Outside of Fox News there has been no bigger cheerleader for the ongoing series of American wars of aggression that only serve to alienate, bankrupt and poison the national soul than at The Washington Post. Do not be fooled by the Pulitzer Prize for journalist Barton Gellman's reporting on the documents procured by former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the WaPo is a teeming snakepit of neoconservative propaganda. Which is why it was a bit surprising to see an editorial written by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul shoehorned in between the rants, screeds, polemics and jeremiads by the likes of war wench Jennifer Rubin, Charles "Dr.Strangelove" Kraüthammer, Republican party hacks George Will and Marc Thiessen and an all star lineup of guests brought in to make the case for the latest war, this one a confrontation in Ukraine that is a thinly veiled proxy war with the Russian bear.
Given the trashing that Senator Paul has taken, particularly by Ms. Rubin whose prolific churning out of nasty hit pieces about the son of Ron's stance towards a less domineering foreign policy that is in direct opposition to the neocon doctrine as put forth by the Project For the New American Century has been as vicious as it is dishonest. So the Post has now given Paul an opportunity to defend himself which he did although in a more wishy-washy way that would be needed to rebut the resurgent cancer of neoconservative ideology that now rages through the government and the political class like a cancer. In the piece originally published Wednesday with the title "Foreign policy is no place for 'red lines" but on Thursday changed to "Where I Stand on Containing Iran" Paul writes:
I am not for containment in Iran. Let me repeat that, since no one seems to be listening closely: I am unequivocally not for containing Iran.
I am also not for announcing that the United States should never contain Iran. That was the choice I was given a few months ago and is the scenario being misunderstood by some in the news.
To be against a “we will never contain Iran” resolution is not the same as being for containment of a nuclear Iran. Rather, it means that foreign policy is complicated and doesn’t fit neatly within a bumper sticker, headline or tweet.
Those who reduce it to such do a disservice to their reporting and, potentially, to the security of our nation.
To some people this may seem to be a nuance, but it is, in fact, an incredibly important detail in the consideration of war.
Nuance has been a bit lacking in our foreign policy of late. Whether through preemptive war or “red lines” that were crossed without consequence, the extremes of foreign policy have had their way, and it has not worked.
Ronald Reagan was once criticized for not announcing in advance his policy toward particular situations. He was accused of not having a concrete foreign policy. His response was that he simply chose not to announce his policies in advance.
If he had been bluffing the Soviets with his Strategic Defense Initiative, or using it as leverage in negotiations, it would have been counterproductive to announce that in advance.
In fact, Reagan often practiced strategic ambiguity. He thought, as many other presidents have, that we should not announce to our enemies what we might do in every conceivable hypothetical situation.
It is a dumb idea to announce to Iran that you would accept and contain that country if it were to become a nuclear power. But it is equally dumb, dangerous and foolhardy to announce in advance how we would react to any nation that obtains nuclear weapons.
If, after World War II, we had preemptively announced that containment of nuclear powers would never be considered, the United States would have trapped itself into nuclear confrontations with Russia, China, Pakistan, India and North Korea.
I believe all options should be on the table to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, including the military option. I have voted repeatedly for sanctions against Iran and will continue to do so. But I will also continue to argue that war is a last resort and that, as Reagan wrote, we should be reluctant to go to war but resolved to do so if necessary.
Should war become necessary, the American people through their representatives must debate and deliberate the pros and cons of action and not be trapped into a predetermined response based on a resolution passed without debate or discussion.
The Constitution reserved the power to declare war to Congress, and when contemplating war, words are critical.
Containment of Iran is a bad idea, but our leaders need to think before they speak and consider that preemptively announcing responses to every hypothetical situation may well damage our ability to keep the United States safe and strong.
I have often said that we have, for too long, had a debate between the extremes of foreign policy — and that to be on either end of the extremes can have life-or-death consequences.
False choices between being everywhere all of the time and nowhere any of the time are fodder for debate on Sunday morning shows or newspaper columns. Real foreign policy is made in the middle; with nuance; in the gray area of diplomacy, engagement and reluctantly, if necessary, military action.
National defense is the No. 1 job of our government, and I believe in a strong nation, at peace with the world.
I believe peace through strength should be our goal at all times.
Hardly the full-throated rebuttal of the warfare state that is needed and on Iran - a war that the neocons and the right wing government of Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu have been trying to suck America into for well over a decade - it is brings to mind an overcooked piece of linguine but at least it is something and you don't get placement at WaPo for such things as calling out war criminal Dick Cheney for war profiteering as Paul did his reference to the former VP's obvious conflict of interest in working for Haliburton and then dialing up the Iraq war on false pretenses once in office. The only way that you deal with bullies, liars and chickenhawks like the neocons is to stop mincing words and dancing around and to for their jugular. Their weakness is the ideology and it needs to be boiled down into one or two of those bite sized bumper sticker slogans that Americans best understand.
The piece wasn't without very strong points, particularly this:
To be against a “we will never contain Iran” resolution is not the same as being for containment of a nuclear Iran. Rather, it means that foreign policy is complicated and doesn’t fit neatly within a bumper sticker, headline or tweet.
Those who reduce it to such do a disservice to their reporting and, potentially, to the security of our nation.
To some people this may seem to be a nuance, but it is, in fact, an incredibly important detail in the consideration of war.
Nuance has been a bit lacking in our foreign policy of late. Whether through preemptive war or “red lines” that were crossed without consequence, the extremes of foreign policy have had their way, and it has not worked.
Hey Jennifer - zing, bang, pow... to the moon bitch.
The column will likely only further inflame the usual suspects and the Washington Post will erupt with anti-Paul smears anew in the coming days, led of course by the dog-faced Rubin. The William Kristol (the Joseph Goebbels of our time) propaganda machine will go into overdrive and casino mega-billionaire Sheldon Adelson will open the floodgates of his dirty money to defeat - if not destroy Senator Paul as well as any other impediments to the nuking of Iran along with the global conquest that is the wet dream of every neocon.
But at least they published it.
