So, now, Marco Rubio and his Alinskyite-like flying monkeys are claiming that Senator Ted Cruz is an Isolationist because he doesn't want to bomb the world and is the new Charles Lindbergh because he believes that America's interests should be our first and foremost concern relative to foreign policy and national security.
OK. Marco, I'll play along. Perhaps, Cruz is some crypto-Isolationist and Fascist-sympathising 'America Firster'. (Did you have to call every one of your opponents a Fascist? That's typically a crutch used by the Left. Foreign Policy Aide to Senator Marco Rubio Calls Trump A 'Fascist')
How many countries did Reagan invade?
One, Grenada. There was widespread support for the invasion and a bipartisan congressional investigation determined that the invasion was indeed justified because of the danger that the revolutionaries posed to American students located near a disputed airport. Even the über partisan Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill (D-MA), came to support and defend the mission. The anniversary of the invasion, 25 October 1983, is now a national holiday. It is called Thanksgiving Day.
One short invasion into a small Caribbean country and, yet, Reagan is still credited with leading the effort to defeat the Soviet Union. How could the Soviet Union possibly have fell without invading every country on the planet??? That's impossible! /
Reagan didn't send battalions into Central America, conduct airstrikes on Cuba, intervene in civil wars in Africa, or seek an Authorisation for Use of Military Force from Congress in order to intervene in the Soviet-Afghan war by putting American boots on the ground to fight alongside the Mujahideen. He also didn't employ American military force in pursuance of little, purple unicorns...
'Let's intervene in Libya. There might be a humanitarian disaster brewing (or a payoff for Sid Vicious Blumenthal described in an email on the Secretary of State's homebrew server). It will be easy. We came, we saw, he died. What's that loud vacuum sound? Why is there no civil society with ordered liberty in Libya now? I mean, we liberated them. Why are elements of Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the country. Why is our Consulate in Benghazi on fire and our Ambassador, along with 3 other Americans, dead? Why is ISIS now controlling growing parts of western Libya? Why didn't anyone see this coming? Why are we, the bestest and the greatestest minds in the history of the world, always having to suffer under fools, knaves, and idiots? I guess we are going to have to clean house again in the intelligence community. They keep fucking up our beautiful plans, which would certainly work if the stupid spooks could organise a two-car funeral.'
He also didn't suffer the delusional fantasies of today's neo-cons...
'...Having said that, I think basically for the last three or four weeks the skeptics have been proven to be too skeptical. The naysayers who said it could never happen, it's going to be violent, his departure would mean the Muslim Brotherhood taking over or total chaos in the streets of Egypt, they have been proven wrong. And the notion that the Egyptian people have managed to pull off this democratic, peaceful removal of a dictator, and now have a seemingly a pretty stable situation in the streets of Cairo and the other big cities, with the guarantee or at least a promise of a transition to free and fair elections and no real sense that those elections are -- yet that the elections are going to go in some terrible direction for the U.S. or for Egypt itself.
I think this may be a case where the normal worldly pessimism is too pessimistic and the normal cynicism is too cynical, and one has a right to actually be hopeful about these developments in Egypt."
- Bill Kristol, Fox News Sunday, 13 February 2011
Reagan drew red lines and the world knew that he would not erase them. But, rather than engaging in Wilsonian neo-realpolitik - making the world safe for democracy and spreading it to every corner of the planet through the use of force and nation-building, for example, he was smart enough to 'look into Putin's Gorbachev's eyes and see his soul'...and then tell him 'here's the deal', and walk out at Reykjavík when Gorby made the mistake of thinking he was bluffing.
Reagan would be called an 'Isolationist' today by people like Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator McCain, President Barack Obama, Mrs Clinton, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Jennifer Rubin. He, too, had an 'America...and her allies...First' foreign policy. He didn't use military force in every situation, intervene in every conflict, liberate people who were unwilling to, at least, join in the fight, constantly violate the Pottery Barn Rule, and attempt to impose by force Western-style democracy in regions that either had no history with that form of government or had seen thousands of years of tyranny, sectarianism, conflict, and instability.
What today's neo-cons refuse to understand and Reagan clearly did is:
1. You cannot impose democracy upon a people, who are unwilling to fight to liberate themselves, have no or a weak civil society, and lack the understanding of or willingness to embrace ordered liberty. No amount of nation-building will succeed where the fundamental foundations are absent.
2. You cannot remake the world in your delusional image, especially through military force. Foreign policy should and must be driven by concerns that have a serious impact on American interests or national security or those of our allies. We can neither be the world's policeman or the world's saviour. Yes, we must exhibit strong leadership, but that doesn't mean that we have an obligation to intervene in civil wars or save every widow and child stuck in the middle of warring factions.
A question for the 'Cruz is an Isolationist' bunch:
What are your criteria for use of American military force? Should the US have intervened in the Hutu-Tutsi conflict? If so, upon whose side? What would have been the American national interest? Should the US put boots on the ground in Sri Lanka or Burundi? What is the limiting principle of your foreign policy?
Another question:
Why should Americans expend their blood, sweat, tears, lives, limbs, and dollars fighting to liberate a country from a dictator when the fighting age men of that same country can’t be bothered? In fact, they have so little interest in the future of their own country that they fled to the ‘welfare paradises’ of Northern Europe leaving their grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, cousins, and children behind to, somehow, survive without any income and little food whilst dodging the weaponry of Assad, ISIS, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the US-led ‘coalition’, Russia, and the new Saudi-led ‘Arab coalition’.
Throughout Eastern Europe, there are statues of Ronald Reagan in cities, towns, and villages. People still talk about him with unfettered gratitude. Parents named their sons after him. They are grateful because he fought FOR THEM AND ALONGSIDE THEM. He didn’t try to impose anything on them. They both shared the same goal. He didn’t reduce their countries to rubble and then occupy them for decades with tens of thousands of troops engaging in nation-building. They rebuilt their own governments, societies, economies, and countries - often with the requested help of their friend and ally, the United States.
Reagan, along with Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the millions of people living under the iron fist of tyranny, defeated Communism without starting World War III.
Reagan didn’t need to intervene in every conflict to defeat the Soviet Union.
Reagan didn’t need to use the military to spread the ideas of freedom and liberty.
Reagan didn’t need to bomb every county, depose every despot, and create evermore dire humanitarian crises in order to help free hundreds of millions of people living under Moscow’s iron thumb or its anointed tinpot dictators throughout the world.
Reagan didn’t need a Hot War to win the Cold War.
In Rubio World, that would make Reagan an ISOLATIONIST.
Reagan had a strategy for defeating the Soviet Union: ‘WE WIN. THEY LOSE.'
In Rubio World, I guess that would make Ronald Wilson Reagan just like Charles Lindbergh or something.
ADDENDUM:
So many attempts at revisionism and mischaracterisation going on with this...and other charges coming from the Rubio campaign.
'Ted Cruz is an ISOLATIONIST and doesn't support the military or care about national security because he voted against the NDAA!11!!'
Yes, Cruz voted against the NDAA...because it gave President Obama the power to arrest and detain American CITIZENS without due process and even the access to counsel. I would have voted against it, too. Back at the time the news of the provision in the NDAA broke, most of the Right was up in arms about it. If they had voted against the NDAA because it fundamentally violated the constitutional and civil rights of American citizens, would they have all been considered Isolationists, who didn't support the military and couldn't give a shit about national security? C'mon.
'Ted Cruz doesn't support Israel or the Iron Dome because he voted against the NDAA!!! He must be anti-semitic!!11!'
Yeah, sure. The guy, who wants to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem and said this is against Israel and hates DA JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS or something:
'I am saddened to see that some here, not everyone, but some here, are so consumed with hate… If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you.'
– Senator Ted Cruz before walking off the stage after being booed by a Middle Eastern group for supporting Israel
As for this immigration brouhaha, there are two absolute known truths here:
1. Marco Rubio, not Ted Cruz, was a member of the Gang of 8.
2. Marco Rubio has flip-flopped numerous times on legalisation and a pathway to citizenship.
* As Speaker of the House in Florida, he supported both.
* As a candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination in Florida against Charlie Crist and then in the general election, he opposed both.
* As a member of the Gang of 8, he supported both.
* Now, after the latest debate, he either opposes both or supports only legalisation 'down the road.'
When it comes to the Flip-Flopping Olympics, Marco Rubio only slightly loses out to John Kerry.
Since he's now suddenly all concerned about truth, consistency, character, and integrity, Make Marco Rubio Eat His Own Words...
No comments:
Post a Comment