Kathianne
12-23-2014, 05:10 PM
I concede that my knowledge of father has colored how I've approched Rand, but I agree that his view on Cuba and his inability to handle differning points of view:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395186/rand-pauls-cuba-meltdown-quin-hillyer?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=c2CdCT&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook#!c2CdCT
DECEMBER 22, 2014 4:00 AM
Rand Paul’s Cuba Meltdown (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395186/rand-pauls-cuba-meltdown-quin-hillyer)
His mockery of Marco Rubio as “isolationist” reveals Paul as a joke in the foreign-policy arena.
By Quin Hillyer (http://www.nationalreview.com/author/quin-hillyer)
With his enthusiastic support (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/18/presidential-hopeful-rand-paul-backs-obama-on-cuba-deal.html) for Barack Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) again shows that his foreign-policy views are wrongheaded. With his bizarre mislabeling of his views and of those who disagree, Paul shows himself (yet again) to be truly ignorant about foreign affairs. And with his juvenile, nasty, strangely personal attacks on fellow Republican senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Paul shows himself temperamentally unsuited for the presidency.
Rand Paul is no conservative; he’s a quack.
First, as for Obama’s policy change, the in-depth arguments against normalizing relations right now have been superbly laid out by the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-obama-administration-extends-the-castro-regime-in-cuba-a-bailout-it-doesnt-deserve/2014/12/17/a25a15d4-860c-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html), Andrew McCarthy (http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/12/18/what-part-of-keeping-cuba-isolated-has-not-worked/?singlepage=true), Rich Lowry (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/castro-finally-hit-the-jackpot-113664.html#.VJXkbV4DhA), the National Review Online editors (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394949/obama-acts-cuba-editors), Elliott Abrams (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394910/obama-and-cuba-triumph-ideology-over-us-national-interests-elliott-abrams), and Mark Krikorian (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/395092/cuba-either-too-early-or-too-late-mark-krikorian), among others. This column won’t rehash all the arguments. Suffice it to say that while there might be some good arguments for asking Congress to modify the economic sanctions against Cuba, establishing “normal” diplomatic relations sends the horrendous message that human rights and liberty are irrelevant — and that we will ignore (or even reward) a half-century of active hostility 90 miles from our shores even though Cuba has never made amends.
In short, one can argue that some forms of economic liberalization might work in Cuba the same way that perestroika did in Russia — to undermine the regime rather than prop it up. But a greater and rightful world power shouldn’t dignify an evil and far lesser power by offering it diplomatic imprimatur free of charge.
Everybody is entitled to be wrong occasionally, of course. If Paul’s error were only that he conflated the embargo with fully normalized relations, while making a free-market argument for lifting the former, it would be one thing. It’s entirely another thing, and bizarre, to completely up-end the meaning of the word “isolationist” and use it as a cudgel against Senator Rubio, who is far less conventionally isolationist than he. This continues a long pattern of Paul demonstrating a real ignorance of basic concepts of defense and foreign policy.
In October, Paul made a speech (http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1231) at the Center for the National Interest in which he outlined what he called a new “conservative realism.” He was clearly trying to shed the label of “isolationist” that has hobbled his stature among large swaths of the Republican electorate. It was a strange performance. His version of “realism,” despite some tough-talking verbiage, amounted to asserting that “the best outcome” America could have achieved in Iraq was “stalemate”; that “our interventions in foreign countries may well exacerbate . . . hatred”; that the world “does not have an Islam problem” but instead a “dignity problem”; that you “can’t solve a dignity problem with military force”; that “we need a foreign policy that recognizes our limits”; that “in the end, only the people of the region can destroy ISIS,” which will happen when “civilized Islam steps up to defeat this barbaric aberration”; that in the Black Sea region we must “achieve a diplomatic settlement that takes into account Russia’s long-standing ties with Ukraine”; and that “though we will not abide injustice, we will not instigate war.” (Will we never “instigate war” to stop injustice? Would Paul have opposed the rescue of Grenada? The ouster of Noriega from Panama? The moral cause of evicting the Communist North from South Korea?)
Taken individually, most (but not all) of those pronouncements might be defensible. Together, they paint a portrait of a man as uncomfortable with American military and diplomatic robustness, and as naïve about the real nature of our enemies, as any senator this side of George McGovern or Barack Obama.
...
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395186/rand-pauls-cuba-meltdown-quin-hillyer?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=c2CdCT&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook#!c2CdCT
DECEMBER 22, 2014 4:00 AM
Rand Paul’s Cuba Meltdown (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395186/rand-pauls-cuba-meltdown-quin-hillyer)
His mockery of Marco Rubio as “isolationist” reveals Paul as a joke in the foreign-policy arena.
By Quin Hillyer (http://www.nationalreview.com/author/quin-hillyer)
With his enthusiastic support (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/18/presidential-hopeful-rand-paul-backs-obama-on-cuba-deal.html) for Barack Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) again shows that his foreign-policy views are wrongheaded. With his bizarre mislabeling of his views and of those who disagree, Paul shows himself (yet again) to be truly ignorant about foreign affairs. And with his juvenile, nasty, strangely personal attacks on fellow Republican senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Paul shows himself temperamentally unsuited for the presidency.
Rand Paul is no conservative; he’s a quack.
First, as for Obama’s policy change, the in-depth arguments against normalizing relations right now have been superbly laid out by the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-obama-administration-extends-the-castro-regime-in-cuba-a-bailout-it-doesnt-deserve/2014/12/17/a25a15d4-860c-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html), Andrew McCarthy (http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/12/18/what-part-of-keeping-cuba-isolated-has-not-worked/?singlepage=true), Rich Lowry (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/castro-finally-hit-the-jackpot-113664.html#.VJXkbV4DhA), the National Review Online editors (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394949/obama-acts-cuba-editors), Elliott Abrams (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394910/obama-and-cuba-triumph-ideology-over-us-national-interests-elliott-abrams), and Mark Krikorian (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/395092/cuba-either-too-early-or-too-late-mark-krikorian), among others. This column won’t rehash all the arguments. Suffice it to say that while there might be some good arguments for asking Congress to modify the economic sanctions against Cuba, establishing “normal” diplomatic relations sends the horrendous message that human rights and liberty are irrelevant — and that we will ignore (or even reward) a half-century of active hostility 90 miles from our shores even though Cuba has never made amends.
In short, one can argue that some forms of economic liberalization might work in Cuba the same way that perestroika did in Russia — to undermine the regime rather than prop it up. But a greater and rightful world power shouldn’t dignify an evil and far lesser power by offering it diplomatic imprimatur free of charge.
Everybody is entitled to be wrong occasionally, of course. If Paul’s error were only that he conflated the embargo with fully normalized relations, while making a free-market argument for lifting the former, it would be one thing. It’s entirely another thing, and bizarre, to completely up-end the meaning of the word “isolationist” and use it as a cudgel against Senator Rubio, who is far less conventionally isolationist than he. This continues a long pattern of Paul demonstrating a real ignorance of basic concepts of defense and foreign policy.
In October, Paul made a speech (http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1231) at the Center for the National Interest in which he outlined what he called a new “conservative realism.” He was clearly trying to shed the label of “isolationist” that has hobbled his stature among large swaths of the Republican electorate. It was a strange performance. His version of “realism,” despite some tough-talking verbiage, amounted to asserting that “the best outcome” America could have achieved in Iraq was “stalemate”; that “our interventions in foreign countries may well exacerbate . . . hatred”; that the world “does not have an Islam problem” but instead a “dignity problem”; that you “can’t solve a dignity problem with military force”; that “we need a foreign policy that recognizes our limits”; that “in the end, only the people of the region can destroy ISIS,” which will happen when “civilized Islam steps up to defeat this barbaric aberration”; that in the Black Sea region we must “achieve a diplomatic settlement that takes into account Russia’s long-standing ties with Ukraine”; and that “though we will not abide injustice, we will not instigate war.” (Will we never “instigate war” to stop injustice? Would Paul have opposed the rescue of Grenada? The ouster of Noriega from Panama? The moral cause of evicting the Communist North from South Korea?)
Taken individually, most (but not all) of those pronouncements might be defensible. Together, they paint a portrait of a man as uncomfortable with American military and diplomatic robustness, and as naïve about the real nature of our enemies, as any senator this side of George McGovern or Barack Obama.
...