Category Archives: Foreign Policy

To Be Or Not To Be In Benghazi; That’s The Question

Barack Obama, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Terrorism, War

Benghazigate is a minor issue in the grand scheme of American politics. The Dems and Republicans are arguing not over principles but over procedural mishaps. In other words: What happened? How did it happen? Who covered it up? How do we go back to doing what we did before IT happened. (“IT” being the Sept. 11 attack on the American embassy that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.)

Viewed through the two-party prism, America wants to know how it can get diplomatic immunity from the dangers of occupation and interventionism. That’s all.

Likewise, the megalomaniacal media is not for peace; it’s for Barack Obama. They’ve depicted this war president as your good kind of killer; a thoughtful, great leader who agonizes over his kill lists with excruciating care.

Tomorrow’s final presidential debate at Boca Raton, Fla., will revolve around foreign policy. Unless Mitt Romney flip-flops to articulate a patriotic, non-interventionist policy; one that is antithetical to BHO’s—he’ll be playing second fiddle to Obama, as far as the American people are concerned (mainstream media already hates him).

It’s inevitable.

The other, more realistic strategy that might see Mitt Romney tied for the trophy is to go for the president’s jugular on Benghazigate. This might work for him.

Playing Second Fiddle on Foreign Policy

Elections, Foreign Policy, War

In the vice presidential debate, Paul Ryan took the place Barack Obama had occupied a week earlier: that of loser. (Or, relative loser. BHO was an absolute loser against Mitt Romney.)

To the extent tonight’s debate revolves around foreign policy, expect a similar outcome. Unless Mitt Romney does a wickedly smart flip flop on foreign policy, articulating a patriotic, non-interventionist plan—he’ll be playing second fiddle to Barack Obama. Obama has killed Bin laden, doubled down in Afghanistan and continues to eliminate innocent Yemenis through drone action.

Yet the media has depicted the president as a thoughtful killer, agonizing over his kill lists with excruciating care.

Romney will not have that luxury. He’ll stand a chance of standing apart from BHO only—and only—if he changes course.

Desperately Seeking A Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy

Barack Obama, Democrats, Foreign Policy, History, Iran, Middle East, Political Philosophy, Republicans, War

The quote is from the current column, “Desperately Seeking A Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy,” now on WND:

“‘He’s the first Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list.’ Excerpted from a PBS documentary, “The Choice 2012,” that is a pithy and apt adage to describe President Barack Obama’s warrior credentials.

Mitt Romney has promised that ‘there would be no daylight between the United States and Israel,’ when in fact there is little of the same between he and Obama, as far as foreign policy goes. If anything, the fact that Obama has resisted Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls to invade Iran plays in the president’s favor.

The sum of rival Romney’s foreign policy is this: Anything Obama can do, I can do deadlier.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Michael McGough points out the same.

Against the wishes of war-weary Americans, Romney has vowed to arm the Syrian rebels. But Obama, discreetly, is already doing in that country what he did “for” Libya: Level it and invite into it an evil even greater than The Dictator he helped oust. …

… From behind familiar parapets, the neoconservatives at the Washington Post are egging Mitt Romney on to heights of depravity which Obama, in their book, has failed to obtain. …

This president is perceived in the Middle East as hawk. Yet the WaPo would like to see him replaced by a vulture militarist.

… Having turned the political flip-flop into an art form, Romney should try to elevate it in the cause of a principle. …”

The complete column, now on WND, is “Desperately Seeking A Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy.” Read it.

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Protectionist USA

Business, China, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Labor, Paleolibertarianism, Private Property, Trade

If you’re in the market for “cheap rooftop solar panels,” you might have to reconsider. The Commerce Department has slapped “tariffs ranging from about 34 to nearly 47 percent on most solar panels imported from” China.

Tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping penalties, or any other trade barrier, force the American consumer to subsidize less efficient local industries, making him the poorer for it. Hundreds of industries—“the burgeoning business of installing cheap rooftop solar panels,” for example—are destined to shrink or go under in order to keep local, politically efficient industries in the lap of luxury.

This is not in the interest of the American consumer and it violates his freedom of contract and association.

The meddlers in Commerce had “determined that Chinese companies were benefiting from unfair government subsidies and were selling their products in the United States below the cost of production, a practice known as dumping.”

Dumping is good for American consumers. Antidumping penalties are typically imposed by the West on poorer nations to stop them from selling their wares bellow market prices. Such protectionist policies are detrimental to less- developed and Third-World countries, which gain advantage through the use of one of the only resources they have, their labor.

The US flouts freedom when it meddles in the affairs of the Chinese and the US consumer. The latter loves cheap Chinese products.