Salon: Giuliani's dangerous bluster

Subtitle: Reading Giuliani's pompous foreign policy rhetoric and imagining he might somehow become president induces a deep sense of gloom.

My thoughts: A short while ago I read and posted on Slate's much more lighthearted look at Giuliani's foreign policy manifesto published in The Journal of the Council on Foreign Affairs.

But I didn't think that Giuliani's thinking was something just to chuckle about.

And neither does Joe Conasan.

Excerpt Salon analysis (title indicated above):

As for Israel and the Palestinian territories, he departs from one of the few redeeming aspects of Bush foreign policy to renounce U.S. support for Palestinian statehood. The Palestinians must earn a homeland by proving that they are good global citizens, according to Giuliani. Otherwise, the new state will simply encourage terrorism, he writes -- as if the statelessness and desperation of the Palestinians had not already bolstered terrorism throughout the region.

Although Giuliani blusters on at great length about American leadership and the importance of our alliances abroad, he doesn't understand how the policies he has endorsed will further diminish our prestige and undermine our remaining allies. He scarcely mentions AIDS and doesn't bother to discuss climate change, the issue that now drives policy around the world. This omission too reeks of pandering.

Much more at source. 

Foreign Affairs: Toward a Realistic Peace

Interesting excerpts: 

This next decade can be a positive era for our country and the world so long as the next president realistically mobilizes the 9/11 generation for the momentous tasks ahead.

Mobilizes?  MOBILIZES?  Like in total immersion into war? 

Possibly because what Giuliani seems to be talking about is taking over the world.

We must learn from these experiences for the long war that lies ahead. It is almost certain that U.S. troops will still be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when the next president takes office. The purpose of this fight must be to defeat the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and to allow these countries to become members of the international system in good standing. We must be under no illusions that either Iraq or Afghanistan will quickly attain the levels of peace and security enjoyed in the developed world today. Our aim should be to help them build accountable, functioning governments that can serve the needs of their populations, reduce violence within their borders, and eliminate the export of terror. As violence decreases and security improves, more responsibility can and should be turned over to local security forces. But some U.S. forces will need to remain for some time in order to deter external threats.

Of course, for decades as little Bushie has also indicated.  Or until Big Oil and other important Republican campaign contributors are finished extracting the resources of the invaded area.  Tough luck on Afghanistan, though.  Can't ol' Binny be taught to set up his terror camps in regions that have more oil?

For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less.

 I celebrate the fact that a Republican finally said it. The Bush 41 administration and the Republican controlled Congress after 1995 reduced military and intelligence spending (actually to pave the way for tax cuts to rich people).  They passed a huge tax cut for fat cats in 1999 (vetoed by Clinton) -- a precursor to Bush's big give away in 2001.

Still  Clinton actually improved the military while he kept costs down.  It's a matter of not just throwing ever bigger amounts of money at some favored contractors.  See piece by Lawrence Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan (81-95), "Thank Clinton for a Speedy Victory in Iraq "

Back to excerpts from Giuliani's Foreign Affairs article:

When America appears bogged down and unready to face aggressors, it invites conflict.

You mean like it's bogged down in Iraq?  Or maybe you mean bogged down by paying attention to constitutional rights.

The next U.S. president must also press ahead with building a national missile defense system.  It is well within our capability to field a layered missile defense capable of shielding us from the arsenals of the world's most dangerous states. President George W. Bush deserves credit for changing America's course on this issue. But progress needs to be accelerated.

We've worked for decades on the project, and it was supported by the Clinton administration as long as it was a viable defense.  Rudi's description of Bush's turned corner must mean the fact that he holds sham tests with the 'enemy' rockets sending location signals to our missile defense system as no enemy or rogue state in the world is going to provide for us.  That is the only reason we even get 'hits'. So we still don't have a viable systeml

Well, read the rest for yourself if you want.  I don't want to go through it all again.  

 It basically says that Giuliani wants the US put on an eternal war footing.  Very perspicascious of Giuliani to get on this early.  Those wars for American ideals so easily become wars for resources as Iraq has done. And when our troops get bogged down Rudi can just expend more blood and lives and taxpayer money to keep on going until his big campaign contributors get what they came for.

Japan in WW2 is a good model of this, and, except that a bigger and tougher alliance opposed them, who knows where it would have ended. (Japan's announced purpose in China was to stop communists from taking over or destabilizing the nation. Pretending to offer freedom while invading nations for resources is nothing new.)

Giuliani says that now we have the best military in the world, but even if that's true with what Bush has done to it, Russia and China are already planning to hold joint war games along with smaller nations. The assumedend of such exercises is to show that they can check what is beginning to look like US expansionism.  India will be attending while it considers whether to join, too.  

I do like this statement from Rudi:

There is no realistic alternative to the sovereign state system. Transnational terrorists and other rogue actors have difficulty operating where the state system is strong, and they flourish where it is weak.

Too bad we left off finishing the Afghan war and restrengthening that nation before we decided to jump in and destroy the sovereignty of Iraq. Now we have two failing states for the price of four.  Not a good deal.

tags: giuliani  foreign policy  republicans  military  iraq  afghanistan  2008 primary  

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