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The Spectacle Blog
Is newly minted Libertarian Gary Johnson an antiwar candidate or just a cheap hawk? The Daily Caller tries to pin him down.
While Johnson positions himself as a strong anti-war candidate who wants to cut the defense budget by 43 percent, he told TheDC that he supports America’s efforts to aid African troops in tracking down Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and that he wouldn’t rule out leaving behind American bases in Afghanistan.
Johnson said that while he wants to end the war in Afghanistan, that doesn’t mean he would necessarily stop drone attacks against terrorists in Pakistan or Yemen, even though he believes they create more enemies than they kill.
Johnson was relatively dovish on Iran but repeated his openness to humanitarian interventions abroad: “I don’t want to close the door that if any of us were president of the United States that we would sit idly by and watch something like the Holocaust go down.” Johnson also signaled that some presence in the Middle East might be necessary.
Now, there is nothing wrong with being selective in the use of military force. Being involved everywhere or nowhere may be consistent, but it isn’t necessarily a sound foreign policy. Yet it is difficult to discern an overarching strategy or philosophy here that would influence or dictate when the United States would intervene. Back when Johnson was still running as a Republican, I noted that he was at a disadvantage against Ron Paul because he was less conservative on social issues and less radical on the issues of war and peace that drive Paul’s libertarian base.
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More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/04/10/gary-johnsons-foreign-policy
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Zbigniew Mazurak | 4.10.12 @ 1:36PM
"While Johnson positions himself as a strong anti-war candidate who wants to cut the defense budget by 43 percent, he told TheDC that he supports America’s efforts to aid African troops in tracking down Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and that he wouldn’t rule out leaving behind American bases in Afghanistan."
The answer is clear. He's an extremely leftist dove. And the above quote proves it. He would cut the defense budget by a whopping 43% (an arbitrary figure, BTW), thus completely gutting the military, while keeping American troops and bases in irrelevant, useless countries like Afghanistan and giving aid to sides in irrelevant, murky, internecine conflicts.
That's the worst foreign policy imaginable: gutting America's military completely while involving the US in irrelevant conflicts and picking sides in those conflicts. He, like Obama, would intervene abroad for "humanitarian" reasons alone in irrelevant countries, even if US interests are not at stake.
The RIGHT foreign policy course for America is the one which conservatives such as (in all modesty) myself outlined many months ago: not cutting defense (at least not deeply) while rethinking America's military commitments and overstretchment around the world and obeying the Weinberger Doctrine (which means not involving US troops in combat UNLESS AND UNTIL crucial American interests are at stake, and even then, deploying them only wholeheartedly, with everything they need, and with clear goals and a clear strategy to accomplish them). Or, as James Antle has written here:
"Being involved everywhere or nowhere may be consistent, but it isn't necessarily a sound foreign policy."
Hardy| 4.10.12 @ 8:19PM
"43% (an arbitrary figure, BTW)" -- it is not arbitrary. It is how much we need to cut to balance the budget that is 1.6 trillion dollars over budget.
Also it doesn't gut the military. It returns it to pre-war 2003 (post 9/11) levels.
Red Phillips | 4.10.12 @ 2:03PM
Jim, I just linked to this post at Independent Political Report.
All indications are that Johnson is headed for a near coronation at the Libertarian Convention. Likewise, the Constitution Party seems poised to nominate Virgil Goode, who has yet, as far as I know, to walk back from his Iraq War and Patriot Act votes. Odds are good that conservative non-interventionists will have no real non-interventionist option to vote for in November.
Third Party people are easy marks for ex-elected officials from the major parties, even when they don't accord with the party's platform. It's really kinda pathetic.
Red Phillips | 4.10.12 @ 5:24PM
"You, on the other hand, don't care because freedom is meaningless to you."
Occam, you don't even believe that. You are in no danger of living under Sharia except possibly for demographic reason in the far future, which is, for the 1000th time, an immigration issue rather than a military one.
As I have said before, and this is for ZM as well, we could defend this country from invasion by any Middle Eastern country with a typical Fall Saturday allotment of dear hunters and you know it.
Your fearful Chicken Little hysteria is so unbecoming. Would you please grow a pair so that I don’t have to continually read your hysterical alarmist rantings.
Red Phillips | 4.10.12 @ 5:26PM
Oops ... this reply was supposed to be under Occam's post below.
Occam's Tool| 4.10.12 @ 2:23PM
Red: so sorry that you are frustrated. But that's what AnastasiaDate is for. You'll see it frequently come up on side bars here.
Me, I've got a family and kids, and oppose the spread of Sharia because no one harasses my daughter. You, on the other hand, don't care because freedom is meaningless to you.
Mike| 4.10.12 @ 3:31PM
I still believe drone attacks are completely unAmerican.
Eric Dondero | 4.10.12 @ 4:21PM
So, is James saying here that he's Pro-Holocaust? He would never intervene anywhere on the globe for any humanitarian reason?
Wow. He's a freakish Ron Paulist in the extreme. Always suspected so.
W. James Antle III | 4.10.12 @ 5:00PM
Um, no, I'm not "Pro-Holocaust" nor do I disagree with fighting Hitler in World War II, as members of my family did.
This is a typical "Dondero leap" in logic. Always suspected so.
Hardy | 4.10.12 @ 8:22PM
Seems like Johnson is where most Americans want the US to be. Not isolationist and not completely oblivious to issues such as the holocaust, but also not sticking our nose into every country in the world's business nation building, fighting wars for daddy, or protecting oil companies interests.
C Bowen | 4.10.12 @ 9:19PM
Foreign policy based on facebook likes is certainly where American foreign policy is headed.
C Bowen | 4.10.12 @ 9:18PM
Mr. Antle;
Not that A3P is going anywhere electorally, but they might end up the only, traditional non-interventionist party on the Right.
If things play out, the Realists really have their work cut for them...
Red Phillips | 4.11.12 @ 1:03PM
"they might end up the only, traditional non-interventionist party on the Right"
I don't think the Constitution Party is abandoning non-interventionism; it just may not be enough of a barrier to deprive Goode of the nomination. As I said, third party folks are easy marks for the likes of Johnson, Goode, Barr, McKinney, etc.