US Presidential Elections 2012

[Hamilton Saint]

This whole thread is mostly useless. Sure, there was a decision made, but what changes?

 

Well, this whole forum is mostly useless, too. But it helps to pass the time, eh?

[Dark Munster]

No - there is really no significant doctrinal difference in the way the two parties approach foreign policy. Differences in nuance and expression, perhaps. But the fundamental thrust is the same.

I've lived here for more than 20 years, and I can assure you that there is a huge difference between the two. From an elephant's mouth:

 

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

[saint1977]

I was pleased Obama was re-elected and even more delighted that the Tea Party got smashed to tiny bits everywhere bar Texas. This should make the budget negotiations a bit more feasible and dare it say it not hijacked by the far right to same extent. It is always good to see extremism fail in any part of the world, time for the Republicans to wake up and smell the coffee and let the Tea Party split off as a seperate loonies party.

[jjsaint]

I was pleased Obama was re-elected and even more delighted that the Tea Party got smashed to tiny bits everywhere bar Texas. This should make the budget negotiations a bit more feasible and dare it say it not hijacked by the far right to same extent. It is always good to see extremism fail in any part of the world, time for the Republicans to wake up and smell the coffee and let the Tea Party split off as a seperate loonies party.

 

This. I'm normally right-leaning but I think the USA (and thereby most of the rest of the world) dodged a bullet on 6 November.

[Hamilton Saint]

I've lived here for more than 20 years, and I can assure you that there is a huge difference between the two. From an elephant's mouth:

 

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

 

I agree that there are huge differences in domestic policy - obviously. But my point was about foreign policy. US foreign policy is not dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It is not established by individual administratons - it is governed primarily by long-standing geo-political considerations.

 

If you look at the post-war (WWII) period, US foreign policy followed the doctrinal world-view of George Kennan, who established the doctrine of "containment". This theory set the scene for the entire Cold War period - the US worked to contain the spread of communism. Didn't matter if it was a Democratic administration (Kennedy tried to invade Cuba, provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis, and escalated the War in Vietnam, etc.) or a Republican administration (Nixon used the CIA to depose the Allende regime in Chile, Reagan armed the contras in Nicaragua, etc.). Administrations of both stripes have also been staunch supporters of Israel and suppliers of arms to regimes of all sorts around the world - democratic, semi-democratic, and tyrannical (as long as they were anti-communist). Despotic regimes have been supported surreptitiously by both Democratic and Republican administrations.

 

In the post-Cold War era, there was a brief period of opportunity to establish a "peace dividend" - but the events of 9/11 allowed the military-industrial complex, and its philosophical enablers, to use the threat of Al Qaeda-type terrorism to establish "a war between civilizations" scenario to dominate the geo-political discussion. Obama, for example, (who got a premature Nobel Peace Prize, remember) has not eliminated the un-constitutional aspects of Homeland Security. He hasn't eliminated the facilities at Guantanamo Bay. And he has escalated state-terror in the Middle East, engaging in illegal assassinations on foreign soil.

 

What I'm saying is that there are deep layers of hidden policy and doctrine that constrain and impel presidents to pursue foreign policy goals, regardless of their own political stripe.

Edited 12 November, 2012 by Hamilton Saint