Political Class Dismissed

So Obama appoints a foreign policy team full of establishment warmongers and the reaction from the beltway right and mainstream media is nothing but praise? Is this what we’re going to get for the next 4 or even 8 years? Washington Insider team A versus Washington Insider team B where they don’t even disagree on the biggest problems facing America today? Namely our outrageously expensive and dangerous foreign policy? I’m totally sick of the establishment consensus on foreign policy. Basically, war, war and more war … all provided for by Americans.

Branding is very important in the market place of ideas. If you question U.S. foreign policy or acknowledge past mistakes or unintended consequences of prior interventions, you get branded as blaming America first. That usually ends the discussion right there. All of us hate the image of some communist hippie throwing red paint on John Rambo and yelling “baby-killer!” Sadly, that is the exact opposite of the truth.

If you actually dig a little deeper into the argument, you will discover that a non-interventionist position is not blaming America first. In reality, the parties behind the “blame America first” insult are actually the ones very happy using America first. I speak of the multinational corporations whose revenue is provided mainly from government contracts. I speak of the global elite who seek to create newer and stronger international institutions to manage the world. They are the ones who are more than happy to use the American taxpayer to buy their weapons, vehicles and various other products or services. They are very eager to use the American military and put the U.S. Armed Forces in harms way so they can get these lucrative government contracts. They are all too willing to send the Americans to fight their latest battles and clear the way for their special type of globalism.

If you look past cheap slogans and sound-bites, you can plainly see that the ones who pay the final tab are the Americans. Americans pay in the devaluation of their dollar, in their increased tax burden and in the future debt obligation to fund these operations. The brave men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces pay the ultimate sacrifice with their lives and limbs. American citizens must ultimately bear the brunt of the resentment and animosity caused by these operations which manifests itself in domestic terrorist attacks. Americans are the ones who will be targeted by the terrorists. On top of that, Americans are the ones who then have to pay for and tolerate the giant bureaucracy and increased security used to prevent future attacks. It is a downward spiral with a very bad ending.

The ones who stand the most to gain from these expansive military operations, occupations and expansions are smart people and they know that dressing up their stance in pro-American, patriotic images and portraying any opposition as America-hating, left-wing liberals will strike an emotional chord with the public. It is time that we stop buying into their propaganda and allowing ourselves to be used for their own gain. It is not opponents of foreign interventions who we should highly scrutinize and demand to show that they are not blaming America first. Instead, it is the proponents of foreign interventions that we should highly scrutinize and demand to show that they are not using America first.

I say it’s time for a change! And by “change,” I actually mean real change and not those empty promises that Barry based his entire campaign on. It’s a time for the resurgence of an America First movement. Doug Bandow of The American Conservative Defense Alliance perfectly explains what a true America First movement’s goal would be:

The only way to change this dangerous dynamic is for those who believe in limited government and individual liberty to use their votes to punish war-mongers in either party. In 2008, for instance, Sen. McCain’s militaristic foreign policy views far outweighed his marginally better positions on economics – a subject about which he admitted knowing little.

And given the current ascendency of liberals within the Democratic Party, foreign policy offers an opportunity for the Right. President-elect Obama risks creating the third Clinton administration, given his foreign policy advisers, weighted towards Clinton administration retreads, as well as the appointment of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton aide, as chief of staff. Rather than attempt to outspend the Democrats on defense and promote even more frivolous interventions than those advanced by the acolytes of Madeleine Albright, conservatives should offer a genuine alternative: republican noninterventionism. Defend America, but turn military responsibilities over to rich allies in Asia and Europe and avoid involvement in tragic but irrelevant Third World conflicts. Stand for the Constitution and defend republic over empire against Wilsonians on the Left and Right.