Posted on 05/09/2017 8:09:32 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a frequent critic of the Trump administration, blasted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for suggesting that America’s foreign policy must stray from its core values at times.
Tillerson said it was important to “understand the difference between policy and values,” in an address to State Department employees Wednesday. He said that that “America First” means that U.S. national security and economic interests will sometimes override the demand for other countries to adhere to American values.
“If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests,” Tillerson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournalism.com ...
If “values” overrode policy, we’d have troops on the ground in Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, Thailand, Congo, Venezuela and about a dozen other countries that are experiencing repression and humanitarian crisis. Come to think of it, that pretty much is what McCain and Graham would want if they were in charge.
True, the US has backed “authoritarian” regimes when it has suited.
It has always been that way. We had an alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat the NAZIs.
The Soviets were every bit as evil as the NAZIs, but they were not as much, right then, of a threat. They became the major threat a few years later.
We backed France over England in the war of 1812. Most of the world is ruled by thugs and monsters.
McCain is a walking violation of American Values. War mongering creep.
What is appalling is that neither McCain's family nor fellow US Senators have found a way to force him out of office and incarcerated in a padded room. Instead of doing the correct thing, all of those synchopaths are finding ways to personally benefit from McCain's lunacy.
JMHO
Love him or hate him, he was 100% right about this. Sen. John McCain (R-ISIS) can stick his globalism up his wrinkled old @ss.
Does our country have consistent values? Are there really any values consistent across both parties?
Jefferson’s support of the French Revolution for values supposedly aligned with ours was resisted correctly by Adams who did not align us hand in hand with the French dropping off the edge of reality.
McCain would have been all-in based upon his standard.
Perhaps McCain should review his dealings with Islamic murdering jihadists.
I think Tillerson is absolutely right. Trump ran on America first. We have spent our resources on social issues in other countries for years and neglected our own country. And it never works.
Says the guy who thinks the Democrat’s policy overrides conservative values every time.
What is irritating is that John McCain has a lot of nerve preaching to someone -- anyone -- about the imperative of "values".
Very well said, FRiend.
Yep. Realistic Foreign policy in America's interest, or #bringbackourgirls and other totally ineffectual--e.g., "global warming is more dangerous than ISIS"--"foreign policies."
Foreign policy should be based on coldly calculated national interests. Period. The squeamish should turn away and not look.
Yeah..maybe you can explain why getting rid of popular Sukarno and replacing him with someone like Suharto who invaded East timor was in our best national interests.
Funny how Obama’s mother was around during that time
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2211432/posts?page=9
Interesting that Erik Prince (Devos brother) is up for reinstating a program that was used while Anne’s husband was in Hawaii . It’s called the Phoenix program.
Our foreign policy involves so many layers that Bush is probably right when he made that comment about what the American people would do if they really knew the truth.
Tillerson gets it. We live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people. Our government has no duty or obligation other than to advance the cause of the American people.
I was not a huge fan when Trump nominated Tillerson, but he’s 100% spot on about this.
I wonder what American values McCain thinks we should force on other peoples and nations. Based on their actions, lots of Americans seem to value the following:
Rampart drug use and trafficking, child and adult sex trafficking, mainstream entertainment containing gratuitous porn, grunting violent chants marketed as music, fake news marketed as reality, violent sports played by criminal thugs, political rhetoric that would embarrass pro wrestlers, fast fake food, morbid obesity, universities with either “rape culture” or “guilt by accusation”, racism, real and imagined, disrespect for education and literacy, very weak knowledge of history and science, no toleration of religion, forced political correctness, one-party government, half the population living on the dole, cheating to win elections and anything else, tolerance of violent street gangs, gross political corruption at all levels, etc.
Does he mean those American values?
McCain was recorded calling said beer heiress wife a c**t during his disastrous presidential campaign. Senator Morality needs to shut the h*ll up, he’s nothing but a jealous foul-mouthed worm.
It was his own military, headed by Suharto, that decided he had to go. It was in our interest, and we certainly supported the change if not instigated it (such was the CIA's modus operandi at the time) because of Sukarno's increasing alignment with the Soviet Union and China. It was certainly not in our national interest for an oil rich nation sitting astride the Malacca Strait and due south of where a half million American troops were committed to a fight to become a close ally of our two greatest enemies.
I doubt anyone here at that time had ever heard or factored in the fate of Christian enclaves like East Timor and Aceh, or knew anything about the Hindu island of Bali besides the fact that their bare breasted girls occasionally showed up in the more heavily thumbed issues of National Geographic magazine in the high school library.
Sukarno was a prototypical independence fighter turned dictator, a'la Mugabe, Ho Chi Minh, and Kim Il Sung and his overthrow was hardly a bad thing for American national interests in SE Asia and the Western Pacific.
I can’t stand McCain.
Tillerson stuck his foot in his mouth. If one is willing to compromise their values for a deal then they aren’t values they are nice thoughts.
It’s like Honor and Integrity. If you adhere to the standard when no one else is around is totally different then if you only do it in front of people.
McCain here, shows not great dedication to principle, but a shallow need to strut a claim for virtue that does not really exist.
The actual American values--as to foreign nations;--the accepted values of those of the Founding Fathers who studied Vattel, and formulated our original foreign policy, is that each nation must be the judge of its own internal affairs. For those of us who understand the precepts of sovereignty, that acceptance is a fundamental political value.
The return to American First values, certainly does not conflict with Vattel or the Founding Fathers.
Someone who cares about whatever is left of McCain's reputation, needs to take him aside and suggest that he learn to reflect for a bit before he makes one of his interesting pronouncements.
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