Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Rand Paul Blows With The Political Winds

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, Middle East

The media-military-industrial-congressional complex has won. Non-stop propaganda from this monolithic lot has convinced Americans of the necessity of another offensive in Iraq. According to a NBC/WSJ poll:

… 61% of American voters believe that the United States taking military action against ISIS is in United States’ interest, versus 13% who don’t. (Another 24% said they don’t know enough to have an opinion.) That’s a significant change when a similar question was asked last year about the U.S. taking possible action against Syria’s government after its reported use of chemical weapons. Back then, only 21% said action was in the nation’s interest, while 33% said it wasn’t.

As the political winds blow so does Rand Paul. Rand has now reversed course to please the opinion-shaping Idiocracy—Republicans, Democrats, and their attendant enablers in media, having previously exhibited some insights as to the US’s “unhinged” foreign policy:

… We aided those who’ve contributed to the rise of the Islamic State. The CIA delivered arms and other equipment to Syrian rebels, strengthening the side of the ISIS jihadists. Some even traveled to Syria from America to give moral and material support to these rebels even though there had been multiple reports some were allied with al Qaeda. …
… A more realistic foreign policy would recognize that there are evil people and tyrannical regimes in this world, but also that America cannot police or solve every problem across the globe. Only after recognizing the practical limits of our foreign policy can we pursue policies that are in the best interest of the U.S.
The Islamic State represents a threat that should be taken seriously. But we should also recall how recent foreign-policy decisions have helped these extremists so that we don’t make the same mistake of potentially aiding our enemies again.

Since August 27, a mere days, Rand has change course, “announcing that he supports military action to eliminate the Islamist group”:

“The military means to achieve these goals include airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria,” the Kentucky Republican and likely 2016 presidential hopeful wrote in an op-ed in TIME. “Such airstrikes are the best way to suppress ISIS’s operational strength and allow allies such as the Kurds to regain a military advantage.”
Paul’s hawkish turn comes after months of hedging and skeptical comments regarding U.S. involvement in Iraq and Syria. Yet Paul boasted on Thursday that as president he would have committed to a grand plan to eliminate ISIS earlier and more effectively than President Obama.
“If I had been in President Obama’s shoes, I would have acted more decisively and strongly against ISIS,” Paul said. “I would have called Congress back into session—even during recess.”
Paul’s new position challenges his longtime reputation as a champion of non-interventionism

Meantime, RT reports that Steven Sotloff, beheaded by ISIS, “was sold to ISIS by ‘moderate’ Syrian rebel group.” The ones we are assisting, presumably. We “don’t know Shiite from Shinola.” We’re dangerous at foreign policy.

Better that the US stops degrading the Syrian Army; leaves the Islamic State In the Levant to Syria and Iran and the Arab League. If the players in the region are unconcerned about curtailing this ghastly gang, it is probably because the US keeps enabling their inertia with futile interventions.

He Doesn’t Have a Strategy. OMG!

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Middle East, Neoconservatism, War

Hussein doesn’t have a strategy to police the world. Good. I have one for him: First do no harm. The chicken hawks at Fox News, however, are hot for war. The headlines there practically scream:

Obama on Syria: ‘We don’t have a strategy yet’
Krauthammer: Obama’s strategy ‘is to do absolutely nothing’

What precisely did Obama say that has chicken hawk Chucky so cross with the president: He “told reporters Thursday that ‘we don’t have a strategy yet’ for confronting ISIS on a regional level.”

Megyn Kelly, whose show has degenerated into a rah-rah, flag-waving, hour-long session, bemoaning outrages over diminished US world hegemony, shook her head in dismay at Mike Huckabee’s excellent suggestion: Let the Arab League deal with ISIS.

Yeah, the neighborhood, Israel included, doesn’t seem particularly concerned about ISIS. Or perhaps the US has enabled inertia and apathy with its interventions.

The illogic I don’t get is this: How can media members worry about ISIS in the Levant, when America’s southern border is utterly open? Can they be that stupid? Why not challenge the president about the real danger of failing to defend the homeland’s borders?

Standing By As East Ukrainians Die

Foreign Policy, libertarianism, Russia, UN

Western countries approved sending aid to Syria without obtaining the approval of the Syrian government. Why can’t the hypocrites of the UN and the international community allow Russia’s delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukraine?

Lugansk and neighboring areas have been repeatedly shelled lately, which resulted in casualties among civilians. Because of damaged infrastructure in Lugansk, there is no water and electricity supply, and phone and internet lines are also down.

We can argue as to who exactly has paid for this aid to east Ukraine, and whether Russia has acquired it at the point of a gun from its taxpayers; a no-no in libertarian law. It is, however, a mistake for libertarians to conflate the act of helping dying people with the act of policing a region. Non-interventionism need not mean standing by as people die. You don’t have to go to war to help people.

RT: According to the Red Cross, there is an “urgent need for essentials like food and medical supplies” in Lugansk, east Ukraine.

You won’t hear this account in the American media, but Nebojsa Malic has provided the “Russian Statement on the Aid Convoy”:

The endless delays hampering the initial deliveries of the Russian humanitarian relief aid to southeastern Ukraine have become intolerable.

A lorry convoy with many hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian relief aid, urgently needed by the people in these regions, has been standing idle for a week now on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Over this period, the Russian side has made unprecedented efforts in all areas and at all levels in order to complete the required formalities. We have met all conceivable and inconceivable demands of the Ukrainian side and have submitted to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) exhaustive lists of food, drinking water, medications, essential items and diesel generators due to be delivered to Lugansk, where they are urgently needed by women, children and the elderly. These people are experiencing the horrors of daily artillery attacks and air strikes that have resulted in an increasing number of killed and wounded and destroyed the entire vital infrastructure in the area.

Time and again, we met requests to check and recheck the shipment route, to coordinate procedures for the shipment’s delivery, and have signed the required documents with the ICRC. We have provided all essential security guarantees and have ensured similar guarantees on the part of the self-defense forces. These guarantees apply to the Russian convoy as well as other humanitarian relief aid being sent to Lugansk by the Kiev authorities. …

MORE.

‘Humanitarian Corridor’ Requires Heroic Efforts

Christianity, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Religion

They are “cultural anomalies,” wrote Washington Monthly correspondent Laura Rozen, with respect to Qubad Talabani and Kurdistan, the region he represents. “His most distinctive attribute may be that he represents perhaps the sole triumph to emerge from postwar Iraq: a relatively peaceful region free of foreign troops, eager for American protection and open for business.”

Similar information was imparted in “Bush Betrays The Kurds,” back in 2007:

The Kurds are the only sect in Iraq that has been consistently loyal to America—the Peshmergas assisted American forces in the north during the invasion. Not one American soldier has been killed in that region. Kurds are also the only group to have made good on their newly found freedom. Monocultural Iraqi Kurdistan is an oasis in the democratic desert that is Iraq, “where business is booming and Americans are beloved.
“When visiting Kurdistan,” … “one can see nation-building wherever one looks—Kurds are building their country day by day. There are more cranes here than minarets and there’s a run on cement.” No wonder the constructive Kurds want nothing to do with the destructive Iraqi Arabs, who’ve persecuted them in years past and have now turned on one another.

Talabani, a most affable and intelligent Kurdish statesman, spoke to CNN simpleton Wolf Blitzer. Refusing to harp on legalistic definitions of genocide, Talabani stressed that absent assistance, the Yazidis, who’ve “maintained pre-Christian beliefs and practices from Nineveh and Babylon,” would be doomed (as has been the fate of the Christians of Iraq).

It would be essential to fashion a humanitarian corridor through which to facilitate a safe passage for the besieged on Mount Sinjar, advised Talabani.

Where are the Europeans in all this? The Israelis? The head of the Vatican? (Another simpleton, the new Holy See is no match to his predecessors. In fact, Jorge Bergoglio is more of a bumpkin than expected. Still, people love a populist, socialist fool.) Can’t the Vatican afford to cobble together a private army of crusader-mercenaries to pave the way out—and off the mountain—for these Iraqi innocents?

Fabricating a “humanitarian corridor” to allow the Yazidi safe passage will require the heroic efforts of other human beings.