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Posts Tagged ‘Wilsonian Progressives’

Republicans embrace Jacksonianism

by Phantom Ace ( 70 Comments › )
Filed under George W. Bush, Republican Party, World at June 20th, 2011 - 8:30 am

John McCain recently used the isolationist smear against growing Republican calls to leave Afghanistan. Miss Lindsey Graham recently told Republicans in Congress to shut up in their opposition to Libya. Instead of cowering before these two, many Republicans are holding firm on their new skepticism of interventionism. It’s now becoming clear that Jacksonianism is becoming dominant in the GOP. The majority of Republicans voters are now against unlimited interventionism and prefer America deals with its own issues first. Many Republicans politicians are also reflecting the views of their constituents.

Liberal Republican Mitt Romney has now embraced the cautious foreign policy outlook by calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said America can’t fight for others’ freedoms. I very rarely agree with Mitt, but he’s right. We have been in Afghanistan ten years and the Taliban are still around. Clearly a large segment of Afghans support them. This realization has led many Conservatives to realize that you can’t impose Democracy at the point of a gun.

The Republican presidential candidates’ debate last week raised questions as to where the GOP is headed on foreign policy issues. When asked about pressing international matters such as Libya and Afghanistan, the candidates offered a range of answers striking in their variety. Of course, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) can always be counted upon to call for American strategic disengagement globally. But other candidates such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) also voiced noted skepticism regarding current U.S. military interventions overseas. Romney suggested that the United States cannot fight “a war of independence for another nation,” and offered a rather mixed statement on American efforts in Afghanistan. Bachmann, for her part, laid out a ringing condemnation of the current U.S. intervention in Libya. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, though absent that night, has said similar things about both Libya and Afghanistan in recent weeks. Of the leading candidates onstage in the debate, only former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty offered a clear defense of existing U.S. military engagements overseas. To be sure, the format was hardly one to allow for lengthy position statements, but what was said did raise a lot of eyebrows. The New York Times went so far as to declare that the debate indicated a “renewed streak of isolationism” within the GOP. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) raised similar concerns on Sunday morning about “an isolationist strain in the Republican Party.”

[…]

There has certainly been an adjustment in the foreign policy emphases of many congressional and/or grassroots Republicans and conservatives over the last couple of years. The shift has been away from a Wilsonian approach and toward a more hard-nosed, Jacksonian approach — toward a somewhat greater skepticism of foreign aid programs, nation-building concepts, and foreign interventions. In several cases there is a danger that this skepticism may be applied indiscriminately. But the vast majority of the congressional GOP today supports a foreign policy posture of American leadership, strong national defense, energetic counter-terrorism, and firm support for U.S. allies. The same is true of most Republicans nationwide, including fiscal conservatives as well as tea party supporters.

Read the rest: GOP Isolationist? No, Just More Jacksonian

The Republican Party is going back towards its original foreign policy positions. Whether it is Reagan’s “peace through strength” or Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick“, Conservatives are back to a real conservative view of international relations. One that is based on actual interest or real economic benefits. If the Afghan or Iraq wars had been carried out via Jacksonian principals, they would have ended long ago. American companies would be reaping the rewards of oil or mineral contracts. We would make sure our guys are in charge and won the elections. Our enemies would have been crushed without mercy.

Wilsoniansm is a naive world view. America is a unique experiment in human history. Its success can’t be replicated in all societies. Each nation must have the type of government that suits its culture. At the heart of Jacksonisim is reality. It doesn’t intend to change the world, just make sure America and its interest are respected. Republicans have realized this and are now adopting this approach.

John McCain and Miss Lindsey Graham are the true isolationists. They are isolating themselves from the rest of the Republican Party!

Update: Lindsey Graham tells Congress to shut up over Libya. He’s showing his totalitarian side.

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Conservatives now reject Wilsonian Interventionism

by Phantom Ace ( 8 Comments › )
Filed under George W. Bush, Headlines, Polls, Republican Party at June 16th, 2011 - 3:43 pm

After dabbling with Wilsonian Progressive interventionism during the Bush years, Republicans are going back to their roots. A new poll shows a majority of Republicans now reject this ideology. They are going back to Reagan era peace through strength idea. Stay strong, fight if you have to and only if it’s in our national or economic interest.

In their first major presidential debate on June 13, the Republican candidates sketched out a cautious approach to U.S. global engagement that would represent a departure from the policies of the Bush administration. Yet their ideas are very much in tune with the evolving views of the GOP base.

In the Pew Research Center’s political typology survey, released May 4, majorities in every partisan group — including 55% of conservative Republicans — said the U.S. “should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home.”

America is broke and we can’t be the world’s policeman no more. We need to be out for ourselves and only support allies who are willing to defend themselves. If John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Bill Kristol don’t like it, let them form their opwn private army for Democracy spreading. We have shed enough blood and spent enough of our treasure. We should only fight to defend our national intersts or for economic gains.

Wars for Muslim democracy is not Conservative!

Andrew McCarthy disagrees with the NRO Editorial Board

by Phantom Ace ( 195 Comments › )
Filed under Dhimmitude, Islamic hypocrisy, Libya, Politics, Progressives, Republican Party, Tranzis at March 18th, 2011 - 8:30 am

Something is really wrong with the Conservative movement when it comes to foreign policy. Prominent Conservative politicians and websites are calling for US intervention in Libya. None of them have given a legitimate rationale for doing this. It has all been based on emotions and that the US has a duty. Andrew McCarthy, who is no isolationist and is as anti-Jihad as one can get, has been steadfast in his opposition to this. He is one of the few prominent Conservatives to go against this opinion. He even disagrees with the editorial board of the National Review, which he writes for.

I respectfully dissent from Wendesday’s NRO editorial, which urges that the United States go to war with Libya.

The editorial doesn’t put it that way. Indeed, it doesn’tcall for President Obama to seek a congressional declaration of war, or at least an authorization for the use of military force, as the Bush administration understood was required before commencing combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this case, complying with the Constitution is almost certain to result in a resounding “no” vote from the people’s representatives — and if you think getting the Patriot Act reauthorized was uphill, figure getting Congress to bless another adventure in Islamic nation-building as Olympus … squared. So apparently ensuring that the American people support a war against Libya is a step is to be dispensed with. The editors instead claim that “the request by the rebels and the Arab League [is] all the authorization we need,” a proposition that I imagine would have come as something of a surprise to Madison, Jefferson, et al.

In any event, they would have President Obama, post haste, launch our tapped-out nation into an open-ended military intervention, one that is to start with not only the “no-fly zone” that the editors recently opposed but a “no-drive zone” to protect the “rebels” in their tottering eastern stronghold of Benghazi. That sure sounds like a full-blown U.S. invasion of Libya, although the editors are less than clear about exactly whose boots would be hitting the ground. They assure us that they seek only a “meaningful” U.S. military commitment, not an “overwhelming” one “comparable” to the Islamic nation-building misadventures in the fledgling sharia states of Iraq and Afghanistan. But of course, no one was talking about occupying Muslim countries for a decade or more when those projects started.

[…]

The editors do not explain why dictates of the “freedom agenda” would not turn Libya into another exercise in nation-building. The plan is to leap in first (to “check Qaddafi’s offensive”) and “then we can consider other options.” But the three trial balloons they fly for a purportedly limited engagement (though they do not actually restrict themselves to a limited engagement) are utterly unrealistic: (a) if it’s important enough to intervene on behalf of the “rebels,” it’s unseriousto suggest that we would go no further than shoring up their enclave “so they can fight another day”; (b) “decapitation strikes against the regime in Tripoli” would produce exactly the sort of chaos that became the justification for entangling ourselves in Iraq (can anyone forget Colin Powell’s bromide, “You break it, you own it”?); and (c) as Daniel Freedman points out in the WSJ-Europe, we and the “international community” have no credibility to, as the editors put it, “bargain Qaddafi out of the country,” having relentlessly undermined the deal by which Nigeria induced Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to step down in 2003. As Mr. Freedman recounts, the Bush administration joined Europe’s preening over the “need to bring Charles Taylor to justice.” Qaddafi, naturally, took notice of what he called this “serious precedent” — a precedent that now has convinced him to fight until “the last drop of blood is spilled.” (Call Qaddafi crazy, but he often seems to understand how the world works better than our “progressive” diplomats do.)

Read the rest: On the NRO Libya Editorial, I Respectfully Dissent

Andrew McCarthy is spot on here. Why does the US have to get involved in Libya? It’s not our problem and frankly I’m sick of the US getting involved in the affairs of Islamic nations. The people in those countries hate us and I couldn’t care less about them. The majority of the American public want no part of this. Bosnia, Kossovo, Afghanistan and Iraq should be enough for us. It’s time for the US to tell the Islamic world to go take care of themselves.

What is wrong with the Conservatives’ views of foreign policy? Why do many Conservative leaders buy into the Wilsonian Progressive concept of pushing Democracy everywhere? Why are these so called Conservative leaders so obsessed with assisting Islamic causes? Clearly the modern Conservative leadership is Transnationalist. They are no longer concerned with America’s interests. It’s now all about wars without end and sending our youth to die for useless causes. There is nothing Conservative about this foreign policy view. It’s Progressive and Leftist.

I am just one voice but I will stand up against these calls for the US to get involved in another Islamic conflict. I will stand by Conservatives  like Andrew McCarthy who is standing up to the Transnationalist hijackers of Conservatism. The stench of Progressivism has infiltrated the Right and we must resist this. If not we are no different than progressives. War without end is not Conservative, it’s a Marxist-Trotskyite idea. Conservatism should be about America’s interest, not the International Community.

Update:

Since the writing of this post, there has been breaking news. The UN security Council has voted to establish a no fly zone over Libya.

The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution Thursday evening authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya and other measures military action against Libya.

The vote was 10-0 with five abstentions, including Russia, Germany and China.

Here we go again!

Update II:

All indications are that it will be British and French forces that will attack Libya.

PM David Cameron went to the Commons after an emergency cabinet meeting to tell MPs he had instructed the chief of the defence staff to start drawing up plans on how to enforce the resolution.

Mr Cameron confirmed the planes would be deployed in the “coming hours”, moving to air bases from where they can take the necessary action.

He said: “Britain will deploy Tornados and Typhoons as well as air-to-air refuelling and surveillance aircraft.

What a waste.

Americans reluctant to intervene in Libya

by Phantom Ace ( 174 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Islamic Supremacism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Libya, Military, Muslim Brotherhood, Progressives, Republican Party, Tranzis at March 16th, 2011 - 2:00 pm

The Republicans really botched an opportunity to destroy the Tranzi Progressives. Many leftists like John Kerry, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and others were calling for the US to set up a no fly zone over Libya. Instead of hammering the Democrats for wanting us to get involved in conflict where there are no US interest, Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, John Bolton, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol, Mike Huckabee and others agreed and even tried to use this to paint Obama as weak. Despite all this bipartisan propaganda most Americans are against getting involved.

The public by a wide margin says the United States does not have a responsibility to do something about the fighting between government forces and anti-government groups in Libya. And while opinion is divided over enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, this view is undercut by the fact that Americans overwhelmingly oppose bombing Libyan military air defenses.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 10-13 among 1,001 adults, finds that 63% say the United States does not have a responsibility to act in Libya; fewer than half as many (27%) say the U.S. has this responsibility. Opinion about U.S. responsibility to take action in Libya is comparable to views about the conflict between Serbs and Bosnians in 1995; just 30% said the U.S. had a responsibility in that case. By contrast, far more Americans said the U.S. had a responsibility to take action in Kosovo in 1999 and in the Darfur crisis of 2007.

[…]

Roughly half of Americans (54%) say that the best argument for not using military force in Libya is that U.S. military forces are already overcommitted. Far fewer (19%) say the best argument for not using force is that opposition groups in Libya may be no better than the current government or that Libya is not of vital interest to the United States (13%).

Read the rest: Public Wary of Military Intervention in Libya

The American public wants no part of the Libya mess. It saddens me that the editorial review board of the National Review is pushing for American intervention in Libya. I really don’t get why the Conservative foreign policy establishment is so gung ho on getting involved in Libya. Well the answer is that the foreign policy establishment of the GOP is not Conservative, but Wilsonian Progressive. These same clowns push for the US to get involved in Bosnia when the majority of Americans were against it. The result was the creation of an Islamicstate in Europe. These same fools continued to  demonized the Serbs was able to convince enough Americans to go along with Clinton’s illegal bombing of Serbia. The result of this shameful act was the creation of an Islamic criminal state in Europe involved in drug trafficking, child sex slavery and organ harvesting. Now they want to get involved in Libya, the result of which will produce an Islamic state. These same fools turned the War on Islamic-Imperialism into a war to spread Muslim democracy. The result is 5,000 dead Americans and Islam more powerful now than before 9/11.

I am disappointed that Conservatives like Sarah Palin, John Bolton, the National Review and others are cheer leading a leftist idea. America is broke and our economy a mess. We should be focused on fixing our own problems and not getting involved in an internal Arab conflict. Clearly the leaders of the Conservative movement are being mislead by people with a Progressive agenda. We should oppose any involvement in Libya and use it as a club to beat the Left with. Clearly the elites of both parties are going against the will of the American public.

Although I am a small voice, I will do all I can to oppose the Tranzi-Wilsonian foreign policy alliance. There were no blogs during Bosnia or Kosovo to spread the truth about the situation. I was mislead in the run up to Iraq the real reason for the invasion. I will not sit idly by and stay quiet over Libya. I will oppose this Progressive based foreign policy with all my fiber in my being.

No American blood for Islamic Democracy!

Update:

Here is a good analysis by Michael Totten on the hypocrisy of the Arab world. Although I disagree with Totten’s WIlsonian ideology, he is intellectually honest in realizing Americans have had enough of dying for the Islamic world.

As forces loyalto Libya’s cruel and de ranged tyrant Moammar Khadafy re conquer one rebel-held city after an other, the Arab League and the Arabic press are calling for a no-fly zone over the country to tip, or at least even, the odds. While I’m inclined to help the Libyans on humanitarian grounds and to advance our own national interests, the American public’s appetite is low for intervening on behalf of the rebels — and it’s largely the Arab world’s fault.

Last time Americans led a coalition to topple a mass-murdering dictatorship in the Middle East, the Arab League and the Arabic press hysterically denounced us as imperialist crusaders fighting a war for oil and Israel. Egged on by al-Jazeera, they cheerleaded the “resistance” that killed thousands of our soldiers with roadside bombs in the years that followed.

[……]

Few expected Iraq to transition smoothly to a stable democracy after so many years of repression, sanctions and war — but if Iraqis hadn’t responded with such a vicious campaign of violence against our soldiers and each other, the thought of helping Libyans who suffer under similar circumstances wouldn’t frighten or disgust quite so many of us.

[…]

They might find that if they treated us more like the Kurds do, more of us will be willing to help them in the future — rather than shun them as hostiles who deserve to be left to their fate

Read more: What about our hearts and minds?

Totten is spot on here. Why is the opinion of the Arab Islamic world more important than the opinion of that of Americans? For the last 20 years, America’s military actions freom Bosnian to Iraq, have been involved in the Islamic world, while we ignore the fires in our own hemisphere. Containmnet of the Islamic world should be our foreign policy.

 It is time for America to leave the Islamic world to its own devices and we should pursue a policy of arming Israelto the teeth. We  should be allying ourselves with Non Islamic powers on the borders of Dar al Islam.  The US should support the destruction of Hizballah and the establishment of Lebanon as a Christian state to provide refuge for Middle East Christians. We should assist genuinely Pro Western people like the Kurds or Persian Nationalist wanting to get rid of their Arabized Ayatollah regime.  All aid to Kossovo should be withdrawn and we should allow the Serbs to take back their rightful province. Bosnia should be dived between Serbia and Croatia, thus ending a 600 year wrong caused by the Islamic Turks. We should support European anti-Islamic movements an undue the Pro-Islamic European Union. The US also should seek to stabilize Mexico and dominate our own hemisphere once again.

The tme for a realistic foreign policy based on American interest and preservation of Western civilization is needed. Americans have bled enough for Islam. If we need to make sacrifices then let it be for American interests, allies and Western Civilization in general.