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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

2012 Republican Foreign Policy in a Nutshell

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 8:02 AM

Yesterday evening, Andrew McCarthy wrote for National Review's Corner blog about President Obama's address to the UN. It turned out to be the clearest, most concise explanation of Republican foreign policy that I think I've ever read.

Put aside the first two fallacies — people cannot always resolve their differences peacefully; when war is necessary, because what it is fought over is worse, diplomacy is not an effective and just substitute. Where all this goes off the rails is in the notion that we live in an “interdependent world.” We don’t. Americans live in a world where there is interaction of our own choosing. We are not dependent — we remain independent. We engage the world as a volitional act, and we should do it in pursuit of our interests.

The title of the post is "It Is Not an ‘Interdependent World.’" Grab what you need, butt in where you see fit, and withdraw when you want. It's toddler philosophy—the Bush Doctrine, distilled into a few sentences. This post would be an almost amusing relic of the past, if most of Romney's foreign policy advisers weren't holdovers from the Bush administration.

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Obama's fallacies are dangerous...that we must somehow become "more like the world" in order to fit in to these "interdependencies".

ROW (Rest of the World) is a strung together collection of dictatorships with no rule of law or constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on September 26, 2012 at 8:28 AM

So they're re-branding "dependent" as "choosing lesser of two evils"? Because everything's a choice?

Posted by internet_jen on September 26, 2012 at 8:31 AM

War is the only answer for them. But real lives are destroyed. Their real interest is the money. With the Republicans, you can distill their foreign policy even further. Money. Our money. Money for their weapons pals. Money for their oil pals. Money for them. The more selfish we as a nation become, the more we alienate the world's peoples. And the world's peoples can make their governments resist us, obstruct us, delay us and stop our growth and ambitions.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on September 26, 2012 at 8:43 AM

How can war ever be "necessary" if we're supposedly independent of the rest of the world and only engage the world in interactions of our own choosing?

Those are contradictory beliefs.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on September 26, 2012 at 8:52 AM

oh so this guy hasn't noticed all the "made in China" labels?

Posted by eastcoastreader on September 26, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Obviously someone who doesn't pay for gas.

Posted by Sir Vic on September 26, 2012 at 9:14 AM

Considering the U.S. imports about $40 B more PER MONTH in goods and services than it exports, including roughly HALF of the petroleum we consume, I'd say we're already pretty damned interdependent vis-a-vis our relations with the rest of the world.

McCarthy's position is, as usual, completely unsupportable when subjected to even the most cursory scrutiny. But then, the Right has never let pesky inconveniences like facts interrupt their jingoistic wet-dreams, so, really, no surprise there.

Posted by COMTE

on September 26, 2012 at 9:24 AM

Bawk-bawk, chickenhawk!

Posted by Grrr on September 26, 2012 at 9:28 AM

Supreme Moron of the Universe: Your opinion is bad and you should feel bad.

Posted by mubhappy on September 26, 2012 at 9:51 AM

Remember that under Republican administrations air, water, disease, and pollution cease flowing across national boundaries. The laws of thermodynamics are under patriotic house arrest. Under a Republican president nobody out there has anything that we need. And if they do we have Jesus's permission to clobber them to get it.

Posted by tkc on September 26, 2012 at 10:54 AM

This sounds like a real Project For the New American Century.

Posted by Proteus on September 26, 2012 at 10:55 AM

@1: Wow Bailo, that is incredibly stupid even for you.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on September 26, 2012 at 11:41 AM

Their real foreign policy is and has always been "Keep lots of faux wars/conflicts going for years/generations so we can continue to bleed the public dry via the federal tax system"

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." - President Eisenhower, Jan. 17, 1961

Posted by MarkyMark on September 26, 2012 at 12:01 PM