War’s Not A Drumbeat Exclusive To Republican Party
The assumption is a perfect fit for the reactionary-conservative narrative of the last half century: Republicans know national security and foreign policy. Democrats don’t. It’s also an outlandish myth. Democrats dating back to Woodrow Wilson have been the true party of warmongers and jingoes. Republicans only watched, and lately learned, and learned badly, as the experiences of the Reagan-Bush-Bush years amply show.
The national security state was a creation of Harry Truman, the cold war a steroid both parties injected with Barry Bonds-style abandon for 50 years. Besides women, John Kennedy’s biggest weakness was his compulsive hawkishness and night-sweats over that ghostly “missile gap.” Lyndon Johnson never met an escalation he could resist. Even Jimmy Carter — disproportionately remembered for that Iranian hostage crisis that did to 52 Americans for 444 days what American foreign policy has been doing to tens of millions for a few decades — had lust in his heart for the MX missile (that nutty nuke job on rails). That was when Carter wasn’t conducting the most constructive Mideast policy of any president before or since. Democrats during and after World War II created the international trade, banking and security apparatus Republicans have been dismantling since Ronald Reagan.
What have Republicans done in foreign policy over those years? Give them credit: They dug Democratic holes deeper with Dwight Eisenhower’s stalemate in Korea and Richard Nixon’s folly in Vietnam and Cambodia (winning back China doesn’t make up for destabilizing Cambodia enough to trigger a genocide). Then they applied the wrong lessons on their own. Reagan had his Rambo acts in Grenada and Central America while illegally trading for hostages with Iran and failing some 300 U.S. Marines in Beirut. Reagan and the first Bush poured money and arms into the hands of the likes of Osama bin Laden’s Arab army in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq, literally nurturing monsters we’ve been fighting since.
Reagan won the cold war? Please. As George F. Kennan, the late diplomat whose famous “X”-signed telegram to Truman was the basis for the policy of Soviet containment, and the cold war that ensued, wrote in 2002: “Nobody–no country, no party, no person–’won’ the cold war. It was a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party.” But if Ronald Reagan could think that he was among the liberators of Nazi death camps (he very much did, even though he was loitering about movie sets in Hollywood at the time), the second George Bush can think that he’s doing God’s work as he goes about demolishing parts of the world while turning the United States into a scared Sparta of meat-headed militarism.
That’s what makes today’s Democrats, when they turn their attention to foreign policy, so embarrassing. Since the Carter years they’ve been trying to outdo Republican jingoism with jingoism of their own. Hillary Clinton has been sounding like JFK in his 1960 debates with sweaty Dick — all missiles, all the time. Barack Obama, in a Foreign Affairs essay designed to make him sound like a foreign policy tough, talks of “military options” against Iran, bulking up the military, keeping “over-the-horizon” troops in Iraq and “hunting down” al-Qaida like he’s a neocon with a human face. When CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked them last week if they’d meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela “to bridge the gap that divides our country,” Obama said he would. He was ridiculed. Clinton said she wouldn’t. She was called a respectable realist.
Yet the question reveals the stupidity at the heart of American foreign-policy assumptions — the kind of stupidity that’s put the country in a corner from not engaging with others, regardless of the enmity quotient. The Bush administration has all of two foreign-policy victories: Getting North Korea and Libya to lay off nukes. Those are the two countries it negotiated with. It’s been failing miserably elsewhere from its refusal to negotiate with anyone else (except when it’s arming Iraqi insurgents). Clinton-type Democrats, of course, are playing to a drum-beating press, and the press is playing to the public’s grade-school foreign policy assumptions. Obviously negotiations are the starting point of solutions.
Obviously hawkish posturing has been proven again and again to fuel enmity and escalate the very dangers we claim to be battling. But in this election as in so many cold war-era elections, candidates, as Obama quickly found out, can’t say the obvious, only the expedient, no matter how deranged and dangerous. It’s what got George W. Bush elected. Twice. Democrats have learned that lesson.
And we thought 2008 might make a difference?
Tristam is a News-Journal editorial writer. Reach him at ptristam@att.net or through his personal Web site at www.pierretristam.com .
© 2007 The Daytona Beach New-Journal
of course, when rethugs say the dems are weak on offense, i mean defense, they mean dems are not willing to bomb people to death. one more murderous fantasy of the slightly more fascistic branch of the one party state.
When war has become your nation’s chief business (added to Hollywood and big pharma “products”) then the contest for CEO, U.S.A must focus on all this wham-bam muscular military macho might which NEVER makes right. The US has become a bad caricature and will pay dearly for its evasion of HIGHER law.
Neocrazy David Brooks (heart) HRC. Hedge funders (heart) Obama.
Dr. Ron Paul is the only candidate calling for a return of our troops from ALL foreign outposts, not just Iraq; the closing of ALL torture prisons, not just GITMO; and the restitution of our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and checks and balances in all their glory.
Any Dems willing to do the same? (insert cricket sounds.)
Good article except for one thing–Bush was never elected, not in 2000, and apparently not in 2004 either. (Though with the evidence now destroyed, we’ll probably never know for sure.)
People who want to be big heroes need big monsters to fight.
If there aren’t any big monsters around then they are created.
Ever since the pro war leaders figured out how to get other people to fight the wars they start there seems to be a lot of reasons to fight wars with newly realized threats.
Next time a politician says that Iran or Venezuela is a threat to America, hand him a parachute and make sure he is the leader of the first special ops unit sent in before bombing.
Tell your children not to join the military, until there is a real threat.
Ron Paul - check his website. He may be our answer, he seems to be anti-imperialist.
Why does foreign policy mean waving a big dick?
Good article that only goes to prove that in order to be “electible” there won’t be anyone worth voting for.
As long as it is only the war that is the issue, then perhaps Ron Paul is your best choice, but if universal health care, or even keeping the medicare/medicade we already have is of any importance, or say social security is of interest to you, then Ron Paul is definitely NOT the best choice.
Surely, we shouldn’t have to choose between these issues. We should have no wars and a progressive and decent America for all.
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Hardly anyone thinks we can totally eliminate corruption in government, religion and Girl Scout Troops, but our government is so rotten and corrupt, I’m past fear and rising to rage.
What about you?
Forget the looting of our national wealth, that’s nothing compared to belligerently insane rulers making decisions that taxes me & you. TAXES: used to the limit.
Some wars are necessary, most are not and the Religious/War-Profiteering Dictatorship that started this war, should be burned at the stake.
With their leadership, we’ve become nothing more than a well-fed, well-dressed species of killer apes.
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Well said.
Using campaign spending limits to get America better politicians is the only way to solve America’s problems enough.
I like how Ron Paul is being mentioned throughout these comments. Ron Paul is THE prime example of classic conservativism, not to be confused by neo-conservativism (there is a difference) and while I personally do not care for conservativism, Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate worth running for President of the USA. The rest of the candidates simply lack rationality or clue. Dr. Paul is the ONLY Republican candidate that is anti-foreign policy in the extreme sense of the term. Personally, I am fine with that because this policy does save money for the USA and decreases American hatred throughout the world. In fact, he should take that idea one step further and declare neutrality for the USA. I mean, level with me Americans, you understand how much money you will save if you just…I don’t know…KEEP TO YOUR OWN!!!!? No nation will mess with you guys, just don’t wage war with foreign countries and make people there live miserable lives ok? But the Government of you greedy, power-hungry and pro-genocide “culture” has declared war and overthrown Governments throughout the world (replacing these Governments with DICTATORS no less Yeah hard fact to accept and swallow is it Americans - with your pro-democracy stance although you are too stupid to explain why Democracy is the best form of Government ever conceived by Humankind) since possibly before WW2.
Americans…whew…I mean, I do not know nor understand why some Americans believe that they are better than everybody else in the world. You bastards, while a minority I understand and hope is the case, compare yourselves to REAL cultures and dare say you are “better” than them? What exactly does “better” mean? That your life’s worth, as Americans, are based on money and that no human being alive throughout the world deserves to feel peace and contentment except Americans? No wonder most nations in the world do not like you!
Ron Paul 2008!
That is all there is to it…and I am not conservative. He is the only person who can save the GOP right now! If GOP affiliates have any sense, I don’t even know if most have the ability to think, they would support Ron Paul as their Republican candidate for the Present of the USA. He IS the greatest GOP member in USA political history since Eisenhower and needs to be supported by Republicans throughout the USA. As they have demonstratesd stupidity and thist for blood for decades, they can at least exercise some intelligence and support Ron Paul because he will be the man who will save the GOP.
This is no longer about how to repair a system that has devolved into tyranny. It’s about how to bring about wholesale changes in the way we share our resources and thus “govern” our society.
Government is nothing more than a centralized hub for combining and using available resources for the common good of it’s citizens. Since our government feels it no longer has to conform to the wishes of it’s people, then we should conclude, that our participation is no longer wanted or needed. It’s futile to protest. It’s a waste of time to sign petitions. It’s laughable to write your congressman. The checks and balances written into the Constitution have been dismantled. Stupid, greedy, selfish, arrogant children who were born on third base but think they hit a triple are in charge.
Since we do not have a role in the decision making process we should at least consider the choices our “leaders” have made for us. We continue to invest in the “public good” but what are we getting in return?
Our votes are not counted. A majority can strongly express an idea that is ignored. Our environment is being destroyed along with the lives of our young people. Our resources are being used to enrich the lives of the people who need it the least. The rich get richer and the poor welcome poverty and terrible working conditions. Our education system strives to keep us dumb and to produce slave wage earners while preaching creationism. Drug abuse and suicide is prevalent. Divorce is the rule not the exception. At any given moment there are more people in prisons than in libraries or parks. Obesity and ignorance is on the rise. Our teachers and firemen and police forces and soldiers barely make enough to eat. Healthcare is obtainable only by the wealthy. Corporations use infrastructure paid for by the people to make fortunes that are then not taxed. Public airwaves are used to con the people out of their money and their morals. Usury laws are written to make obtaining loans more expensive for those who need them most. We must pay a fee to catch a fish, we must ask permission to travel abroad, we can be arrested and held without charges or access to legal representation, our phone lines are tapped, our schools have become battlefields, we need permission to plant a garden or ride a horse.
At this stage in the collapse of reason and justice and logic and democracy, we have no choice in the matters of state. We are pawns as long as we willingly submit to and continously pay for the murder and waste, the hatred and fear, the privatized profit and publicized risk.
But we are the deciders. We can decide whether or not to stay in the plan. We can decide whether to opt out or not. It’s a business relationship we’re in with this government. If we don’t feel they are earning their “pay” we can fire their asses.
We do get an interstate system, an electrical grid that works at times, a water and sewer system, the protection of the police, if you’re rich and white at least, and maybe a few more perks that escape me at the moment. It seems a little one sided to me and I wish we could manage our resources better to improve quality of life for all. But in the age of the unitary decider you’re either with him or against him. When he goes another will take his place.
So our only decision is, in or out. No ballot box needed, just send in your money or don’t. It’s up to you.