My good friend Chris from Two Babes and a Brain continues her love affair with Joe Biden; this time with an absurd treatise on what Mr. Tooth Flash thinks America should do in the area of foreign policy. I shall set her, and him, straight (again).Biden's dissertation begins with a story that all politicians love to tell called The Lighthouse. You see, even though Biden knowsthat Washington (and the Bush administration) is the Lighthouse in this story, he has to insist that as the Captain on the battleship he is right too. And we can always count on Biden to insist that America change her course...
Biden accurately describes the situation thusly: "We must win the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. And we must keep the world's most dangerous weapons away from its most dangerous people." Hurrah. Well said. The problem, of course, is what he says next: "To prevail, I believe we need a new approach...and a new compact with our major allies around the world." Allow me to translate: He agrees with President Bush on what the problem is, but insists that John Kerry's solution was the right one. We've already had this election and the liberal lost. America needs to defend herself. If our allies are truly our friends, they will stand beside us as most of our allies have. If they are not our true friends, they will act like France, Germany, Russia, and the United Nations - namely, they will deal with our enemies and obstruct the just course of action at every turn. Biden would have us believe that France, Germany, Russia and the UN are more important than American soverignty, power, and prestige. America doesn't need allies, Senator, but we are more than happy to have them.
Of course, Biden then slams the Iraq war as an "optional" one. Wrong again. Saddam Hussein was a factor in the terror network. Iraq was a rogue nation that wanted weapons of mass destruction. There are those who say that the inspections racket was working, but if you really read those reports, as I have, you will discover that Saddam and his cronies were merely waiting for what Joe Biden and his buddies France, Germany, Russia and the UN wanted to do: eliminate the sanctions. Set aside the WMD argument, and there were plenty of other reasons to go (you can read all about those here).
Again, Biden returns to this crazy notion that America stands alone, with no allies, and the world hates us, and whine, whine, whine, cry, cry, cry... Of course, none of this is true. Are there dangers? Yes. The dangers are very real. Employing both the carrot and the stick is the answer. Biden would never use the stick...and that is why he fails to impress me. His rhetoric about how strong our military is indicates to me that he would rather talk about how strong the military is rather than prove it by using it. If there is no circumstance under which you would use force, and I have never heard Biden indicate that there is such a situation, then the only tool in your bag is the carrot... The carrot, in this case is appeasement, but more on that in a minute...
More Biden:
We need a foreign policy based both on the force of our arms and on the power of our ideas and our ideals.Let's critique each of these "requirements."
That will require three things:
Building effective alliances and international organizations.
Forging a prevention strategy to diffuse threats to security long before they are on the verge of exploding while retaining the right to act preemptively in the face of imminent danger.
And reforming failed or anti-democratic states that are sources of instability, radicalism, and terror.
"Effective" alliances and international organizations? Our alliance with France is not effective. Our alliance with Germany is not effective. Our alliance with Russia is not effective. Our alliance with the United Nations is not effective. Who does Biden think we should ally with? As usual, he doesn't say. Why? Because he thinks we should ally with France, Germany, Russia, and the UN.
What "prevention strategy"? Again, Biden leaves us in the dark. Why? Because he doesn't have a prevention strategy. Diffusing threats isn't something that can be accomplished with Mr. Biden's patented Tooth Flash. Where is the substance of this strategy? Saying that we need a plan is not a plan...nor is it a solution.
"Reforming failed or anti-democratic states" sounds an awful lot like Saddam's Iraq to me. Tell me, Senator, how was that an "optional" war again?
As usual, Biden continues to belittle the efforts of the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts. Biden refuses to accept that the administration rightly chose to use the carrot with North Korea. There were very valid reasons for doing so, but chief among them was the belief that North Korea was too close to developing nuclear weapons to use a military intervention as an effective deterent. If Biden's assertion that the administration was true, we would have troops in North Korea right now. Do we? Then Biden, as usual, is lying to the American people. You simply can't talk about making changes to foreign policy without talking about both Iraq and North Korea. And you certainly can't just ignore what is going on in Iran.
Biden's approach to Iran is the exact opposite of what would be an effective strategy. He proposes using American carrots and European sticks. This approach clearly demonstrates Biden's mental midget status. America is The Great Satan in Iran. Why is that? Because we are a powerhouse. Iran couldn't accept our carrots if they wanted to. And European sticks? That sound you are hearing is me laughing. Hard. Europe hasn't had an effective fighting force since WWII. At least not a complete package. There are some fantastic individual units in European forces, but nothing that would frighten Iran. In order for the carrots and sticks approach to work, Iran HAS to be afraid of the stick. They aren't. Why? Because Iran knows that Europe has been taken over by uber-liberal socialists that lack the political will to win.
Biden would place America's security in the hands of the United Nations and that is not acceptable. He clearly would prefer to rely on diplomacy (except for North Korea, where apparently the talking didn't deter Kim Jong Il from increasing his nuclear arsenal by 400%. Maybe Bush should have tried celery instead of a carrot???) And he demonstrated his disdain for using the military.
Remember when I mentioned appeasement? Biden says that it should be clear that America could use its military without asking for anybody's permission and then within two paragraphs he is talking about containment and deterrence. "Containment" and "deterrence", he says, got us through the Cold War. And that is true, but containment and deterrence did not win the Cold War, engagement did. Now, he does say that containment and deterrence will not carry the day against an enemy that is amassing "stealthy weapons instead of visible armies" but he doesn't say he would engage our eneimes at home or abroad.
There are seven more pages of this stuff and none of it comes close to resembling an actual plan. What I see is the typical rambling that is high on style and low on actual substance. What is his plan? I've read this nine page volume and I still don't know. I don't even see the idea for a plan... Look, I know it is impossible to solve the problem of world peace in nine hundred pages, let alone nine, but seriously Senator if you are going to complain, the least you should do is provide an alternative. You have continued to fail to do so. But don't let that stop you from smearing the efforts of those who are at least trying to get it done.
