Wes Riddle’s Horse Sense #366

Foreign Policy Challenges Face the Next President

The biggest thing in the news and on people’s minds lately, and understandably, has been the credit crunch and implicitly the extent to which it threatens financial institutions and poses a threat to economic wellbeing in the country and indeed around the world. Boys and girls on Wall Street screwed up, and their mistakes trickle down a lot quicker than the obscene profits do. Effects could be stagflation, unemployment, not to mention declining value of stock, which affects so many savings and investment vehicles like mutual funds or retirement accounts.

Address by United States Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, before the U.S. Congress, July, 20, 2006

Before the U.S. House of Representatives, July 20, 2006

I rise in opposition to this resolution, which I sincerely believe will do more harm than good.

I do agree with the resolution's condemnation of violence. But I am convinced that when we get involved in foreign conflicts and send strong messages, such as this resolution will, it ends up expanding the war rather than diminishing the conflict, and that ultimately comes back to haunt us.

Between the Alps & A Hard Place: Switzerland in World War II and Moral Blackmail Today by Angelo Codevilla. Hardcover: 480 pages. (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2000), Amazon.com $27.95.

Review by Ryan Setliff

As former defense analyst Angelo Codevilla documents in his book Between the Alps & A Hard Place: Switzerland in World War II and Moral Blackmail Today, the Swiss have been wrongly slandered, scapegoated and extorted for their role in WWII as a neutral power, and were no more culpable for the Holocaust than the United States was. They had nothing to gain from declaring war on Germany, and it would have only meant more loss of life. As Winston Churchill recalled, "of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right distinction... She has been a Democratic State, standing for freedom in self-defense among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."

With the precision of a veteran intelligence analyst, the respected Angello Codevilla offers an accurate assessment of Switzerland's geostrategic situation with a chapter-by-chapter breakdown on economics, political, and military considerations for the tiny alpine nation before and during WWII.

The Swiss people have a proud past and are one of the more unique countries in Europe, since it's a confluence of cultures situated on the Alps at the ceiling of Europe. Switzerland encompasses cantons that speak four languages including French, German, Romansch, and Italian. Swiss confederates united against the counts of Habsburg on the Rütli back to 1307. Their confederation began to grow and take shape as an alliance against the domineering Hapsburg dynasty as the Holy Roman Empire was slowly withering away. The Swiss patriarch is William Tell who personifies their patriotic spirit. The Swiss have a firey zeal for local self-government and have preserved their relatively decentralized federal body politic. Over the years, the Swiss have gained some renown for their reputation as international bankers and fine craftsman whether it is as manufacturers of precision machinery, watches or firearms. Today, the Swiss have a prosperous market economy—with one of the highest standards of living in the world and they continue their traditions of local self-government. So, one may wonder why were the freedom-loving Swiss bullied and slandered as Hitler's willing executioners by the mass media around the turn of the century?

Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe by Martin Merideth. (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2002.) Hardcover: 243 pages. Amazon Price: Available Used.

Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe chronicles the tyrannical rule of Robert Mugabe, from his heyday as a revolutionary guerilla who was captured an imprisoned to a victorious leader in what was initially to be a coalition government in the 1970's with Ian Smith's Rhodesian white colonials, the various black factions, and Mugabe's ZANU party in unity. Recently he said he could be a "black Hitler ten-fold" in a political speech. By the early 1980's, Mugabe eschewed the idea of a coalition government, opting instead for total consolidation of rule by his party. Mugabe through Machiavellian manipulations managed to scapegoat the political opposition in the public eye through deceptive propaganda. Thereafter, he justified bloody purges ostensibly for the purposes of stifling his contrived threat of a coup d'etat. Mugabe's violence obviously only served to swell political opposition—both white and black. Browbeaten white farmers gradually dropped the conciliatory posturing as their farms were confiscated and family members were murdered.

U.S. Role in Islamist Terrorism by Ivan Eland
July 2, 2007

When U.S. government officials and foreign policy pundits discuss terrorism, they usually focus on the characteristics, personnel, history, tactics, targets, objectives and effects of terrorist organizations. They rarely talk about motives.

Address by United States Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), before the U.S. Senate, July 26, 1949

Why did I vote against the Atlantic Pact? I wanted to vote for it-at least I wanted to vote to let Russia know that if she attacked western Europe, the United States would be in the war. I believe that would be a deterrent to war…. We issued just this warning in the Monroe Doctrine, and though we were a much less powerful nation, it prevented aggression against Central and South America. That was only a President’s message to Congress, and there were no treaty obligations, and no arms for other nations. But it was one of the most effective peace measures in the history of the world. I would favor a Monroe Doctrine for western Europe.

Address by United States Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, before the United Nations Security Council, January 20, 2000

Mr. President, Distinguished Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I genuinely appreciate your welcoming me here this morning. You are distinguished world leaders and it is my hope that there can begin, this day, a pattern of understanding and friendship between you who serve your respective countries in the United Nations and, those of us who serve not only in the United States Government but also the millions of Americans whom we represent and serve.

Fool's Errands: America's Recent Encounters With Nation Building (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2001), Retail: $19.95.

Fool's Errands: America's Recent Encounters With Nation Building is a terse analysis and overview of Clinton foreign policy maladministration. It succinctly captures his sad legacy of nation building efforts in the 1990s. Driven by naïve Wilsonian idealism, perhaps rosy views of human nature, and a quixotic fixation with seeing "democratic enlargement," the Clinton State Department presided over one foreign policy boondoggle after the other. Nation building efforts in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo were all entered with the best of intentions. Nonetheless, the end results were spurious victories with limited successes and arguably outright failures in some cases where intervention caused more harm than good. Some contests deemed triumphs are perhaps Pyrrhic victories at best. In such cases, US/UN/NATO babysitting (i.e. peacekeeping) has been deemed semi-permanent, political tripwires are everywhere, and an uneasy peace ensues.

Christianity and War: And Other Essays Against the Warfare State by Laurence Vance. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006) Amazon.com Price: $8.95

Review by Ryan Setliff

Christianity and War: And Other Essays Against the Warfare State is a trenchant collection of thirteen essays by Laurence Vance, which has one fundamental and reverberating theme-opposition to the warfare state that robs us of our liberty, substance, and sometimes our lives. Vance takes issue with mindless evangelicals that twist Scripture and are persistently in the amen corner of the warfare state. Vance itinerates the just war theory of Murray Rothbard, and reminds us that: