McCain rips Republican candidates for "isolationism"
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) speaks to Australia's Defence Minister Stephen Smith before a plenary session of the 10th International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit: The Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 4, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Tim Chong
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain, his party's 2008 presidential nominee, ripped into the current crop of Republican White House contenders, accusing them of breaking party tradition by preaching "isolationism."
McCain said if former President Ronald Reagan were still alive he would have been disappointed in last week's Republican presidential debate in which candidates voiced impatience with U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya.
"He would be saying: That's not the Republican Party of the 20th century, and now the 21st century. That is not the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people for all over the world," McCain said.
McCain made the comments in an interview with ABC's "This Week" program that was broadcast on Sunday.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who was one of McCain's top advisers in the 2008 campaign, echoed McCain's concerns.
Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if he's fearful "that there is an isolationist streak now running now through the Republican Party, Graham said, "Yes."
"If you think the pathway to the GOP (Republican) nomination in 2012 is to get to Barack Obama's left on Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, you are going to meet a lot of headwinds," Graham said.
At their first major debate last Monday, Republican White House hopefuls questioned the wisdom of U.S. fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya.
Their performances marked a stark difference from just a few years ago.
In 2004, then Republican President George W. Bush successfully won a second term by embracing his war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the 2008 campaign, McCain and other Republicans also supported Bush's surge of troops in Iraq.
But at last week's debate in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates made it clear that times have changed.
'A WAR OF INDEPENDENCE'
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, seen as the early front-runner for the Republican nomination, reflected the sentiment of many of those hoping to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama in next year's election.
"Our troops should not go off and fight a war of independence for another country." Romney said. "Only the Afghanis can win Afghanistan's independence from the Taliban."
McCain said he was not ready to endorse any candidate for his party's 2012 presidential nomination, but is concerned about what he heard from them in the debate.
"This is isolationism. There's always been an isolation strain in the Republican Party," McCain said. "But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak."
McCain said that some of the opposition from Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail to current military efforts is the result of partisan politics.
House of Representatives Republican leaders have warned they could move legislation to cut off funds for operations in Libya.
"I would say to my Republican friends: If this were a Republican president, would you be trying to impose these same conditions?" McCain said.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
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To McCain and the new Democrat war hawks, we are following in the footsteps that led to the destruction of the USSR. Every bomb you drop, every rebel’s cause you pick up to oust another government, creates new enemies. Forcing your brand of freedom and Democracy on other nations does not better our way of life in the United States, and it rarely betters the lives of the people you are bombing and killing.
I am afraid that Obama is creating a new generation of NeoCon warhawks by his actions in Libya. It is sad to see the puppets support US interventionalism only when their partie’s president is in charge, and rail against it when it is the other partie’s president. Considering we can’t afford these wars and at this time are facing the inevitable realization that we can not pay our bills, you would think we would be taking the necessary steps to protect our country rather than starting new operations in new countries. The US is nothing but a bully in the international stage dictating what government should succeed and which one should be overthrown. And we wonder why many people the world over hate us. It isn’t because of Bush or Obama or Clinton or Bush or Reagan. It is because we dominate the world with our policies at the cost of human lives, and American wealth.
Isolationism was traditional in the Republican Party excepting the two major world wars. Commonplace, often couched in legitimate concerns over maintaining the independence from imperial war afforded by geography. More often, I believe, than simple loyalties to the kind of fascist-minded imperial powers initiating “local’ wars – the style often preferred by the Brits, Italians, French colonlialists.
McCain is not only limited by being a product of the Cold War – but, his own ignorance. No surprise. I believe he was in the bottom 1% of his class at Annapolis.
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