Because every campaign needs at least one crank amalgam of George McGovern and Charles Lindbergh, I guess:
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul says that he can stand out from the other Republican candidates for president at the first GOP debate by being the one candidate who doesn't "want to blow up the world."
And hail and hearty "F you" to you too, Senator.
Paul told the Washington Post that he plans to challenge the other candidates who would "send half a million of your sons and daughters back" to Iraq, by asking them if they "want to always intervene in every civil war around the world."
Well, now, that's a straw man worthy of Barack Obama's hordes and hordes of them. Has anybody in the Republican field called for sending half a million of our sons and daughters back to Iraq? No, they have not. Not even Lindsey Graham, as a matter of fact. Is that what it would take to restore the status quo ante circa 2009 that we had established at considerable cost in blood and treasure? Yes, it would. Do we even have half a million sons and daughters to send anyplace anymore, much less Iraq? No, we do not. Are we going to have to mobilize militarily to fight precisely that war in precisely those numbers, and sooner rather than later, because our triumphant enemies will give us the choice of that or perishing? Yes, we are.
Yet here is an ostensibly GOP presidential candidate loudly and obnoxiously pledging to carry on the Obama Doctrine that has us on the road to national destruction.
"I want to be known as the candidate who's not eager for war, who thinks war's the last resort," Paul said while in Iowa.
Another Obamaesque strawman. Nobody is "eager for war". But the way to make war less likely is to be ready to fight and win, not pull the isolationist covers over our heads and pretend that our enemies will leave us alone. Which is to say, Senator Paul does not think war is "the last resort," he thinks it's no resort at all.
Unfortunately, we don't always get to make that choice, usually in direct proportion to the lengths to which we go to "avoid war".
"When we fight, we fight to win, but much of our involvement has led to consequences that made us less safe. You'll see that come into sharp distinction."
Consequences of our unwillingness to fight and win, not of fighting in the first place. That decadent, militant pacifism has infected every conflict this country has fought since World War II.
Korea: Triggered by our open declaration that we wouldn't defend South Korea. Followed by our refusal to win it by flinching from setting back Red China's warmaking capabilities for a generation, as General Douglas MacArthur logically wanted to do. Technically, that war is still ongoing.
Vietnam: Bled into it, refused to win it, the public turned against it, we chose to lose it.
Gulf War I: Limited our war aims too much, left the enemy in power, guaranteed an eventual sequel.
Afghanistan; Initially won it, refused to muster the stamina to protect our victory, now abandoning it.
Gulf War II: See Afghanistan, except entirely in the past tense.
I can only imagine how Rand Paul would have reacted to Pearl Harbor and the loss of the Philippines and Wake Island and Kassarine Pass and all the mistakes and setbacks that bedeviled the Allied war effort in World War II. But I would confidently guarantee that his rhetoric then wouldn't have substantively differed in the slightest from his rhetoric now. "Don't fight! Why? Just because!"
I can understand why a candidate who's languishing in the polling cellar would want to come up with a wedge issue that favorably distinguishes him from the rest of the field. Unfortunately for Rand and the Paulnuts, this both (1) ain't it and (2) is the only one in his campaign quiver.
Maybe the Paul-Graham slapfight can be held offstage.
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