I am not at liberty to discuss the Second Bay of Pigs, but we all know about the First, when Cuban Rebels were defeated by the Troops of Fidel Castro, back in 1961. That mess made newly inaugurated President John F Kennedy look weak and ineffective.
Now we have Candidate Gingrich bringing to mind a Third Bay of Pigs. The headline I saw was "Newt Gingrich: I will overthrow Castro Regime". It may not have been that former Speaker Gingrich meant that he would actually invade, but I think it has been taken that way in some quarters.
Unfortunate.
It isn't like the other candidates are much better in the area of foreign policy. And, Rep Ron Paul, with his plan to go isolationist isn't any better.
Regards — Cliff
5 comments:
Why is "mind our own business" so deathly feared as "isolationist"? Where we have no security interest and no business to be, we should not, and absolutely not if it bankrupts us in the process as has Iraq and Afghanistan. This is actually SANE foreign policy, as opposed to activist. Republicans are adamantly opposed to activist deficit spending on improving the lives of needful citizens--what makes it any more logical if the activist deficit spending is wasted on improving the lives of needful foreigners??? The key issue is "deficit". We cannot afford to be as generous as we like.
Once again I think we are engaging in a battle of semantics. "Isolationist" means a lot of different things to different folks depending on their agenda.
I would submit that we should revert to the philosophy of Teddy Roosevelt to "walk softly but carry a big stick." I suspect that in Ron Paul's vision, we would not only walk softly, we'd get rid of our stick as well.
We surely don't need to go around making the world safe for democracy. Freedom (the present day synonym for "democracy") is acquired from within a group, not given to them by external forces. That is the fallacy under which we've bungled our way through Iraq and now Afghanistan. We have sacrificed precious lives on the illusory alter of "bringing freedom." The moment we pulled out of Iraq....they went right back to conflict. In Afghanistan, they aren't even waiting.
Having said that, I think it is fatal to pull back and gain a "peace dividend" which is precisely what Obama intends to do with his whacked out reduction in Defense.
If we are placed in a position that requires us to take up a defense, we will have already lost the war. We cannot allow another predatory nation to assume the offense, nor should we engage in offense. But every nation on earth needs to understand at the very basic level that to move against us is tantamount to their own suicide.
You NEVER allow the other party in a coming gunfight to shoot first.
Following up on Nealcroz's comment, there is another rule of gun fighting that applies: If you find yourself in a fair fight, you have done something wrong.
I reject suggestion that Paul's view of foreign policy is one of tossing away the stick. Using the gunfight analogy, if you can only afford so many bullets for your gun, you don't fire off a bunch of rounds at random targets that aren't capable of hurting you. You "wait until you see the whites of their eyes", as they did at Bunker Hill, and the Plains of Abraham before that. What we're doing now is emptying our magazine at shadows.
I am not against the MYOB approach, although we need to define that, but I am thinking that Representative Ron Paul would pull back from Northeast Asia, whether Japan would see that as a reason to develop nuclear weapons or not. And, I am not so concerned about Japan getting nuclear weapons, but what will South Korea do in response? Then what does North Korea and China do? Sometimes a little investment in foreign affairs and in military capability pay big dividends.
Or Europe, where the big dogs haven't been in a fight amongst themselves for quite a while, compared to wars in 1871, 1914 and 1939. As folks used to say, the purpose of NATO was to keep the Russians OUT, the Germans DOWN and the Americans IN.
Now, to go to the other end of the spectrum, US Special Operations Forces entered Somalia last night and snatched an American and another Foreign National, who were being held captive by Somalia Pirates. Is that a legitimate US Foreign Policy issue?
But, yes, there are some things that we should just ignore, like Cuba. We have pulled out of Iraq and should avoid going back in.
But, we need to keep our powder dry.
Regards — Cliff
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