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Top Republicans Call for Return to Cold War
thedailybeast.com ^ | February 27, 2014 | Josh Rogin

Posted on 02/27/2014 1:55:39 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe

Top lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services said Thursday that the world would be better off if the Cold War was still on—and if Obama wasn’t cutting the defense budget.

The current crisis in the Ukraine and the looming crisis on the Korean Peninsula would be much easier to manage if the Cold War was still going strong, according to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon and Senate Armed Services Ranking Republican James Inhofe.

“I look back wistfully at the Cold War,” Inhofe said Thursday at a breakfast meeting with reporters. “There were two superpowers, they knew what we had, we knew what they had, mutually assured destruction meant something. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Now we have these people who are not rational, not logical, they’re nuts.”

The Obama administration’s foreign policy is no longer based on predictable calculations of actions and reactions by rational actors, he said. Now the administration is depending on the promises of actors from enemy countries to maintain world stability, which is dangerous, according to Inhhofe.

“In this administration, we trust all these people,” he said, referring to the leaders in Russia, China, and North Korea. “It’s a real scary situation and we kid ourselves when we think we can trust them.”

McKeon agreed and harkened back to the days when he said Russia and China could be depended on to keep their client states in line.

“When we used to have superpowers, they would let things go until it looked like it was going to spill over. Then they would step in and stop it,” he said. “We can’t get any help from Russia now with Iran or Syria, they are just pushing us all over the place. It’s a dangerous world and we are making it more so, because by cutting defense we are totally eliminating Reagan’s line Peace through strength.”

In McKeon and Inhofe’s view, the 2015 defense budget to be released by the Obama administration next week, which would shrink the size of the active Army force to 440,000 troops, the lowest levels since before WWII, would increase the risk of armed conflict and endanger soldiers’ lives.

“We are weakening ourselves and that it how you get into wars. You don’t get into wars if you are strong,” he said, adding that Russia’s aggressiveness is in part a response to Obama’s policies. “This is a very dynamic system and I think what’s happening… Putin’s not a dummy. He says hey, America’s cutting back on their defense, I can push here.”

Inhofe said that the cuts to the military after major conflicts costs lives in the subsequent conflicts, therefore today’s military cuts would cost American lives in the future.

“If you read history you know that it tends to repeat itself, and we cut back after every war so that we won’t be ready for the next one,” he said. “You don’t think we are setting ourselves up for the same thing? Exactly we are.”

America already has limited options to respond to any potential Russian military move related to Ukraine, both GOP leaders said. Since the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich this week Russia has put its nearby combat jets on high alert and announced major military exercises near their Ukrainian border. Russia also has its Black Sea Fleet anchored in Crimea, where pro-Russian protesters have taken regional government buildings by force.

“Look what’s happening in the Ukraine. Russia is now putting a 150,000 troop exercise on the border with the Ukraine. Russia is a problem,” said McKeon. “What are we going to put troops on the other side of the border in Ukraine?”

Inhofe said he traveled to Georgia last month and came back with the conclusion that Russia was planning more aggressive troop deployments in Georgia’s occupied territories after the Olympics were over.

“We’re talking about Putin. This is the most dangerous I’ve ever seen it… We’ve got a real serious problem,” he said.

McKeon and Inhofe also both said that Obama’s proposed defense cuts would raise the risk of a war on the Korean Peninsula and raise the cost of such a war in terms of American and South Korea lives. North Korea reportedly fired several short range missiles into the waters to its east Thursday, a possible response to ongoing nearby U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

McKeon met with Marine Corps leadership Wednesday evening and asked them how the cuts would affect security on the Korean peninsula. McKeon said the military was being stretched too thin to respond to a war there.

“With these cuts we are talking about the Marines are planning on going down to 21 infantry battalions. 20 are called for in the plan to defend Korea. That leaves one battalion to handle Russia, Iran, Syria, Egypt.” he said. “The discussion we had last night was very frustrating, very scary to me… This is serious stuff.”


TOPICS: Cuba; Government; Russia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: commanderinchief; dailybeast; derelictionofduty; joshrogin; neosovietempire; obamaforeignpolicy; randsconcerntrolls; russia; sovietreunion; ukraine; viktoryanukovich; vladpootypoot; yuliatymoshenko
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1 posted on 02/27/2014 1:55:39 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Idiots.


2 posted on 02/27/2014 1:57:16 PM PST by ZULU (Magua is sitting in the Oval Office. Ted Cruz/Phil Robertson in 2016.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Oh, I wouldn’t worry. It looks like there may be another Cold War on the horizon. Only this time, it will be America that represents the forces of depravity and Godless evil.


3 posted on 02/27/2014 1:59:17 PM PST by greene66
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To: Tailgunner Joe

“Squirrel!!!!!”

[it’s easier than standing up to Obama]


4 posted on 02/27/2014 1:59:31 PM PST by Gaffer (Comprehensive Immigration Reform is just another name for Comprehensive Capitulation)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

GOP - Goofballs On Parade trying to tick off the Globull Warming Collective?


5 posted on 02/27/2014 2:00:08 PM PST by PGalt
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Uh, yeah, no. My intel guys told me where that's been.


6 posted on 02/27/2014 2:00:47 PM PST by TangoLimaSierra (To win the country back, we need to be as mean as the libs say we are.)
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To: ZULU

Yup.

Lets engage in a new cold war only this time we start in a position where we’re only marginally better off than Russia was when they collapsed the last time.

Besides, its not like we don’t have enough excuses to strip constitutional rights away as it is.


7 posted on 02/27/2014 2:02:39 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
If the Cold War was on, we wouldn't be spending a second worrying about what to do in the Ukraine.

Things can't be that bad throughout the rest of the world, with Kerry spending the majority of his time focused on Global Warming.

8 posted on 02/27/2014 2:02:54 PM PST by Night Hides Not (For every Ted Cruz we send to DC, I can endure 2-3 "unviable" candidates that beat incumbents.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

The guy is a moron. Maybe he is getting money from defense spending thats why he think its better


9 posted on 02/27/2014 2:02:57 PM PST by 4rcane
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To: Tailgunner Joe

These people need to be primaried.


10 posted on 02/27/2014 2:03:01 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: greene66

aint that the truth. I’ve heard a French Historian say that that USA is currently in a cold civil war.


11 posted on 02/27/2014 2:06:01 PM PST by MNDude
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To: greene66
"Oh, I wouldn’t worry. It looks like there may be another Cold War on the horizon. Only this time, it will be America that represents the forces of depravity and Godless evil."

And Putin is protecting Christianity and morality, at least officially. The US is aggressively spreading its LGBTQ agenda worldwide and pushing and threatening countries to get them to accept the depravity.

12 posted on 02/27/2014 2:06:08 PM PST by Truth29
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Do we have anyone who’s even kinda smart?


13 posted on 02/27/2014 2:07:55 PM PST by RIghtwardHo
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To: Tailgunner Joe

We were always on the edge of instant global annihilation, not to mention the huge combat losses in wars and military operations, even when we weren’t fighting, we were losing thousands of men a year in the military.

Perhaps he can re-imprison many nations of millions of people under the Soviet Empire, to simplify things.


14 posted on 02/27/2014 2:08:09 PM PST by ansel12 (Ben Bradlee -- JFK told me that "he was all for people's solving their problems by abortion".)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Rohrabacher has been defending Putin acting in self-interest on Russia Today.

Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/subcommittees/europe-eurasia-and-emerging-threats


15 posted on 02/27/2014 2:33:13 PM PST by ObamahatesPACoal
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To: TangoLimaSierra

Obama already started the New Cold War and then Surrendered


16 posted on 02/27/2014 2:35:13 PM PST by molson209 (Hillary Clinton)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Its a lousy title.

There a number of words modern journalism is derilect in abandoning the use of, the are the words “some”, and the words that express a number.

In this case it is a matter of saying, as they did:

“Top Republicans Call for Return to Cold War”,

instead of the more honest, less hyberpolic:

“Two Republicans Call for Return to Cold War”.

One might have thought that McConnel, Boehner, their lieutenants and the likes of McGain, Grassley and others led the “call”, and for many of the masses that only read headlines and not the details, many will be given that impression. Many Dims will now go ahead and use that assumed truth and will be claiming “the GOP” wants to return to the cold war.

The journalistic deceit is no different than their inability to use the phrase “Some scientists” when commenting on a scientific matter, selling to the masses as they always do that any use of “Scientists” means “science” and there’s only one opinion in science.

Well, I think there are many opinions in the GOP about any “return to the cold war”. Whether I agree with the “cold warrriors” or not 2 Repiblicans in congress does not a party or “the top” of it make.


17 posted on 02/27/2014 2:36:48 PM PST by Wuli
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To: PGalt

They really want to stay the minority party in perpetuity, don’t they?


18 posted on 02/27/2014 2:39:38 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Obama’s Attempt to Disarm and Disable the US Military


19 posted on 02/27/2014 2:52:14 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: Wuli
But are they actually calling for a "return to the Cold War"? Or just comparing the present situation with an earlier one?

When the president says things would be easier if he were president of China, is he actually calling for a dictatorship? Or offering to move across the Pacific? Or just comparing his situation with Hu's?

20 posted on 02/27/2014 2:56:20 PM PST by x
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