Peace and Quiet?
After President Obama bombed Libya into submission I wouldn’t have expected to hear anyone calling him an isolationist but according to Dick Cheney that’s exactly what he is.
John McCain’s not exactly happy with the President either; he’s upset with Obama for not doing more in the Ukraine.
But the isolationist who’s done the most to rile what we’ll call the ‘International’ wing of the Grand Old Party up in arms isn’t Obama – it’s Rand Paul, who got taken to the woodshed by Rick Perry after saying he had his doubts about sending his son (or anyone else’s) back to Iraq.
After a decade of wars with unhappy endings a little peace and quiet seems like a relief but, then again, Cheney says if we don’t straighten out the mess in Iraq we’ll have terrorists landing on our doorstep and McCain adds that Putin’s such a varmint if we don’t tie a knot in his tail right now in the Ukraine there’ll be hell to pay.
It’s all troubling and eerily familiar.
A decade ago when Cheney and company believed we should invade Iraq they said Saddam Hussein was such a villain we had no choice but when the smoke cleared it turned out it was something they hadn’t said that mattered: They’d promised victory would be easy and swift, that we’d whip Saddam with 150,000 men and a few smart bombs and barely break a sweat. General Colin Powel warned them that, yes, we would whip Saddam’s army but after we’d conquered Iraq we’d own it (and 30 million quarrelsome Iraqis) and then 150,000 men wouldn’t be enough.
It wasn’t.
Fast forward a decade and now we’ve got many of the same folks arguing we have to save the rebels in Syria and stop the rebels in Iraq and put the kibosh on Putin but whipping Putin’s going to be a lot tougher proposition than whipping Saddam Hussein – so next time a politician starts talking about anything like sending in the Marines and promises, This will barely hurt at all, let’s run the scoundrel out of town on a rail before he does any real harm.
Peace and Quiet?
After President Obama bombed Libya into submission I wouldn’t have expected to hear anyone calling him an isolationist but according to Dick Cheney that’s exactly what he is.
John McCain’s not exactly happy with the President either; he’s upset with Obama for not doing more in the Ukraine.
But the isolationist who’s done the most to rile what we’ll call the ‘International’ wing of the Grand Old Party up in arms isn’t Obama – it’s Rand Paul, who got taken to the woodshed by Rick Perry after saying he had his doubts about sending his son (or anyone else’s) back to Iraq.
After a decade of wars with unhappy endings a little peace and quiet seems like a relief but, then again, Cheney says if we don’t straighten out the mess in Iraq we’ll have terrorists landing on our doorstep and McCain adds that Putin’s such a varmint if we don’t tie a knot in his tail right now in the Ukraine there’ll be hell to pay.
It’s all troubling and eerily familiar.
A decade ago when Cheney and company believed we should invade Iraq they said Saddam Hussein was such a villain we had no choice but when the smoke cleared it turned out it was something they hadn’t said that mattered: They’d promised victory would be easy and swift, that we’d whip Saddam with 150,000 men and a few smart bombs and barely break a sweat. General Colin Powel warned them that, yes, we would whip Saddam’s army but after we’d conquered Iraq we’d own it (and 30 million quarrelsome Iraqis) and then 150,000 men wouldn’t be enough.
It wasn’t.
Fast forward a decade and now we’ve got many of the same folks arguing we have to save the rebels in Syria and stop the rebels in Iraq and put the kibosh on Putin but whipping Putin’s going to be a lot tougher proposition than whipping Saddam Hussein – so next time a politician starts talking about anything like sending in the Marines and promises, This will barely hurt at all, let’s run the scoundrel out of town on a rail before he does any real harm.