dmbfan
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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 Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:30 pm Post subject: Hillary's "Smart Power"......just dumb policy. |
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Hillary's 'Smart Power' Just Dumb Policy
Thursday, January 15, 2009 2:27 PM
By: Michael Reagan Article Font Size
Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton told fellow senators during her confirmation hearing that the United States needs to follow a foreign policy of what she called �smart power.�
Sounds impressive, doesn�t it? And just what does it mean? It means whatever you want to think it means. It�s not a policy; it�s just a slogan that sounds good. And who would want to be labeled an opponent of �smart power� even if he hadn�t the vaguest idea of what it means?
What the honorable members of the Senate need to do is delve a little deeper into the kind of foreign policies Clinton and Team Obama propose to implement or have followed. When you do that you�re apt to run smack into an awful lot of stupidity.
A big part of the �smart power� she talks about is the imposition of sanctions on nations that are acting against our interests or threatening world peace or otherwise getting in our face.
Sanctions, Clinton must realize, work only when all the other countries in the world honor them. The �oil for food� program is one good example.
We put sanctions on Saddam Hussein, but the corrupt officials of the United Nations involved in the �oil for food� program made sure that Saddam got everything he needed despite the sanctions, and they made a bundle of money in the process.
The real �smart power� would have been to trust the United Nations while also verifying that it and the Iraqis were doing what they were supposed to do. As my dad said, �Trust but verify.� The President Bill Clinton administration simply trusted, period.
Liberals like Hillary Clinton think a policy of �smart power� would have been to fail to put those Pershing missiles in Western Europe aimed at the Soviet Union during the Cold War. To their minds, it would have been a dangerous provocation instead of a shield that protected Western Europe against armed Soviet aggression.
Under their definition of �smart power,� calling the Soviet Union the �Evil Empire� would have been verboten because it might have offended the tender sensibilities of the murderous thugs in the Kremlin.
Under their notion of what kind of power is smart, invading Grenada to save American lives never would have been allowed. After all, Fidel Castro was well on the way to turning that island nation into a Cuban satellite, and we wouldn�t have wanted to stand in his way.
If the United States had followed �smart power� policies, not only would the Berlin wall be standing but also someone probably would be selling space on our side of the wall for advertising posters. If you accept the idea of the legitimacy of the wall why not take advantage of it and make a few bucks?
Americans should be very wary of slogans that sound good instead of forthright declarations concerning foreign policy. As implementer of President-elect Obama�s foreign policy, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton would be faced with the task of arranging for dialogues with national leaders who don�t like us � or have even stated their determination to bring us to our knees � without making any preconditions.
For starters, under that �smart power� policy, Obama will sit across the negotiating table from Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is busy making plans to rain down a nuclear holocaust on Israel.
Based on the past performance of Hillary Clinton�s husband�s administration, �smart power� meant a period of time when terrorists attacked the U.S. destroyer Cole, killed American troops in Somalia, and attacked the World Trade Center, and Osama bin Laden went unpunished when we had the opportunity to kill or capture him.
That, Madame Secretary-designate, is not smart power. It�s abysmal stupidity.
� 2009 Mike Reagan |
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