If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty – not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.
I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our Armed Forces. But this is pure demagoguery, and it is intellectually dishonest.
What is not conservative about saying, ‘Don’t go to war unless we go to war properly with a full declaration of war and no other way?’
There’s nothing wrong with being a Conservative and coming up with a Conservative believe in foreign policy where we have a strong national defense and we don’t go to war so carelessly.
Think of what happened after 9/11, the minute before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat.
Throughout the 20th century, the Republican Party benefited from a non-interventionist foreign policy. Think of how Eisenhower came in to stop the Korean War. Think of how Nixon was elected to stop the mess in Vietnam.
In time it will become clear to everyone that support for the policies of pre-emptive war and interventionist nation-building will have much greater significance than the removal of Saddam Hussein itself.
Another term for preventive war is aggressive war – starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition.
Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.