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What does everyone think? I feel like there's some sort of truism here, "when both sides are mad at you, you must be doing something right." Obama is at once acting too slow and too fast, doing too much and too little. Half of Congress is mad that Obama isn't landing Marines to ensure that Ghadaffi goes out of power, and the other half is furious that he launched attacks to begin with.
Frankly I thought his speech did a great job of articulating Obama's doctrine, and of explaining why we got into this and what our goals are. What a lot of Republicans seem to have a problem with is the fact that while it's Obama's goal to get rid of Ghaddafi, there are limits as to what we're willing to invest to remove him. I don't see anything wrong with that position. Fareed Zakaria made a good point in response to McCain's complaint on that point, by mentioning that it's our refusal to lose face that gets us into so damn many problems; we don't know when to quit. McCain and others have said that it's illogical to proclaim a goal, and then refuse to invest whatever is necessary to achieve it, but I applaud Obama for saying that while we have a lot of wishes, it's not always worth it to put forth any and all resources necessary to achieve them. Hooray for a little level-headedness.
It's a slippery slope he's put us on though. On the one hand, it's great that he's presenting this high-minded, moralistic doctrine that has us running around the world halting atrocities. Certainly we've done that before, even when our own vital interests weren't in danger (Bosnia seems to be the popular reference here). But given the sheer number of slaughters taking place around the world right now, we have to pick and choose. Obama tried to answer that, and I think he used the best answer there is, by basically saying that fears of being called a hypocrite shouldn't stop us from solving problems when we can and want to, even if we choose not to solve them all. In other words, he's not making his Doctrine a suicide pact. That's nice to know.
Despite the crying in Congress, I actually thought he laid out a pretty clear plan for Libya. NATO takes over and we step back to more of an advisory role, when and if the rebels win, the coalition helps rebuild, not just the United States. And we're willing to help, but only to a point; we'll help NATO help the Libyans level the playing field, but we won't commit ground troops. And the goal is to protect civilians and let the rebels fight it out, and hopefully they win. Check, check, check. I don't really see where the problem is. If they lose, well, that sucks, but the confusion over the Obama Doctrine seems to stem from the underlying belief that we must be able to win something more than just protecting innocent civilians. It's an all or nothing prospect to these people, and I reject that. A more nuanced reading of the Obama Doctrine seems to reveal a pretty clear, compassionate doctrine for the use of force that enforced a well-voiced but rarely acted on American belief: the right of a people to choose for themselves.
Besides, I think too many people are also drawing the wrong conclusions from Iraq as an example. A lot of people are looking back to Iraq and saying we should have gone all the way and invaded Iraq, and I won't say anything about that, and they talk about how long we had a no-fly there. But a lot of people seem to ignore the parallel between the Kurds and the Libyans. We encouraged the Kurds to rise up and throw Saddam out of Northern Iraq, and when they rose up, we did nothing to help them, only establishing the no-fly AFTER they were gassed and slaughtered, and we kept it there afterward, I think, in part out of shame for not having followed through on our promise. At least this time we acted BEFORE the slaughter, and we'll continue to ensure there isn't one.
I'm all for, so far, what we're doing in Libya. However, I do wish this had gone through Congress first, and wasn't more or less unilaterally decided by Obama. I find it amusing that so many Republicans are raising hell about it now when it was all Democrats complaining against Bush in 2003, but that's just par for the course with them.
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If it was Bush doing this, people would be screaming "warmonger!!!" so loud it'd be deafening.
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I know Lisa, right? Bush was sooo hard done by! I mean, all he did was start two full scale wars with no clear goals, the second of which was justified by a campaign of deceitful propaganda. But the sheeple just went "baaaah-d Buuuush", like the lamestream media taught them to.
Side note: Can you be any less of a caricature and gain some ability to appreciate the vast differences between the more limited and reasoned approach Obama has taken to this war compared to Bush's wars?
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quote:However, I do wish this had gone through Congress first, and wasn't more or less unilaterally decided by Obama.
This is absolutely the biggest problem I had with it. In 2007, Obama said "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
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But this time the UN authorized it. In the long wrong I think that is what is administration is going to lean on.
I for one originally supported Bush and Iraq. As time went on he lost my support. Now I don't believe we should have a single troop in Libya.
We can't hand the Libyans freedom. Now, any democratic government will be seen as a US puppet by those that don't support it. I see Libya have a huge terrorism problem in its future.
At most we should send in a few advisers for to help train the rebels.
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: At most we should send in a few advisers for to help train the rebels.
Not even that. Advisers have a bad way of multiplying. My takeaway from the speech last night was that for the U.S. this is going to only involve air power, intelligence, and financial and telecommunication attacks on the Libyan regime so the rebels can have a chance. We absolutely shouldn't have any ground troops in Libya, and we still don't.
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: ... But this time the UN authorized it. In the long wrong I think that is what is administration is going to lean on.
But for what reasons? Each member of the Security Council has their own motives for either championing or allowing the war in Libya to proceed. That doesn't really translate nicely into a domestic constitutional justification for Obama going into war.
For what its worth, I too think the intervention will gradually become a wrong in the long run, or a "long wrong" as you put it.
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I actually thought the speech was kind of weak. Obama gave a speech saying that we had to strop atrocities from happening to people in Libya. That's great!
Flashback to just a few years ago though:
quote:
"Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.
He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
As far as I know, Libya posed no imminet threat to the US. Unlike some of the conservative voices out there I am glad action was taken to stop the violence. I think the President is discovering though that it is a little more difficult than he imagined.
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In this case it seems that it is the lack of sovereignty that means the freedom to randomly invade other countries. So presumably the US doesn't deserve it.
That said, the UN has no power to order the US about; it could authorise member states to use force, but could not order them to do so. So, the decision to send in air strikes was done by the US as a sovereign country. In short, Blayne, your argument is incoherent; it's at right angles to the issues.
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I actually thought the speech was kind of weak. Obama gave a speech saying that we had to strop atrocities from happening to people in Libya. That's great!
Flashback to just a few years ago though:
quote:
"Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.
He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
As far as I know, Libya posed no imminet threat to the US. Unlike some of the conservative voices out there I am glad action was taken to stop the violence. I think the President is discovering though that it is a little more difficult than he imagined.
But that's comparing a warehouse full of apples to a basketful of oranges.
The Iraq war is different in both degree and kind to what is being done with Libya. I don't see any legitimate basis of comparison that would allow you to equate them as you appear to have done here.
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I'm torn on this one. I think the "Obama Doctrine" is a pretty good one in this case, as long as we do actually step back and NATO takes over for what we're doing. But I'm strongly against the U.S. going to war (in reality even if not technically) just at the President's say so. This should have gone to Congress. But, Congress being the self-serving, partisan cluster fest that it is, this most likely would not have happened.
Does the legislative body's abandonment of its central duties justify the executive bypassing them? That something we've been struggling with for some time. I really wish we didn't have to.
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quote:Does the legislative body's abandonment of its central duties justify the executive bypassing them?
Point of order: If Congress disagrees with you on whether a war should have been declared, that does not mean Congress has abandoned its duties. Yea, not even if their reason for not declaring war is that they dislike the President. That's called checks and balances, that is. The power of Congress to declare war and make peace is not a rubber stamp; or at least, it's not supposed to be. If they have failed in any duty, it is in their duty to impeach a President who arrogates to himself the warmaking power.
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: At most we should send in a few advisers for to help train the rebels.
Not even that. Advisers have a bad way of multiplying. My takeaway from the speech last night was that for the U.S. this is going to only involve air power, intelligence, and financial and telecommunication attacks on the Libyan regime so the rebels can have a chance. We absolutely shouldn't have any ground troops in Libya, and we still don't.
I guess I have high hopes for what this is. I hope this is a true civil war/ battle for independence. If true, a little bit of troop training sounds like the French in our own war for independence.
But my gut says you are right.
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quote:Does the legislative body's abandonment of its central duties justify the executive bypassing them?
Point of order: If Congress disagrees with you on whether a war should have been declared, that does not mean Congress has abandoned its duties. Yea, not even if their reason for not declaring war is that they dislike the President. That's called checks and balances, that is. The power of Congress to declare war and make peace is not a rubber stamp; or at least, it's not supposed to be. If they have failed in any duty, it is in their duty to impeach a President who arrogates to himself the warmaking power.
Point of order, the War Powers Resolution specifically places the power to declar war with Congress, while granting the president power to deploy military forces within a very limited time frame, while Congress reviews those decisions.
President Obama is well within his rights to deploy even ground forces temporarily while Congress argues about it.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Point of order, the War Powers Resolution specifically places the power to declar war with Congress, while granting the president power to deploy military forces within a very limited time frame, while Congress reviews those decisions.
It would be hard to apply that to Libya though, no? Unless we're talking theoretically in some other situation.
quote:... a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
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Fair enough; but Squicky appeared to be arguing that Congress, if it failed to declare war and/or ratify Obama's orders, would have failed in its duty because of partisan bickering. That is clearly wrong; Congress has no duty to declare any particular war or approve any particular action; it is perfectly within its rights to withhold the declaration or approval, for whatever reason including dislike of the President's policies. That's what "warmaking power" means. Either Congress has hat power or it doesn't; the issue does not depend on its stance in any particular situation.
Of course, as a matter of constitutional practice rather than formal law, it may well be the case that Congress has, de facto, lost its warmaking power. This sort of thing will happen even with written constitutions, because over a timescale of centuries human institutions flow like water. To take an example from another country, there is strictly speaking no Constitutional requirement for the Norwegian King to appoint a government that has the support of a majority of the Storting. In strict law he can appoint whoever he damn well chooses, provided at least half the Cabinet are members of the State church. But obviously this has nothing to do with Norwegian government as actually practiced, and hasn't since well before independence in 1905. Indeed, having the cabinet be responsible to the Storting and not the King was one of the major steps towards independence; it gave a legal fig leaf in 1905, when the formal reason for the declaration of independence was that the Swedish King could not appoint a government, and therefore "had ceased to function as Norwegian King". Sheer nonsense in terms of the written Constitution, excellent international politics!
However, all that is a separate argument from whether Congress has failed in its duties.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: No it ain't. By signing the Charter you agreed to cede up some of it for the sake of peace.
If sovereignty means the freedom to randomly invade other countries than the US doesn't deserve it.
Bullshit.
Derp. Herp herp derp a derp.
I thought you didn't like it when I used that word to respond to one of your ridiculous claims, guess it was only selective?
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: No it ain't. By signing the Charter you agreed to cede up some of it for the sake of peace.
If sovereignty means the freedom to randomly invade other countries than the US doesn't deserve it.
Do you think I'm defending Obama's invasion of Libya? Because I assure you, I'm doing nothing of the sort. I'm saying that the UN "okaying" Obama's invasion of Libya isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.
I no more support the government invading Libya (or Iraq or Afghanistan) than I support the government robbing its subjects (citizenry, so called) in the name of "eminent domain".
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: No it ain't. By signing the Charter you agreed to cede up some of it for the sake of peace.
If sovereignty means the freedom to randomly invade other countries than the US doesn't deserve it.
Bullshit.
If you're referring to Blayne's first paragraph, I wholeheartedly agree. If you're referring to the whole thing, I don't get it.
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quote:... a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
Point taken. I mean even if we use the Bush Doctrine this is a step removed. Having said that, we deploy aircraft carriers between China and Taiwan all the time. I am fairly certain if war planes with payload deployed over those carriers, even if they were heading for Taiwan, that we'd blow them out of the sky without waiting for Congress to approve. I need some time to poke around for the necessary acts that permit the President to deploy airforces in the manner Obama has. I'm certain it's there somewhere.
Even if it isn't, the Executive branch is always tugging and attempting to get more freedom to act decisively. The only way this won't set a bench mark for future administrations is if Congress passes legislation putting a stop to it.
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posted
The US is already in deep **** we should drop all this war crap, and fix up our economy before the gas prices kill us all.
Gas is nearly $4 in this medium town of Missouri..
With all this fuel being wasted on the war version of peek-a-boo...
As for this Ghadaffi guy, why are we trying to do things the slow way, it's a waste of money, 1 precision air strike on his place of residence = death, or maybe 1 sniper on the job to make sure no one else gets injured also = death....
The way of peace is bull, a waste of time, and a way for all them big companies to get money from the military's waste... ---------------------------------------
quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: Amercans didn't get help for trying to seperate from the King of England we armed ourselves with weapons and fought back....
posted
Still it's not America's job to help every country that peoples "wants to be free"... -------------- I remember something in Obama's speach that sounded like BS, something about one of our jet's 'Malfunctioning over Libya' and the pilot having to parachute down to the ground, and being welcomed... can anyone see if this story is true, or was Obama speaking from his behind.. I just find that whole story 'coincidental'..
This is pretty pointed criticism but it's meant to be helpful: you really ought not presume to lecture anyone, even a general lecture to the world in general, if you're so very badly informed about some extremely basic pieces of the area of knowledge you're lecturing about.
Knowing that we had help in the American Revolution is, well, very basic level history here. It's not necessarily a piece of knowledge someone should just know (though I think it would be nice and helpful), but if you're going to get high and mighty it's pretty good to know that sort of thing. Because not knowing it makes you appear, well, quite foolish. It's akin to wanting to tell a bunch of car mechanics what's wrong with how they're fixing my axle when I can't change my tire.
Go forth, educate yourself on some basic American history (world history would be nice) before telling people how stupid, wasteful, and nonsensical what's being done is. You shouldn't do that because I say so, though-that'd be a pretty silly reason. Rather because you'd end up much better informed, you would appear much less badly informed, and you'd be far, far more likely to persuade people who aren't already likely to agree with you.
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Rawrain: OK I'll grant it's not our job to help everyone find freedom. It's more of a responsibility we have given ourselves if it's anything at all. So lets assume it isn't. What measuring stick should we use so as to determine who deserves our help?
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Rakeesh, I have a hard time remembering when my birthday is, don't poke or prod me. I live here and now, not 500 years ago, not even 50, so what's happened in the past is irrellivent. The present and the future is my concern, and I want the future to be better than now.
Black, we should help as best we can without hurting ourselves, and right now WE ARE. we need to get our economical problems solved so we don't end up like one of these 3rd-world-countries. If that happens then we will need help from everyone else, and sure they MAY be willing to help us, but they would much rather put us in more debt so we remain 3rd-world, while they(countries we are in debt to) profit from us, JUST like what WE are doing with many developing countries.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Even if it isn't, the Executive branch is always tugging and attempting to get more freedom to act decisively. The only way this won't set a bench mark for future administrations is if Congress passes legislation putting a stop to it.
The War Powers Resolution and the way we have been ceding power to the executive over the last decade makes it so that Congress can go sit in a corner and be irrelevant. Technically, if Qadaffi did indeed order Lockerbie, he could very well be considered a 'serious threat to the United States.' We invaded Iraq for less.
Obama didn't need to declare anything because now it's considered part of the 'War on Terror.'
It's a little late to realize we've put that much power in the hands of the Executive, if one were intending to stop it or whine about how congress needs to approve this, or that Bush would have been complained at for starting a third war after his farce in Iraq.
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quote: Rakeesh, I have a hard time remembering when my birthday is, don't poke or prod me. I live here and now, not 500 years ago, not even 50, so what's happened in the past is irrellivent. The present and the future is my concern, and I want the future to be better than now.
You live here and now, and now and here are both massively altered by what happened there and then. 'The past is irrelevant' is nonsense. Action, reaction, followed by still another reaction and so on. You discover how to make the future better by examining the past and how it impacts the present, so how could it be irrelevant?
None of that is relevant to the fact, though, that you were the one that brought something of the past up and decided to get high and mighty about it (We didn't need help, so why should they get help?). If it's irrelevant, don't bring it up. You clearly don't believe as you say.
quote:we need to get our economical problems solved so we don't end up like one of these 3rd-world-countries.
Any chance of the United States becoming like 'one of these Third World countries' has basically nothing to do with our foreign aid or even our foreign wars. That's if I granted the possibility that it might happen at all, but since I have no idea what you mean in the first place that's pretty murky too. Or are things like economics something that's irrelevant too?
Anyway, look, it's pretty clear you don't want to have an actual discussion, Rawrain. That's my conclusion, though, based on someone who said, "Here's a point from our history that says we shouldn't do this!" and then when it was pointed out you were completely wrong your response was, "History's irrelevant!"
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Rawrain: OK I'll grant it's not our job to help everyone find freedom. It's more of a responsibility we have given ourselves if it's anything at all. So lets assume it isn't. What measuring stick should we use so as to determine who deserves our help?
It's complicated.
We're really not saying it's just about freedom. That's not what I'm hearing. Else we'd be trying to poke our nose into a lot more places. But it seems like in Libya things crossed a threshold for many people - it was looking more like massacre than policing the citizenry. Sovereignty is a nice concept in the kind of world where people don't callously murder dozens, hundreds, or millions of people. At some point, an ethical line must be drawn in the sand.
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Knowing the past is far different from living in it, what is done is done, and absolutely nothing you are capable of doing NOW and Forver can change the past, therefore it's irrelivent because it will never change, however the future is the result of our actions of NOW. The future is not judged by the past it is judged by NOW which will be the past in the future.
Stop changing the topic, that is upsetting, What is happening now is screwing us in the near future. THAT IS WHAT MATTERS. -----------------------------------------------
All it takes is one well placed bullet in Ghadaffi skull, and there will be no more problems with that man, if some one else tries to take his reign and do the same, another round to their head ends that problem aswell, eventually some one will get the picture that running a murderous dictatorship = death.
The fact that there's a solution so simple, and so cost efficient it should be done, and it hasn't, leads me to believe those in charge are idiots.
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Well I do see the use of history and predicting what humans will do, is useful, but will slowly changes as society does.....
I would consider the Assassination of that Austrian guy the cause of WW1, but to me that looked like an excuse, not to mention putting all the war fines on Germany was the main reason for WW2... bleh
Like I said knowing is different from living, you learn the past so you don't repeat it, SO DON'T, simple, but circumstances today are different from back then, making history in this case still irrelivent /:
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Rawrain: I think irrelevant is a bit too strong a conclusion. It is unwise to try to portray every event as a carbon copy of a previous historical event. Indeed, we often argue about the details of historical events so how could we begin to accurately match them up with what's going on today? But history is still rife with concrete examples that are not just useful in hindsight. In fact, it is absolutely true that people use history when making their decisions. If we can tease out that history when hearing the rationale a person is using, that in of itself is extremely valuable. People have heroes, and those heroes often belong to history. If we know who a person aspires to be like, we know a ton about what that person values as well as what they do not.
This isn't the first time we've used air superiority against another country. We can very accurately predict the cost based on time + frequency. We can also look at other times we've employed air power so as to get an indication if it can work, and if so/not why.
Often when we make stupid decisions it is a function of dealing with things we don't have much experience dealing with, such as how to govern a world with nuclear weapons. But, I would say a majority of bad choices are made by those who lack an understanding of history, that is readily available to them.
What if Pres. Obama had said, "We should not intervene in Libya, nobody helped us fight off Great Britain." He might be making a decision you agree with, but it would be for the wrong reason, and I think you will agree that broken clocks being right twice a day is no way to run a country.
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It's like no one reads everything I write, they read till they find something they don't like that I said and attack it, enough of this history, I get it, I ****ing do, you look too much into what I said like everyone always does every time I post, it ****es me off greatly. HOW ABOUT THIS ignore the history comment all together and read everything else.
History is irrelevent, unless you have the thoughts of every person of the time you're looking into, YOUR INFERENCES are not fact, no one but Hitler knows why he did what he did, history is just a general outline of things that happened nothing more. ----------------------------------------------- Now that I've been upsetted, can this post remain on topic?
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Rawrain: There's no need to get upset. I get that you are not throwing out history, but I got the vibe you were still undervaluing it. I'm a polysci major so history is a bit of a household pet I adore.
You don't have to have a mind reading device to infer useful things from history. We don't have to necessarily know why Hitler wanted to kill Jews, if we wish to know how he went about it. The primary documents relating to the holocaust *are* facts. It's a fact that when groups of people wish to harm or otherwise molest another group of people they generally stop referring to them as humans or people. They usually refer to them as something subhuman, such as an animal. Hutus when referring to Tutsies in Rwanda usually called them Tutsie cockroaches. We know it's easier to hurt somebody who isn't perceived as a human being. If we call them parasites, bugs, dogs, aliens, it becomes easier.
So when somebody is discussing immigration for example, and they refer to illegal immigrants as parasites, and use terminology we usually associate with parasites, "hosts" "stealing" "undesireable" "quarantine" we can infer that that person is trying to suggest action your average American might not be comfortable with and must be conditioned to accept. Say they tag the arrest of Japanese Americans during WWII as an example of what they think is the right approach, we've been handed a truck load of useful information regarding what that person wants and how they ought to be responded to.
Anyway, if you wish to talk about Obama, airstrikes in Libya, constitutionality, etc. Then history absolutely *has* to be part of the discussion because precedent is what our interpretations of the constitution rest upon. Precedent is nothing but history.
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And I am still being critiqued about the value of history. bum bum bummmm. I am getting opinions not facts about the value of history, please prove your point by listing real world events that had been made better by the direct use of history, excluding geography.
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You're missing the point. You only threw out history when it became clear that you were ignorant of it; when you thought history supported your point, you were quite eager to use it. That's dishonest.
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quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: And I am still being critiqued about the value of history. bum bum bummmm. I am getting opinions not facts about the value of history, please prove your point by listing real world events that had been made better by the direct use of history, excluding geography.
Rawrain, kid, you don't know what you're talking about here, and you need to understand WHY you don't know what you're talking about.
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I'm more lost than this topic is, this is why I usually don't try and post, but I want to <_> As for being ignorant, I was wrong, at the time I was thinking the French was only involved in the French and Indian war, so I decided that Americans did it solo, I don't have a GD encyclopedia,history book, and I am using a dial-up so I just went with my gut, I was wrong..
I was trying to make a comparison, 'if it was done before, it can be done again' sort of scenario...
Well now I see why frustration is a bad thing ._.
Trying to get someone to understand me is quite difficult...
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Rawrain: Certainly. George Washington while leading his troops in the revolutionary war was absolutely cognizant of the lessons he had learned while fighting for Great Britain in The Seven Years War (French and Indian War). The Indians as employed by the French and English never commited to battle unless the odds were overwhelmingly in their favor. Retreat back into familiar ground whenever you are caught fighting a battle that was not on your terms. Focus on killing officers so that the chain of command breaks down. Basically Washington, as a former British officer was trained in British conventional warefare. He knew the proud military traditions the British officer's would adhere to, and used that to his advantage by using the strategies that had worked against him.
Horatio Gates was another former British officer, who even served in the same unit as Washington in the Seven Years War. And yet, he tried to fight conventionally against the British with mixed results. At Saratoga he lucked out with Benedict Arnold's rally, and at Camden he nearly cost us the revolution by himself.
Washington would have *never* made it to Yorktown, where the French fleet allowed us to beat Cornwallis and end the war, had he not learned from history and played his cards the way he did. The war would have otherwise ended as early as 1775/1776, long before any sort of Declaration of Independence could be signed.
Later it was Washington's understanding of history that lead him to decline becoming king when the rest of the country (the history ignoramuses) were totally willing to crown him after the revolution. It was also this knowledge of history in part that lead him to step down after two terms. Thus distancing himself from the sort of dynasties still dominating European politics.
That work for you?
Also, I don't see why we should exclude geography, any particular reason why?
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