Bachmann and Santorum on Libya

As can be seen from the below section of the GOP candidates’ debate at the Reagan Library last September 7, Rick Santorum supported the illegal and insane military intervention in Libya because, as he put it, it is America’s duty to be “a force for good around the world” and to “spread our vision to the rest of the world.” Further, he makes it clear that he regards any opposition to any U.S. intervention anywhere as “isolationism.”

JOHN HARRIS: I just want to follow up on that. The Arab Spring is a big, big issue in the world. And the question is, what role does the U.S. have, including militarily, to promote democracy and topple dictators? I didn’t hear your answer with respect to Libya.

MICHELE BACHMANN: Well, I believe that it was wrong for the president to go into Libya. Number one, his own secretary of defense, Gates, said that there was no American vital interest in Libya. If there is no vital interest, that doesn’t even meet the threshold of the first test for military involvement.

The other thing is, we didn’t know who the rebel forces were in Libya. Take a look at where we’re at in Libya today.

Take a look at the oil revenues. We don’t know if they will get in the hands of people who will have designs on radical Islam and the implication of a global caliphate. These are very serious issues, and I think it was wrong for the president of the United States to go into Libya.

[applause]

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Senator Santorum, your reaction to Congresswoman Bachmann’s stand on what we’re watching take place in Libya right up until tonight.

RICK SANTORUM: Well, we’re in the Reagan Library, and I’m hearing from at least a couple of people on this panel a very isolationist view of where the Republican Party should be headed about pulling troops out with Governor Huntsman and with Ron Paul. [LA replies: Notice that while he was asked about Bachmann he doesn’t name her in his answer; he names Huntsman and Paul, while referring to “at least” two people on the panel who are isolationists. Clearly, then, Santorum is suggesting that because of Bachmann’s opposition to the intervention in Libya, which was what he was asked about, she, too, is an isolationist.]

The bottom line is, Ronald Reagan was committed to America being a force for good around the world. We were a society that believed in ourselves and believed that we can spread our vision to the rest of the world and make this country a safer country as a result of it.

We didn’t have missions where we put exit strategies saying this date is when we’re going to leave. We didn’t say that we are the problem and the cause of the problems that confront us around the world.

We were—we are a source for good. We could have been a source for good from the very get-go in Libya, but this president was indecisive and confused from the very beginning. He only went along with the Libyan mission because the United Nations told him to, which is something that Ronald Reagan would have melted like the old Wicked Witch of the West before he would have allowed that to happen.

WILLIAMS: Senator, time.

SANTORUM: This is a very important issue for our party. Are we going to stand in the Reagan tradition, or are we going to go the isolationist view that some in this party are advocating?

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

Someone please tell Santorum that the Third International (or Communist International, or Comintern) ended in 1943.

Wikipedia:

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, (1919–1943) was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919. The International intended to fight “by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State.”

The Comintern was a Marxist version of current American globalist interventionism, which finds a vital American interest with every sparrow and with every hair on every head.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 05, 2012 10:58 AM | Send