Posted on 06/11/2014 6:23:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Both libertarians and conservatives want to keep America safe. We differ on how best to do that. Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending.
Some conservatives respond to that by calling us isolationists, but we're not. I want to participate in the world; I just don't want to run it. I'm glad Americans trade with other countries -- trade both goods and people. It's great we sell foreigners our music, movies, ideas, etc. And through dealing with them, we also learn from what they do best.
On my TV show this week, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton will tell me why my libertarian skepticism about the importance of a "strong military presence" is "completely irrelevant to foreign policy decision-making."
Bolton thinks it's dangerous and provocative for America to appear militarily weak. He supported the Iraq War and says that if Iran were close to getting nuclear weapons, the U.S should attack. "I will go to my grave trying to prevent every new country we can find from getting nuclear weapons," because if they do, "it's going to be a very dangerous world."
He criticizes Presidents Barack Obama's and George W. Bush's failed attempts at negotiation with Iran, "negotiation based on the delusion from the get-go that Iran was ever serious about potentially giving up its nuclear weapon program."
That kind of talk makes Bolton sound like a hard-headed realist. Who wants to be naive like Bush or Obama? But hawks like Bolton ignore parts of reality, too.
They are quick and correct to point out the danger of Iran going nuclear. They are not as quick to talk about the fact that Iran has a population three times the size of Iraq's -- and the Iraq War wasn't as smooth or short as then-Vice President Dick Cheney and others assured us it would be.
If it's realistic to acknowledge that America has dangerous enemies, it's also realistic to acknowledge that going to war is not always worth the loss of money and lives, and that it makes new enemies. War, like most government plans, tends not to work out as well as planners hoped.
I asked Bolton if he thought the Vietnam War was a good intervention. "Obviously, the way it played out, it was not," he said, but, "it's always easy after the fact to second-guess."
Bolton also acknowledges that the Iraq War did not go well, but then adds, "Where mistakes were made was after the military campaign." The U.S. was unprepared for the civil war that broke out. The U.S. also failed to turn utilities and other state-run companies in Iraq over to the private sector, maintaining poorly run monopolies on energy production and other essential services, often squandering billions of dollars.
It might be seen as a harsh lesson in the importance of planning for the aftermath of toppling a bad regime. But we libertarians wonder: Why assume government will do better next time?
Occasionally government acknowledges mistakes in domestic policy -- but that doesn't mean it then becomes more efficient. It usually just spends more to try, and fail, to fix the problem. It's the nature of government. Politicians don't face the competitive incentives that force other people to make hard decisions.
Candidate Obama garnered support by criticizing Bush for costing money and lives through a protracted stay in Iraq. But that didn't stop Obama from putting more money and troops into Afghanistan.
In his first term alone, Obama spent about three times as much in Afghanistan as Bush did in two terms. Did we win hearts and minds? I don't think so. The Taliban may still retake the country.
Our military should be used for defense, not to police the world.
For half of Freepers, the word “libertarian” goes in eyeballs, the brain stops working.
I think most conservatives take the middle road approach, contrary to the libertarian stereotype of conservatives.
I don’t want any military presence in Europe whatsoever, and I don’t want to meddle with the regional affairs of Russia and such. No business of mine. So I’m not a neocon
Our military should be used for defense, not to police the world.
A bit oversimplified. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
Offhand, I don't know any conservatives who would disagree. Of course our meddling has made new enemies. The disagreement comes over the net effect: Has our meddling done more harm than good? And would lack of meddling have prevented new enemies, or merely be seen as weakness by potential enemies, who then are emboldened to become active enemies.
We want less military spending.
That's where the rub comes. The author thinks we've made a bunch of new enemies, and the appropriate response is to cut defense. Not entirely sure if that's logical.
Though there is an entirely logical argument to be had about whether our defense spending is logically allocated.
Wrong, I used to think I was a libertarian and realized that I could never be one because to be a libertarian, you must embrace everything about it, i.e., abortion, open borders, crack heads, anarchy, etc.
The brain is definitely working, it’s just most libertarians are half-assed libertarians.
You don’t want a remilitarized Europe. Only way to stop that is for the USA to be what Washington declared it ought to be.
There is no libertarian who truly believes in freedom who also supports killing babies. It is a non-sequitur.
And anyone who will kill a baby will compromise on ANYTHING they say they believe
If we don’t police the world, someone else will. The power to police the world is also the power to colonize and subjugate it.
The question is, where is the line between policing and defense.
For example, is having a substantial military force in the Persian Gulf to act as a check on Iran and maintain the flow of oil to major trading partners policing, or defense? Is maintaining a substantial military force in the Western Pacific as a deterrent to China’s territorial claims policing or defense? Is maintaining a substantial military force in the Horn of Africa to protect the free flow of commerce from piracy policing or defense?
There are conservatives who are not libertarian, but also don’t want to go in everywhere. Does anyone remember Obama threatening to intervene in Honduras? Thank God he didn’t. Plenty of the hawks were OK with our role in Kosovo and against Serbia, bombing them into submission.
Would Bolton attack Pakistan and N. Korea for their nukes?
I agree.
However, I’d like to point out that neocon has no agreed definition, and most of those accused of being neocons don’t define themselves as such. As used, it tends to just mean anyone more in favor of intervention than I am.
So being opposed to neocons is pretty much a straw man situation.
Not a doctrinaire big-L Libertarian, but I think a strong admixture of small-L libertarian principle in our country's politics would do it a lot of good right now.
No "WE" don't, we want MORE military spending. In a libertopian world, an isolated America is a safe America.
“They are quick and correct to point out the danger of Iran going nuclear. They are not as quick to talk about the fact that Iran has a population three times the size of Iraq’s — and the Iraq War wasn’t as smooth or short as then-Vice President Dick Cheney and others assured us it would be.
If it’s realistic to acknowledge that America has dangerous enemies, it’s also realistic to acknowledge that going to war is not always worth the loss of money and lives, and that it makes new enemies. War, like most government plans, tends not to work out as well as planners hoped.”
And another Libtardian proves himself stump-stupid.
You don’t go to war with them jackass, you bomb their nuke [lant back to the stone age and fly home!
I dont see Libertarianism as an all or nothing proposition. Like Conservatism or Liberalism/Progressivism there’s a continuum along which an individual can be located. And placement upon that continuum can occur at multiple points depending on views on specific issues.
Indeed, if you look at the Libertarian continuum youll see the hippie anything goes dope smokers on one side, and the Ayn Randian/John Galtesque types on the other. And they are distinctly different creatures.
Exactly, precisely, 180 degrees wrong.
I don’t think foreign policy, Circa 2014, is a Libertarian vs Conservative issue. It’s an issue of American exceptionalism vs Postmodernism. The Iraq war was going pretty well when a regime who believed in American exceptionalism was in charge. When the Postmodernists took over, every gain was quickly dissolved. The realism factor is not what Stossel thinks. The disaster that is Iraq is not a necessary function of war, it’s what happens when there’s no moral impetus to win. Which demonstrates why I’m not a Libertarian. They preach a political paradigm devoid of moral considerations.
War with Iran would be an unimaginable disaster, but not because it violates some Libertarian philosophy.
They find no problem with open borders, let workers follow the work, they say.
Nope, between their embrace of open borders, drug legalization, prostitution, abortion "rights," etc. their beliefs are not for me.
Let’s face it. Many libertarians and many conservatives maintain caricatures of each other in their minds.
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.