further, Soros appears not to understand the concept of “sovereignty.” Indeed, sovereignty does take precedence over international agreements and treaties. That’s part of what the word means. And although it would not be sensible to ignore our international agreements willy-nilly, again because of future consequences, there are nonetheless times when we must do so, just as sometimes an individual must break the law to do what is right. But this is exactly Soros’ problem: if I am not mistaken he is a “one-worlder” who believes that somehow all the people of the world should come together in peace and harmony under one international government. Great plan: people can’t even get along with their spouses, let along Serbs and Croats, Jews and Arabs, Irish Catholics and Protestants… we have to face the reality that people out there hate each other and many of them hate US for exactly that which we value: freedom, life, and wealth of a variety of kinds. If we weaken our defenses and just let things be, they WILL do their best to take those values away from us – to think otherwise is to evade seeing what is happening in the world.

No, it isn’t the “ideology” that is the problem. It is Bush’s horrible execution of the ideology. His confused reasonings and strategies, his “pragmatism” in attacking one supporter of terrorists (Iraq) and cozying up to probably their most blatant supporter (Saudi Arabia), his “WMD” rationalization for a war that almost certainly is based on vengeance rather than ideology… this is the problem. In the 1988 election, Mike Dukakis said “It’s not about ideology, it’s about competence.” As he learned, it’s about both. In Dubya’s case, if his ideology is as Soros states it, then he’s stating an obvious ideology for anyone who values their life and their freedom. It is competence where he is falling down horrendously.

Soros further shows his confusion by comparing the innocent civilians in Afghanistan killed in conflict with those in New York and Washington. The issue is not whether American lives are more “valuable” than those in other countries, it is who is to blame for the deaths. The Americans killed on September 11 were killed intentionally, in cold blood. The innocents killed in Afghanistan were killed as a result of our attempt to defend ourselves. We are not to blame for the deaths in either case, it is the original perpetrators who are to blame, and those who defended them. Just as the police are not to blame (assuming reasonable care) when they kill a hostage by accident, neither are we to blame when the Taliban put their civilians at risk by protecting the terrorists we seek. Instead of seeing that the US has sunk to the level of the terrorists, we should see that the Afghan deaths ADD TO the horror of what has been committed by the terrorists.