Blinded By Love Of Bipartisanship

Earlier this month, I authored a nice little post on how Bill Richardson was smoking something strong when he said that Barack Obama's foreign policy would be a return to the bipartisan, universal-love-fest, audaciously hopeful, unifying foreign policy of a bygone era; and now it seems its time to write a quick follow up to that since, as of this past weekend, that bullshit line is now being parroted by the candidate himself. Yes folks, Mr. AudacityOfHopeMan has claimed that his foreign policy platform is:

"...actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, [and] of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan." [emphasis added]

Yea, right.

I think the Gipper will forgive me for paraphrasing one of his old lines when I say: Senator Obama, you're telling people that you've got a foreign policy that's like Ronald Reagan's. Well let me tell you something, Senator. I knew Ronald Reagan. He was a friend of mine. And Senator, you're no Ronald Reagan!

Seriously, as I've said before, Reagan's foreign policy was not the kind of bipartisan yuck-fest that Senator Obama is trying to make it out to be.

As I noted while raking Governor Richardson over the coals, President Reagan's foreign policy was laughed at by most Democrats - that is, until it worked, and the Soviet Union fell, and Communism was reduced to the "ash heap of history," just like Reagan said it would be. Causing the Democrats to do a little 'revisionist' history and pretend like they were on board all along.

Thankfully, most of us know better.

Furthermore, in this little speech, Senator Obama praises H.W. Bush's handling of the First Gulf War; but, as no less an authority than Margaret Thatcher has noted, it was H.W's failure to remove Saddam the first time, when he had the chance, that created the set of circumstances which led to the Second Gulf War. If Pops had finished the job - and not stopped halfway - then W never has to invade Iraq in 2003. But hey, Obama-rama's got an agenda to push, so why bother to think things through, right?

The next point to be made about these remarks is to, again, reiterate that there was nothing warm, fuzzy, and bipartisan about a great deal of Cold War policy. It, too, was a product of politics (hence the word: policy); and thus, while the personalities may not have been as memorable, it was still every bit as partisan as the foreign policy we have today.

Finally, I want to note one last thing about Obama's statements and point out why, aside from the matter of partisanship, his 'return to a traditional foreign policy' is an incredibly stupid idea. And that is simply this: The Cold War is over, as is the lovefest of 90's idealism. The world is a different place now than it was then, and while 9/11 certainly has made this especially so, this fact would be true even if 9/11 had never happened. Interacting with Nations, IGOs and NGOs on an International level means being flexible and, while learning from your past, living, thinking, and, most importantly, acting in the present (with the future in mind). Using the 1960's foreign policy to respond to the 2000's problems would be the height of both ignorance and arrogance; primarily because, and you would think this would be obvious; the 2000's are not the 1960's. The times change, and thus American Foreign Policy should too.

It's too bad Senator Obama is to naive to understand something as basic as that.

I Love My State

Where else in the country would an add like this:



...even get airtime, much less actually be a smart politcal move?

South Carolina: where George W. Bush still isn't political poison, and an anti-war protest against the unpopular Iraq War, on that war's 5-year anniversary, considers 70 people a "larger than expected crowd."

The funny thing is, according to the article, most of those 70 who bothered showing up for the protest were calling "for a quick - but not immediate" [emphasis added] troop withdrawal from Iraq. Yes, folks, that's right, even our anti-war protesters have conservative streaks.

We have our problems down here in Redneck paradise, but it's still a pretty nice place to call home.

The Success of Partisanship

Not to long ago, before the Democratic Presidential contest had become the Hilldabeast-Obamarama dogfight that it is now, I used to tune in and watch some of those old Democratic Debates, with all umpteen of the candidates, to give myself a good laugh. When I did that, no one was able to provide bigger laughs than New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, whose wildly (and in some cases, disturbingly) idealistic view of the world made him a ready source. The Governor was back on TV today, giving his endorsement to Barack Obama, and while watching him speak, I was given a nice chuckle or two and again reminded of his general, all-around stupidity.

At one point during this speech the Governor was talking about foreign policy, and he went into the standard Barack Obama talking point about how, after 8 years of W, the country needs someone who is a "uniter" and who can "repair America's image" in the rest of the world. Then, in order to prove his point, he harkened back to the Cold War, and talked about how, back then, we had this policy of Containment which, in his words, was not "Democrat or Republican, but American." In other words, in Gov. Richardson's mind, the Cold War was a time when the country never, ever, but never had partisan disagreements about foreign policy.

Right.

First of all, lets just get one simple thing straight - Containment was a Partisan policy, as it was created and first used by President Harry S Truman, a Democrat. Sure, it was later adopted by Republican Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, but it was, originally, Truman's policy - something which shows you how stupid Richardson really is; as it would have been better, if he was going to praise Containment, to point out its roots in his own party.

Secondly, I find it incredibly ironic that Gov. Richardson, he of the 'I'll have us entirely out of Iraq in 30 days' (or whatever it was), would praise Containment. Afterall, it was fear of Communism spreading to the rest of Southeast Asia and LBJ's desire to contain it within North Vietnam that got us involved in the Vietnam War. And as we all know from the last 3+ years of Democratic talking points, Iraq is bad because it's Vietnam, and nothing in history was worse and more misguided, evil, stupid (etc., etc.) than American involvement in Vietnam. But hey, when you're Bill Richardson, why not come out and praise the policy that got us involved in a war which you feel is exactly like the 'misguided' one we're in now; it's not like the media is going to call you on it. Afterall, you're a minority and a Democrat - hell, you could probably join Eliot Spitzer in the prostitution scandal business and they would still try and avoid asking you questions that might be a bit too hard. But I digress...

The final point I'll make about the good Governor's dim-witted reference to Containment is the most important; and that is that, ultimately, for all the bi-partisan goodness that it may (or may not) have been, the policy of Containment failed. It was a failure because, in the end, the guy who won the Cold War, Ronald Reagan, won it not by sitting back and simply trying to 'contain' the Soviet Union but by calling it the "Evil Empire" and doing everything possible to defeat and destroy it. During the 1960's and 70's, something like 13 countries had become new Communist nations; but Reagan, with the Grenada invasion in 1983, began toppling Communist regimes. For decades we'd been told the Soviet Union was here to stay, Reagan told us it could be gone in our lifetimes.

Now, I could go on about how Reagan's foreign policy was different from Containment, but in doing so I (again) digress from my original point. You see, when Reagan was in office, implementing his new strategy for dealing with the U.S.S.R, the Democrats were kicking and screaming at every turn, and saying all sorts of nasty things about his intelligence along the way. Most importantly, however, they didn't believe what he was doing would work; meaning that they made Reagan's Cold War policy a partisan issue. And this brings us to the hillarity of Bill Richardson, who wants us to get excited about Containment, which didn't work, simply because it was 'non-partisan' and fully approved by the French - despite the fact that the evil, divisive partisan strategy was the one that ultimately won the War.

Makes for an ironic analogy to the present day - don't you think?

Boycotting Beijing?

As the current violence in Tibet worsens, and the Chinese authorities there become more oppressive in their attempts to stifle the residents there, it is becoming clearer to many in the West that awarding China the 2008 Olympics was, indeed, a terrible idea. Moreover, it seems that this realization has also begun inspiring quiet rumors about some European countries potentially boycotting the Olympics.

The Olympic boycott was a tactic that was employed by the U.S and the U.S.S.R in the 1980 and 1984 Summer Games, respectively; and, while it certainly has the effect of casting a certain degree of public humiliation on the boycotted host Nation, the tactic is, by and large, rather ineffective. Obviously, this is true for a number of reasons (chief among them the fact that an Olympic boycott doesn't have any real effect on the internal politics of the boycotted country); however, there is one significant reason that I find worth mentioning. That would be the simple fact that a team or athlete has the opportunity to make a much bigger statement through their actual presence and participation.

For example: while Jimmy Carter may have been awfully proud of his boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games; I think its safe to say that the U.S Men's Hockey team, which played in the Winter Games that same year in Lake Placid, had a much more significant political and cultural impact on the U.S-Soviet Cold War rivalry. I mean, afterall, who doesn't believe in Miracles?



Heck, for an even better example, who do you think ultimately made a bigger political statement at the 1936 Berlin Games: Adolf Hitler, with his 'Aryan Supremacy' propaganda; or Jesse Owens, a black man, and his 4 Gold Medals?

The point is that skipping out on the Olympics is a stupid idea; because, among other things, it pre-empts any opportunities one might have to attain the greatest of feats in amateur athletics - that being those victories which transcend sports, entirely.

In The Footsteps Of Fidel

With the recent retirement of Fidel Castro from his long held position of Dictator in Cuba, there was, in some respects, an important and symbolic change in the International political system of the Western Hemisphere. This is not to say that there will be any genuine regime change in Cuba anytime soon - there won't be, Raul will ensure the continuation of Communism - but rather, that Fidel Castro's long-standing grip on power has made him more than just another Communist tyrant; he has become an institution, and, more specifically, an institution of Anti-Americanism in Latin America.

For over 45 years now, Fidel has been the leader of any and all anti-American sentiments in this region. Any Latin American political or rebel leader looking for inspiration for, or affirmation of, an anti-American platform could look confidently to Fidel Castro, who stood defiantly against the United States, year after year, despite his location a mere 90 miles off its coast. Now, with his departure, that clout, that image, is gone. Sure, Raul will likely continue to inundate Cubans with anti-American propaganda, and, sure, he'll likely continue at least the basics of Fidel's anti-American foreign policy; but at the end of the day, Raul simply does not command the attention of his older brother - nor, more importantly, does he have anywhere close to the same aura about him. Thus, with the departure of Fidel, a new page really is being turned over in the politics of the Americas.

Enter, Hugo Chavez.

With the slow, drawn-out exit of Castro from the world stage, Chavez has recently been trying hurriedly to step up and fill Fidel's old shoes. He's doing this because he knows that, in much of Latin America, there are few better ways to build a quick consensus than to loudly and violently beat the anti-American drum. Indeed, thanks to decades of CIA/Cold War meddling and some of the strangest love-hate relationships in the International system, anti-Americanism has a built-in, Latin American support block that anyone of modest political talents might easily summon.

However, tapping into anti-Americanism to win a particular election or policy referendum is an entirely different beast from building a dictatorship off such sentiment - and the latter is the field in which Fidel Castro has written the book. Between demagoguing U.S-supported neighbors and constantly raising the specter of a possible American invasion, Fidel was able to maintain power in the face of a collapsing economy (and society) thanks, in part, to his tactic of overwhelming Cubans with a fear of the monstrosity and evil of American power. That the world might not have been as Fidel portrayed it was, of course, utterly irrelevant.

Thus, with a keen eye towards history, and a thorough understanding of this fact, Chavez, earlier today, must have done Fidel proud when he ordered Venezuelan troops to his nation's Colombian border; for, by doing so, he gets a nice two-for-one on the anti-American front. First, since he can portray Colombia, a U.S ally, as an American puppet regime, he can easily assert that Colombian opposition to FARC - a rebel group which Chavez, naturally, supports - is something the government is doing, not because it's in Colombia's best interests, but because of requests form its American masters. The second thing he does by generating a military standoff on the Colombian-Venezuelan border is to create a nice little win-win situation for himself. If Colombia heeds Venezuelan troop's presence, the FARC can quickly retreat into Venezuela, where Chavez can help support them in their efforts to destabilize Colombia's democratic government. On the other hand, if Colombian forces decide to pursue FARC rebels into Venezuelan territory - even if it's just 1 mile in (as it was in Ecuadur) - Chavez would be able to counter-attack; an action which would likely provoke American involvement, since we have a security agreement with Colombia.

Translation: In the event of a Venezuelan attack, the U.S Navy would likely end up lobbing Cruise Missiles at Caracas to get Chavez to back down; an act which would hand Hugo the biggest propaganda coup in Latin America since the Bay of Pigs Invasion - a disaster which, oddly enough, was a propaganda coup for none other than Hugo's predecessor in the role of Chief Latin American, anti-U.S agitator: Fidel.

All this means that the American Government will have to tread carefully when dealing with these Colombia-Venezuela tensions; because, after Fidel, the last thing we need in Latin America is become a political tool of his potential protege.