In a recent interview with Politico, Tim Pawlenty warns the GOP to stay away from "isolationism" on the eve of President Barack Obama's speech to announce the "withdrawal" of over 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012. Tim Pawlenty said "“I don’t like the drift of the Republican Party toward what appears to be a retreat or a move more towards isolationism,”. He also said that "“I wouldn’t be overly anxious to get the troops out of there until we have enough stability and capacity within the Afghanistan security forces to take up the slack. We need to make sure we do not send the message that we are leaving just because we’re tired or just because it’s too difficult."
Tim Pawlenty holds some bad assumptions here. The first bad assumption is that of isolationism. Isolationism is nothing more than a smear word that proponents of perpetual war and interventionism use to silence critics of foreign military adventurism and opponents of an American Empire. There is a clear distinction between isolationism and noninterventionism (the foreign policy that libertarians like Ron Paul support). Noninterventionism is a foreign policy by which a government refuses to fight the wars of other countries and abstains from intervening into the internal affairs of other nations. Noninterventionism is also dedicated to promoting a strong national defense at home, where the military is limited to protecting the country from an attack or invasion by a foreign government on a country's territory. The doctrine of noninterventionism holds that wars should only be entered into for the purpose of self-defense, that is, a country would not initiate a war, but respond to and attack or invasion and drive the aggressor out. Isolationism holds that not only should a country have a noninterventionist foreign policy, but that a country should have a trade policy of high protective tariffs to shield domestic industries from foreign competition. This is what separates isolationism and noninterventionism. Noninterventionists such as myself and Ron Paul support free trade and travel and discourage and despise protective tariffs.
The second bad assumption Tim Pawlenty holds (though not explicitly stated) is that the U.S. needed to invade Afghanistan. It seems like no public official in America ever thinks it was wrong to invade a country whose government had not actually attacked us. There were some alternatives to invading and occupying Afghanistan, which is historically known as the "Graveyard of Empires". One such alternative, which falls in line with our Constitution, is Letters of Marque and Reprisal. The U.S. government could authorize Letters of Marque and Reprisal against Osama Bin Laden and some of his top lieutenants and allow private bounty-hunters to go capture or kill Bin Laden for a certain price. This alternative would have been cheaper compared to all that our country has lost in treasure (and blood for that matter) in a no-win war that has not made the United States any safer, but has in fact, made us less safe. But as a consequence of our invasion of Afghanistan, our country may experience some blowback from our foreign policy in the future in the form of more terrorist attacks. Many proponents of the Afghan War will say that it was necessary for the U.S. to invade Afghanistan because the Taliban had "provided a sanctuary in Afghanistan" for Osama Bin Laden. but this argument has one flaw: Jacob Hornberger asks, if we define sanctuary as a place where terrorists are living when they plot there murderous acts, "then what about the 9/11 terrorists who were living here in the United States prior to the attacks, especially those who were living here by permission of the U.S. government? Would that mean that the U.S. government provided a "sanctuary" for the 9/11 terrorists?
Or how about Germany, where some of the 9/11 terrorists had some of their planning sessions? Was Germany providing a "sanctuary" to them? Of course not. Simply because terrorists are residing in a country when they're conspiring to commit a terrorist act is insufficient to hold the particular regime of that country responsible for the criminal act. Obviously, more is needed to justify an attack against a nation state. Complicity in the attack has to be a necessary prerequisite to justify going to war against a foreign regime." Afghan war proponents will then say that the Taliban "conspired with Al Qaeda". But even this argument is sketchy. Notes Hornberger: "If the U.S. government had any evidence whatsoever that established Taliban complicity in the attacks, don't you think it would have released such evidence by now? Yet, 8 years after the attacks it still hasn't done so, and the only possible reason for that is that no such evidence exists." After 9/11, Bush requested the Taliban to voluntarily turn bin Laden over to the U.S. Does anyone think that Bush would have made such a request if he actually possessed evidence that the Taliban had participated in the attacks? Not a chance. If Bush had had such evidence, he wouldn't have asked the Taliban to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. He would have simply attacked both Afghanistan and al-Qaeda, perhaps even with the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war. In fact, if the Taliban had complied with Bush's request to deliver bin Laden to U.S. forces, it is a virtual certainty that the U.S. would never have attacked the Taliban regime and ousted it from power. " As Scott Horton of Antiwar radio and Congressman Ron Paul have both noted, one of Osama Bin Laden's main goals was to get the United States to overreact to a terrorist attack and to foolishly invade Afghanistan. To Bin Laden and his cohorts, this would allow them to kill Americans on their soil and bankrupt our country and spread ourselves militarily, which is what is currently happening right now. Our country is bankrupt and our military is spread dangerously thin across the globe. This would also stir up hatred for the United States among the Afghan people who are intolerant of a foreign military power occupying their country and turn them into potential terrorists.
The third assumption that Tim Pawlenty holds is that Afghanistan can be made stable. The fact that our government has invaded the country and is occupying it is a big source of instablily. As I noted earlier, American presense in Afghanistan incites the Afghan people to have a hatred for the United States and to want to come over to America to attack and kill Americans. As Jacob Hornberger notes: "Thus, once we understand the motive of people who are intent on doing harm to the United States, the solution becomes obvious: Stop the sanctions and embargoes. Stop the invasions and occupations. Stop the killings, maiming, torture, and abuse. Stop the bombings. Stop the drone attacks. Stop the destruction. Immediately withdraw all troops and bring them home. Terminate all foreign aid, not only to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan but also to every other regime in the world. Stop the U.S. government from meddling in the internal affairs of other countries." Afghanistan by its' very nature is an unstable, heavily decentralized state made up of multiple tribes that are in constant conflict. Occupying such a country with the intent of creating a new central government will cause these tribes to either fight each other to gain the new powers of the central government, or cause them to unite for the time being a expel the occupying power. The new Afghan government has proven itself to be rife with corruption and abuse of power. So why should the American tax-payer be forced to pay for the construction and protection of this new corrupt centralized government.
On Wednesday, June 22, 2011, President Obama gave a speech in which he outlined his plan to withdraw American troops. Some critics say that his plan is "too fast". I say, his plan is too slow and it assumes an almost permanent military presence in the country. Remember when he campaigned on ending the Iraq war? Well, the U.S. is still occupying Iraq. Remember when he positioned himself as a peace president? Well that was a lie as President Obama has expanded the Afghan war, escalated drone attacks in Pakistan, bombing Yemen and building a military base outside of Yemen to facilitate and support such attacks, unconstitutionally started a war in libya, and continues to occupy Iraq. There is no sign to me that President Obama is serious about ending these wars. Therefore, it is time the United States terminate all these wars in the Middle East, bring the troops home (not just from the Middle East, but from all around the world), defend this country, and return to the constitutional, traditional, and pro-American foreign policy of noninterventionism as advocated and advised by our Founding Fathers. This would make America more safe, more prosperous, and more free.
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