Cuba, Non Intervention, Police and Race Baiting.

[SparrowHawk]

Well Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are having a knockdown drag out ugly debate over normalization of relations with the Island of Cuba.
 
I am on the side of Thomas Jefferson, Trade with all, "Alliances with none.". Cuba has untapped markets, vintage car parts being but one. They need them, We make them, End of debate for me. It's also another chance to back off of our policy of intervention.
 
The Military apparently hates Obama. We kind of knew this when we saw just how much money Ron Paul raised from active military. http://www.ijreview.com/2014/12/220873-military-support-for-obama-all-time-record/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_content=conservativedaily&utm_campaign=Military
 
The murders of to NYC Police officers is a tragedy and points out why the Police must be above reproach and when they aren't there is independent oversight. 
 
Race baiters like Al Sharpton should be brought before a grand jury and have the evidence tested as to whether they incited riots in Ferguson and NYC.

 

[jimntx]

Are you looking for a knock down drag out Internet argument, or just all out war?  
 
On Cuba, the 50-year trade embargo has been one of the most wildly unsuccessful foreign policy missteps in the history of the United States.  Cuba is still there.  It is still (at least nominally) socialist, and the Castros are still in power.  In the meantime we have lost billions in trade.  The Cubans are not stupid.  Given a choice between an American-built product and a Russian-built product, like most of the rest of the world they would have preferred to select the American product.

 

[777 fixer]

I am on the side of Thomas Jefferson, Trade with all, "Alliances with none.". Cuba has untapped markets, vintage car parts being but one. They need them, We make them, End of debate for me. It's also another chance to back off of our policy of intervention.

 
As I have pointed out before if there was no NATO alliance along with a the Marshall Plan there would not have been the massive amounts of trade between Western Europe and the USA as we know it.  Why, because is we had bailed out in 1946 and left Western Europe to it's own devices Joseph Stalin would have been  more than happy to fill the power vacuum. 

 

[SparrowHawk]

 
As I have pointed out before if there was no NATO alliance along with a the Marshall Plan there would not have been the massive amounts of trade between Western Europe and the USA as we know it.  Why, because is we had bailed out in 1946 and left Western Europe to it's own devices Joseph Stalin would have been  more than happy to fill the power vacuum. 

 
 
My Crystal Ball is on the fritz, so I don't know what may have happened or what will happen. What I do know is that since the advent of the Federal Reserve this nation has been at war (in one form or another) almost constantly. Maybe Patton was right and we should have fought Stalin while we had the Army over there.
 
If you dig a little into the history of pre WWI America you can find some interesting information. Some rumors, some facts as to what led up to war, the large isolationist sentiment all the way to Henry Ford being high;y supportive of Germany, Prescott Bush's clandestine commerce with Germany throughout the war, right up to FDR putting the squeeze play on Japan. Some say he forced war with Japan in order to get the nation to go along with War against Hitler. Lots of speculation from historians to be sure but for me at least the notion of a non interventionist foreign policy works best if for no other reason than you can always declare war at a later date. Sticking your nose in often means you get a bloody nose and it's much harder to get out. Exhibits "A" & "B" are Korea and Vietnam.

 

[SparrowHawk]

Are you looking for a knock down drag out Internet argument, or just all out war?  
 
On Cuba, the 50-year trade embargo has been one of the most wildly unsuccessful foreign policy missteps in the history of the United States.  Cuba is still there.  It is still (at least nominally) socialist, and the Castros are still in power.  In the meantime we have lost billions in trade.  The Cubans are not stupid.  Given a choice between an American-built product and a Russian-built product, like most of the rest of the world they would have preferred to select the American product.

 
Well Jim, I thought I'd spice things up a bit. But you and I are in complete agreement regarding Cuba. How does it feel to be on the same side of an issue as Rand Paul? LOL
 
Ralph Nader's new book "Unstoppable" is a very interesting read as it deals with the rising Liberty Movement and the Left Wings somewhat sudden interest in many Libertarian Principles regarding personal freedom and Foreign Policy.
 
Ralph makes a medium strong case vor a coalition to of the Tea Party, Liberty Movement and the left that will defeat both of the two major parties

 

[777 fixer]

My Crystal Ball is on the fritz, so I don't know what may have happened or what will happen. 
 

 
Given Stalins habit of invading his neighbors, his fear of a resurgent Germany along with relatively strong communist parties in France  and Italy a Western Europe without NATO and a Marshall Plan might have been to tempting a prize.  Of course we will never know for sure, in part because of NATO and the Marshall Plan.
 
 

What I do know is that since the advent of the Federal Reserve this nation has been at war (in one form or another) almost constantly. 
.

 
News flash.  Humans have been constantly at war since the beginning, before the first bank ever opened it's doors.  And the USA had numerous wars, conflicts, incidents etc before the Federal Reserve so to try and make some sinister  implication about it is ignoring those facts.
 

 Maybe Patton was right and we should have fought Stalin while we had the Army over there.
 
 

 
That contradicts what you've said before.  Besides if that had happened you would have had mutiny in the ranks, littel or no support at home and of course a bloodbath.
 

 
If you dig a little into the history of pre WWI America you can find some interesting information. Some rumors, some facts as to what led up to war, the large isolationist sentiment all the way to Henry Ford being high;y supportive of Germany, Prescott Bush's clandestine commerce with Germany throughout the war, right up to FDR putting the squeeze play on Japan. Some say he forced war with Japan in order to get the nation to go along with War against Hitler. Lots of speculation from historians to be sure but for me at least the notion of a non interventionist foreign policy works best if for no other reason than you can always declare war at a later date. 

 
I'm confused.  Are you saying we should have just kept trading with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany?
 

Sticking your nose in often means you get a bloody nose and it's much harder to get out. Exhibits "A" & "B" are Korea and Vietnam.

 
Vietnam, completely agree.  A colossal mistake that we are paying for to this day.  Korea, compare South and North Korea.  One is a stable democracy, an economic powerhouse and an important trading partner.  The other is a brutal dictatorship that starves it's people and whose only export is refugees and cheap rockets for other dictators.  

 

[eolesen]

Lots of speculation from historians to be sure but for me at least the notion of a non interventionist foreign policy works best if for no other reason than you can always declare war at a later date.

Yep, that's been a rousing success with the rise of ISIS. We left, they filled the gap, and the death toll is still growing as a result. The Kurds ramping up to retake their own territory seems to be the only progress in beating those thugs into the ground.

 

[SparrowHawk]

Yep, that's been a rousing success with the rise of ISIS. We left, they filled the gap, and the death toll is still growing as a result. The Kurds ramping up to retake their own territory seems to be the only progress in beating those thugs into the ground.

 
Honestly, who gives a rat's arse about ISIS. They're busy killing other Muslim fanatics and we can watch on TV. That's what non intervention is. Letting the A--holes of the world duke it out, passing the popcorn while watching CNN. If they get to close to the Saudi's and threaten our petrodollar scam then we can have congress declare war and trot out the military for what will amount to an exercise in the fine art of ***** slapping ISIS back from whence they came.
 
When you have the most powerful military in the world by at least a factor of five you have two choices. 1) you can sit home ever at the ready OR 2) you can be the Worlds police force which is incredibly expensive in dollars and lives.
 
Forgotten in all of the above is that the roll of our government is to preserve Liberty. Not for the world but for us.

 

[eolesen]

So, in your view, it's OK to promote the view that one American citizen's life is worth more than that of 1,000 or 2,000 civilians somewhere else?

If you were talking about military factions fighting each other, I'd agree with non-interventionism. But that's not what ISIS has been doing.

How is the slaughter of civilians at the hands of ISIS any different from the slaughter of Jews at the hands of the Nazis?

 

[delldude]

How's that NATO thing working out today with Ivan holding a gun to EU and their energy?
 
Find out real soon in the ME.

 

[777 fixer]

How's that NATO thing working out today with Ivan holding a gun to EU and their energy?
 
Find out real soon in the ME.

 
That gun seems to be more pointed in their direction.  The price of oil and the value of the ruble is collapsing so it would appear that they are the ones who are going to suffer the most.

 

[SparrowHawk]

So, in your view, it's OK to promote the view that one American citizen's life is worth more than that of 1,000 or 2,000 civilians somewhere else?

If you were talking about military factions fighting each other, I'd agree with non-interventionism. But that's not what ISIS has been doing.

How is the slaughter of civilians at the hands of ISIS any different from the slaughter of Jews at the hands of the Nazis?

 
Do these "Civilians" pay taxes? If not, phuckem. As to Hitler, we had interests in a free Europe. Hitler was a direct threat and declared war on the USA first.

 

[ChockJockey]

I've never completely understood the Libertarian/isolationist fetish with war declaration; in its history the United States Congress has only ever declared war five times.  Like it or not, the U.S. has a history of engaging in non-declared conflicts and interventionism of varying shades and degrees since it became a country. A good example of this is the Quasi-War with France from 1798-1800.  Declared wars are not automatically just wars.  The Spanish-American War is an example of a declared war that had questionably expansionist aims and made the U.S. an imperial power with its acquisition of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
 
The Constitution says Congress can declare war, but it doesn't specify how this has to be done.  Historically Congress has given assent to conflicts by either authorizing them, agreeing to fund them, or in the minority of cases, actually declaring them to be wars.  The Civil War was the bloodiest and most costly in U.S. history, but it wasn't declared.  Nor was Vietnam, which I agree was immensely wasteful, traumatic and unnecessary, though nonetheless funded by Congress.  A case can be made for the Korean War, or Korean Intervention if you like, since there are now about 52 million free people living in the Southern democracy enjoying the benefits of good international relations and a market economy.
 
Libertarian foreign policy seems to imagine the world community as a domestic community writ large.  Nations should act like sovereign self-respecting individuals with inherent rights and should only go to conflict in an agreed-upon manner for just causes.  It'd be a nice world to live it, but the truth is the world has never, ever worked like that.  The international arena is an anarchic system.  "Just war" is a lofty enough idea, even when Aquinas was discussing it, but in the several centuries after Aquinas "just wars" were basically nobles large and small squabbling over each others territory, a handful of pointless crusades, and then later wars of religion and counter-revolution leading up to the unimaginable industrialized bloodbaths of the World Wars; a millennia of conflict finally ended by, largely, American intervention.
 
The main reason the world has achieved unprecedented advances in technology and commerce in the last few centuries is because a handful of powers exerted such influence that they could guarantee the security of sea lanes and give backbone to international law on the seas.  Formerly and for a very long time this role was the pride of the British Empire and after WWII it was assumed by the U.S. Navy.  At the close of WWII the United States found itself a global superpower and the only nation left standing with the capability to oppose the world's remaining totalitarian ideology of communism.
 
Lofty also the words of Mr. Jefferson, 'alliances with none', and all that.  That's well and good when you're a marginal power on the fringes of the civilized world, but America's role and prominence in the modern (post-modern?) globe is vastly different than anything Jefferson could have imagined.  Once the U.S. became a modern industrial power, the more difficult it became not to be involved with foreign affairs.  Today the world is so instantaneously interconnected that pure non-intervention is impossible.  If you agree to trade with someone and not someone else you will be accused of intervention.  Is espionage intervention?  Are sanctions? Are warnings to other nations?  In a system where there are consequences to acting and not acting and you can be held to account for either scenario where does one really draw the line to what is and isn't intervention?
 
Simply put, until the U.S. can completely disentangle American interests and the economy from the global system it has spent decades shaping and maintaining it is going to find itself chasing or being sucked into foreign interventions.

 

[ChockJockey]

Honestly, who gives a rat's arse about ISIS. They're busy killing other Muslim fanatics and we can watch on TV. That's what non intervention is. Letting the A--holes of the world duke it out, passing the popcorn while watching CNN. If they get to close to the Saudi's and threaten our petrodollar scam then we can have congress declare war and trot out the military for what will amount to an exercise in the fine art of #### slapping ISIS back from whence they came.

 
Do you wait until ISIS gets a foothold in other parts of the Muslim world (as they are working on), sea ports, air and naval assets, chemical and radiological materials, and larger territories of oil production?  Do you allow them more time and resources to wage war against civilian targets in Europe and the U.S. and more time to call aimless and angry young men around the world to their cause?  In other words, do you swap a limited campaign of aerial bombardment now for a massively destructive and expensive regional conflagration later?
 
In the 21st century the sentiment of "it doesn't affect us until it reaches our shores" is hopelessly anachronistic.

 

[southwind]

Do these "Civilians" pay taxes? If not, phuckem. As to Hitler, we had interests in a free Europe. Hitler was a direct threat and declared war on the USA first.

So your saying we have interest in a free middle east?