Containment was stupid

Rand Paul’s Foreign Policy Speech at Heritage

Sure, not as stupid as the Republican conservatives’ rollback position.

But stupid, all the same.

Sheer capitalist panic in the hearts of the plutocracy as they faced Stalin’s refusal to back away from the parts of Central Europe the Red Army was sitting in at the end of the Second World War.

And “the fall of China,” too, of course.

As though we ever had the least reason to give a damn about China.

The same “red menace” nobody worried that much about after the Great War was suddenly supposed to scare us all silly after the Second World War because it scared the American - and terrified the European! - rich.

There was never any good reason for Americans to fight – much less die – to prevent North Korea from overrunning South Korea or North Vietnam from doing the same to South Vietnam.

There was never any reason to worry about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia threatening the US, the world, or anyone outside Cambodia.

And so we didn’t!

There was never any trail of dominoes leading all the way back to San Francisco.

Nor from anywhere in Europe to New York, come to that.

And now, with the imaginary threat of global Communism gone, what’s the point supposed to be?

Oh, wait.

We need to contain Iran.

I see.

Still stupid, friends.

Just asking for trouble, meddling where we’re not wanted and have no need to be.

(And maybe China. And maybe Russia. And maybe . . . . )