Starter (not in comp book): Get with your group and add your answers to the whole class T-chart below. Share with me your document if you have not done so already.
Whole Class: T-chart
- What are the similarities and differences between Osama bin Laden's and George Bush's rhetoric?
Discuss
- How does each use Aristotelian appeals? (Arguments? Pathos? Ethos is relative to audience?)
- Whose rhetoric is more effective? Why?
- How does our own ideology influence each rhetorical transaction?
FOUR CORNERS: US Foreign Policy
1. The United States military is the best in the world.
2. Other countries should fear the US military.
3. It is the US military’s duty to enforce world law.
4. I feel safe from foreign invasion and/or attack (in the United States).
5. The US military is always on the just side of conflicts.
6. Citizens should have a say in whether or not a country goes to war.
7. War can be a good thing.
8. When a foreign people is being governed by a leader that commits human rights violations, the United States should intervene to overthrow that leader.
9. The benefits of a just war are worth the costs.
10. All wars are motivated by economics.
11. I am willing to give up a bit of my liberty in order to have more security.
"The Bush Doctrine"
In his book "Decision Points" (Crown Publishers, 2010), President Bush articulates his discrete concept of the Bush Doctrine. According to the President, his doctrine consisted of four "prongs," three of them practical, and one idealistic. They are the following: (In his words)
1. "Make no distinction between terrorists and the nations that harbor them--and hold both to account."
2. "Take the fight to the enemy overseas before they can attack us again here at home."
3. "Confront threats before they fully materialize."
4. "Advance liberty and hope as an alternative to the enemy's ideology of repression and fear."
Key Points:
Unilateralism
With us or with the terrorists
Discuss:
What are the advantages of this viewpoint? What good points does the Bush doctrine have?
What drawbacks are there to this strategy?
What are some conflicting biases on foreign policy?
- Read and annotate "Commit for the Long Run" by Robert Kagan and Ronald D. Asmus
- Read and annotate “A Briefing on the History of Military Interventions” by Dr. Zoltan Grossman (Here is a link to the webpage for this article, which includes a PPT prez on the same information)
- JOURNAL 9.15: FOREIGN POLICY IDEOLOGY
Answer the following questions in your Digital Comp Books
1. What ideological bias on foreign policy do Kagan and Asmus represent?
2. What recommendations do they make?
3. What ideological bias on foreign policy does Dr. Grossman represent?
4. What recommendations does he make?
5. REFLECT: Where do you find yourself on the issue of foreign policy? Do you tend to agree more with the ideology of President Bush and the authors of “Commit for the Long Run”? Or do you seem more swayed by Dr. Grossman’s claims? Are you somewhere in the middle?