Posts tagged foreign policy
Rick Santorum: adorable hypocrite
1Some facts: 1) Santorum voted to double the size/funding for the Department of Education. 2) Voted to expand medicare. 3) Voted for increased foreign aid that we cannot afford.
He’s also painfully un-hip on economics, does not grasp the free market and is in favor of bailouts: “Some quantitative easing (bailouts) made sense.” (see video).
To top it off he’s a meddling do-gooder who thinks that good behavior and morality are the result of good laws, not inspiration from God, strong character or even will power: “Individuals can’t go it alone. There is no society that I’m aware of where we have had radical individualism and succeeds as a culture.” (again, in the vid).
One candidate has true differentiation. One candidate understands our economy and has an amazing track record of predicting the future of the world, one candidate has the most support from the troops because he understand’s the primary drivers of terrorism and is a veteran himself.
I rest my case, for the day.
Stossel: Isolationism vs. non-interventionism
0Nice work Mr. Stossel.
“Every action has a reaction”
0Few people on the planet have a deeper, more detailed, and precisely educated view on terrorism, al Qaeda and war/foreign policy than former CIA Chief and head of bin Laden’s hunting force, Michael Scheuer. Why does he support Ron Paul?
So, how are Ron Paul and George W. Bush different please?
0I can see why people voted for the guy!
It’s the occupation, stupid
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Although n
o one wants to talk about it, 9/11 is still hurting America. That terrible day inflicted a wound of public fear that easily reopens with the smallest provocation, and it continues to bleed the United States of money, lives, and goodwill around the world. Indeed, America’s response to its fear has, in turn, made Americans less safe and has inspired more threats and attacks.
In the decade since 9/11, the United States has conquered and occupied two large Muslim countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), compelled a huge Muslim army to root out a terrorist sanctuary (Pakistan), deployed thousands of Special Forces troops to numerous Muslim countries (Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc.), imprisoned hundreds of Muslims without recourse, and waged a massive war of ideas involving Muslim clerics to denounce violence and new institutions to bring Western norms to Muslim countries. Yet Americans still seem strangely mystified as to why some Muslims might be angry about this situation.
In a narrow sense, America is safer today than on 9/11. There has not been another attack on the same scale. U.S. defenses regarding immigration controls, airport security, and the disruption of potentially devastating domestic plots have all improved.
But in a broader sense, America has become perilously unsafe. Each month, there are more suicide terrorists trying to kill Americans and their allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Muslim countries than in all the years before 2001 combined. From 1980 to 2003, there were 343 suicide attacks around the world, and at most 10 percent were anti-American inspired. Since 2004, there have been more than 2,000, over 91 percent against U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries.
Yes, these attacks are overseas and mostly focused on military and diplomatic targets. So too, however, were the anti-American suicide attacks before 2001. It is important to remember that the 1995 and 1996 bombings of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen were the crucial dots that showed the threat was rising prior to 9/11. Today, such dots are occurring by the dozens every month. So why is nobody connecting them?
Foreign policy experts agree on Paul’s counter-intuitive policies
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Ron Paul is often chided by his Republican opponents for his extreme views on American foreign policy. His calls for ending all foreign wars and shutting hundreds of military bases across the globe have drawn howls from his GOP rivals, who have labeled the moves irresponsible and naïve.
His campaign pledge of cutting all foreign aid and withdrawing U.S. participation in the World Trade Organization and the United Nations has been at odds with even the most conservative members of his own party.
Yet as voting day in Iowa and New Hampshire draws near, Paul, the Congressman from Texas, is finding support for his non-interventionist positions from a growing number of foreign policy experts.
“He’s attacking our rich lazy friends, why is that not more popular,” said Harvey Sapolsky, emeritus professor of public policy and organization at MIT. He backs Paul’s calls for reducing America’s military budget, arguing that much of it is used to defend wealthy nations’ security.
A huge, Cold War-era global presence — with hundreds of overseas military bases — isn’t necessary, now that the Soviet threat is over and the collapse of communism, Sapolsky said.
Foreign policy flawed, terrorism threat “overhyped” says CIA analyst
6Opinion: I’m a confused man tonight. I don’t know how we can self-righteously glare out at the world through glazed, defiant eyes watching the wild fury of our wars around the world and not choose to stand up and push against our war machine. Somehow we’ve become believers, somehow we’ve become convinced that we are “doing the right thing,” somehow we think there won’t be bold, organized, long-term blowback to our actions.
CIA, counter-terrorism expert Philip Giraldi
Many Americans are rightly appalled at what has happened over the past ten years. A culture of fear has taken hold nationwide and there are regular accounts of swat teams kicking in the wrong door in the middle of the night and killing a homeowner seeking to defend his family from unknown intruders. Neighbors have been encouraged by the government’s Department of Homeland Security to look at those living next door to see if they might be terrorists.
Recently, questionable provisions of the Patriot Act have been extended for an additional four years, without any debate at all. It all means that many constitutional liberties that were taken for granted for more than two hundred years have recently been relegated to the dust bin of history.
And there is considerable danger that the “overseas contingency operations,” as the Obama Administration refers to its war on terror, will increase in number. A section of the current $690 billion Defense Appropriation bill referred to as the “Authorization for the Use of Military Force” will permit the president to wage war against anyone anywhere without any specific approval by congress, an expansion of the executive authority authorized by the legislature to pursue al-Qaeda which was granted in the aftermath of 9/11.
The fact that neither group actually threatens the United States appears to be irrelevant. Congressman Buck McKeon, the drafter of the relevant section of the appropriation bill, has said “the threats posed by al-Qaeda cells in Yemen and Africa underscore the evolving and continuing nature of the terrorist threat to the United States.”
Palin’s policy ≠ Obama’s?
0Sarah Palin recently said about President Obama: “I’m going to call him our temporary leader because my goal is to make sure that President Obama is not reelected in 2012 so that we don’t have to continue to go down this path of this foreign policy that really makes no sense.”
If she and McCain had gotten elected I can’t imagine our foreign policy being much different, can you?
Would she have nuked Lybia instead of putting our brave and honorable troops on the ground?
The difficult reality is that we simply aren’t able to save everyone around the world—no matter how glorious their various causes may be—and we need to mind our own business, put the trillions we are spending trying to be the world’s policeman back to work here in the American Republic, then slash taxes in the newly streamlined budget and unleash a wave of prosperity that hasn’t been seen in this country for nearly a century.
