Foreign Entanglements

Ron Paul's main point about low enthusiasm for foreign intervention specifically invokes traditional conservatism. Think of the first president Bush not wanting to invade Iraq and take out Saddam after the first gulf war - prudence. The US has more than 100 years of history linking it to terrible failures at global "democracy promotion" (read TR on the futility of the Phillipines project), all the way thru the isolationist Republicans of the 20th century. Conservatives did not want to get involved in WWII even though Hitler was mowing down eastern Europe - we wanted to be like Switzerland until the Japanese made a fatal mistake. If there were not the purported WMD threat and the run-up to the current Iraq occupation had been all about spreading freedom, I don't think the public would have supported it. I also don't think the average American gives a flying fuck about the fate of the Iraqi people - if we help ruin enough of that county so that the ungrateful Iraqis are no longer seen as a threat, support for the continued occupation will plummet (see current situation). Americans don't want the US to be the world police and historically don't care about the status of foreign nations unless they are perceived as a threat. All the Bush administration's subsequent reasons for invading Iraq were not THE reason the American people supported going there at the time. Because our entire pretense was Saddam's violation of UN resolutions and timetables about his weapons disclosure, WMD was also the only legally valid reason to go there. For everyone in the world who is not an American, that is seen as a big deal. Even after Iraq, there still is not an acceptable reason for preemptive invasion that does not involve a threat. The result of occupying Iraq will be that preemption is less likely in the future, not more. The disconnect between Iraq and 9/11 is the reason this country still supports being in Afghanistan, but not Iraq. There are several concrete negatives resulting from the invasion, in addition to thousands of dead americans and hundreds of billions spent. We gave a strategic and propaganda gift to Iran by taking out their longtime enemy Saddam, and bogging down our military by invading a fellow muslim nation. We gave bin Laden a wet dream by invading a muslim country that did not attack us, thereby helping his narrative about the oppressive Great Satan who wants to conquer and humiliate muslims. As discussed before, administration orders from the top to lower our detainee treatment standards have done more damage to our crippled PR offensive than we can imagine.

Starting a global program of spreading democracy is a hyper-liberal idea and is historically futile. There are just too many screwed up countries in this world for the US to democratize them all - Americans (especially geezers like Ron Paul) understand that all too well. Basically his position is let's look at every republican administration before this one for historical lessons and guidance. If you look back at the last three pie-in-the-sky state of the union speeches given by GWB, all of the grand themes of spreading democracy have been quickly scaled back by the reality on the ground. General Petraeus says he has a 25% chance of success - he says there is no military solution to Iraq. While GIs are dying daily, the Iraqi politicians are taking the summer off. Global terrorist attacks are up, the last 6 months in Iraq have recorded thousands of bodies in the street, the Green Zone is attacked daily. Freedom on the march? China is on the rise and owning more of us each day, and Russia is succeeding is crushing democracy. Do you applaud our unprecedented adventure in preemptive war? Do you want to attack Russia? How about North Korea or Iran? Saudi Arabia or China? Venezuela? How about all at once? Saying we don't have the men or money to do all that is not defeatist. It is sane. It is also traditionally conservative.

*Now what do we do about a foreign genocide? How many deaths constitutes genocide, and when should we deploy the American military to save non-American lives?