Pro-war Palin campaigning early
Sarah Palin’s appearance on Sean Hannity’s program last month was not only vital plug for her new book, but also a preliminary campaign tactic for the 2012 election for the woman who claims she is “not retreating from politics, just reloading.”
The former governor of Alaska, whose foreign policy during last year’s election was simply a regurgitation of Bush era practices, felt that the time spent penning her memoir made her an expert on international relation. However, what she revealed to Hannity was not an insightful evaluation of President Obama’s military strategy, but an insistence that the U.S. continue “fighting the war on terror”—the same stale rhetoric uttered by the Republican candidates in 2008. According to Palin, the current administration should implement a surge strategy resembling the one that “worked in Iraq” or “risk failure” in Afghanistan, yet she failed to explain how an almost decade-long occupation of Iraq has been a success.
It is apparent—and has been apparent—the likely Republican presidential candidate has aligned herself with her conservative colleagues who, despite public opposition and economic restraints, continue to push for an increase of military spending. General McCrystal’s request for 40,000 troops was unquestioned by conservative politicians seeking to expand Western-economic influence into the few nations that have remained unscathed by American imperialism. Why wouldn’t the U.S. military want a surge? The longer the U.S. remains at war, the federal budget will continue to reflect the nations top priority—military spending.
Palin cited a “return to the 9/12 mentality” as her foreign policy—a classic example of conservative linguistic manipulation—in an attempt to incite the demographic still convinced that terrorist organizations “hate us for our freedoms.” Bush’s ability to transcend the events of Sept. 11 into a full-fledged military effort aimed at an innocent nation seem to have influenced Palin—she is attempting to re-direct civilian anger at Iran and Russia as Bush did with Iraq.
Obama’s decision to remove missile defense systems from the Czech Republic and Poland—perhaps the president’s single diplomatic achievement—was a “mistake,” according to Palin. The former governor opposes the military maneuver that eased the tensions that existed between the U.S. and Russia during Bush’s quasi cold war not because she feels there is a looming threat from the East, but because military presence in the former Soviet bloc would “pressure Russia to threaten and control Iran.”
Strengthening the efforts of contemporary American imperialism appears to be Palin’s foreign policy. The age of the American frontier has long been over, but the expansive practices of Manifest Destiny are still prevalent in Palin’s “pioneering spirit.” The former governor called for tougher sanctions on Iran, which include “cutting Iranian imports of refined uranium to Iraq,” thereby suffocating the Iranian economy by imposing restrictions on its main exported good.
Palin shifted the conversation from her oppressive stance on international economics to the fiscal predicament plaguing American consumers. The self-proclaimed “Reagan conservative” was under the impression that her degree in broadcast journalism entitled her to offer the already misinformed Fox News viewers her opinion on the U.S.’s consumer-driven economy. The former governor was quick to label the current president a socialist who should be perceived as a “threat to individuals, small businesses, and free market principals.” As a student of Reaganonomics , Palin’s understanding of small businesses—“financial institutions, health care, and the auto industry”—coincides with the conservative ideology that historically promotes the financial well-being of the largest “private” institutions while consistently blurring the distinction between a modest, localized entrepreneur and a multi-national corporation.
The 2012 presidential election should prove to be interesting. I would like to think that American voters would consider the implications of voting for another politician who proudly admits that her “life is in God’s hands,” after witnessing the destructive consequences of Bush’s policies that fused political and religious theory. A logical (not supernatural) approach to diplomacy is essential to achieve a state of global hegemony that considers the interests of every nation.
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