Posted on 12/21/2014 12:26:07 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Ron and Rand Paul have complained about being wrongly dubbed “isolationists” even though that name arguably fits whatever passes for their foreign policy.
Now Rand Paul has decided that opponents of bailing out the Castro regime are isolationists. All this proves is that Rand Paul doesn’t know what an isolationist is.
“I think a policy of isolationism toward Cuba is misplaced and hasn’t worked,” Paul writes in Time Magazine.
Isolationism is a policy that the United States would adopt toward the larger world. An embargo on an enemy state in response to its actions against the United States is not isolationism.
Rand Paul is trying to talk about foreign policy using terms he doesn’t understand. That’s a problem for a guy who wants to run for president based on a foreign policy that he seems to make up as he goes along.
“I support engagement, diplomacy, and trade with Cuba, China, Vietnam, and many countries with less than stellar human rights records, because I believe that once enslaved people taste freedom and see the products of capitalism they will become hungry for freedom themselves,” Paul writes.
How one might ask, has that worked out in China?
But Rand Paul doesn’t think through the implications of his arguments. Like Obama he delivers smug one-liners and expects the media to tag along. Except it doesn’t work that way for Republicans.
“Communism can’t survive the captivating allure of capitalism. Let’s overwhelm the Castro regime with iPhones, iPads, American cars, and American ingenuity,” Paul writes.
But the Communist Party is still in charge in China. And our iPhones and iPads are made in China. So are a whole lot of our products.
Rand Paul is arguing against a Cold War policy using outdated Cold War arguments that even a child who reads a Made in China label can poke apart.
It’s embarrassing to watch.
“Trade and relations also make it less likely that we ever go to war with China, because the two countries have become economically intertwined,” Paul writes.
Paul ought to tell that to China which is building up its military and keeps threatening to go to war with us. But as usual, Rand Paul isn’t hobbled by the existence of such petty things as ‘facts’ and ‘reality’.
“After 50 years of embargo and no evidence of tyranny losing its grip, maybe it’s time for a new approach,” Paul writes.
Except there was actually plenty of evidence of it. But Rand Paul doesn’t actually pay attention to foreign policy. He makes cynical arguments based on his political calculations. He has no idea what’s going on in Cuba or China and doesn’t care.
Then whatever machine powers Rand Paul begins glitching and this happens…
Doug Bandow, of the CATO Institute writes that proponents of the embargo have it all wrong when they make the fear mongering claim that diplomacy with Cuba will make America less safe. Bandow argues that “America has engaged in years of on-and-off discussions with North Korea’s Kim dynasty stretching back to the Clinton administration. Under President Obama Washington has been negotiating with Iran’s government for months: most people recognize that a diplomatic settlement, no matter how difficult to achieve, would be better than war.”
I don’t see an argument there that shows that negotiating with North Korea and Iran doesn’t make America less safe. The negotiations allowed North Korea to go nuclear. The current negotiations with Iran are doing the same thing.
Whoever writes Rand Paul’s speeches just got bored and began cutting and pasting gibberish from CATO into his articles.
The diplomatic settlement being better than war is a classic Obama argument. It’s also meaningless. A diplomatic settlement is only better than war when it’s a real possibility. When it isn’t, it leads to war on worse terms. See Munich.
“For 70 years we had diplomatic relations with Russia, despite the gulags, despite the atrocities of Stalin and others,” Rand Paul argues.
He seems unaware that opening diplomatic relations with the USSR was controversial, done by a Democrat and led to disastrous results. Like his China argument, it only really shows that Rand Paul knows very little about history.
“Let’s hope cooler heads will ultimately prevail and we unleash a trade tsunami that washes the Castros once and for all into the sea,” Paul concludes.
I hope the intern he didn’t pay to write that had a good time coming up with that line. In the real world, the trade tsunami will keep the Castros in power. Just as it did the Chinese Community Party.
“Oh, boo-hoo, the neocons’ slur is being turned against them.”
Exactly. He is playing word games for gotcha.
And btw, “Isolationism means not having diplomatic relations”, is not what isolationism means.
Your analysis is 99% liberal orthodoxy and has nothing to do with reality.
Understanding what you said is wrong factually and pragmatically is one of the clear things that separates conservatives from liberals.
“Nixon’s opening to China may have been good cold war politics...”
And that’s probably not even the case as far as history.
Nixon did this in large part to gain a two state solution for Vietnam. He and Kissinger considered it a trade of Taiwan for S. Vietnam.
Well, Taiwan got derecognized by the US and international community, which is what the Chinese wanted, but S. Vietnam did not survive, which is what we were supposed to get.
At least I offered facts to back up my opinion. You offer none. If you think the average Chinese person isn't freer today than under Mao, it's you that is ignorant of exactly how oppressive things were then. Arguing that China is the same as it was is like saying it's the same as North Korea. It isn't.
Other posters did addressed your lack of historical knowledge.
e.g. “ If you think the average Chinese person isn’t freer today than under Mao”. Is a nonsensical response on your part, a straw man at best if it even reaches that level.
No one did, nor would, argue against that.
And what is more isolationist than cutting off dioplomatic relations, pray tell? Erasing them off our maps?
When did the CCP take over China?
When was the Great Leap Forward?
When was the Cultural Revolution?
When was Kissinger's first secret trip?
When was Nixon's visit?
When did Mao (毛) die?
When did the Cultural Revolution end?
When was Democracy Wall?
When did Deng (邓) consolidate his power?
When was Wei Jing-sheng (魏京生) first imprisoned?
When did the US formally recognize the PRC and break diplomatic relations with Taiwan?
When was the TianAnMen Square massacre?
When was the Chinese Democracy Party founded?
When were the founders of the Chinese Democracy Party imprisoned?
When did persecution of FaLunGong begin?
It seems that Obama, and those who oppose the embargo, want to add 11 million Cubans in the Island to U.S. welfare rolls. Obama will bankrupt U.S. as Castro bankrupted the Soviet Union.
The embargo was not a failure. U.S. is Cuba’s bigger trader of food and medicine. Thanks to the embargo everything Cuba buys from US is being paid on advance, those over l40 countries worldwide who sold Cuba merchandise on credit were never paid for their goods.
For those who try to equate the Cuban Stalinist regime with other communist or ex-communists regimes, neither Soviet Union, China or Vietnam tried to obliterate New York and Washington by a nuclear attack, and the hatred of the Castros for U.S. have not diminished a bit over half a century .
The Cuban regime tried to obliterate New York and Washington with a nuclear attack during the October Missile Crisis of 1962. “In November 1962, the Castro brothers’ and Che Guevara’s agents had targeted Macy’s, Gimbels, Bloomingdales, and Manhattan’s Grand Central Station with a dozen incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT. The Holocaust was set for detonation the following week, on the day after Thanksgiving.” (Humberto Fontova)
Since taking power, Castro has been a strong ally of Islamic terrorism. Cuba continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001)…. AND 4 MONTHS LATER…
REMEMBER 9/11/2001
Nothing personal, but do you revel in showing off your ignorance?
One other important question to add is
When did Deng say it doesn’t matter if a cat is white or black as long as it can catch mice?
And I think adding the question is appropriate
When was the One Child Policy, and associated forced abortion enforcement, established?
Rand is losing it. He’s being too calculated.
I’m hoping Rand decides to go back to practicing medicine instead of running for POTUS.
The last isolationist President we had was Wilson, yet, even he found he could not hold to that idea.
Isolationism would also mean that all those dollars going to all those countries, and their D.c. lobbyists, would vanish, and we all know that for those who are addicted to the bacon-wrapped shrimp, they can’t have that!
I’m not so sure China was in a position to deliver Vietnam. But what did happen was increased pressure on the Soviet Union, which was another of Nixon’s goals.
ordinary Cubans can’t afford Iphones. Those who work are taxed at 92%.
Doesn't sound like you have an answer.
Ridiculous. Wilson was pushing global war and global government from the git.
Thanks for the posting of the article. It reveals that Rand Paul is as ignorant as his dad about how international relationships really do, or don’t, work. Rand is toast!
Rand Raul.
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