Have Republicans/Conservatives Lost their Appetite for Foreign Intervention?

[Jaskalas]

Republican policies change quite a bit depending who's president.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

[bfdd]

Jaskalas, it isn't our military leadership that wants to nation build. It is our civilian leadership that wants to nation build and they use the military to do it. IMO if the military was actually the ones in charge of disposing our enemies we would already have our boys home. They would have just blown everyone up and let them figure out the mess.

I'm in a similar position as you with the Iraq war. I was mostly for it, given the evidence we were spewed(minus the whole AQ/Iraqi relationship thing), but obviously it was a poor decision in which we poorly executed. Though I have always been a fan of the USA staying the fuck out of other countries business and they staying the fuck out of ours.

I do think Afghanistan was justified, just again poorly executed.

No I am not a Republican, never have been.

 

[Doppel]

No, they are just being contrary with whatever the president wants.

 

[cwjerome]

The most important thing to a Republican is power.

Both parties have been engaged in a permanent campaign since the early 70s and tripled their efforts in the 90s. The effects on governing and the political landscape are huge.

You are a partisan tool to only see one side of it. And yes, the rest of your post is nonsense and off topic to boot.

 

[woolfe9999]

Hopefully Americans will think twice. I don't really care what party is involved. While it's true that Iraq was a pet project of the Republicans, almost everyone got behind it and pushed. We love to blow crap up a long as we can pay someone in the military to do it so we don't get our own hands dirty.

This is correct. But the OP is asking about the GOP specifically, and I am commenting that the GOP, in particular, will not abandon interventionism because they use it as a political club. Many democrats have gone along with it to avoid the sting of the club and they aren't going to change either until the American voters come to their collective senses.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Bumper Sticker Slogan Time !

[CUT & RUN]

 

[theeedude]

Republicans are like whores who become "born again" virgins after they catch HIV.
After getting the US bogged down in Iraq, it's too little too late.

 

[nageov3t]

Republicans are hypocrites. Once you internalize that, everything else they do starts making perfect sense.

being hypocrites makes them assholes.

it does not make them wrong.

 

[Craig234]

Pot, meet kettle.

You're an idiot.

 

[Craig234]

The most important thing to a Republican is power. To achieve that power they will play the most absurd politics with drastic flip-flopping like we've seen lately. Of course its a good thing to end the wars, but its to late...Obama has been unleashed.

When the President had his inauguration he said its time to put the childish things away. The Republicans like the children they are will never stop playing politics.

Got a point, but then I don't agree:

Therefore Obama has no choice to but to end these petty politics by engorging the federal beast into bankruptcy. The position of the President has so much power now that it will be to dangerous to leave it to the hands of a Republican. Within the next 16 months Obama must drastically change the country and the tool to do so will be bankruptcy.

Obama campaigned on hope and change. The change is coming, with every shitty Republican idea, Obama steals its and amplifies it, exasperates it into a coming bankruptcy. I guess the hope will be the country comes out the better for it.

I think Obama's approach is more straightforward - try to recover the economy from the crash he inherited, preserving higher levels of government spending during that period, and when it's recovered he'd do like Clinton and reduce the deficit. But the Republicans aren't about to cooperate, blocking the stimulus needed, blocking a number of things.

I don't think Obama is using national bankruptcy to get big changes - and he understands that such chaos won't work while Republicans have the House where all spending starts.

WHat you describe is more like 'starve the beast', a radical right-wing strategy to force THEIR changes on the country, to defeat democracy.

As for Republicans and their petty politics. They won't win getting to Obama's left, even if its the noble thing to do. All roads, whether from the right or left lead are leading a drastic change in this country that we've never seen before.

Right now, any radical changes are aligned to favor the ultar rich, who have been fighting and winning a redistributionist class war for decades - just waiting for the next Republican President to do more of what Bush did.

We're already seeing the Republicans demanding MORE tax cuts for the rich, abolishing entire programs for the public, eliminating the taxes on capital gains that are almost entirely income for the rich and much more.

And after that - though you won't see them talk about it - comes, when they are so strongly in place and wealth and power is even more strongly concentrated - attacks on democracy itself so the people can't vote for change.

There would still be ceremonial democracy, but areas of power that could really shift the balanced of power for the people would be carved out and removed from their rights. They can name national holidays, not regulate business.

We've already seen the start of this in free trade agreement provisions, saying that any time the elected government passes regulations that hurt the profits of a corporation, it can have to pay those profits to compensate the corporation.

It's a back door way to say "government, technically, you have the right to pass a law, but you can't begin to afford to actually do so when these provisions are in place."

Citizens United has cemented this shift in direction even more. Unlimited donations by corporations may be the most corrupting thing for our democracy in our history.

 

[Anarchist420]

Traditionally (since Wilson at least), the Democrats have been the pro-foreign interventionist, pro-war Party. Truman, a Democrat, was the biggest war criminal of every President other than Lincoln, maybe. LBJ was the last President to invoke the draft. FDR was the last person who requested a declaration of war. Harding and Coolidge, the interwar Presidents, were both Republicans. Nixon ran on a platform of peace and delivered to a degree. So up until 9/11, the Democrats were far more interventionist than the Republicans, although Obama cancels Bush out.

Despite all of that, I don't think Bachmann, Huntsman, Romney, or anyone other than Dr. Paul is sincere when they say they won't be a non-interventionist candidate. Most of this current field has already visited Israel and made a big deal out of it FFS.

If AIPAC can't somehow pressure Obama into attacking Iran, then the next President will attack Iran.

 

[woolfe9999]

Sure they won't. But I guess is what I'm getting as if they're done with massive interventions like Iraq. I mean Reagan was a hawk but did he have any similar massive wars?

Well there has been discussion about them questioning an extremely minor - and relatively inexpensive - intervention like Libya. If that is honest, it suggests a change in philosophy, but it is quite obviously political.

They might be done with major interventions for the moment, for fiscal reasons more than anything. But hawkish rhetoric AND actions will never cease to be politically useful, and while the democrats are more ideologically inclined toward a dovish stance, they will continue to follow suit so as not to be on the brunt end of the rhetoric. Major interventions? Probably not for awhile, but I wouldn't write off the possibility of seeing another within the next 20 years.