The National Interest: Robert Farley: 'What If America Had 'Eliminated' Saddam Hussein?'

Source:The National Interest- Iraqi Baathist dictator Saddam Hussein. (1979-2003)

Source:The New Democrat 

"In the early days of the air campaign of the 1991 Gulf War, the United States undertook a concerted effort to track and strike Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The effort was predicated on the belief that eliminating Saddam Hussein would have two effects; it would throw the Iraqi military hierarchy into chaos, and it would make the surviving Iraqi leadership more amenable to a negotiated solution." 

From The National Interest

To answer Robert Farley's question: I think the answer would be chaos. If you think 2003 was a bad time to invade and take out the Hussein Regime in Iraq, especially the unilateral way we did it, that would have been a great time compared with 1991. 

If we had taken out Saddam in 1991 and he's either replaced by another Baathist dictator like one of his sons and what would we have gained from that? Or almost twenty-five years later we're still trying to occupy Iraq today. America, was in recession in 1991 and had its own economic and financial problems at home. And couldn't afford to take on the responsibility of occupying another big country.

And the economic boom that we had in the 1990s probably doesn't come about in America, because we're spending so much money in Iraq. At least in 2003 there was something that looked like an opposition and there were people that could come in and at least temporarily run the Iraqi Republic. It just took them more than two-years after the invasion to make that come about. There wasn't any at least moderate opposition to the Baathists in 1991. There was Saddam and his Baathists and anyone who opposed them risked their own lives as a result.

The 1991 Gulf War was a very simply and well-executed. Get Iraq out of Kuwait and protect our economic and energy interests in Kuwait. That war was in the national and self-interest of the United States to not have a Baathist dictator in charge of one of the largest oil suppliers in the world to go on top of his already large supply of oil and gas in Iraq. This was not some idealistic neoconservative utopian war that was about bringing freedom and liberal democracy to a country of twenty-million that had no idea what those things were.

President George H.W. Bush and his National Security Council, didn't want to invade and occupy a country about the size of California in land and about the same population as Texas. Just because Iraq invaded Kuwait, an Arab ally of America's. All they wanted to do was get Iraq out of Kuwait and put Iraq in a tight box so they couldn't invade anyone else again. Which they remained in for the next twelve years with Iraq being so weak that they had a hard time feeding themselves. In were never in any position to attack another country again.

The 1991 Gulf War, was conservative foreign policy and national security at its best. Protect American national interests which was the energy supply coming from Kuwait. Which has a peaceful and moderate regime, as well as a strong economy. And get an evil tyrant out of that country and box him in so he can't invade anyone else. Not to bring peace and liberal democracy to a country that has never heard of those things. The Gulf War, was probably H.W. Bush's finest days as President of the United States, with the grand coalition of European and Arab allies that he bad behind him. And why you wanted someone who his professional and national security background as Commander-In-Chief in a time like that. 

Instead of having a dove in there who generally sees American strength and use of force as a bad if not evil thing, who tends to be against the American military and things that it does. 

Or someone in there who would've done nothing and froze, because they didn't know what to do. Because they lacked the experience and judgement in foreign affairs. And another reason why the 2003 Iraq War was an unnecessary mistake, because we already had Saddam under control and so weak to the point that Iraq didn't even bother defending themselves in that war.

The American Conservative: Tom Switzer: 'Dean of the Realists'

Source:The American Conservative- "Owen Harries/ photo courtesy of the Lowery Institute."

Source:The New Democrat 

"When the first issue of The National Interest was published in 1985, its editor, Owen Harries, proclaimed an affinity between realpolitik and conservatism. By this he meant that realism—a foreign policy that respected the primacy of self-interest as a motive and of power as a means in an anarchic international system—reflected a conservative temperament. After all, both realism and conservatism put “their stress on what is, rather than what should or might be.” Both “emphasize the importance of circumstance and are suspicious of abstract theory and general principles as bases for action.” And both are “aware of the intractability of things and the difficulties and dangers involved in attempting sweeping changes.”

For Harries, realism was not incompatible with the pull to incorporate moral principles into foreign policy; democratic values simply had to be treated as one among many interests. Looking back to George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1797, Harries pointed to the first president’s clear-eyed assertion that U.S. interests must not be compromised by “permanent alliances,” which in turn might undermine America’s diplomatic flexibility. Harries also reminded his readers that John Quincy Adams warned that freedoms at home would only be tarnished by wars abroad. In Adams’s words, America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Were she to “become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.” Not for Harries any ideological crusades or grandiose plans for global social engineering.

Yet when the foreign-policy journal he edited was officially launched at the Sheraton Carlton (now St. Regis) in Washington on October 9, 1985, guests were a Who’s Who of leading neoconservatives, including Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest; former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick; former chairman of Council of Economic Advisers Martin Feldstein; Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams; Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz; writers Gertrude Himmelfarb and Midge Decter; and the rising 35-year-old star columnist Charles Krauthammer. Writing in the Washington Post to mark the event, future Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal adjudged: “In an effort to influence the foreign-policy agenda, a group of neo-conservatives is rolling out what its members consider their ultimate weapon.”

From The American Conservative 

Commentary Magazine: Noah Rothman: 'The Party of Religious Freedom?'

Source:Commentary Magazine-  The Donald J. Trump: thank God there is only one of them. America is not big and strong enough for another one.

Source:The Daily Review

"Marco Rubio missed an opportunity last night to do something that might have been politically stupid but nevertheless righteous. There is a malignancy eating away at the Republican Party, and Rubio passed on an opportunity to begin the work of excising it."

From Commentary Magazine

"The First Amendment- Prohibits making any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion. That is just covers Freedom of Religion in the United States under the First Amendment."

I don't like blogging about Donald Trump, because he's not a real presidential candidate. He's simply looking to further his own one-man reality TV career and perhaps get another book and documentary that of course is all about The Donald. As if there's nothing else going on in the world and no one else to write about. And if you watch CNN on the regular basis, you might get that impression from them anyway. 

But The Donald is pandering to a group of Americans on the Far-Right inside the Republican Party who believes only they have Freedom of Religion in America. And everyone else is subjected to what big government will allow them. Karl Marx would be proud.

The Republican Party and I think the establishment has already figured this out, but the party as a whole needs to decide are they going to be a party of Freedom of Religion, or are they going to be a fascist party that only tolerates religion and speech that they agree with. In other words is Freedom of Religion real for all believers and non-believers, or just for fundamentalist Evangelical Christians. 

Freedom of Speech covers all speech including offensive and critical speech of minorities, but speech that could come off as even anti-American to Democrats. Or just speech that Republicans agree with. Do Republicans want to be a party of freedom, or a fascist party that only supports the rights of people that Neo-Confederates and the Far-Right already agree with.

With The Donald, again a one-man reality TV star that is keeping CNN and MSNBC in business all by himself, but shouldn't be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. But the Far-Right, the Ann Coulter's, Alan Keyes, Pat Buchanan's, etc, of the world actually believe in this, garbage (to be kind) and would have no problem with either shutting down Mosques and rounding up all Muslims and perhaps Arabs in general. Either through executive force, or passing a couple constitutional amendments to do that, because neither one is constitutional right now. 

And this is what makes a pander and demagogue like Donald Trump dangerous. Because he will never come within a thousand delegates or more of winning the GOP nomination for president, or 270 votes of winning the Electoral College of winning the presidency as an Independent. But there plenty of people out there on the Far-Right who take him seriously and are using him for their own means.

New York Daily News: S.E. Cupp: 'Breaking Up With The Constitution'

Source:New York Daily News- Donald Trump & Ben Carson.

Source:The New Democrat

Damn! I agree with S.E. Cupp on something. Perhaps its time to reëxamine my political beliefs and news opinions. No, not really, but she makes a great point here about the Republican Party and two of their, to be nice eccentric presidential candidates in Donald Trump and Ben Carson. I say on a regular basis as a Democrat that I miss the days of Newt Gingrich. Forget about Ronald Reagan, I would just like to go back to the mid and late 1990s with Newt.

Because as partisan as Newt was he’s also a very intelligent man and someone who not just believes in government, but knows how to govern. He knew he had a Democratic president, he knew he had fairly small Republicans majorities in the House and that Senate Republicans had tight majorities as well. Meaning that there was only so much that Congressional Republicans could do by themselves with a Democratic president and tight majorities in Congress. Yes, Speaker Newt Gingrich did shutdown the Federal Government in 1995, because he couldn’t sit with President Clinton on Air Force One. But he learned from his mistakes and they passed Welfare to Work together in 1996.

But forget about Newt for a minute. It would be nice just to go back to 2011-12 and instead of hearing Republicans talking about threat of Islam inside of America and having the U.S. Government trample the First Amendment and our Freedom of Religion, something that Republicans say they support, but would have the Feds break into Mosques and round Muslims and Arabs in general like the Japanese, Italians and Germans were in World War II, we would hear Republicans claiming to be Constitutional Conservatives.

Even with all of their new big government constitutional amendments to the Constitution. (Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum come to mind) Like putting the Federal Government in charge of marriage and what people can watch on TV and do in their free times. At least they were talking about the Constitution. And again in Newt’s case he actually understands the Constitution. But at least the GOP was talking about the importance of the Constitution and claiming to support it. Even as they were proposing to rewrite it even in the same speech. Like with Representative Bachmann, when she announced for president in the summer of 2011. And calling same-sex marriage a threat to national security. At least she claimed to love the Constitution.

But no! We can’t even have the good ole days of big government Republicans proposing to outlaw same-sex marriage and pornography and even gambling from the Federal level. They’ve gotten even crazier with The Donald and Dr. Ben, proposing to close down Mosques, round-up Arabs and tell college students what they can think and hear while they’re at college. Speaking of political correctness and fascism, that is what it looks like from the Far-Right in America. The GOP, the party of religious freedom, just as long as they agree with your religion and your religious beliefs. At least with the Far-Right.

S.E. Cupp, is a true Conservative and so is Senator Rand Paul and several others in Congress, because they not just believe in the Constitution, but understand what they actually believe. With Donald Trump, 2016 is about his latest realty TV show or documentary called, Who Wants Donald Trump For President? In a theater or on a TV near you in 2017. With Ben Carson, welcome back to the 1950s and giving Joe McCarthy a good name by comparison. The Founding Fathers, our Founding Liberals, would be shitting asteroids if they saw what some of the Republican presidential candidates were proposing today.
Source:CNN

The National Interest: Peter Harris: 'Losing the International Order: Westphalia, Liberalism & Current World Crises'

Source:The National Interest- President Barack Obama, speaking at The United Nations in New York City.

Source:The New Democrat

"The war in Syria demonstrates the limits of the Westphalian system—but it's still the best rulebook we have."

From The National Interest

"Speaking from the State Floor in the White House on September 10, 2014, President Obama addressed the nation on the situation in Iraq and the United States’ strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL, a terrorist organization."

Source:The Obama White House- President Barack Obama, speaking at The White House.

From The Obama White House

To put it mildly the world is a lot more complicated now and the developed world which is mostly in the West is different now and less united than it once was. America and Europe, still believe in great liberal values like freedom of speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, personal freedom, self-ownership, the ability for one to live freely and make a good life for themselves and basic human rights and civil liberties. And even though we’re no longer fighting Marxism and Communism in general at least in the traditional sense, the West is dealing with a different type of authoritarianism that in many cases is not state-sponsored and organized from some authoritarian state.

Islamism, and private Islamist groups, have now replaced Marxism as the main competitor when it comes to liberalism and liberal values. The liberal order, to use a German term, is now facing Islamism as its main enemy when it comes to whether countries are going to live in free societies that are governed responsibly. Or are they going to live in the stone ages where women, gays and non-Muslims are treated like second or third-class citizens and even prisoners. The West and their Arab allies, haven’t figured out how to deal with Islamism and ISIS effectively yet. For one, a lot of those Arab states don’t believe in liberal values and human rights and are just looking to protect their own authoritarian regimes and monarchies, but don’t want to move to some fourth or fifth-world theocracy. The other being the West, America and Europe, aren’t sure about how much they are willing to invest to fight ISIS in Arabia.

This is a different battle or war taking on Islamism than the Cold War. During the Cold War, the main and really only major enemy to America and Europe was Russia and their Marxist Soviet Union. The People’s Republic of China, was still a very poor Marxist society similar to North Korea today for most of the Cold War. With Islamism, it’s not countries that we have to fight for the most part. But groups and groups powerful enough to knock out weak government’s and states and take at least part for their land. As they’ve done in both Iraq and Syria. But the only way you defeat a group like ISIS is through a strong broad committed coalition, which is what liberal internationalism is. That is going to go in and take on ISIS until they’ve defeated them. If you want to protect liberal democracy, liberal values and free societies, you have to fight for them and be united behind that.

Marmar: Rita Hayworth 1967 Interview

Source:Marmar- The Love Goddess!

Source:The Daily Review

The only thing that I would have liked to seen more with Rita Hayworth is Rita in color. She is truly special to look at and to listen to, but black and white simply doesn’t do her justice. I saw They Came to Condura with Rita, Gary Cooper and several others last night and she’s in her early forties at this point, but she still had everything including the great voice, face, hair and body. And was still a hell of an actress. And stick her with a group of U.S. Army soldiers in the Mexican desert where there isn’t another women for perhaps hundred of miles and they haven’t drank or smoked in days and they got this red-hot Spanish goddess with them whose technically their prisoner and guys could end up doing things they wouldn’t normally do when they’re living in much better living conditions.

I made this point before, Rita Hayworth was made for color TV and film and I just wish she became a star in the 1960s, or even 1950s. She was a constant entertainer and goddess that had put guys in sweet dreams for weeks even if they were at war. Even this 1967 TV interview when of course color TV and film were common if not standard by then, was shot in black and white. But again because of how gorgeous and cute she was with that great voice, very similar to Raquel Welch, you can still see how great she was even in black and white and even in her late forties when she was no longer the top Hollywood Goddess in popularity, or perhaps anything else. But she still had it and was still able to grab people’s attention and focus on her.

The National Interest: Christopher A. Preble: Expecting More from Our Allies

Source:The National Interest.

Source:The New Democrat

You can't be both a Neoconservative who wants America to police the world mostly if not completely by ourselves and be a fiscal Conservative who puts real limits on what government can do. Who doesn't want to consistently be borrowing money, running up deficits and expects government to pay for most if not all of its government operations as least when times are good. Speaking as a non-fiscal conservative, but fiscal Conservatives prioritize government spending. They lay out what is the money coming in and figure out exactly what government needs to do and then they pay for it.

A Progressive, is different and would try to figure out exactly what government should do without putting many if any limits on it and try to figure out how to pay for it. Even if that requires borrowing the money. Same thing with Neoconservatives who actually tend to be somewhat progressive when it comes to economic policy. George W. Bush in the 2000s, is an example of that. Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, who wanted to use government to move people out of poverty through work and job training. And encourage business's to hire people on Welfare. Speaker Paul Ryan, very similar today.

So if you just look at foreign policy and national security from a fiscal conservative point of view and not from a liberal internationalist or smart power point of view, or even a dovish perspective, having American taxpayers pay for the national security of other developed countries who can economically afford and have the population to defend themselves, doesn't make good fiscal sense, or even national security sense. Also it is not just American taxpayers who pay for other developed countries national defense in taxes. They also pay for it in higher interest rates because of the national debt and that we borrow from countries like Saudi Arabia and Japan, to defend them.

Out of all the Republican presidential candidates, maybe three of them are actually fiscal Conservatives. In party that is supposed to be a conservative party. And I'm thinking Senator Rand Paul, Governor John Kasich and perhaps Senator Ted Cruz. Senator Marco Rubio, wants to spend another trillion-dollars on national defense and invest even more money in having America try to defend Europe for Europe and Arabia for Arabia, Japan for Japan and South Korea for South Korea. All of the countries are developed countries that can afford to defend themselves. Saudi Arabia and South Korea, already have two of the largest militaries and defense budgets in the world. The European Union if they were a country, their economy would be roughly the size of the United States. How come they can't pay for their own national defense? They can, but have chosen not to. Why pay for your own defense, when someone else does that for you. The mind of a Socialist I guess.

America, can't afford to have a small military and defense budget, but we sure as hell can't afford to police the world ourselves. Especially when we're stuck with a twenty-trillion-dollar national debt and we're borrowing money from countries in order to defend the countries that we're borrowing money from. For America to be as secure as possible, financially, economically and security, other countries especially Europe, has to at least play their own part when it comes to their own national defense, as well as dealing with international challenges when they come as well like Syria and Iraq. Socialism, is cheap when you don't have to pay for your own security. Europe, would be a lot less socialist if they had to pay for their own defense and not expect America to do that for them.