Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
Here’s a sampling of what the Republican presidential candidates said at Tuesday night’s debate.
Ben Carson declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to really spread his influence throughout the Middle East. This is going to be his base. And we have to oppose him there.”
Jeb Bush said, “It is tragic that you see Iraq and other countries now talking to Russia. It wasn’t that long ago that Russia had no influence in the region at all. We have to lead.”
Carly Fiorina insisted that, “We must have a no-fly zone in Syria because Russia cannot tell the United States of America where and when to fly our planes.”For many in the GOP field, this prospect is an occasion for swagger. “My first phone call would be to Vladimir,” declared Chris Christie, “and I’d say to him, ‘Listen, we’re enforcing this no-fly zone. And I mean we’re enforcing it against anyone, including you. So don’t try me. Don’t try me. ‘Cause I’ll do it.’”
Notice a pattern? Five of the candidates on the main stage, and everyone in the GOP’s undercard presidential debate said some variation of: We need to show Russia who’s boss.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. It’s a return to the worst mindlessness of the Cold War.
In the second half of the last century, the United States sent large quantities of arms into poor countries like Angola, Somalia, and Nicaragua, which posed no serious threat to the United States, to fund rebels and regimes with extremely dubious human-rights records—all to "keep those countries out of Russia’s hands".
That’s the logic much of the GOP presidential field has embraced now: If Russia intervenes in Syria and we don’t, then Russia is strong and we’re weak. But you don’t measure a country’s strength by how many bombs it drops, and how many armies it funds, especially when it’s doing so with borrowed money.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/republican-debate-foreign-policy/415614/