Posted on 03/10/2014 11:47:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I missed this on Friday but, having now read it, Rand’s surprisingly hawkish take on Russia in Time this morning makes more sense. If his Breitbart op-ed was aimed at Cruz, I think I can guess who the Time one was aimed at.
By the way, any bets on how a secession referendum held in a small province under military occupation by a superpower next door might go? Ron Paul’s been conspicuously sensitive to the perils of occupation in the past, but not so much here.
Id like to see the people [in Crimea] make the decision rather than outside parties, [Ron] Paul tells U.S. News. Its pure hypocrisy on our part to think we have the moral high ground. The only question that remains is: Will there be an honest election? And I dont see any reason there cant be an honest election.…
We say, We want you to be good democrats and have elections, but if they dont elect the right people then we complain about it and throw them out, like we did in Egypt, Paul says. Theyre doing exactly what they should do [in Crimea]. They should have an election.…
Obamas sanctions against Ukrainian and Russian officials, Paul alleges, are acts of theft.
Thats just people looking to start a war, Paul says. This is criminal, its stealing and will just aggravate things and escalate things. Sanctions are acts of war to freeze assets if youre at war with Hitler and theres a declared war, thats a little different, but to do this so easily and casually as we do, thats just looking for a fight.
Paul does support having nongovernmental election monitors supervise the Crimea vote — as long as they’re not Americans, since “we would send CIA agents over there.”
I take it Team Rand wouldn’t agree that freezing the assets of billionaire Russian kleptocrats is an impermissible act of “theft.” And I know for a fact that they wouldn’t agree that sanctions in this case are “criminal.” From the Time op-ed:
Economic sanctions and visa bans should be imposed and enforced without delay. I would urge our European allies to leverage their considerable weight with Russia and take the lead on imposing these penalties. I would do everything in my power to aggressively market and export Americas vast natural gas resources to Europe…
It is important that Russia becomes economically isolated until all its forces are removed from Crimea and Putin pledges to act in accordance with the international standards of behavior that respect the rights of free people everywhere…
I would reinstitute the missile-defense shields President Obama abandoned in 2009 in Poland and the Czech Republic, only this time, I would make sure the Europeans pay for it.
All of which raises the question: Is it better or worse for Rand to have Ron on TV giving the Paul 1.0 take on foreign policy? Arguably, the more attention Ron’s comments get, the more opportunities Rand has to show people that he’s more mainstream on this subject than his old man is. He’s running against the GOP establishment on one hand and against his father on the other, so theoretically the more Ron sounds off, the more Rand gets to attack (however obliquely). If, though, you’re like DrewM in suspecting that someone born and raised in libertarian politics, who twice endorsed his father for president and whose lurch towards the mainstream coincides with making noise about running for president himself, might indeed be a Paul at heart on foreign policy then maybe Ron speaking up isn’t a good idea. This is one of the great X factors in the next election: How much can hawks make Ron’s words stick to Rand? Given that most voters follow politics only casually, maybe they’ll dismiss “Ron = Rand” messaging as a bizarre attempt to make one candidate answer for the positions of another. Or, maybe Ron made enough of an impression on mainstream Republican voters over the last two cycles that there’s no avoiding this problem for Team Rand now. I honestly don’t know. I don’t even feel confident guessing whether Rand might ask Ron to lie low in the media if he concludes that doing so would help his presidential odds. Would Ron even agree to do that?
Anyway. It’ll be fun watching libertarians struggle with a perennial problem for members of the two major parties, namely, how far their guy should stray from core beliefs in the name of electability. Usually that doesn’t come up until the general election; for Rand it’ll be an issue in the primary. Presumably half the movement is cursing Rand today for taking a position on Russia that conflicts sharply with dad’s and half the movement is applauding him for a canny move that improves his shot at the nomination. I wonder how many of that latter group agree with Drew’s take, that President Rand would be more like President Ron than anyone expects.
And no doubt the Neo-Nazis are working in cahoots with the Jewish Prime Minister of Ukraine in their plans to purge all Jews and Russians from the country.
I agree with paul on much of what he said. I believe should have self-determination. However Russians sent military in there before an election was held. How do we know there will be fair elections given Russian force breathing down their necks? So it is more complex than rules-based types like Rand Paul, Ron Paul etc can deal with. I am not sure what actions we should take but we should be opposed when a country invades another country.
Well we don’t have any right to dictate what people in Crimea or Russia do.
Sanctions are mostly just a means of fooling the morons at home into thinking we’re being tough.
Ron Paul is correct. He usually frames things in a way that provokes dissent.
What are the top ten ways Commies are better than Nazis?
I agree with Ron. We have no interests there worth defending. The Crimea was a part of Russia until 1954 when Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a gift and the Russian Black Sea fleet is based there. Why should we care what happens to a province that is ethnically predominately Russian and wants to be a part of Russia. The Europeans have more interests in the region than we do but they aren’t interested in imposing sanctions on Russia either.
Ron Paul: When in doubt, blame the crony corporatist neocons who call themselves America.
And they have earned plenty.
Ron Paul and Alex Jones are Soros tools and hired propagandists!
The referendum has two choices: join Russia or join Russia.
lol Well. I think it deserved to be posted three times. I’m with ya.
Would love to see a do over of that CPAC straw poll.
I mean, I’ll be the first to say “no troops. No war.” on this one but ... nothing? Sanctions are “criminal”?
Here’s hoping this nitwit is a mere footnote to 2016. What a joke.
The vast majority of Crimeans want to be in Russia rather than under control of a new-Nazi regime in Kiev.
First part of your statement is right, don’t know if the new government of Ukrine is new nazi, we will se in the near future, however, a free vote in a place where there have never been our kind of democrasy is hardly likely to create an american kind of government is not likely, Ukraine is not that differant from Egypt in that regard even if they are catholicks rather than muslims, as they have a history of beeig ruled rather than governd
We shouldn’t interfere because at this time we do not have enough influence.
Any moves from the U.S against Russia will certainly provoke Chinese adventurism in the South China sea.
You want to see tough times, wait until the $dollars evaporate.
That says it all, the US president administration pi$$ on democratic principles, when it suit them.
The US (renamed NATO for the occasion) intervention in Kosovo in 1999, created a precedent in international law, we can see now its consequences.
US supported every secessionist group that wanted to break away from Yugoslavia, they bombed Yugoslavia into smitherness in 1999 to split it in two, and they EVEN declared the Yugoslav Army to be an "occupier" on its own territory. The Assembly of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, approved an unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. Kosovo was soon recognized as a sovereign state FIRST by the United States, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and others ...
The US and EU cannot have it both ways. They cant say, for example, that the right of Albanians to self-determination in Kosovo trumps Serbias right to territorial integrity, and then turn around and say that Ukraines right to territorial integrity trumps the right of Russians in Crimea to self-determination.
Anyway, the people of Crimea don't give a flying f..k that Obama and his inept administration recognize or not their decision on their future. Obama is not their president, is NOTHING to them, and he can go to hell, for all they care.
Ron Paul is an idiot. If a country colonizes another country, deports huge percentages of the native population, forces the remaninder to speak the language of the occupier, then eventually holds an election in the areas where the decendents of its colonist and those that have been forcibly “russified”, I wonder what the result would be. There is more than one way to rig an election.
Secession is a American principle.
As opposed to those good honest Ukrainian billionaires the Maidan radicals in Kiev appointed to govern over the industrial regions in the east in a show of "unity".
Got it.
Well said!
R-U-N Paul, the ignoramus, speaks again!
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