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Charles Krauthammer: We’re Back To Our “Traditional” Globalist Foreign Policy

Charles Krauthammer described on FOX News this afternoon how Trump has done a complete 180 from the foreign policy he articulated in the campaign and in his Inaugural Address. We traveled to DC to see that speech at the Inaugural. What is the point of having elections though if our elections only change the faces at the top of the system but never change our policies?

The message of the attack on Syria, sending the armada to North Korea and the MOAB strike in Afghanistan is that the US Empire is back despite what was said on the campaign trail. We’re going to continue to fight regional wars for other countries which exhaust our resources. We’re going to send our kids to die for places that 99% of Americans have never heard of and can’t identify on a map.

Team America World Police is here to stay.

Hunter Wallace
the authorHunter Wallace
Hunter Wallace is the founder and editor of OccidentalDissent.com

102 Comments

  • First, of all, North Korea is a legitimate threat to the U.S., because it is developing an ICBM capable of hitting America. I support attempts to make North Korea behave responsibly.

    I, of course, oppose the pointless intervention in Syria. I also don’t understand why we are still in Afghanistan. ISIS is an inspiration to radical Muslims in the West, but is it possible to completely wipe out the ISIS movement? Probably not. Furthermore, radical Muslims would still be attacking the West even if there were no ISIS. Terrorism is just part and parcel of Islamic ideology.

  • It’s not so much that Trump has changed. It’s that Trump has said himself that he is allowing military leaders to do as they please. That is a very dangerous decision.

  • Krauthammer was opposed to Trump from the very beginning.
    That hasn’t changed – just an opportunity has arisen.

    Krauthammer’s foreign policy of choice would consist of an all out invasion of Syria – who’s kidding who?

  • A foreign policy that meets the approval of Charles Krauthammer (Hammer of Krauts?) is not what I voted for.

  • It’s not like Cruz would have been any better.

    Perhaps Trump was just a Plan B: a faux-populist candidate to serve as a hedge against the possibility that enough people really were sick of the duopoly. I’m normall immune to such conspiracy theorizing, but his rapid about-face seems to betoken…………..well, something. Lest we forget, Bill Clinton was among those who recommended to Trump that he run.

    • If you go to Leftist sites like Salon and Huffpo, it’s all over the place that Hillary Clinton wanted to run against Trump as the nominee. There is no understanding of or empathy for populists with the establishment, be it Republican or Democrat. So, Clinton thought if Trump hijacked the Republican Party, “True Conservatives” would default to her, because Trump was too scary.

      Trump’s entry was not not impetuous. The media comics and pundits went out of their way into goading him into running and some true believers begged him to run. So between his mockers and his adoring fans, Trump was brought to realize he’d either have to run and set policy or stop talking about it and the rest is history.

      The reason Bill Clinton encouraged Donald Trump to win is because Trump was the ONLY Republican candidate that He and her staff thought Hillary could beat. Regarding his wife, Bill was astute enough to know that the vast majority of Americans loathed his wife, but even he, who knew her better than anyone else, underestimated how much Americans hated her.

      After his own fashion, I believe Bill loves Hillary, because he did try to throw her a life line by slamming Obamacare, implying that Billary would fix it once they were re-installed.

  • If you want to criticize Trump for his meaningless attack on Syria, that’s fine. If you want to criticize him for not focusing on domestic issues, that’s also fine. What isn’t fine is pretending like pressuring China over trade and NK, as well as attacking ISIS were never part of the agenda. He talked about those things at every rally. If you thought you elected Ron Paul, you have no one to blame but yourself for not listening.

      • OK, so what? We don’t know what concessions Trump gleaned from Premier Xi during their meeting last week except they’ll be buying coal from the US instead of NK.

        • The coal thing is hearsay at best. Don’t put too much stock in it. And no, it’s not so what. China has been able to maintain a high GDP growth rate in large measure due to its machinations with the yuan. It’s a big deal.

          • So how does labeling them a currency manipulator help solve the problem? Trump has been saying that for years. We can’t force them to do anything. You would obviously prefer massive tariffs, I assume.

          • If they are labeled a currency manipulator and they refuse to change policy the USA treasury department along with Congress would have to place tariffs on their goods. Does not being able to shop at wal mart for cheap Chinese shit upset you?

          • I’m not against that, but I also don’t know what, if anything, we received from China that brought about this change in tone. If we got nothing out of them, than I agree with you.

          • The bigger issue is the u turn Trump did in the matter of 1 week. Something clearly has changed and it is not what he sold to the voting public. You can continue to hope that he will come to his senses but it appears as if he’s been overrun by the deep state. Sad, but life goes on.

          • It’s your right to wait and see. But the signs are not looking good. One doesn’t change his tone and actions in such a sharp manner unless a drastic change has taken place.

    • That’s all true, but since when was widening the war in Afghanistan part of the plan? They now say that ISIS is in Afghanistan. Funny, today was the first I ever heard mention of that. That ISIS – or whatever we are now calling it – is in Afghanistan wasn’t news-worthy prior to today, when it’s news-worthy enough to drop a big fat fuel-air bomb on ’em? Or is this all just a convenient excuse for carrying on with the Hundred Years War?

      We’ve now been in Afghanistan for over fifteen years – longer than both World Wars and the Civil War combined.

      • ISIS has been gaining a presence in Afghanistan for the last several years. If you didn’t know that, I don’t know what to tell you.

      • Perhaps dropping the moab earlier today was another expensive fireworks and pr stunt for the empire. Sending signals that we probably shouldn’t be sending.

        • I know, we should just mothball the USAF and our ten super-carriers. When that happens, we can have a white, agrarian ethnostate in North America. That was what Trump campaigned on, right?

          • Yea cause this war economy is really serving us well. You sure the weekly standard isn’t the website you’re looking for? They like your brand of conservative ‘thinking’.

          • No. I’m not pushing for isolationism. Just a return to a foreign policy driven by national interests and the common interest of Americans. In other words, realism and realpolitik. But I see that the USA is down the path of all empires so there is no return to normalcy.

          • So how would be against realist foreign policy for the US, as a Great Power, to work with China, another Great Power, to deal with constant threats from NK?

          • Diplomacy via the P5+1 should be continued. But I like to ask this question. Is it in the national interest of the USA to continue to maintain soldiers in South Korea? Can the south Koreans not handle the north alone? I can make good arguments for both sides but I want you to think this over. No need to reply. Just consider the global policeman role of the USA, is it still in our interest, was it ever?

          • Relying on the UNSC instead of working directly with other nations sounds more like globalism, than true nationalism.

          • One doesn’t negate the other. Bilateral talks and multilateral. And the p5 all have a vested interest in a stable Korean peninsula. Japan as well.

          • There’s nothing wrong with “isolationism” – the whole word was just a caricature of a position anyway. It is the foreign policy equivalent of “racism” – a smear word intended to shut down dissent.

          • I didn’t say that isolationism is bad. It’s just not what I advocate. I’d certainly prefer isolationist fp to the pro globalist and neo-liberal economic order we have now.

          • Our carriers are largely useless anyway.

            No, we are not pacifists. We’re not war-mongers either. Perhaps you can’t process anything that complicated.

            While your at it, can you explain our current war aims in Afghanistan? What are they exactly?

          • The Taliban – that we were actually working with to a limited extent a few years ago – and ISIS, which is supported by Qatar (where US Centcom is headquartered), Saudi Arabia, and, maybe, the CIA too?

            That sure sounds like a good plan, if the intent is to stay mired there for a hundred years (which is what John McCain was promising).

          • OK, that’s fine. Run a national political campaign telling people you want to cede vast swathes of territory to ISIS, and tell me how many votes you get. I’m trying to tell you that no one supports Ron Paul and his theories of non-intervention, however accurate they might be, from time to time.

          • ISIS is not a threat to the United States, or they wouldn’t be if we didn’t – you know – let them come here.

          • Trying to make the Nationalist movement just the anti-war Right does nothing but marginalize us. It’s a mistake we will live to regret.

          • I was always against the ISIS BS anyway. Which wars do you think we absolutely need to fight? I said ISIS is not a threat to the US. It isn’t. And apparently you think so too, as you didn’t contradict that. So which wars should we fight? Afghanistan? Going into year 16 in a now aimless war, the purpose of which is now moot.

            So, which ones, and why are they important?

          • Nobody supports what you just said. You might be right, or you might be wrong, but no one in the US agrees with you. That’s why isolationism marginalizes the movement.

          • Nobody? Literally nobody? You’re acting like a clown. Lots of people don’t care about ISIS, and rightly realize that it is not a problem as long as we stop importing alien peoples who despise us.

            What you espouse would marginalize the movement by co-opting it. In what substantive way are you different from a neo-con?

          • So all the famous nationalists throughout history were neocons? You wouldn’t get 1% support with the statements you’ve made.

          • A lot of famous nationalists were disastrous for their own countries. Wars may be the health of the state, but they are not the health of the nation. We’ve tried your way. It has been a complete failure. You council failure.

          • What, are you stupid? You don’t even know what a nationalist is. It is not just somebody who wants to enmesh his nation in war.

          • Sorry to repeat myself but your thinking is backwards. The question of whether he WOULD is irrelevant. The only relevant question is whether he should — be popular with that platform I mean.

          • “should” is irrelevant, it’s about winning and losing. If you’re all hung up on “right and wrong”, I suggest attending Church.

          • America is like Don Quixote just running all around so desperate to ‘win’ battles that mean nothing as they slowly bleed to death and go mad. Hey but we’re winning right! Look at that windmill it’s terrified before me!

          • Like you I hope such a move will be good domestically and give the hawks something to chew on for a while but I fear something deeper is going on.

            Time will tell.

          • Again the question really isn’t whether they do or don’t. The question is what is right, what is rational and what is in our vital interests. If the people aren’t thinking in those terms then someone has to explain to them their error not indulge their reckless fantasies.

          • No, that’s not the question. i don’t care about being “right”. I care about the Alt-right not becoming a foreign policy debating society for obscure opinions.

          • Most Americans are unaware or don’t care about the fact that their government has been a sponsor of various Islamic terror groups since the early 80s in Afghanistan. To openly reveal that would be a pr nightmare. And of course our alliance with pro terror countries like turkey, saudi, qatar, etc is covered up too by the mainstream and the beltway pundits from think tank land.

          • We know this, but trying to convince the broader public is pretty much a lost cause. FP should be the purview of the elite, in any case. People shouldn’t be asked to vote on issues of which they have no understanding.

          • In other words people shouldn’t be allowed to vote period unless they are well versed in statecraft. Hence why democracy is a crappy system.
            The elites can run foreign policy but what happens when those elites are globalist shills and no longer care about the commonweal?

          • I would prefer a system other than democracy, that’s correct. An Aristocratic Republic could work.

          • You’re just too damn stupid to see how making Altright.com the same as the antiwar movement puts a very low ceiling on our support. I probably agree with you on most things, but that’s basically irrelevant. We need to attract more people.

          • In the present environment, I don’t think war is that attractive. It wasn’t in 2013, when Americans mostly gave the rasberry to our involvement in Syria.

            We’ve been at war for nearly sixteen fucking years, you nitwit. All you reccommend is more of the same. “Stupid” would be to take the advice you are offering.

          • We’re not at war, and the vast majority of people in this country are not permanent non-interventionists like yourself. How can we convince them of anything, when we adopt a foreign policy position so far outside the mainstream? You can’t answer that because all you care about is being right on points, and not about winning.

          • That’s a ridiculous assertion. Of course we are at war. What else would you call it?

            And why should I give a damn what you claim “the vast majority of people in this country” think? You’re just making shit up. The “vast majority” of the american people – to the extent that they registered their opinions at all – were dead set against getting involved militarily in Syria back in 2013. I don’t believe that’s changed. I tend to believe that a majority of Americans want to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan – that they would breathe a sigh of relief the moment the last american serviceman left. Much as they did when we finally left Vietnam.

            You claim to speak for some majority. As far as I can tell, you speak only for yourself. And what you have to say is not very interesting.

          • You can’t even understand that I’m not disagreeing with you per se, but I’m making an argument about positioning which you somehow equate with correctness. The vast majority of people of in this country, based on every poll, support military action against ISIS. The vast majority want to maintain a strong military. At least do yourself a favor and stop pretending. If you honestly think that isolationism, of the extreme form you support is somehow a popular opinion, than continuing this discussion is just a waste of my time.

          • “The vast majority of people of in this country, based on every poll, support military action against ISIS.”

            They have been systematically lied to about what ISIS is. It is not an existential threat to America, and it is partly the creation of us and our allies. According to nearly every poll – almost right up until Nov. 9th, Donald Trump had no chance of winning. Why do you necessarily trust the results of opinion polls taken by organizations that are openly hostile to you?

            “The vast majority want to maintain a strong military.”

            Yes, so do I. And a strong military doesn’t mean one that is actively engaged in many theaters all the time – i.e., at war across the globe, which we are.

            I understand you perfectly. You’re wrong. And not worth paying attention to, evidently.

          • OK, good luck with the storable food, water filitration system, and precious metal collection.

          • Yeah, sure – everybody who disagrees with you is a suvival-tard who lives in a cave.

            How do you differ from a neo-con, asshole?

          • You speak of the countries war attitudes like they were fixed. Non-interventionism actually isn’t outside the mainstream — especially with the actual people, not the generals, that have to do the fighting.

            Even if it weren’t popular it would still be our duty to explain to people why these wars are terrible ideas and why they should agree with us.

          • Did a President not just get elected on, at least in part, a non-interventionist platform or have I been dreaming for the better part of a year?

          • No, he was never non-interventionist. He simply made the case we need to focus on ISIS, and not attacking Syria.

          • No now you’re just being dishonest. As usual there were mixed messages in the campaign but it’s undeniable that, at least in terms of rhetoric, his America First platform contained a lot of sensible non-interventionist policies that were popular especially with the base.

          • “We’re going to bomb the shit out of ISIS”, yes, America First could mean non-intervention, or it could mean not getting bogged down like W in Iraq. Are you sure you didn’t hear what you wanted to hear?

          • I don’t deny there is a certain schizophrenia in his foreign policy that contains, at once, an aggressive attitude towards ISIS and sensible non-interventionist attitudes towards Russia.

            I acknowledge he ran on both and can sort of understand both positions.

            You’re the one who’s just hearing what you want to.

          • No I’m not, how is getting along with Great Power like Russia the same as being a non-interventionist? That’s simply realism.

          • The US and Russia agreeing to provide troops in Syria to stabilize the country would be an example of realist FP, not non-interventionism. They are not necessarily the same thing. If you mean regime change vs. non-intervention, such as GWB, and his Wilsonian War for democracy, both schools would of course oppose.

          • Iran, Hezbollah Russia and Assad are doing great actually. They don’t need us — nor do they WANT us there. ISIS is fighting with the weapons we provided the ‘moderates’ in the region. We make everything worse because we take sides in the region and don’t favour stability over worthless moralizing.

          • I’m not arguing the merits of this again, because your facts are correct, but Realist FP is about taking sides. We should support secular dictators like Assad, Saddam, and the Shah when it’s in our interest to do so. That is very different than Ron Paul isolationism that says we should never do anything, because it’s always bad.

          • Here we completely agree but the reason we don’t pick them is because we’ve got too many ‘foreign entanglements’ with places like Saudi Arabia and Israel. So I guess you’re trying to argue towards a Baathist pivot?

            Well I’m all for that but then our Sunni allies and Israel are angry.

          • We have chosen poor allies, clearly, I just don’t want normal people to think the Alt-Right is simply Ron Paul 2.0, and I’m worried that’s what people are getting. That was the point of all this discussion.

          • All I see on the Alt-Right is blanket support for Assad. I’d probably jump outside a purely realist box and want to craft a pro-Christian FP but I’ve never seen anything like pacifism on the Alt-Right.

            Although I am an ex-libertarian — like many here — so I get where the impression comes from.

          • Yes, there is a point. If you mostly agree with Syria attack and intervintionism in general being wrong, why are you being so contrary?

          • Because a person can disagree with the Syria strikes without going full Ron Paul anti-war. It’s not that complicated or contradictory.

          • Actually as far as I can see the Alt-Right has been consistently anti-war for a while now. Not, like the left, out of some fullness of pity but because we recognize the cost to ourselves and recognize that the current war agenda has nothing to do with our vital interests.

            I don’t know why you call that ‘stupid’. It’s actually pretty popular.

          • I heard the exact same arguments regarding nearly all of Trump’s positions — oh don’t say that, you’re finished, you’ll never be able to run against immigration blah blah — and every time Trump moved forward and did what a real leader does which is to impose his own ideas on the agenda and not just be a weathervane of popular prejudice.

            You could convince the broader public of many things they don’t agree with now quite easily if you’re honest and clear.

    • Except he just aided ISIS and returned to “business as usual”. Unfortunately, just like demonrats, those who voted for him will NEVER admit that they’ve been trumped.

        • I wouldn’t even call myself anti war or alt right but bombing syrian forces, why? just so some goat sodomizers can chop off a few more heads in some back water syrian town while their government is rebuilding?

  • This is part of the reason we need Le Pen to win, to remind Trump who the TRUE people are in the West and to provide Putin with a powerful Western ally to back him up.

  • (((Krauthammer))) was a speech writing for the greatest American loser Walter Mondale and is disgusting even by neocon standards.

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