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CRUZ or LOSE!Posted on 04/11/2015 7:57:25 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
BTTT
That was a very nice reply, and I think your reasoning is sound.
Those are all dynamics that need to be considered and evaluated.
I live in California, and I recognize a problem here that has spread out across the nation. We’re in a serious situation and it’s getting worse.
In my state, we have no Conservative voices. There are no highly visible vocal Conservatives getting the Conservative message out there. Absent that, the public doesn’t know what we stand for or why.
Who has stood up and explained with good detail why we do what we do around the world?
During the cold war we were everywhere. Today we are withdrawing from the world stage, and that is inviting adventurism from various very bad players.
Our NAVY has pulled back so much that Iran actually sent one of it’s destroyers down to Yemen, to threaten them. In the old days, the U. S. NAVY would have stepped in and told Iran to sail back home.
We have forgotten that the sea lanes were safe because we were out there making them safe, or better yet not having to because our presence did the job without further effort.
China is stepping up. Russia is to a lesser degree. Now even Iran has a high seas presence. India is advancing and even Pakistan is developing an deep water capability.
Voids, vacuums will be filled. If we leave a void by our withdrawal, another entity will fill that void.
I know there are a lot of folks who think it would be great to quit sending our boys overseas. Yes, it would be great. Someone elses boys would be doing what our citizens did, only the ideology behind their movement would not be our ideology.
Congress used to voice opposition to the Left. We used to have a man Ronald Reagan that did it. Who does today?
We have Cruz and a few others, on various topics, but I’ll be honest, taking issues one by one and clearing defining what the Conservative view on global or domestic issues is, we don’t really have a loud voice, and it’s getting quieter all the time.
Pretty soon, nobody will know what Conservatism stands for. What with one Bush or another, McCain, or Romney leading our side during the general elections, nobody has a clue what Conservatism is. It is called a terrorist group by some Republicans, and there are Americans who don’t know any different. That is our fault.
It’s why folks don’t understand foreign policy any better than they do. They don’t understand that this is a small world and getting smaller all the time.
We have to be involved. In California, in the U. S., and globally.
This has to change. We must explain why there was general peace over the last 40 years. There were wars, but not of the 1917 and 1941 variety.
We did a pretty good job. The need for it hasn’t ended.
I appreciate your nice reply.
Supporting the Iranian people attempting to overthrow their evil regime is one thing we could do. Unlike 0 who allowed the decent Iranians to be slaughtered, withholding any aid. Much to the dim’s delight. This should be a campaign issue.
That’s a valid point. My Facebook Icon still has a green corner on it, meant years ago to show support for the activist Iranians.
Now we know why Obama didn’t help. He liked the other side.
Re: “During the cold war we were everywhere. Today we are withdrawing from the world stage, and that is inviting adventurism from various very bad players.”
Absolutely true. And, whenever the U.S. has attempted to avoid world stage involvement, it has turned out poorly for us, as well as the rest of the world suffering under oppression by prolonging that suffering, and by contributing to longer casualty lists for us through unpreparedness and having to play catch up while our forces and those of our allies paid the price for our getting caught with our pants down.
Only this time, it won’t be our soldiers in far off shores of the Phillippines or Midway that will bear the brunt of our unpreparedness and avoidance of involvement - it will be on our doorsteps.
I pray I am wrong, but history has demonstrated over and over again that avoiding or wishing the problem to go away always has disasterous consequences.
Because the polls are bullshite?
We’re on the same page there. I agree with you.
We’re a victim of our own success. Our military did such a good job, folks think the peace will magically continue when the military is no longer involved around the world.
China will break out, and people in that region will pay a heavy toll in our absence. You alluded to that sort of thing, and you’re exactly right.
CRUZ or LOSE!On a different, but related topic - the “nation building” failure in Iraq - why do you think we were successful at it in Japan, which also had a far different world view of human life, as well as a different religion than us - yet we succeeded? While in Iraq, we spent billions on infrastructure and working with the Iraqi people to move their government toward a more democratic nation, yet failed?
In both cases, Iraq and Japan’s infrastructure, industry and government were destroyed by the war’s end, yet Japan recovered while Iraq didn’t. Was it because we didn’t have a realistic post-war plan, and we didn’t properly prepare for security and governance of Iraq? MacArthur was literally a military dictator over Japan for several years and I can’t imagine him allowing the looting and pillaging that followed Saddam’s fall in Iraq to occur in Japan.
Or, was it simply because or Islam? Is Islam, as it exists in Iraq just too much of a barrier? Also, Japan had an industrial establishment prior to the war that wasn’t based on just one resource, as in Iraq’s is with oil. Just wondering what your thoughts would be on this.
Very odd.
The defeat of Iraq utterly pales in comparison to the absolute devastation we visited on Japan. Japan was bombed into starving rubble, capped off with two nukes just to put a fine point on it.
We rolled in and basically dictated the way they would live.... and everyone knew we had teeth.
In Iraq, the brilliance of maneuver warfare and scrupulously avoiding civilian casualties left most Iraqis not really feeling “defeated”.
Immediately after the defeat, we allowed Iraqis to walk around armed,,openly.
Japan and Iraq were defeated VERY differently.
Obama lost Iraq.
This, American voters, is what happened.
Wasting your breath on Alberta chick. She doesn’t see the fact that if Iran gets the bomb, war is coming whether she likes it or not. I say that as a 20yr vet with both my sons currently serving. We take it to them, or eventually, they WILL bring it to us.
A word to the pollsters: Bullhockey! You can get any poll result you desire. Just poll the type of people who will give you the type of answers you want. Duh!
What it means is, A) the Demagogic Party can always rely on Partisan Media Shills, which includes the author of the op-ed, and B) that Partisan Media Shills use and abuse polls in their shilling. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
Most Americans are idiots. That is why they elected Obama twice. Whomever takes power, he must deal with an electorate whose advice he largely must ignore.
I have been saying for quite a while that his saying that put us at least 25 years behind in dealing with the issue.
You're not making sense.
If a guy doesn't know how to pick great people to work for him, he's unlikely to be great at managing.
“They’re not afraid, they’re just lazy and ignorant. They don’t know the difference between straight reporting and commentary, and they don’t want to know the difference (of course this isn’t helped by the fact that the line between straight reporting and commentary over the past few decades, but I digress).”
Exactly. The dumbing down in our public schools for the last 40-50 years now has it’s intended consequences.
“I don’t think you have a highly visible Republican standing up and explaining what is wrong with Obama’s plan.”
Netanyahu has done a great job doing exactly that. Hopefully the Republican candidate will do the same.
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