Posted on 07/29/2014 5:48:32 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
With the party united, the odds are now at least even that the GOP will not only hold the House but also capture the Senate in November.
But before traditional conservatives cheer that prospect, they might take a closer look at the foreign policy that a Republican Senate would seek to impose upon the nation.
Specifically, they should spend time reading S. 2277, the "Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014," introduced by Sen. Bob Corker on May 1, and endorsed by half of the Senate's GOP caucus.
As ranking Republican on the foreign relations committee, Corker is in line to become chairman, should the GOP take the Senate. That makes this proposal a gravely serious matter.
Corker's bill would declare Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine "major non-NATO allies" of the United States, move NATO forces into Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, accelerate the building of an ABM system in Eastern Europe, and authorize U.S. intelligence and military aid for Ukraine's army in the Donbass war with Russian-backed separatists.
U.S. aid would include antitank and antiaircraft weapons.
S. 2277 would direct the secretary of state to intensify efforts to strengthen democratic institutions inside the Russian Federation, e.g., subvert Vladimir Putin's government, looking toward regime change.
If Putin has not vacated Crimea and terminated support for Ukraine's separatist rebels within seven days of passage of the Corker Ultimatum, sweeping sanctions would be imposed on Russian officials, banks and energy companies, including Gazprom.
Economic relations between us would be virtually severed.
In short, this is an ultimatum to Russia that she faces a new Cold War if she does not get out of Ukraine and Crimea, and it is a U.S. declaration that we will now regard three more former Soviet republics -- Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia -- as allies.
A small, weak country might accept this dictation from a superpower.
But Russia, where anti-Americanism is virulent and rampant and the Russian people support Putin's actions in Ukraine, would want him to tell the Americans just what to do with their ultimatum.
And how Russia would respond is not difficult to predict.
Our demand that she get out of Crimea and leave her two-century-old naval base at Sevastopol in the custody of President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev and his U.S. allies, would be laughed off.
Putin would tell us that Crimea has voted to return to Russia. It's ours, and we're going to keep it. Now deal with it.
To make good on our latest red line, we would have to start shipping weapons to Kiev, in which case Russia, with superior forces closer, would likely move preemptively into East Ukraine.
What would our NATO allies do then?
The U.S. directive to the State Department to work with NGOs in Russia, blatant intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, would be answered with a general expulsion of these agencies from Moscow.
We would not sit still for this kind of open subversion in the United States. What makes us think they would?
And where do we come off telling the Russians what kind of government they may have? Do we do that with our friends in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Is there more freedom in Egypt, to which we send billions annually in foreign aid, than in Russia?
Is there more freedom in China?
How do we think Beijing would respond if Corker & Co. openly declared not only their right but their intent to funnel U.S. funds to civic organizations to bring about an end to single-party Communist rule?
The Russian people, today backing Putin by 80 percent, seem happier with their government than we Americans do with ours.
But it may be this idea of installing a ballistic missile defense, an ABM system, in Poland and the Czech Republic, that is most dangerous of all.
Putin has already signaled that this would cross his red line, that if we start implanting antimissile missiles in Eastern Europe, he will reply by installing offensive missiles.
The Reagan-Gorbachev INF treaty to eliminate all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe -- the USSR's triple-warhead SS-20s, and our Pershing II and cruise missiles -- could wind up in the dumpster.
We could have a mini-Cuban missile crisis in Eastern Europe.
And how would our German allies react to Russian missiles rising in Kaliningrad, the former Prussian capital of Konigsberg, wedged between Lithuania and Poland?
Russia and Ukraine have been like Siamese twins for a thousand years. When did where and how they separate become our strategic concern?
Under Obama, the U.S. has declined to intervene in civil wars in Syria, Ukraine and Libya, or to go back in force in Iraq. He is pulling us out of Afghanistan.
The American Imperium is folding up. Retrenchment is underway.
If the Republican counteroffer to Obama's is a return to the compulsive interventionism of Bush II, this is where some of us will be getting off.
RE: (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.”
From the Late Sheik, himself.
_____________________________
The late Sheik (and by this, I assume you’re talking about Bin Ladin ) also told his followers that the existence of the west is a cultural cancer that must be excise from the world. He wanted the Muslim world to “awake” to this insidious threat.
In other words our mere existence, with our value on human rights and the liberation of women poses an evil example to the Islamic world.
How do I know this? I was in the Philippines when the leader of their version of Al Qaeda — the Moro Front, made the exact argument to his followers in the island Mindanao.
The so-called “because you continue to attack us.” is but a pretext.
I Believe what he tells his followers. What he tells the world is but a political taqiya.
Therefore, it is not true that if you leave Al Qaeda alone, Al Qaeda will leave you alone.
Militant Islam seeks DOMINATION the same way their founder envisioned it.
RE: t would hopefully allow someone like Atta to be screened out, and would hopefully disallow student visas from most Muslim nations.
The words “hopefully” is speculative. We cannot at this point in time, discern what would and would not have happened or whether or not someone like Muhammad Atta would or would not have legally ( because that is what he did ) arrived in the USA.
All these talk about “chain migration” is beside the point as it had nothing to do with Muhammad Atta and his ilk. He was not here as a migrant.
My main interest is this — let’s say we have a President Buchanan in 2001, what would he have done in 9/11 occurred?
Would he have gone to Afghanistan?
If not, what does he propose to do?
First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.
Threatening war over Ukraine just as the rest of the world is exploding is a very curious move, and the sudden argument that today's Russia is the same as the old Soviet Union is equally perplexing. It is so curious that I have to wonder why seemingly rational politicians would make such arguments. Why might a bankrupt America embark upon another distant military adventure? What is worth such a dangerous and costly distraction? What is on the near horizon that we aren't supposed to notice?
So, you are saying simply let Ukraine fall to Russia and do nothing?
I am saying that we should "let" Ukraine work out its own issues with its neighbor. How did American come to be the arbiter of every dispute, the surety for every loan and the guarantor of everyone's security? Why is it up to us to "let" or not let Ukraine settle its own disputes? This is not our business, not our fight, and not worth our treasure or our blood. There are times when the right answer is simply no.
The same as it would have been after Pearl Harbor -- try to figure out Why They Hate Us and how we can make them like us.
If Buchanan had been elected in 2000 I doubt he could have done much to stop Atta and 9-11. I also don’t blame Bush, even though he was absolutely horrible on immigration through and through, from supporting amnesty and increases in legal immigration to helping popularize new nauseating platitudes like ‘family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande’ or ‘Islam is a religion of peace’.
But had Buchanan been elected in 92 or 96 and had he been able to put in place his preferred restrictive immigration policies then who knows? Maybe garbage like Atta wouldn’t have been allowed in.
I admit it’s speculative, but that’s all we can do is speculate about what might have beers. One thing we don’t really need to speculate about though is that current immigration/refugee/asylum policy predictably continued to import terrorists even after 9-11.
As to Buchanan and Afghanistan; I think he would have gone there. Even if he didn’t want to, public pressure would have demanded it. He probably wouldn’t have gone to Iraq, and in that he would have been right.
RE: I am saying that we should “let” Ukraine work out its own issues with its neighbor
So, no worldwide sanctions in coordination with our allies in Europe for what Russia did, just act as if everything was as normal as it was before?
And if Russia did the same to Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and the rest, we “let” these countries work out their issue with their bigger neighbor as well, and we simply act as if this is not our business?
Precisely. And how do we define "normal as it was before" -- Kiev allied with Russia or the new regime that we helped to overthrow the earlier government? And why did we do that?
America rightly prohibits foreign powers from meddling on our borders (even our hemisphere, per the 1823 Monroe Doctrine), and we would be wise to leave other powers' borders alone, too. Borderlands provide healthy buffers between competing powers that help to prevent wars from starting inadvertently; Forging competing military alliances along another power's border can only be interpreted as an existential threat.
Let’s remember one thing about Ukraine...
Crimea did not have a vote.
Imagine a scenario where Mexico invades southern California, the La Raza chairwoman Janet Margula declares herself the interim president of Alta California, and declares that she will hold a referendum on whether Alta California will leave the United States.
Every loyal American rejects the authority of La Raza to even hold such a referendum and refuses lend legitimacy to the invaders by participating in an illegal referendum.
La Raza wins with 97% of the “vote.”
That’s what happened in Crimea. Loyal Ukrainians were steamrolled by invaders and fifth columnists.
So, we might think that the USA has no stake in Ukraine, but I think All U.S. interests in Ukraine are INTANGIBLE — in other words, they are important not for the effect on U.S. interests today, but to the extent that we believe our actions can send messages that will affect the future.
How we act now, it is commonly believed, can signal to Moscow (or to Beijing, or to Tehran) how we are likely to respond to provocations to come. Our inaction will encourage their belligerence.
Secondly, whether we like it or not, we still have ALLIES in NATO and South Korea AND Japan. Unless you want us to dissolve these treaties and agreements, these countries LOOK UP and EXPECT (nay, still TRUST) to the USA to keep her word.
Allies such as Poland and the Baltic states are feeling particularly vulnerable at the moment. How America responds to its allies in Europe could be seen as a litmus test for how it would support Asia-Pacific allies in need.
And, With the downing of MH17 and the deaths of many passengers ( most of them citizens of our allies ), How America responds to its allies in Europe could be seen as a litmus test for how serious we are with our treaties.
Regional allies concerned with whether the U.S. still remains fully engaged to its alliance commitments should therefore favor strong U.S. reassurance measures in Europe.
If not, we ought to be honest with them and tell them that we plan to slowly move out of NATO as well and they ought to start thinking of building up their own defenses.
Finally, we should remember that we still live in this world and like or or not, TRADE, COMMERCE and other MUTUAL PARTNERSHIPS with countries worldwide are the norm.
Therefore. I don’t think it is realistic to say that what happens in Ukraine has NO BEARING on the USA.
What is happening in Ukraine also has serious global implications, including in the Asia-Pacific.
I am not saying that we should be military involved in Ukraine ( yes, no US troops ). But I am not ready to say that we should TOTALLY BE UNINVOLVED AT ALL.
Putin’s behavior in Ukraine, if left unpunished, will have an eroding impact on the international norms of state sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In the worst case it could even create a dangerous precedent, allowing other states to resort to similar justifications for invading its neighbors.
Beijing and North Korea and Iran are closely watching how the Ukraine crisis will unfold.
If say, China concludes that the American response to Putin’s aggression is too weak, it may well seek to test the U.S. resolve in Asia.
For neighbors of China (HUGE trade partners of America all), this ought to be a worrisome prospect. It is therefore crucial that the United States is serious about applying real “costs” to Russian behavior. This also requires building a strong coalition of like minded states to send a strong political message that Russia’s behavior in Ukraine is unacceptable.
We might not be interested in getting involved, but eventually not getting involved will come back to bite us.
That’s the way I see it.
We have plenty of appeasenik cowards such as Dinesh D'Souza right here at home who suck up to "the late Sheik" on this point.
As for Pat Buchanan, let him mourn the relatives who died in the Nazi death camps, and perhaps file lawsuits against the contractors who inadequately secured the foundations of the guard towers.
Here's a little dose of reality... During the Cold War, the United States was trained and equipped to project, fight and win two and a half "Major Regional Contingencies" simultaneously -- as in the Soviets, Red China and the Middle East. And we had the manpower, hardware and economic power to pull it off. Then the Soviets collapsed and we thought we'd write the next century's history by ourselves, so we spent the "peace dividend" and all of our tomorrows on welfare and corruption. Oh, yeah -- and we added twelve new treaty members to NATO.
Today, all we can handle is the "one half" MRC, and that has stretched our current sealift, airlift, and ground forces and has sapped our treasury, equipment, and national will over two decades of fruitless halfhearted war. The bar is now more crowded and thirsty than ever, but we are out of Schlitz.
Then I suggest we be honest and not pretend that we can carry the load for NATO as soon as possible.
I’d rather we keep our integrity intact to our allies than continue to pretend that we will be there for them if we aren’t ready and willing to help defend them.
Ditto Japan, South Korea and the rest.
If the intent is to cut military spending because we have too much obligations and debt at home and we aren’t willing to cut our domestic spending on welfare, Obamacare and the like, and prefer that we cut our military, let’s be honest and tell everyone now.
We really have a choice —— either we limit the government to its most important constitutionally designated function -— DEFENDING OURSELVES AGAINST ENEMIES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, or we expand the role of government in all other non-constitutional aspects — welfare, healthcare, retirement, etc.
And by saying “If our many enemies decide to test our promises at the same time, we are in deep trouble.”, I can tell you know it is not a matter of IF, it is a matter of WHEN.
Militant Islam with its apocalyptic vision of world conquest and a new caliphate is not going to let up. Iran wants to be a nuclear power because her Ayatollahs believe that this will usher in the return of their twelfth Imam. We might think that by leaving a country like Iran alone, they will spare us (Buchanan’s view), but that is a very naive view. Whether we like it or not, Iran considers us their MAIN ENEMY.
Neither is a resurgent China and now a belligerent Russia.
We might not be interested in war, but eventually, war will be interested in us. If we find ourselves cut to the bone because of some notion that doing so will make our current enemies hate us less, we deserve everything we get.
With your last post, we are in total agreement.
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