I have two reasons for writing this entry:

1) It’s my first time posting to this – the third incarnation of Soundoff, and I feel a need to introduce myself. This is just as good a way as any to break the ice.

2) I am a 22 year old pro-war Libertarian Psychology major who is actively supporting George W. Bush in the 2004 election. More specifically, I am the only 22 year old pro-war Libertarian Psychology major who is actively supporting George W. Bush in the 2004 election. At least that’s what it feels like. Since my political makeup is undergoing what many see as a horrible identity crisis, I feel a need to explain my support for the President. In doing so, I’ll be explaining a little bit about myself. Let the games begin.

The Explanation

In November of 2000, I was 19 – just old enough to vote. At the time, I was about a year from joining the Libertarian Party. Like so many Americans, I viewed the political landscape in a few easily-defined, fairly obvious terms. I was interested almost solely in domestic issues: low (preferably flat) income taxes, privatized health care, first amendment rights, an end to the drug war, etc. The rest of the world – that outside the control of the U.S. Government – was of little interest to me. Moreover, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t care.

Walking up to the voting booth for the first time, I was still trying to convince myself to vote Libertarian. It didn’t happen – Al Gore scared the hell out of me, and I wanted to secure a win for his main opponent (since I live in Georgia, it didn’t make much difference, but anyway….). I held my nose and voted for Bush, a candidate I didn’t much care for. It was an act of desperation, and one I initially regretted.

Now – four years later – everything has changed.

On September 11th, 2001 I, along with most Americans, was forced to rethink my view of the world. Understand that prior to a few years ago, my generation of U.S. citizens has never seen its homeland attacked. The history of great American conflicts and their roots was just that: history. To me, the world was a generally peaceful place. Conflicts occurred, wars broke out, dictators tortured and murdered the oppressed, but none of this happened to me or to anyone I knew. In fact, it didn’t even happen in a locale that was physically close to me. Cognitive dissonance prevailed, and my views evolved into ones that were strictly relating to what my government was doing to me and my people. It never seriously occurred to me that the most opprobrious, reprehensible things were going on not in the United States of America, but in the rest of the world. This attitude – shared, I feel, by many of my fellow citizens – combined with a virtually impotent U.N. Security Council and eight years of the Clinton Administration (which managed to stretch military budgets to their breaking points and maintain the most widespread U.S. deployments in history – all the while never engaging in anything that looked even remotely like an all-out war, god forbid) combined to make the world ripe for what happened on 9/11.

If you don’t believe me, ask Osama bin Laden. Speaking to John Miller of Esquire magazine in 1999, he remarked that after witnessing the halfhearted deployment of U.S. Marines in Somalia, Muslim fighters determined that “the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat.” Just a few months after the U.S. deployment to Somalia began, an enormous truck bomb went off in the parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring over a thousand. In 1995 and 1996, Al Qaeda killed 24 servicemen in attacks on U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia. In October of 2000, Al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole, killing 17. All in all, it was quite absurd that so few of us saw 9/11 coming. The free world had been sending the message to terrorists everywhere for years: Bomb us and we will run. Terrorism works. It will get you what you want. This point can be no more clearly illustrated than by the eventual retreat of U.S. forces from a decidedly insecure Somalia, and – more recently – the U.N. retreat from Baghdad after their headquarters was attacked last August.

….but I’m getting off track here. More on this later.

The events of late have opened my eyes. No longer will I continue to bathe in ignorance of foreign affairs and turn a blind eye to international atrocities. I have taken a great deal of time to familiarize myself with foreign policy, and come to the conclusion that the time has come for the free world to act. Sadly, (but with a few important exceptions) – it has failed to rise to the occasion. George W. Bush did not.

Thus, I am giving him my support. While I don’t like his policies regarding gay marriage, Medicare, or his hefty spending, our national security supercedes all of the above. To paraphrase Paul Wolfawitz, it is not that things like the environment and civil rights are unimportant, it is simply that in order to address those (and other) issues, we must have a secure forum of discussion. Put in layman’s terms, you can’t protect the rights of gays, senior citizens, or taxpayers if they’re all dead because the world failed to stand up to Islamic radicalism and totalitarian governments. There are plenty of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, New York, and elsewhere who would love to attest to this fact, but can’t. They’re dead. Like it or not, it is up to us to decide whether or not their lives were given in vain.

So there you have it. My explanation of my support for George W. Bush in 2004. I will be voting for him, and encourage you to do the same. This time, however, I will be doing so without holding my nose.