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Posted on 10/07/2009 12:55:09 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
Jim DeMint is one of my favorite Republicans. The senator's unwavering opposition to government spending — from "stimulus" and national healthcare to auditing the Federal Reserve — just warms my conservative heart. That is until he breaks it again, as he always does, by going back to supporting the biggest government program of them all.
On the day before DeMint appeared on Fox News in support of the tens of thousands of anti-government protesters who gathered on 9/12 in Washington, D.C., he gave the following comments on the Senate floor: "Today marks the eighth anniversary of America's war on terror ... It's crucial to remember now, as the terror and tragedy of that day recedes into the past, this war did not begin with the 9/11 attacks or when we sent troops to Afghanistan, and it will not end when we defeat terrorists on any battlefield. Our goal cannot be merely to end one war but to win the war on terror. We will not win trying to appease the grievances of our enemies. They do not hate our policies; they hate us, our freedoms, and our way of life."
DeMint could not be more wrong.
Do Islamic terrorists find American democracy weak, our culture too libertine, and our comparative materialism repugnant? They sure do, and their Koran even says all sorts of nasty stuff about Christians, Jews, and other infidels. But blaming 9/11 or the current terrorist threat exclusively on the anti-Western prejudice of Islamists is like blaming alcoholism on an addictive personality while completely ignoring the substance of the problem — the alcohol.
The overwhelming, primary motivator for Islamic terrorism is our interventionist foreign policy. Our own government intelligence makes this crystal clear. A would-be Islamic terrorist might cringe over Playboy or gay marriage in a faraway land, but the substance of his hatred is the presence and activity of the U.S. in his homeland.
In the 1990s, the U.N. estimated that over a half-million Iraqi children had died as a result of U.S. sanctions; the Iraq War alone has resulted in the deaths of somewhere between 100,000 and one million Iraqi civilian casualties. Now, the number of American "infidels" on Muslim holy land — a primary complaint of Osama Bin Laden in 2001 — has now increased tenfold.
Plenty of Americans believe the U.S. is justified in invading any nation it sees fit in order to avenge the deaths of the 2,998 civilians killed on 9/11. The idea that Islamic terrorists simply hate our "freedom" — and are not seeking retaliation for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their Muslim brothers and sisters — is dangerously naïve. The terrorists attack us here because we are over there. Period. And in 2009, more of us are over there than ever.
DeMint strikes me as a patriotic guy who bought into the same narrative many Americans did post-9/11. Today, the junior senator finds himself as a primary spokesman for many of these same Americans — only this time they want to go to war against the Democrats' big government agenda. So do I.
But it makes no sense to protest the big government of the Democrats while still promoting the big government of the recent Republican past. DeMint's clarion call on the eighth anniversary of 9/11 to defeat a vaguely defined enemy by achieving some undefined victory is a recipe for eternal war, a foreign policy that not only almost guarantees another terrorist attack, but completely negates the senator's otherwise limited government message. Sen. DeMint seems like a genuine man who truly believes in small government, but he has yet to confront the glaring contradiction between his domestic and foreign policies, an irreconcilable conundrum many conservatives continue to harbor.
Men on the Right like Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, Rep. Walter Jones, Sen. Tom Coburn, the late Robert Novak, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, columnist George Will, and others have cut out a more sensible, less interventionist foreign policy path that conservatives can feel comfortable exploring. There's not a chance in hell that neoconservatives like John McCain or Lindsey Graham would ever step foot down this path. But DeMint has never been a neocon; he could easily hang up the world's policeman badge and become the limited-government conservative he has always strived to be. In doing so, he would serve the Right well — and America even better.
Our two greatest threats are terrorism and big government. The Democrats have long loved big government and Obama seems intent on continuing with a Bush-style, interventionist foreign policy. Republicans have decided to fight this president's domestic agenda, but most are lining up to encourage Obama to mimic Bush by turning Afghanistan into his own $3 trillion war. For both our security and debt, limited government must finally be applied both home and abroad. The Democrats are completely wrong, and the Republicans remain at least half-wrong.
I'm sorry, but having to choose between the jackass party and the half-assed party is no choice for me.
*Ping!*
Well Jack Hunter aka Southern Avenger, you couldn’t be more wrong and Jim DeMint is right.
So you call yourself Southern Avenger, ha! Paintwaist is more like it, dove, sheep, anything but avenger. You, like too many others think we can Kumbaya into peace with the Islamists and my dear, you’re dead wrong.
DeMint wants to empower our military and yes that means a great deal of money, our money, must go to the military. In my opinion, that’s where it belongs, not in spreading the wealth to a bunch of do gooders and lazy butts who won’t do honest work and earn their own living. From the bottom feeders to the money given to the elitists and their pet projects./rant
The author of this piece sounds like a typical RINO or closet democrat liberal.
Better than I could have posted it. Its our job to push for peace and freedom because no one else on this planet will. I guess we should not have gotten involved in WWII or the Korean War. Maybe we should not have gotten involved in Kosovo. Let people do as they will right? I call bull****.
Who writes this $#!+ anyway?
Just on a whim, I Googled this “Southern Avenger” guy. Jackass doesn’t begin to describe him.
The enemy will not simply go away. The enemy can either be defeated or be appeased, there is no other way.
I intend to use my voice and vote to see that we engage the enemy everywhere. No safe haven. No nest or hole to hide in and plot. We attack them until they are captured or killed. We tear down the walls that they build and rebuild good nations out of the ashes.
We did it in Germany and Japan. We did it in South Korea. We are doing it now in Afghanistan and Iraq. One day, God willing, we will do it in Iran and North Korea.
Ronald Reagan was told the same thing when he took on and defeated that evil empire, the one the One is now trying to resuscitate.
Keep writing enough crap, and sooner or later people will notice the stink.
I'll protest it.
This increasing control of our lives by Democrats is really a form of Creeping Sharia.
Democrats want to tell us what to eat and drink (for our own good, of course). They want to tell us what car and what toilet we can buy. They don't want us to smoke. They want to control our public expressions of faith. They want to "fine tune" our marriage laws.
Creeping Sharia
No, we shouldn’t have gotten involved in Korea or Kosovo. I think that’s pretty clear. And I seem to remember Republicans condemning (rightly so) Clinton for getting us involved in Kosovo. I guess he had the right idea, just the wrong boogyman huh?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1998.html
Ramzi Yousef, in a letter to the New York Times following the World Trade Center bombing in 1993: “We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.”
Hmm, seems to me that the enemy knows more about the enemy than some guy on the interwebs.
Ronald Reagan knew better than to listen to the neoconservatives (IE Trotskyites who switched parties). He didn’t get involved in nation building, and left office as a successful and popular President who pulled the country out of Carter’s malaise.
Supporting Israel’s existence is not foreign policy intervention.
You Fortress America types need to get your stories straight.
Putting bases in Saudi Arabia is. Overthrowing leaders (usually after putting them in power to begin with/arming them) is. Giving Israel weapons is, although I’m in favor of selling them or any nation what they want so long as we don’t turn around and say “Now they’re a threat! We must invade them!” That’s the “Jack Palance in ‘Shane’” foreign policy approach. And what about Zbigy and Carter practically creating Al CIAda, err Al Quada to begin with in 1979 under Operation Cyclone to fight the Russians? This Trotskyist/Straussian/Wilsonian foreign policy approach never works for one simple reason: They never consider the reaction to their actions. They figure today is Friday, so the week must end on Friday. When Saturday comes, they are shocked.
Unfortunately for your thesis, we’ve been attacked by Muslims for a longer period of time than a) Israel has existed, b) we’ve had bases in Saudi Arabia (at their request!), c) any other silly scenario you can come up with to blame America first.
The reasoning behind the invasion of Afghanistan (not nation building) was to find and kill those who were behind 9/11, namely Al Quada. We’re debating why Al Quada, a Sunni-Wahabbi group based out of Pakistan, has been at war with the west. We’re not debating some silly ass argument that African pirates 220 years ago are somehow the same as Al Quada. Did you even bother to read OBL’s Fatwas? Or did you simply stick your fingers in your ears until Mark Levin came on? There’s no mystery whatsoever why they hate us.
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