Following closely on yesterday’s post – a short, brutal summary of the Bush family’s 30 years of foreign policy idiocy – and just as we are at the onset of that wonderfully American spasm of democracy in action – the Iowa primary – it seem appropriate to examine the foreign policy postures of the candidates and, moreover, their take on the power of the presidency in times of international crisis and upheaval. Just remember, fear is your enemy and curling up in the fetal position and sucking your thumb with the blanket pulled over your head solves nothing.
Serving as the forward to this unsettling tale is the Associated Press story today, describing how the clearly nervous military leaders in Egypt have reacted to the new-found Arab Spring impulse for freedom in the country by kicking down doors and storming the offices of 10 human rights and pro-democracy groups yesterday, accusing them of “destabilizing the country by fomenting protests”. This is only the latest example of desperate power elites and frightened, ignorant autocrats clinging to the last vestiges of empire – witness Syrian security forces blatantly shooting peaceful protestors right under the noses of wide-eyed Arab League monitors. I guess seeing Ghadaffi ritualistically sodomized and then summarily killed has given Assad nightmares and inspired him to out-brutalize his fellow tyrants, a strategy that will no doubt end badly.
With that unsettling diorama in our rear view mirror we can move on to the republican presidential candidates and explore the choices being offered to the good citizens of Iowa this winter, where the past is serving as eerie prelude and the 30 year republican trend of increasing the power of the president and his minions – as long as they aren’t some negro democrat – is well on its way to becoming right-wing conservative dogma rather than the usurpation of constitution power it actually is. Witness, for example, the contempt for the Supreme Court and judiciary in general exhibited by all of the candidates, but particularly from Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both of whom have proudly promised to ignore court orders with which they disagree and to eviscerate the constitution while they’re at it. Newt has defiantly and proudly proclaimed that he would arrest judges who disagree with anything he feels strongly about; he might as well be wearing one of those funny armbands and goose-stepping at the same time.
Santorum, whose appeal as a candidate seems to be based solely on his exhibitionistic religiosity and evangelical fervor, would amend the constitution so as to make it virtually unrecognizable as a document which protects the rights of the individual over those of the state, a position at odds with the traditional reverence for the document accorded by most conservatives. And it is this very subjugation of the constitution that has caused him to rise in the Iowa polls, a fact perhaps even more disturbing than his Joan-of-Arc visions for a western version of theocracy by fiat.
This misplaced lust for an all powerful presidency also manifests itself in the foreign policy positions of all of the candidates – with the exception of Ron Paul – and is a bitter tasting stew of christian righteousness mixed with a jingoistic hubris reminiscent of Joe McCarthy and the Cold warriors of the 50’s and 60’s. Only now the incessant saber rattling is not grounded in any rational fear of a tangible enemy but in the kind of fear that one feels alone in the dark, unfamiliar woods surrounded by spooky noises, causing you to lash out blindly in all directions. Santorum and the rest of these military-avoiding chicken hawks harp on Obama about the Iraqi troop withdrawal as if he has betrayed them personally and insist that, if they were president, Iran would be bombed back to the stone age or suffer some similar fate. The entire republican establishment has conspired to marginalize Ron Paul for having the audacity to suggest that maybe a constant state of war isn’t really necessary and asking us to re-think the pseudo-imperialist impulses that have dominated our foreign policy since World War II.
There is also an aggressively knee-jerk defense of Israel on the lips of all of the candidates and used as the rational for the absurd fist-shaking at Iran, a position that only encourages the hardliners there to dig in and push the boundaries of settlement ever farther into heretofore Palestinian territory, infuriating the entire middle east.
It’s likely that some of the more irrational statements and positions being reported are a function of ignorance; I for one am not impressed with Rick “Where’s Iran again” Perry’s world view any more than I am impressed by the neurotic jabbering of the chubby Napoleon, Newt Gingrich. I’d like to think that any sensible congress would provide a check on their most self-destructive impulses, for self preservation if not ideological disagreement. But the universal contempt for the judiciary combined with the notion of an imperial presidency is truly a frightening prospect for anyone concerned about their liberty. Even libertarian Ron Paul has questioned the need for a Voting Rights Act, something that should concern all of us, regardless of our particular skin tone.
Imagine a country with a subservient and pliable judiciary under the thumb of an ego-driven little fascist wanna-be like Gingrich or a delusional religious fanatic like Santorum or even a robotic “businessman” like Romney, (think Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22), and the US quickly becomes some kind of bad sci-fi place patrolled by black-shirted thought police and ruled by a guy with a chest full of ostentatious medals wearing sunglasses at night – a totalitarian hybrid of Disneyland and Wal-Mart where we all sell out for a 50 inch flat screen and 3-D glasses. History has shown that freedom and democracy can be frightening concepts to some and we would do well to remember that.
And Obama is not in the clear on this issue either. His championing of the Defense Authorization Act, a slip on the slope of tyranny and oppression, is one of a number of disappointing and shameful sell outs of priniciple for which he is justifiable vilified by the left in this country and something which should only serve to awaken all of us to the dangerous possibilities inherent in an overly powerful chief executive. His sad tough-guy posturing is a subject for another day. But for today, in the pre-primary media overload and avalanche of breathless reporting sure to bury us this weekend, it would be wise to recall the words of Ron Paul himself,
“A dictator enjoys unrestrained power over the people. The legislative and judicial branches voluntarily cede this power or it’s taken by force. Most of the time, it’s given up easily, out of fear in time of war and civil disturbances, and with support from the people, although the dictator will also accumulate more power with the use of force.”
So I call upon the good citizens of Iowa to exercise your rights judiciously on Tuesday. I don’t know who the hell to suggest you vote for but maybe if everyone stayed home and none of these chumps got any votes it might have an impact far beyond the quiet and humble mid-west and wake the rest of the country up like a bucket of cold swill dumped on a sleeping drunk can cure a hangover. Or maybe we’ll all still have a headache, but at least we’ll be awake…
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