We’re a little behind today on our column for this week
because we must have missed the memo – the one that said “Meet the Press” was
starting a half an hour earlier than normal on the East Coast, the region from
which this column is generated.
Our thinking heading into 2015 isn’t quite as optimistic as
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tom Barrasso's (R-WY) that they shared at the
end of their joint interview. Call us a bit pensive, a little skeptical but that’s
because we have a wait and see
attitude toward the 2015 Congress.
Why do we think it's can be more of the same seven abrazo
gave us that indication when he said the top priority was to repeal the health
care law. If that's their top priority then they're going to have a lot of
symbolic votes, nothing is really going to get done, and we’ll be hanging on to
nothing for another two years.
Having their sole attention on repealing health care would
be a mistake, especially given this rough start that the Republican-controlled
Congress is having. Congressman
Steve Scalise (R-LA), part of the
new leadership that's coming into the House at the beginning of the year, is a
Louisiana politician - we would have to agree with Matt Bai from Yahoo News - there is no way that Mr. Scalise could
not have known that EURO (European-American Unity and Rights Organization) was
a group founded by David Duke, and has a philosophy of white supremacy. There's
no way that he could not have known that.
Senator Klobuchar actually gave Republicans very sound
advice if they want to clean this up, so to speak, by going ahead with the Voting Rights bill,
immigration reform, tax reform - other things beside healthcare that would
assist in endearing them a little bit more to minority communities.
The big elephant in the room for Republicans right now –
what they cannot mention - is that the economy is picking up and it's doing
well and it will probably continue through 2015. This is something that gives
us reason to be semi-optimistic about the coming year. The problem we have is
our semi-permanent state of trepidation because we don't know what Congress is
going to do next that would upset that trend.
Another key aspect of the Republicans’ agenda is going to be
energy, and central to that policy is the Keystone pipeline. Our feeling right
now is that we don't really need the Keystone pipeline. It is said that it'll
create 42,000 jobs, which is a lot of jobs, but those jobs will be temporary
and over the years it will net out to be about 21,000 jobs. Is it worth it for
the potential environmental damage that the pipeline can do? Probably not
because the job argument isn't a very solid one. If the United States is to perpetually profiting from the
pipeline, in a big way, then we could understand doing it. But, as it stands,
the pipeline is going to be used by Canada to ship its oil to the Gulf to be
picked up and then sold to the rest of the world, not the United States. That's
not really a great deal for the U.S., however it will bear the cost of any
damage done to the drinking water or our soil. This column does not consist of
gooey environmentalists, however on this point practicality and long-term
potential damage are two key aspects that need to be considered. We just don't
think the pipeline is the priority that Republicans say it is. The only
question is - will the United
States get a long-term positive from this pipeline, and to that we would have
to say, “no.”
And speaking of “semi-permanent," there's the United
States finding itself in a semi-permanent state of war. We've been in
Afghanistan over 13 years and Iraq over 11 years. We still have 11,000 troops
in Afghanistan and 3,000 now back Iraq.
One of today's guests Lieut. Gen. Daniel Bolger (ret.), appearing on
today’s program, wrote a column about why the United States has lost the war.
He said that right now we are in a salvage and damage control mode in both
Afghanistan and Iraq. We were never clear to begin with what the definition of
"winning" was. Is winning defined as building democracies in these nations
that we've invaded? That is setting the bar very high for the definition of
"win."
With regard to Iraq, we can't help but think of the strategy
that the United States employed with Japan in 1945. The United States bombed
Japan into complete and utter destruction and then we built that country, a
country in which then became a democracy that we were friends partners and deep
allies with ever since. Was that our hope for Iraq? With Japan, it was a strategy that worked. However in Iraq,
the weakness of different groups of people coming together to form a stable
government simply doesn't exist in Iraq. Then you factor in rogue elements like
ISIS, Iran, and oil dictatorships like Qatar, the goal that the United States
has set for that region to have flourishing democracies in that region is a
long shot.
With regard to Afghanistan and Iraq there are things to be
salvaged. Whatever the government is in Iraq salvaging the situation means that
there would not be an extremist government in power that limited human rights.
With regard to Afghanistan salvaging means not having the Taliban take control
of the country again.
As far as damage control, we are frankly beyond the point of
reconciliation there. The damage that has been caused by the United States's
invasion of Iraq specifically is irreparable. The only real influence that the
United States hats in Iraq is through the military. Culturally and economically,
Iran exerts much more influence over the Iraq he government. In short, as we've
said many times in this column, the invasion of Iraq was folly because it was
motivated by greed.
These aren't full-scale wars anymore but we are in a state
of semi-permanent war. The United States continues to fire missiles and drop
bombs on our enemies even though we are winding down military operations in
both these countries.
Given this state, there is reason to carry some optimism
about the United States's foreign policy. As we've seen Pres. Barack Obama once
our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And we also know that Sen. Rand Paul
(R-KY) once the United States to move in a direction in which we intervene
militarily in every conflict around the globe. Then there is former Sen. Jim
Webb (D-VA) who was a Republican and is now a Democrat, probably running for
president, who also doesn't want to see the United States on a perpetual war
footing. So the glimmer of optimism is in the fact that there is bipartisan
support for the US to adjust its military interventionist policy.
We've always said that when it comes to US foreign policy
our congressional leaders should speak with one voice. With the state of things
as they are a little bipartisan cooperation in this regard would go a long way.
Here's to everyone having a great 2015.
Panel: John Stanton, BuzzFeed Media;
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Helene Cooper, The
New York Times; Matt Bai, Yahoo News
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