The Republican Vision of America: One of Costly and Perpetual Warfare

Wednesday night, Republicans held their 20th debate, literally.

With a pivotal Michigan primary just a few days away and polls showing Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum neck-and-neck, the four candidates took to the stage in Arizona to see who can win the race to the bottom. And with the exception of Ron Paul, everyone in the debate thinks the United States needs to be involved in another war -- this time with Iran. Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich all painted doomsday scenarios of a nuclear Iran and how big of a threat that nation is to America's security. They stopped just short of using Bush's famous war-mongering line of a smoking gun being a mushroom cloud over an American city.

Apparently no one on the stage learned the lessons of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; their vision of America is one of continuous and costly warfare across the Middle East, the same sort of perpetual warfare that's bankrupted every empire that's ever existed in history.

 

 

 

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Comments

[Stirner]

11:30 PM on 02/25/2012

Quite right. Happy to note that you set Ron Paul apart from the three neocon stooges.

[Nickuru]

06:59 AM on 02/26/2012

Have to agree with your observation on Ron Paul. The rest of the Republican candidates look like they are out for the pork barrel of the military-industrial complex, as described by the conservative president General Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.

[skwan91607]

11:27 PM on 02/25/2012

BEYOND COSTLY AND PERPETUAL WARFARE WITH "GOP" LABEL.
1/- The world has a lot of for democracy freedom fighters who broke up their own facilities that support the lives of democracy.
2/- War refugees spread around the globe. Most of them lived a miserable.live.
3/- Forgot to count civilian casualties or that vaporized from memory of the concerned parties.
4/- The reason for Americans to join in a war was so often called "Protecting Human Right" But, killed civilian lives seem "Have nothing to do to Human Right".
5/- American military industries made huge sum of money repeatedly. in recent 25 years.
6/- The higher the sound of the war drum American stock market would go up accordingly.
7/- The source of American military forces, the middle class was targeted and victimized by GOP .
8/- Oil price shocked during every war. Only Americans blamed the president for that.
9/- There is a serious question for GOP to answer "What Americans get from the wars in recent 25 years besides an image of "Warmonger" ? Financial Crisis after selling large number of weapons ? To prove GOP is saving America from foreign threat ? Or, GOP crooks in congress are tools for others to make money ?

[offred]

09:08 PM on 02/25/2012

...and a reprise of General Smedley Butler's "War Is a Racket":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0

[offred]

09:07 PM on 02/25/2012

"...Kennan reflected on a topic that had become something of an obsession for him by his 80th year: the “extreme militarization not only of our thought but of our lives”—a phenomenon that had had a profoundly distorting effect on the entire economy. Military spending had become a national addiction. “We could not now break ourselves of this habit,” Kennan wrote, “without the most serious of withdrawal symptoms. Millions of people, in addition to those other millions that are in uniform, have become accustomed to deriving their livelihood from the military-industrial complex. Thousands of firms have become dependent on it, not to mention labor unions and communities.”

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/01/Todd-Purdum-on-National-Security

[offred]

08:57 PM on 02/25/2012

Let's remember to ask this question first: Who profits?

The military-industrial complex and the legislators who love it.

[parlimentMike]

06:37 PM on 02/25/2012

It is no longer a Republican doctrine. All the governing decisions are about how much more of the peoples power and ownership rights in America will be ceded to Corporations and War Mongers. Neither of the two traditional parties offer the People real policy alternatives.

To cover this truth, a lot of social noise is being stirred up to hide the morphing of Bush's war into Obama's war into the American war on World sovereignty.

The Democrats aren't the opposite of Republicans, but several third parties are.

[MamaJoe]

02:44 PM on 02/25/2012

I find the GOP and their so called policies increasingly incomprehensible. On the one hand they are saying cut, cut, cut like a mantra, cut the tax for the top 1%, cut the budget, cut welfare, cut ANY services to help women. Maybe then we can have another war and parcel out the deals for arms and supplies bewteen our friends and get our noses back into the trough where they belong.

They seem to be motivated by one commandment "Do as you will is the whole of the law"

[MamaJoe]

02:46 PM on 02/25/2012

Sorry lol, read "between"

[knott wrench]

06:16 PM on 02/25/2012

Yes!

[dianna econ]

01:53 PM on 02/25/2012

Our interference in a war with Iran (which will be started by Israel) will be the beginning of WWIII.......

[parlimentMike]

12:55 PM on 02/26/2012

You don't think it's on now? It wasn't wwii when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, or even Poland. We are deployed around the world. We are denying some of our population the necessities of life to fund our military actions. This is the United States making the World safe for Corporate rule.

[diannafatso]

03:52 PM on 02/26/2012

I agree with you....the only candidate talking about peaceful solutions is Ron Paul, but, I doubt if the military-industrial complex will allow him to become President. Do you think wars are a necessity now to keep our economy going? These are troublesome times, but, we have had them in the past as well.....all we can do is hope for the best.....

[lweb9721]

11:29 AM on 02/25/2012

The US Government needs too stop playing at being the worlds Body Guards. I know everyone will call be a protectionist and that is fine. With the condition our country is in why are we not putting all of our resources toward a fix here? Instead of selling every drop of oil we produce to Japan and China from the Alaskan Pipeline and the Gulf Coast keep it here along with the Canadian Oil Shale. There is more than enough to supply the demand for ourselves. That along with pursuing other sources of renewable energy such as Natural Gas, Solar, and Wind energy would put millions of people to work. As far as our trade policies go Our Trade Policy should be exactly the same as our trading partners trade policy. If a country charges Taxes, Fees and Duties on our goods and services then that is exactly what our Trade Policy should be with them. If in fact the corporations who have shipped most of their companies overseas because it is cheaper had too pay Taxes, Duties and Fees on their products made overseas and shipped back here they would soon find it cheaper too make it here and create jobs. I am no rocket scientist but simple solutions to major problems can't be that difficult for Reasonable People too see.

[Countess]

10:24 AM on 02/25/2012

I wish this problem was really that simple but as someone who has observed our addiction to war over a lifetime of almost 70 years I can attest to the fact that the love of war is not limited to the republican party. The foreign party establishment of both parties are completely dominated by the neocons and the Israeli lobby who are always pushing for more war against muslim countries. Bill Clinton set the stage for the invasion of Iraq by his endorsement of a regime change resolution and his imposition of vicious sanctions that were responsible for the death of many children. Obama made the irresponsible decision to escalate the stupid war in Afghanistan which is still costing a fortune and he and his party have greatly expanded the overseas empire and completely bought into provoking and intimidating Iran on order to insure that only Israel has nuclear weapons. To say that only the republicans are for never ending war is just not true. Both corrupt parties support our for-profit wars.

[SmileAndActNice]

04:55 PM on 02/25/2012

To be fair,

One party attacks the other viciously for being "soft on X" and goads them into positions they otherwise would not take.

[tbmuch]

10:17 AM on 02/25/2012

The interesting thing about the republicans mantra, though disturbing, is they love to repeat the past. I can not recall a war in recent memory that served this country or benefited those in the country in which we occupied. War has been a colossal failure to all. Yet, the members of the republican party continue to strode down that avenue.

[RealistBC]

09:50 AM on 02/25/2012

Perpetual war solves the employment problems. And forget about war debt. All the other nations on Earth pay tribute to the Empire so that we will invade some other nation and bring them Dumbokrisy. Plenty of warbucks!

[jmpurser]

08:43 AM on 02/25/2012

So...how does that differ from the Democratic vision?

[prncaragorn]

07:37 AM on 02/25/2012

So we'll get more peace prizes?

[TJHOPE]

07:32 AM on 02/25/2012

It's sad to contemplate that we are probably the greatest terrorist nation in the world. It's not just the perpetual warfare. There are also the countless coups, political assassinations, drone attacks, arms deals, drug smuggling and unquestioned support of virtually any right-wing dictator. Now we can add rendition and torture to the list. We have no moral standing in the world and are too self absorbed to even recognize how much we are detested. American exceptionalism!

[havbrush]

09:29 AM on 02/25/2012

You nailed it with . . . "too self absorbed to even recognize how much we are detested."

[Dad24]

01:32 PM on 02/25/2012

The hue and cry from the Republicans over President Obama's apology for our military's inadvertent burning of several Qurans is simply unbelievable. Their disrespect for other religions is appalling and, if they are elected, will lead to a further degradation in the way the world views the US. President Obama has worked to improve the image the rest of the world has of us whereas the Republican's arrogance knows no bounds. They truly are the people the book "The Ugly American" was all about.

[JustDavid]

10:31 AM on 02/25/2012

Well said. It's sad too to contemplate how we got to this point.