Are you mad as hell, America? Are you fed up with everything and everybody? Are you so mad you’re ready for World War III?
Then pick yourself a President from the candidates who took part in last night’s Republican debate.
They were foaming at the mouth, snarling and hissing at one another and promising to take on the rest of the world – no holds barred.
Among the “foreign policies” proposed in last night’s slug fest:
- Carpet-bomb ISIS, laying waste any territory they occupy, and if innocent civilians get in the way, even women and children, that’s just too bad for them
- Â Rid Syria of Assad, regardless of the fallout
- Â Tear up the treaty with Iran and if the Iranians persist in developing a nuclear weapon, wipe them off the face of the earth
- Â Establish a no-fly zone in Syria and Iraq, and shoot down trespassing Russian planes even if it means World War III
- Â Launch cyberwar against China and chase the Chinese out of the South China Sea
To do all this, of course, America is going to need a much bigger and more powerful military. No expense would be spared in expanding the Army, Navy, Air Force and every other fighting force conceivable.
The buildup would also include America’s border patrol. The candidates want thousands of guards added to keep Latin Americans from entering the US illegally.
Nobody spelled out where the funds for the buildup would come from. I assume domestic programs would be slashed. Or, as Rand Paul warned, the national debt would spiral out of control. Or both.
And what about those “boots on the ground”? Where would they come from? Obviously, the draft would have to be reintroduced.
And as for the home front, to hell with political correctness. Under nearly every one of last night’s would-be presidents, the government would spy on us all without compunction, and racial profiling would be not only OK but heartily encouraged.
(The only protest against this policy came from Rand Paul who didn’t think the government should be able to read our emails and listen to our phone calls at will. Paul was also the only candidate who protested against Christie’s call to shoot down those Russian planes.)
And it’s no longer just Donald Trump who would build the Great Wall of China along America’s southern border. As far as I could tell amid the shouting and swaggering, just about everybody on stage wanted to wall off Mexico, although some candidates used the word “fence” instead of “wall.”
Indeed, the debaters all seemed to want America sealed off, especially to Mexicans and Muslims, although there wasn’t unanimous agreement with the way Trump expressed it. At one point Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz had a one-on-one to determine who wanted America sealed off more.
Proposals at this debate sounded to me like a recipe for replacing the America I know with a Third World country, our personal freedoms gone, our standard of living diminished and our relationship with the rest of the world poisoned.
And like North Korea, our resources would be lavished on the military while the population starves.
Everything that makes America exceptional would be sacrificed. The terrorists would have won.
