Sunday, November 8, 2015

Silence From The Left... Again

Imagine it is the 1980s. The left hates Ronald Reagan. They accuse him of being a warmongering in the thrall of the right-wing military industrial complex. They see Russia as peaceful. Russia is just a country who loves everyone... ignore the military doctrine they discuss openly about first strikes and destroying America. Now imagine Reagan's Secretary of Defense gave this speech:

The speech in question happened at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Secretary begins by actually having the nerve of accusing Russia of "endangering world order." Can you believe that, the left squeals? They demand to know when has Russia ever threatened the United States, and they shout down every attempt to answer. Many even point out that the US is pointing thousands of nuclear missiles at Russian cities even after the Russians agree in the 1990s to de-target their missiles (something symbolic which can be undone in seconds).

The Secretary says that Russia is undertaking "challenging activities" at sea, in the air, in space and in cyberspace. He claims that "Moscow's nuclear saber-rattling raises questions about Russia leaders' commitment to strategic stability, their respect for norms against the use of nuclear weapons, and whether they respect the profound caution nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to the brandishing of nuclear weapons." Wow is that paranoid, says the left. Putin has never once said he would nuke the US, though he has a couple times made indirect threats to destroy the US and his generals have spoken openly about nuking the US, but that doesn't matter. We are still the only country to use nuclear weapons, the left reminds us, and until the Russians actually do it, they are innocent.

What's more, we are asked to think "critically" about the provocations cited by the Secretary and to realize that they are a pretext. DOD is upset that the Russians are sending their navy out to defend their interests. So it's fine when we "police" the world's oceans, but it's not fine when someone else chooses to do the same? Besides, Russia's navy is sclerotic. DOD is upset that Russia is flying more long-range air patrols off US shores. Well, that is legal and the US does it too. They are upset that Moscow is reopening 10 Soviet-era bases along the Arctic that were closed in 1991. How are the internal workings of other countries our affair? Besides, we still operate bases from the Cold War, are we being aggressors?

This Secretary is clearly just looking for a reason to go to war, right?

The Secretary claims that Russia is "stirring trouble" in Europe and the Middle East. In that, he claims the Russians invaded Ukraine and Georgia and are trying to "intimidate" the Baltic states, despite the fact that Russia can show that it was asked to intervene in each instance, despite the fact that each is a former Soviet territory and should be within the Russian zone of influence -- not ours, and despite the fact that each country has sizable parts of their populations who are ethnic Russians and want to join Russia.

The Secretary claims Putin is "throwing gasoline on an already dangerous fire" in Syria, without even asking if that isn't exactly what the US has done in Iraq, Afghanistan and by creating ISIS! The Secretary attacks China too.

He then critically admits that neither Russia nor China can actually challenge the world order, yet he uses their challenge to the world order as a basis for making this threat:
"We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot, war with Russia. We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake; the United States will defend our interests, our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords us all."
You can't really get a more aggressive statement than that, short of a declaration of war. Indeed, he admits that US policy will be aimed at stopping Russia and China:
"We are adapting our operational posture and contingency plans as we - on our own and with allies - work to deter Russia's aggression, and to help reduce the vulnerability of allies and partners."
This is preparation for war, screams the left! And if you need further proof, here are some of the things the Secretary says are being undertaken as preparations: the U.S. is modernizing its entire nuclear arsenal — not only the submarines, bomber aircraft and land-based missiles that are armed with long-range nuclear weapons, but also the weapons themselves. "We're investing in the technologies that are most relevant to Russia's provocations, such as new unmanned systems, a new long-range bomber, and innovation in technologies like the electromagnetic railgun, lasers and new systems for electronic warfare, space and cyberspace, including a few surprising ones I really can't describe here.

Damn you war monger Ronald Reagan!!! But this isn't Ronald Reagan... this is Obama and it's his Secretary of Defense, and not a single leftist is out there rioting in the streets or trying to bring down the warmonger Obama.

My point in presenting this article is sixfold. First, it is to point out to you why foreign policy always seems more difficult under conservative presidents. Had Reagan or Bush(s)'s Defense Secretary given this exact same speech, there would be leftists whining in the streets about the warmongers in the White House trying to destroy us all, building weapons at the behest of defense contractors, and destabilizing the world with another round of sabre rattling and an arms race. Yet, since it is a leftist administration, the left remains silent... just as they've stopped complaining about every other "war crime" they used to bitch about every single day under Bush/Reagan (the immorality of war itself, the immorality of nuclear missiles, drones, land mines, Gitmo, phosphorus weapons, "aggressive" war, lack of proportionality, fighting for oil, etc.). This silence shows that the left's arguments are not principled, they are opportunistic. They are applied only to hurt the right, not to create some set of genuine values.

Secondly, this shows that Obama has not made the world any better than when he found it. To the contrary, it seems that things have gotten worse. There is an out-of-control war in the Middle East, where there had been an uneasy ending to the wars when Obama took over. Russia and China are rising up and causing problems, with no respect for the US. Ukraine, Georgia and Eastern Europe remain in the same tense state as when Obama took over, if not worse.

Third, this shows that Obama has finally come around to the real world. It has taken him forever during his administration, but he's finally given in to the reality that plastic reset buttons, bowing to terrorists and clowns, and wishing problems away just don't work. Obama is now starting to implement the same doctrines as "evil" people like Reagan and Bush.

Fourth, this shows that Obama indeed has no policy in the Middle East except "hope they all run out of things to kill."

Fifth, it shows that Hillary didn't fix a thing as Secretary of Drunk Texting.

Sixth, it shows that we're in for an interesting period where Russia will try to fix the Middle East by force and by supporting different partners. At the same time, Obama apparently plans to contain China. They even sent an American cruiser to challenge China's territorial claims the other day. That's called gun boat diplomacy, and the left has railed against that since 1945.

What a world!

Thoughts?

41 comments:

Anthony said...

The anti-war left like the libertarian right, are sincere in their beliefs, but while they are praised as heroic opposition when their party is in opposition, they are derided as fanatics incapable of seeing the big picture while their party is in power (think Code Pink and Judicial Watch).

On that note, it should be no surprise to anyone that by year seven of the Obama administration, the anti-war left has been utterly marginalized. True believers who seek to interfere with the prerogatives of power always are.

As for Russia, Bush convinced himself Putin was a decent guy he could work with, Obama convinced himself Putin was a decent guy he could work with, a big contingent of Republicans think Putin is the greatest politician in office behind Netanyahu and both Trump and Caron think Putin is a decent guy they can work with.

Speaking more broadly, international relations (which for America means managing the direction of the world) is like herding cats. You can make a big difference but you will never synchronize them with your agenda, they all have their own plans. Parties in opposition invariably convince themselves (and voters) that with the right plan and the right attitude, cat herding can be simple and neat, but I've yet to see evidence of that.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, I'd agree with your first statement except I don't see the daily death count on the nightly news like I did in the Bush years. Last I checked, the ABC, NBC, and CBS newsrooms are not Code Pink.

Anthony said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC the daily death count was an Iraq thing. The media is partisan but its also pragmatic/populist, and broadcasting the casualties of an unpopular war served both its political and its business interests.

Anonymous said...

This from the guy who said "The eighties called. It wants it's foreign policy back>" And let's don't fotget this classic - If a jv team puts on Lakers jerseys it doesn't make them Kobe Bryant."
Dumbass
GypsyTyger

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I would say that the media is much more partisan than business-centric. If they cared more about business, they would cater to conservatives too and try to steal some of Fox's thunder. But they don't. They are ideologically driven. So the stories they do are very selective and they are meant to hurt conservative politicians and protect leftist politicians.

AndrewPrice said...

GypsyTyger, Isn't that the truth. It's amazing how much disdain they have for the very people they are now copying and how incompetently they are handling it. I don't know that the US has ever been less respected, except maybe during the Carter years.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I don't know why each of these people think/thought they could deal with Putin. They don't seem to understand that playing rogue is what gives him power and influence, so that is the role he will always play.

BevfromNYC said...

Anthony - You may have forgotten that, though Bush may have said nice things about Putin, we (the US and Bush) made an agreement with Poland and Hungary to phase out our bases in Germany and move them east to set up a coordinated missile defense system.

it was going forward until Obama was elected he immediately stopped the move at the demand of Putin who raged that it was an act of aggression against Mother Russia. Then came the Clinton reset with Russia the double-crossed Poland and Hungary, and the move forward with an aggressive Putin.

Though I must say in the manly bare chest department, Putin beats out all the other heads of state.

Critch said...

Sometimes I miss the Commies in Russia, at least when Brezhnev et al were running things you knew what was happening and everyone kept their client states in line..

Anthony said...

Andrew,

I agree the media is partisan, I'm just saying the pick their bullets as well as their ammo (on both sides). If there was much political hay to be made of Afghan casualties, the Republicans their allied media would have made it.

I'm not saying the deaths haven't damaged Obama (they contribute to his rep for incompetence) but happily for him Republicans have failed to offer a convincing sounding alternative.

BevfromNYC said...

It is baffling that the Peace-hawks aren't more upset about the whole millions of dead and displaced people would bother them more. Not that they should suddenly advocate for "boots on the ground", but maybe advocating for not so many dead people. Maybe if Israel were causing all of this, they would get more hawkish and condemn-y...

AndrewPrice said...

Honestly, Bev, their silence is shocking... and hypocritical. These people were whiners to the point of being traitors under Bush and Bush and Reagan, yet now they are completely silent. It really is obvious to me that they don't care about people dying or whatever, they are just looking to smear the other side with whatever "outrage" they can find at the time.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, The client state thing is the problem. The world is probably a lot less stable right now because all those little crackpot lands are now without adult supervision.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I don't think the Republicans would ever do something like the body count thing because they worship the military and would never use them in a politicized way. The left has no such qualms. And I'll bet that if a Republican wins the White House, you'll see a return of the body count as the media suddenly discovers that people are dying again.

BevfromNYC said...

But then again, this will make the them dance in the streets!, Obama is slated to announce the closing of Gitmo and most likely that he is giving our military facility at Guantanamo to the Castro brothers. Which I great because it does have a huge prison for dissidents all ready to go.

The only hitch is that he can't find a state w/Fed Penitentiary who will take the remaining guests. Personally, I think Harry, Nancy, Bernie and he should have to house them at their private residences.

Critch said...

The Lefties won their battle with Mizzou, the President of the U of M resigned a few minutes ago. I don't really care about Mizzou, I consider it a drain on Missouri's resources, but this was the height of stupidity for the university to even entertain the notion of a resignation.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, I saw that, but I don't honestly know what he was supposed to have done. All the articles made it sound like a couple people driving by the campus said something racist and he somehow satisfy the students who claimed to be offended.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I think they should move in with Obama when he leaves the White House.

Critch said...

Andrew, they want some kind of perfect world and by golly someone is responsible because they don't have it. Those kids are going to a school that I could not afford to send my kids to, I'm sure they're getting all sorts of sports, minority and another scholarships that my middle class white kids don't. My boys joined the National Guard so they could have money, they had scholastic scholarships that got them in junior college and then to a local university. Mizzou is a black hole of money for the state.

BevfromNYC said...

Critch and Andrew - I too am still not sure what was going on at Missou. But then the same thing was happening at Yale and some administrator made the mistake and telling the Delicate Flowers that they should stop being so offended all time - MAJOR MELTDOWN ensued - People Should NOT Be Able To Offend Me EVER slash I Need A Safe Space slash You are a BIG MEAN WHITE GUY who just makes us unsafe!

Koshcat said...

Being president is hard!

In reality, Obama is finally realizing after 7 years that words have meaning but actions speak louder. His leading from behind (like a good cowardly general) has left multiple pockets of power vacuums. Is it really all that surprising something else has tried to move in?

I actually have more respect for the hard left because they still believe in what they preaches. It is the squishy left that uses these people only when it suits them.

Koshcat said...

Guess who I got to listen to in a live speech last week?

Ezekial Emanuel.

Great speaker but full of shit.

BevfromNYC said...

Koshcat - Cool! Would love to know what he had to say and what you thought in detail. Just curious, did Dr. Emanuel admonish the audience to advise their patients that they can be and should want to be euthanized when they reach 75 yrs old because they are no longer useful to society?

BevfromNYC said...

Kashcat - I think that Obama really, really thought that he was such a dynamic orator that he really could stop war, starvation, pestilence and heal to world with his soaring rhetoric. That is kind of sad...he must be really bummed.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, Andrew, Moreover, the idea that Fox News is a conservative counterbalance to the mainstream media is widely overblown. For one, while they tout that they beat all the liberal cable channels combined, their showing against broadcast is laughable. But more than that, they don't do any independent investigation or analysis (regardless the reasons why), they just take the same stories the MSM reports as they report them and try to spin them in the opposite direction. For about the last decade, all the big lid-popping stories that disprove MSM falsehoods have all come from the internet.

Kit said...

They did the daily kill count thing in Vietnam, too.

BevfromNYC said...

Tryanmax - Further to that...NO news organizations do investigative or independent reporting anymore. Certainly not TV news organizations. News Editors used to take fact checking very seriously, and misinformation nor wrong information as a cardinal sin. One's journalistic integrity was paramount.

But with the lightening speed that information can be disseminated, they don't bother to check. Just get it out there and, if they are plain wrong they will spin until they sound right. It has never been so apparent as with the whole Ben Carson/West Point debacle.

Very few journalist actually investigate, fact check and report the news anymore. Except the NY Post...I have to give them credit for real investigative reporting on NY politics.

Anonymous said...

Bev; Don't forget that his oratory was going to stop the rise of the oceans as well. :)
GypsyTyger

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, I concur!

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, That sounds like Boulder. Boulder is full of rich white kids and minorities with scholarships and they whine about things the people who pay the school's budget will never be able to afford as well.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Obama really did think that. He thought that his being elected would be enough to change the world. Surprise. That didn't happen because the world runs on self-interest, not good wishes.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, That's the problem with Fox. They basically just read the leftist wires and spin it the other way.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, That was because the military was selling body count as the way to score the war.

AndrewPrice said...

Gypsy, In an ironic twist, it kind of did since the whole rising oceans thing turned out to be fake. LOL

Anonymous said...

HAH! Good point.
GypsyTyger

ScottDS said...

I'm sorry for everyone's loss - I had heard Christmas was cancelled on account of Starbucks cups.

If anyone's interested in doing Chanukah instead, I would be happy to help with the transition. :-)

tryanmax said...

Scott, does Starbucks have Chanukah cups? I'll do Kwanza so long as Starbucks has a cup

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew - Trust me, Obama will claim that he really did cause the oceans to recede if NASA's claim is true...but it's not because who should trust NASA anyway. They are known for faking stuff. cough, cough, MOON LANDING..cough, cough

BevfromNYC said...

Scott - I will too! We could really sell Chanukah. I mean, there's candles, and latkes and who wouldn't want 8 days of presents, right?

[But let's keep it just between you and me, that the "presents" are actually stockings (socks) and stuff like that. They don't need to know that right now...]

EPorvaznik said...

Score the war, score the war!

Thanks, AP and Kit, I knew there'd be a tie-in to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Cold War classic "Two Tribes" at some point!

Critch said...

We refer to Columbia, where Mizzou is, as "The People's Enclave of Central Missouri". Bunch of whiny ass snots,...

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