Ted Cruz Ping! If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!
CRUZ or LOSE!
Posted on 04/29/2015 11:37:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
LAS VEGAS — Ted Cruz wants you to know that he isn’t a Rand Paul on foreign policy – but he isn’t a John McCain either.
The Texas senator and Republican presidential contender outlined his foreign policy worldview Friday in an in-depth interview with The Daily Caller from the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental in Sin City, where he was in town to attend both the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Spring Meeting and a convention of evangelical pastors.
“The touchstone of foreign policy should be the vital national security interest of America,” Cruz said, arguing his foreign policy was neither “full neocon” nor “libertarian isolationist.”
“I believe America should be a clarion voice for freedom. The bully pulpit of the American president has enormous potency,” he added, before praising former President Ronald Reagan for changing the “arc of history” by demanding Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall and lambasting President Barack Obama for not sufficiently standing on the side of freedom during Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution.
But, Cruz noted, speaking out for freedom “is qualitatively different from saying U.S. military forces should intervene to force democracy on foreign lands.”
“Historically, America has always been reluctant to engage in military conflict,” he said. “It’s worth noting, in eight years, the largest country Ronald Reagan ever invaded was Grenada.”
Cruz says he is a hawk on some issues, like preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But on other foreign policy questions, like whether to support the Syrian rebels in their fight against Bashar al-Assad, he is more hesitant because he doesn’t see how it will benefit American interests.
“Assad is a bad actor, no doubt about it. He’s a monster who’s murdered hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, women, and children with chemical weapons, but the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend,” Cruz said. “I opposed President Obama’s proposed military attack against Syria because the administration was not able to articulate how it furthered U.S. national security interest, and the consequence of arming the rebels, among those rebels are radical Islamic terrorists.”
Cruz says “if and when U.S. military force is required,” it should only “proceed under three preconditions.” You might call it the “Cruz Doctrine.”
“First, it should begin with a clearly stated objective at the outset. It should be directly tied to U.S. national security,” he said. “Second, we should use overwhelming force to that objective. We should not have rules of engagement that tie the hands of our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines.”
The final point in the Cruz Doctrine is that the U.S. military should not be asked to help birth democratic societies.
“Third, we should get the heck out,” he said. “It is not the job of the U.S. military to engage in nation building to turn foreign countries into democratic utopias.”
Cruz’s foreign policy differs from Rand Paul’s because, among other things, he appears more willing to commit American military might if necessary than the Kentucky senator, such as potentially in Iran. But Cruz sometimes opposes more hawkish senators like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and — arguably — Marco Rubio because he doesn’t believe America should use the military to help spread democracy abroad.
As the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein recently noted, “Though the differences Paul has with the rest of the party deserve attention, a far more interesting — and important — debate is the one likely to emerge between Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas.”
“Once again they will gamble on ‘electability’ and lose.”
If that ain’t the truth.
Fed up and tired of watching FR devolve into another ‘back the RINO’ crusade by it’s resident leftists.
“Except we’ve been doing exactly that for a long, long time. Indian Wars, Reconstruction, Philippines, Caribbean, Japan, Germany, Vietnam (sort of), Balkans (sort of), Iraq, Afghanistan—peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, and nation-building have been a part of our mission for many years.”
And? If you find yourself face down in a ditch, then the first thing you should do is to stop digging.
It doesn’t bother me. Politics is Caesar’s game played by Caesar’s rules. What I do in my garden today will be orders of magnitude more important.
But it is fun to poke at the hypocritical pukes.
I sympathies. Unfortunately those POS are destroying your garden. And everyone elses.
SYMPATHIZE
History helps provide some solace. I’m thinking the rise of walled off religious orders during the dark ages is particularly relevant.
We will return to walled off orders soon. Religious and otherwise. I see that as progress.
I agree wholeheartedly. Those nasty neo-cons actually want to prevent Iran from committing nuclear blackmail? The never of them! We should let Iran have nukes because they are the most insane industrial power in the world, mentally capable of seeking Armageddon.
So why should we miss out on the sheer delight of a nuclear showdown with a lunatic with the ‘twitchy eye’?
True but with Paul he’s already reduced the military and thinks we don’t need them. Much like Obama.
“We will return to walled off orders soon. Religious and otherwise. I see that as progress.”
I do too. Interesting that western culture, or what remains of it, will come full circle in about 1500 years time.
Ted Cruz Ping! Ted Cruz ?
The Cherry on the Top of all your points and the “ Cruz Doctirne “ would be is to give the UN up to a year to get the hell out of America and set up shop elsewhere.
Ted Cruz as President ? Remove the UN from the USA, give them a eviction notice....
And when the USA national security is threatened, or our national interests are at stake, NO UN APPROVAL, we will act unilaterally.
Support for Rand Paul is fundamentally wrong.
People supporting RINO garbage are themselves fundamentally wrong.
The most radical of Paul supporter yoots are like the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Nothing more or less than what the Race Hustlers are doing in Baltimore and around the country, sowing division to achieve a desired effect.
They are causing the conservative ( even though their ideology is questioned whether it’s conservative ) divide.
The thing with that is that as adum as they are, they have an excuse. they had a lifetime of snowflake crap pumped into them and they don’t know any different.
People claiming to be conservative however have no such excuse. they DID at one time understand the differences between right, wrong, good, and evil. And made the willful and educated choice to support a Dem/RINO backing nutcase with an anti-semitic pacifist lunatic father whose beliefs the supportee embraces fully.
Occupy idiots are idiots. Paulbots are evil.
Rand Paul NeoLIBERAL
Thats what they get paid for or CHOOSE to do. Openly and willfully. And most here are too meek to call them on it. Did
i say meek? Sorry. I ‘misspoke’ I meant blazingly yellow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.