Posted on 08/09/2016 9:27:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Isolationists must not prevail in this new debate over foreign policy," warns Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "The consequences of a lasting American retreat from the world would be dire."
To make his case against the "Isolationist Temptation," Haass creates a caricature, a cartoon, of America First patriots, then thunders that we cannot become "a giant gated community."
Understandably, Haass is upset. For the CFR has lost the country.
Why? It colluded in the blunders that have bled and near bankrupted America and that cost this country its unrivaled global preeminence at the end of the Cold War.
No, it was not "isolationists" who failed America. None came near to power. The guilty parties are the CFR crowd and their neocon collaborators, and liberal interventionists who set off to play empire after the Cold War and create a New World Order with themselves as Masters of the Universe.
Consider just a few of the decisions taken in those years that most Americans wish we could take back.
After the Soviet Union withdrew the Red Army from Europe and split into 15 nations, and Russia held out its hand to us, we slapped it away and rolled NATO right up onto her front porch.
Enraged Russians turned to a man who would restore respect for their country. Did we think they would just sit there and take it?
How did bringing Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into NATO make America stronger, safer and more secure? For it has surely moved us closer to a military clash with a nuclear power.
In 2014, with John McCain and U.S. diplomats cheering them on, mobs in Independence Square overthrew a pro-Russian government in Kiev that had been democratically elected and installed a pro-NATO regime.
Putin's response: Secure Russia's naval base at Sevastopol by retaking Crimea, and support pro-Russian Ukrainians in Luhansk and Donetsk who preferred secession to submission to U.S. puppets.
Fortunately, our interventionists failed to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Had they succeeded, we almost surely would have been in a shooting war with Russia by now.
Would that have made us stronger, safer, more secure?
After the attack on 9/11, George W. Bush, with the nation and world behind him, took us into Afghanistan to eradicate the nest of al-Qaida killers.
After having annihilated some and scattered the rest, however, Bush decided to stick around and convert this wild land of Pashtuns, Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks into another Iowa.
Fifteen years later, we are still there.
And the day we leave, the Taliban will return, undo all we have done, and butcher those who cooperated with the Americans.
If we had to do it over, would we have sent a U.S. army and civilian corps to make Afghanistan look more like us?
Bush then invaded Iraq, overthrew Saddam, purged the Baath Party, and disbanded the Iraqi army. Result: A ruined, sundered nation with a pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad, ISIS occupying Mosul, Kurds seceding, and endless U.S. involvement in this second-longest of American wars.
Most Americans now believe Iraq was a bloody trillion-dollar mistake, the consequences of which will be with us for decades.
With a rebel uprising against Syria's Bashar al-Assad, the U.S. aided the rebels. Now, 400,000 Syrians are dead, half the country is uprooted, millions are in exile, and the Damascus regime, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, is holding on after five years.
Meanwhile, we cannot even decide whether we want Assad to survive or fall, since we do not know who rises when he falls.
Anyone still think it was a good idea to plunge into Syria in support of the rebels? Anyone still think it was a good idea to back Saudi Arabia in its war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has decimated that country and threatens the survival of millions?
Anyone still think it was a good idea to attack Libya and take down Moammar Gadhafi, now that ISIS and other Islamists and rival regimes are fighting over the carcass of that tormented land?
"The Middle East is arguably the most salient example of what happens when the U.S. pulls back," writes Haass.
To the CFR, the problem is not that we plunged headlong into this maelstrom of tyranny, tribalism and terrorism, but that we have tried to extricate ourselves.
Hints that America might leave the Middle East, says Haass, have "contributed greatly to instability in the region."
So, must we stay indefinitely?
To the CFR, America's role in the world is to corral Russia, defend Europe, contain China, isolate Iran, deter North Korea, and battle al-Qaida and ISIS wherever they may be, bleeding our country's military.
Nor is that all. We are also to convert Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan into pro-Western preferably democratic countries, and embrace "free trade," accepting the imported merchandise of all mankind, even if that means endless $800 billion trade deficits, bleeding our country's economy.
Otherwise, you are just an isolationist.
“Actually the CIA had nothing to do with the installation of Shah Reza Pahlavi.
Even the CIA says they installed him. They had an elected leader who was overthrown by the CIA and Brits, and the nut electrocuting Shah was installed as an absolute dictator. US CIA and US Army intel helped him set up Savak that was nothing any American should admire.
Demographics are destiny.
We have neither the “disposable” people nor the treasure to maintain the sort of empire the neocon asshats seem to want. Eff ‘em.
Hah!
Is Reagan a commie in your twisted mind? Reagan said:
‘Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.
‘
The Brits and the Soviets made him king. The Brits and the CIA engineered the coup against his pro-Soviet PM, Mossadegh. That made the Shah more of a dictator.
No moron. And Reagan didn’t launch wars all around the world to start nation building. He met soviet advances appropriately, but he didn’t run around the planet overthrowing governments.
You have the twisted mind.
And in your twisted mind, you mist believe Reagan was a neocon. He was nothing of the vile sort. He was an American conservative.
Neocons are DIRECT descendants of the Trotsky faction. “Neoconservatism appeared ascendant in the 1990’s, sweeping the Republican party in to power. From its socialist origins in the 1950’s, the anti-Stalinist Left movement, it adopted the rhetoric of the anti-Communist right in order to create a new paradigm which was more palatable to the American public.
Yes, you read that right – The neoconservative movement began with the anti-Stalinist Left, the Trotskyist Communists.
“It may sound strange to hear, but that is the history. The neoconservative founders included James Burnham, Max Shactman, Leo Strauss, Suzanne LaFollette, Willmoore Kendall, and Irving Kristol. When you go over the histories of these men, one uncovers that they all came from communist, specifically Trotskyist, backgrounds.”
Reagan was not a neocon.
“The Brits and the CIA engineered the coup against his pro-Soviet PM, Mossadegh”
Mossadegh had a decades long nationalist background along the lines of Ghandi. His only goal was to break Iran away from British rule. There isn’t a single episode in his life that indicates any affiliation with communism or the USSR.
He was quoted as saying he wasn’t wresting control away from England to invite in Russia to do the same thing. His crime was seeing that regaining control of the nations oil from the British seizure was critical to political independence. The Brits flatly refused to negotiate the return of what they claimed by force. So he nationalized the oil. Incidently, this is precisely what the UK does at home! The Crown owns all minerals, not the private landowner. And there is no way a foreign company can own british oil or minerals without permission and a lease.
He was not a pro-soviet at all. That was the 1953 CIA cover story.
For some strange reason, I feel compelled to say that Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia.
CIA-assisted coup overthrows government of Iran
You see Shah Reza Pahlavi was the Shah of Persia from 1941 to 1979
From the article
The Iranian military, with the support and financial assistance of the United States government, overthrows the government of Premier Mohammed Mosaddeq and reinstates the Shah of Iran. Iran remained a solid Cold War ally of the United States until a revolution ended the Shah’s rule in 1979.
Mosaddeq came to prominence in Iran in 1951 when he was appointed premier. A fierce nationalist, Mosaddeq immediately began attacks on British oil companies operating in his country, calling for expropriation and nationalization of the oil fields. His actions brought him into conflict with the pro-Western elites of Iran and the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Indeed, the Shah dismissed Mossadeq in mid-1952, but massive public riots condemning the action forced the Shah to reinstate Mossadeq a short time later. U.S. officials watched events in Iran with growing suspicion. British intelligence sources, working with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), came to the conclusion that Mossadeq had communist leanings and would move Iran into the Soviet orbit if allowed to stay in power. Working with Shah, the CIA and British intelligence began to engineer a plot to overthrow Mossadeq. The Iranian premier, however, got wind of the plan and called his supporters to take to the streets in protest. At this point, the Shah left the country for “medical reasons.” While British intelligence backed away from the debacle, the CIA continued its covert operations in Iran. Working with pro-Shah forces and, most importantly, the Iranian military, the CIA cajoled, threatened, and bribed its way into influence and helped to organize another coup attempt against Mossadeq. On August 19, 1953, the military, backed by street protests organized and financed by the CIA, overthrew Mossadeq. The Shah quickly returned to take power and, as thanks for the American help, signed over 40 percent of Iran’s oil fields to U.S. companies.
Mossadeq was arrested, served three years in prison, and died under house arrest in 1967. The Shah became one of America’s most trusted Cold War allies, and U.S. economic and military aid poured into Iran during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In 1978, however, anti-Shah and anti-American protests broke out in Iran and the Shah was toppled from power in 1979.(thanks to the peanut farmer from Georgia. ) Angry militants seized the U.S. embassy and held the American staff hostage until January 1981. Nationalism, not communism, proved to be the most serious threat to U.S. power in Iran.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, what nations have come looking for a fight with the United States? The only attacks on US soldiers and civilians were carried out by terrorist organizations, not by any of the nations we've gone to war with.
The only legitimate defensive war we've had in the last 30+ years has been Afghanistan, where the Taliban were backing Al Quaeda (of course, the Saudi clerics who funneled Saudi oil money to both the Taliban and Al Quaeda remained unpunished).
Libya and Quaddafi would have been legitimate targets...28 years ago, when he was funding the terrorists who brought down Pan Am 103, not in 2011, when Quaddafi was working with US intelligence to get rid of Al Quaeda cells in Libya.
As for the rest, I don't recall Serbia ever attacking the US or any US interests or allies, unless you believe Bosniak and Kosovar Muslims are honorary US citizens. Nor did Saddam Hussein's Iraq have anything to do with 9/11, he was a red herring used by the Bush administration to protect Bush's friends in Saudi Arabia. The same applies to Assad in Syria - how did Al Nusra Sunni rebels come to be seen as honorary US citizens in need of our protection?
We all know who Pat thinks got us into all these wars.
Terrorist organizations always have the backing of some government or other. Iran has been the longest at it, even openly. Red China, North Korea and Russia have been the biggest friends of Iran, with the European Union (under Germany’s de facto leadership) close behind.
The only attacks on US soldiers and civilians were carried out by terrorist organizations
At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
Haas is a UNIPARTY/UNIWORLD POS.
FURH
Rumps response was spot on
In this article he's doing just that, contradicting himself. Pat needs to go back and read his own books, several of which point out that the change in immigration policy is what has contributed mightily to our becoming a fragmented nation every bit as much as the democrat politics of division has. Either that or tell us straight out that several of his books were simply intended to pander to popular opinion and he doesn't really believe what said therein.
Shouldn’t the questions be: Why are they endless wars; and if we are not in it to win it, why go in?
That’s actually a pretty good description of Hilter. What’s your objection to it?
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