Posted on 03/15/2014 7:36:26 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Though Barack Obama is widely regarded as a weak president, is the new world disorder really all his fault?
Listening to the more vocal voices of the GOP one might think so.
According to Sen. Lindsey Graham, Vladimir Putin’s move into Crimea “started with Benghazi.”
“When you kill Americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggression,” said Graham. Putin “came to the conclusion after Benghazi, Syria, Egypt” that Barack Obama is “a weak indecisive leader.”
Also blaming Obama for Crimea, John McCain got cheers at AIPAC by charging, “This is the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy in which nobody believes in America’s strength anymore.”
This “blatant act” of aggression “cannot stand,” said McCain.
How McCain plans to force Putin to cough up Crimea was left unexplained.
Now Marco Rubio seems to be auditioning to replace the retired Joe Lieberman as third amigo. His CPAC speech is described by the L.A. Times:
“(Rubio) said that China is threatening to take parts of the South China Sea … a nuclear North Korea is testing missiles, Venezuela is slaughtering protesters, and Cuba remains an oppressive dictatorship. He added that Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons and regional hegemony and Russia is attempting to ‘reconstitute' the former Soviet Union.”
What all these countries have in common, said Rubio, is “totalitarian governments.” Rubio proposes a U.S. foreign policy of leading the world to “stand up to the spread of totalitarianism.”
Not quite as ambitious as George W. Bush’s “ending tyranny in our world,” but it will do.
Where to begin.
First, it is absurd to suggest Putin felt free to restore Crimea to Russia because of Obama’s inaction in Benghazi. And while Castro’s Cuba and Kim Jong-Un’s North Korea are totalitarian, Putin’s Russia is not Stalin’s. Nor is Xi Jinping’s China Mao’s China.
Russia and China are great power rivals and antagonists, not the monster regimes of the Cold War that massacred millions. We must deal with them, and they don’t take direction from Uncle Sam.
As for Iran, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies say it has no nuclear weapons program. Moreover, Hassan Rouhani is an elected president now presiding over the dilution of his 20-percent-enriched uranium in compliance with our November agreement.
McCain points to Obama’s failure to enforce his “red line” in Syria with air and missile strikes, when Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, as the reason Obama is not respected.
But a little history is in order here.
While John Kerry and Obama were ready to attack Syria, it was the American people who rose up and said “no.” It was Congress that failed to give Obama the authorization to go to war.
If McCain, Graham and Rubio think Obama should attack Syria, why don’t they get their hawkish Republican brethren in the House to authorize war on Syria? See how that sits with the voters in 2014.
Last fall, Lindsey Graham was shopping around a resolution for a U.S. war on Iran. What became of that brainstorm? After Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are weary of what all this bellicosity inevitably brings.
Is Russia really reconstituting the Soviet Union?
True, Putin seeks to bring half a dozen ex-Soviet republics, now nations, into an economic union to rival the EU. But where the state religion of the USSR was Marxism-Leninism, i.e., communism, Putin is trying to restore Russian Orthodox Christianity.
There is a difference, as there is a difference between Stalin murdering priests and Putin prosecuting Pussy Riot for blasphemous misbehavior on the high altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
How do we think King Abdullah would have handled the women, had they pulled their stunt in the Great Mosque in Mecca?
While China is indeed moving to claim the East and South China seas, bringing her into possible conflict with Japan over the Senkakus, the GOP is not without culpability here.
It was a Bush-led Republican Party that voted to throw open America’s markets to China. Result: In the last two years, China ran up $630 billion in trade surpluses at our expense, a figure larger than the entire U.S. defense budget for 2015.
Our trade deficits with China provide her annually with enough dollars to finance her own defense budget twice over. Twenty years of such U.S. trade deficits have given the Middle Kingdom the trillions it needed to build the armed forces to drive us out of East Asia.
Are U.S. sailors and Marines now to die defending the Senkakus against a menacing China that the Bush free traders helped mightily to create?
If Sen. Rubio wants to “stand up” to China, why not call for a 50 percent tariff on all Chinese-made goods. Try that one out on the K Street bundlers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Yet Marco Rubio in the primaries would be healthy for America. A showdown between non-interventionists and the neocon War Party, to determine which way America goes, is long overdue. Let’s get it on.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”
Well, one thing is for sure...the Ukraine won’t get a billion dollars just becuz....and with no strings.
Unless we have a treaty obligation to defend them when they come under attack, we’d do nothing. The “neocon war party” is about defending Israel, not former soviet satellite states.
Hopefully the US would do nothing. Uki is none of our biz. Lock Kerry in a bathroom.
Try to "fix" the war the DemoRat pResident got us into, and fail.
old Pat is a delusional nutter and justifying a former KGB dictator.
Putin
is trying to recreate the old Soviet union with invasions and threats.
The Marxist Muslim invited this invasion by probably giving them the okay.!
Recall Obama saying to them I will hAve more flexibility after the election .
When will the fool just shut and retire .
.
In a word, YES!
Threaten seriously to bomb Putin out.
That should scare most of the generals (like Hitler’s before WWII)
Putin would be toast in Russia (like Khrushchev after the Cuban Missile Crisis)
Failure to do this will build Putin and lead to further aggression, hubris and sad miscalculation (like Hitler after Czechoslovakia)
History rhyming on multiple syllables
You Paulbots are dangerous useful idiots and make ignorant comments.
Bill Clinton forced the Ukrainians to give up there huge nuclear arsenal in 1993 !
We signed a treaty with them and Britain and old Yeltsin run Russia.
Our adversaries know he is weak. They all have a green light for there nefarious intentions. The world is on fire because of Obummer. How to fix it now is an entirely different and much more complex issue.
Kinda reminds me of the old oil commercial, “You can pay me now, or pay me latter”.
With McCain.
The Paulbot mafia herd are beyond ignorant and so is that moron Pat B.
Putin is a dangerous murdeous dictator who wants to rebuild the old Soviet hell on earth .
He is literally redoing the Hitler “Sudenland”
invasion of Czech republic !
Try to “fix” the war the DemoRat pResident got us into, and fail.
Actually they would use it as a reason to pass amnesty and attack the tea party.. Thats about all thats important to the GOP these days.
bfl
A real president would have been in Russia for the Olympics with diplomacy going on to head it off. Instead resident Candyass was cowering under his desk whining about gay rights.
Despite the psychotic ravings of those who want to start a war with Russia, this is a done deal and our interference is only making things worse. Unfortunately I don’t see how we can extricate ourselves without encouraging Russia to take more and a new cold war will end us financially. Personally I can’t help but wonder if bringing about our fall isn’t Obama’s game plan.
Colonize a place then take it over. Well that game has had a lot of participants over the years.
A few to the good, most to the ill.
Were Crimea as friendly to Russia as Russia is claiming, why the farce. Is punk king?
Despite the psychotic ravings of those who want to start a war with Russia, this is a done deal and our interference is only making things worse.
Crimea is not a done deal. It’s chapter 1 of a new book. Chapter 2 or 3 will involve a NATO country. Maybe a shooting war with Russia in a NATO country. Think about that before you decide it’s best to ignore this murdering KGB bully.
It is not psychotic ravings to act towards Russia like nothing happened. It is an alarm of an awakened primitive bear.
Maybe this site might want to move off of the Roosky nginx as helpful as it has been. Anyone using Kaspersky antivirus, consider something like Norton. That kind of thing.
Lots of tough guys on line hoping for a good war they can watch on TV. Too few of you are on a flight to fight your glorious war.
The kind of people I call cowards.
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