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That smoking gun just could be a magic mushroom...<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/3/13 9:38 PM, "E. Wayne Johnson
朱稳森" wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:52269D13.6070202@pigsqq.org" type="cite">
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<big>The Neocons are out to overturn the tide<br>
of non-interventionism...<br>
<br>
The interests of America...<br>
<br>
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alt="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2873/9595462289_59e3645522_m.jpg"
src="cid:part1.06040304.02000500@gmail.com" height="55"
width="399"><br>
<big><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324432404579050821624966890.html"><br>
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324432404579050821624966890.html</a><br>
<br>
</big><big><br>
The Robert Taft Republicans Return
<br>
Isolationism has never served the interests of America, or the
GOP.<br>
BRET STEPHENS<br>
<br>
</big>
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<big>'We'll be lucky to get 80 Republicans out of 230." That's an
astute GOP congressman's best guess for how his caucus now
stands on
the vote to authorize military force against Syria. <br>
At town hall meetings in their districts, the congressman
reports,
House Republicans are hearing "an isolationist message." It's
not
America's war. The evidence that the Assad regime used chemical
weapons
is ambiguous, maybe cooked. There isn't a compelling national
interest
to intervene. "Let Allah sort it out." We'd be coming in on the
side of
al Qaeda. The strike serves symbolic, not strategic, purposes.
There's
no endgame. It would be another Iraq.<br>
Or, to quote Sean Hannity in all his profundity, it would be
"the next
world war."<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" name="U100215124412COD"></a><br>
There's also the trust issue. "Why should I go out on a limb to
help
this president?" The <em>this </em>in that question, as House
Republicans ask it, means Benghazi and <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.wsj.com/person/R/Susan-Rice/7113"
class="topicLink">Susan
Rice</a>, the IRS and Lois Lerner, the NSA and James Clapper.
It means
a president for whom all policy is partisanship, including the
referral
to Congress.</big>
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<big>"Big move by POTUS," former <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.wsj.com/person/O/Barack-Obama/4328"
class="topicLink">Obama</a> spinmeister David Axelrod tweeted
over the
weekend. "Consistent with his principles. Congress is now the
dog that
caught the car." Thanks, David, for that conciliating image to
win over
fence-sitting Republicans.<br>
Most Republicans don't want to become, again, the party of
isolationists. Not consciously at any rate. Nearly all of them
profess
fidelity to a strong military, to Israel's security, to stopping
Iran's
march to a bomb. And opposition to military intervention in
Syria—particularly if it's of the pinprick sort being
contemplated by
the administration—isn't necessarily proof of isolationist
sympathies. <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.wsj.com/person/K/Henry-Kissinger/5998"
class="topicLink">Henry Kissinger</a> is opposed to
intervening in
Syria. Henry Kissinger is not, last I checked, an isolationist.
<br>
Yet the Syria debate is also exposing the isolationist worm
eating its
way through the GOP apple. Thus:<br>
"The war in Syria has no clear national security connection to
the
United States and victory by either side will not necessarily
bring
into power people friendly to the United States." Sen. Rand Paul
(R.,
Ky.). <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" name="U1002151244127UF"></a><br>
"I believe the situation in Syria is not an imminent threat to
American
national security and, therefore, I do not support military
intervention. Before taking action, the president should first
come
present his plan to Congress outlining the approach, cost,
objectives
and timeline, and get authorization from Congress for his
proposal."
Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah).<br>
"When the United States is not under attack, the American
people,
through our elected representatives, must decide whether we go
to war."
Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.)<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" name="U100215124412KCE"></a><br>
Such faux-constitutional assertions—based on the notion that
only
direct attacks to the homeland constitute an actionable threat
to
national security—would have astonished Ronald Reagan, who
invaded
Grenada in 1983 without consulting a single member of Congress.
It
would have amazed George H.W. Bush, who gave Congress five hours
notice
before invading Panama. And it would have flabbergasted the
Republican
caucus of, say, 2002, which understood it was better to take
care of
threats over there rather than wait for them to arrive right
here.<br>
Then again, the views of Messrs. Paul, Lee and Amash would have
sat
well with Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio (1889-1953), son of a
president, a
man of unimpeachable integrity, high principles, probing
intelligence—and unfailing bad judgment.<br>
A history lesson: In April 1939, the man known as Mr. Republican
charged that "every member of the government . . . is
ballyhooing the
foreign situation, trying to stir up prejudice against this
country or
that, and at all costs take the minds of the people off their
trouble
at home." By "this country or that," Taft meant Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy. The invasion of Poland was four months away.<br>
Another history lesson: After World War II, Republicans under
the
leadership of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg joined Democrats to support
the
Truman Doctrine, the creation of NATO, and the Marshall Plan.
But not
Robert Taft. He opposed NATO as a threat to U.S. sovereignty, a
provocation to Russia, and an undue burden on the federal fisc.<br>
"Can we afford this new project of foreign assistance?" he asked
in
1949. "I am as much against Communist aggression as anyone. . .
but we
can't let them scare us into bankruptcy and the surrender of all
liberty, or let them determine our foreign policies." Substitute
"Islamist" for "Communist" in that sentence, and you have a Rand
Paul
speech.<br>
Which brings us to another isolationist idea: that what we do
abroad
takes away from what we have, and can spend, at home. When
Barack Obama
claims, dishonestly, that the cost of foreign wars is guilty of
"helping to explode our deficits and constraining our ability to
nation-build here at home," he is sounding this theme. So is Mr.
Paul
when he demagogues against foreign aid by insisting that "while
we are
trying in vain to nation build across the globe, our nation is
crumbling here at home." <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" name="U100215124412ZCD"></a><br>
Republicans should know that deficits are exploding not because
of
military spending or foreign aid—as a percentage of GDP, George
W. Bush
spent less on defense in 2008 than Jimmy Carter did in 1980—but
because
of the growth of entitlement programs. Republicans should know,
too,
that investing in global order deters more dangerous would-be
aggressors and creates a world congenial to American trade,
security
and values. One cost-effective way of doing that is making an
example
of a thug who flouts U.S. warnings and civilized conventions. <br>
Taft couldn't understand this when it came to the dictators of
his day.
Neither does Mr. Paul when it comes to the dictators of today.
The
junior senator from Kentucky may not know it yet, but,
intellectually
speaking, he's already yesterday's man. Republicans follow him
at their
peril.<br>
<em>Write to <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:bstephens@wsj.com">bstephens@wsj.com</a></em></big>
<br>
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