Regarding DeSantis’ pivot, there’s a big difference between 2015 and today that doesn’t have to do with who the Commander in Chief is. Under President Obama we let Russia cross a red line and annex Crimea. We continued down the path of possible NATO entry for Ukraine, escalating Russia’s fear of a perceived threat. Under President Biden we exited Afghanistan in a spectacularly incompetent fashion, giving an opening for Putin to expand what he had already poached. I’m not saying politics may not pay a role, but to ignore the actions that led us to where we are now just to set up a tidy juxtaposition doesn’t do the author or his conclusions credit.
Mothers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have never been on board the all war all the time train.
When Obama announced that my son couldn’t return fire if a “civilian” was within something like thirty feet of the identified shooter, I lost all respect for the civilian command structure and senior military staff.
Since then it’s been all downhill for the enlisted, culminating in the recruiting and retention disasters currently afflicting all branches.
Now I am certain that most people around the work are not capable of western style self governance and aren’t worth the risk. If they want it they can earn it for themselves.
As I taught my kids, things one earns are always more valued than things one is given.
I'm a Republican. I'm not anti-war. I'm just anti-"current joke of a U.S. president parades in Ukraine on Presidents Day of all days while ignoring a chemical disaster in our own country, after pledging to end endless wars and completely butchering our Afghanistan exit."
Show me a war worth fighting for. I want us to be noble and (gasp) "protect democracy." I really do.
But here and now? We're just a bunch of hypocrites. Angry, divided ones, at that. Maybe protecting democracy means getting our own house in order before we start bragging about how we're such great people cleaning up other people's messes.
Stopped reading after the first few paragraphes because the premise made no sense. Supporting arming Ukraine in 2015 and wanting Biden to stop the flow of fentanyl into the country, close our borders, and visit Americans in need before going to Ukraine are not exact opposites. Did Desantis say stop funding Ukraine? If so, say so. If not, why write this?
We are not giving money to Ukraine. We have no money to give. We are mortgaging our children's future to meddle in something that is none of our business. With the awesome successes of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria you would think we could imagine how Ukraine will turn out.
It isn't that we conservatives are anti-war. We're not. We're just against an essentially progressive policy of believing that we must lavish American attention and treasure on every stinking backwater (shithole to be honest, Trump was being brutally honest) in the world in order to change it. The first campaign in Afghanistan was a brilliant operation with the Northern Alliance. One and done. Crush the Taliban and leave it to the Afghans to fix their own country. Same with Iraq. Saddam just couldn't stop running his mouth after 9-11 and brutalizing his own people. OK, crush his army once in for all and leave. But no. Nation build and stay for 20 years. An exercise run “by a bunch of fucking incompetents and ideologues who had taken our country down a path of destruction,” Dreher said. “And for what?” Same in Ukraine. After Obama's meddling got the Crimea severed, Trump armed them and got the situation stabilized. Then came the Biden Cabal - led by the odious Vicki Nuland - and, within a year, we had a major war break out in Eastern Europe. So, no, we're not anti-war and conservatives will remain the ones who actually fight the wars. We want a strong defense that will put fear in the heart of any aggressor. We were sick of seeing our sons get killed and maimed for some progressive wet dream of nation building and meddling by State Department and CIA cretins.
There are no Republicans/Conservatives. There are no Democrats/Liberals. There are only Americans with widely diverse conceptions of right and wrong, but with a broad agreement on following the Constitution. And there are two warring parties, who wish to use identity politics to turn Americans on each other by inducing them to ally with one party against the other, in a Cain and Abel kind of quarrel, so the party can benefit in their power and influence at the expense of the other. How can we create peace abroad when we are at war with one another at home?
I mean, I was around when the "coalition of the willing" went into Iraq to neutralize a nonexistent threat, and wound up ruining the country, killing hundreds of thousands, ultimately for nothing. And hey 20 years of Afghanistan and tens of thousands of drone strikes all over the world, nothing to see there, just a bunch of dead nobodies that we don't care about.
So perhaps the "anti war right" is just people who are sick of the tail of destruction and tragedy to follows US policy everywhere it goes.
And frankly, the Free Press is very one sided about the whole Ukraine conflict. Its like, you really believe Putin is a madman who woke up one day and decided to invade his neighbour and conduct genocide. Grow up, this is the real world and if you actually bothered to cover this subject like you do others you'd see how this war was totally avoidable but yet ultimately inevitable given the actions of 3rd parties i.e not Russia nor Ukraine
Count me in. It ain't rocket surgery. Over the decades I have watched from the sidelines as American citizens - the titular masters of their government - have been brushed aside by that government in its profligate spending and reckless pursuit of foreign adventuring - while it couldn't care less about the welfare of those who pay all the bills for it.
It is so disheartening. Just the briefest of research reveals that not only are Americans the hardest-working and most productive on the planet, their work produces enough goods and services that Every One of them could live comfortable lives, free from worries about groceries or gas for their cars. Families could easily live on one paycheck, freeing a spouse to spend full time making a home for that family instead of paying her/his part of the bills each month. Home ownership - now out of reach for nearly all young men and women starting their lives together - would be easily WITHIN reach.
Why is it not? Well, where would you like to start? $85B USD of hardware, abandoned in the desert? Gone. Over $100B - and counting - to defend the borders of a country few can find on a map, after provoking Russia into a war of attrition after threatening to place a NATO ally on its border? Flooding the nation with 2-3 million illegal aliens, many, if not most of whom will end up on the public dole?
No, as the old song goes, we could all be wearing Spandex, but that is not going to happen. Why? Because we are lazy? No, because people who bear no consequence for wrong decisions are driving us over the cliff. You know the quote from the immortal Pogo the Possum: we have met the enemy, and he is us.
I used to be an anti-war liberal, but the left has lost their minds and drifted so far from the values I thought they represented. I guess this now makes me an "anti-war conservative." I'm okay with that.
The author makes too many unsupported generalizations about the “right” and “left” wings. The fact is that more and more AMERICANS are seeing the consequences of poor policies playing out in our own lives. Foreign wars come home quickly when it’s my outstanding grandson being offered up as cannon fodder by a Marine Corps leadership that has lost its compass and mind. Pronoun obsession is just a symptom of the larger degradation of our military readiness by people who should have never been commissioned to begin with. War fighting is ugly, and should not be undertaken lightly. We must all become “citizen soldiers” to keep in check an evolved military that can no longer clearly define its mission as defense of the country.
Mar 2, 2023·edited Mar 2, 2023Liked by Isaac Grafstein
Overall, this article is on-point. The one thing I would push back on is the idea that opposing Democrats is a factor driving conservatives to become anti-interventionist. This is the type of pettiness that characterizes the left, not the right.
And perhaps there should have been more mention of the fact that America is now beyond bankrupt. Once upon a time, we could afford to be the world's unpaid police force. Those days are long gone. And anyone who has driven more than a few miles on American roads can see and feel the decline.
The authoritarian Left and authoritarian Right will do and say whatever it takes in the acquisition and maintenance of power. I'm a small "L" libertarian and a retired Marine who believes in a strong military for deterrence and defense, but I also believe that throwing away the lives of young Americans for wars of choice is completely immoral.
No one is calling for withdrawing from the world economically or diplomaticaly. I find it insane and enraging that war hawks on both sides have managed to redefine the desire to avoid wars of choice as "isolationism."
Mr. Grafstein writes, "...yes, the anti-war movement in America used to be on the left..."
OR maybe "left" and "right" are meaningless distinctions. A point that's emphasized further down in the article when Mr. Grafstein quotes a podcaster observing, "It’s just marketing...People want to root for one side or the other."
The Ukraine War, as it's being fought now, is unwinnable. The West wins it when Putin drops dead (which has to happen sooner or later.). Russia wins it when the U.S. realizes they'd get a better return on their investment by setting fire to $13 billion in the Washington Mall and selling the resulting video to pay-per-view.
I feel for the individuals whose lives have been ruined by various politicians' delusions of manifest destiny and recall lines written by the long dead and obscure Greek philosopher Bion:
Trump clarified things and brought back traditional American foreign policy. A strong military. Kinetic war ONLY if it is a direct American interest with clear and achievable aims. Seeking good and peaceful relations with ALL countries. FAIR trade not free trade. Secure borders. AMERICA FIRST NOT LAST.
It’s an interesting shift the nation and the party has gone through. Many of us were naive after 9-11, but the nation has learned a painful lesson. It’s not shocking that we’re reevaluating our current national priorities on the world stage after such costly and failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The GOP is the party of the military and has a much higher number of members who have served in the US military and have seen first hand the impact of US military commitments in loss of life and limb. While the vast majority of Democrat voters who support arming and funding a U.S. commitment to the Ukrainian war have never considered military service themselves or for their children. Somewhat ironic.
Regarding DeSantis’ pivot, there’s a big difference between 2015 and today that doesn’t have to do with who the Commander in Chief is. Under President Obama we let Russia cross a red line and annex Crimea. We continued down the path of possible NATO entry for Ukraine, escalating Russia’s fear of a perceived threat. Under President Biden we exited Afghanistan in a spectacularly incompetent fashion, giving an opening for Putin to expand what he had already poached. I’m not saying politics may not pay a role, but to ignore the actions that led us to where we are now just to set up a tidy juxtaposition doesn’t do the author or his conclusions credit.
Mothers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have never been on board the all war all the time train.
When Obama announced that my son couldn’t return fire if a “civilian” was within something like thirty feet of the identified shooter, I lost all respect for the civilian command structure and senior military staff.
Since then it’s been all downhill for the enlisted, culminating in the recruiting and retention disasters currently afflicting all branches.
Now I am certain that most people around the work are not capable of western style self governance and aren’t worth the risk. If they want it they can earn it for themselves.
As I taught my kids, things one earns are always more valued than things one is given.
I'm a Republican. I'm not anti-war. I'm just anti-"current joke of a U.S. president parades in Ukraine on Presidents Day of all days while ignoring a chemical disaster in our own country, after pledging to end endless wars and completely butchering our Afghanistan exit."
Show me a war worth fighting for. I want us to be noble and (gasp) "protect democracy." I really do.
But here and now? We're just a bunch of hypocrites. Angry, divided ones, at that. Maybe protecting democracy means getting our own house in order before we start bragging about how we're such great people cleaning up other people's messes.
Stopped reading after the first few paragraphes because the premise made no sense. Supporting arming Ukraine in 2015 and wanting Biden to stop the flow of fentanyl into the country, close our borders, and visit Americans in need before going to Ukraine are not exact opposites. Did Desantis say stop funding Ukraine? If so, say so. If not, why write this?
We are not giving money to Ukraine. We have no money to give. We are mortgaging our children's future to meddle in something that is none of our business. With the awesome successes of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria you would think we could imagine how Ukraine will turn out.
It isn't that we conservatives are anti-war. We're not. We're just against an essentially progressive policy of believing that we must lavish American attention and treasure on every stinking backwater (shithole to be honest, Trump was being brutally honest) in the world in order to change it. The first campaign in Afghanistan was a brilliant operation with the Northern Alliance. One and done. Crush the Taliban and leave it to the Afghans to fix their own country. Same with Iraq. Saddam just couldn't stop running his mouth after 9-11 and brutalizing his own people. OK, crush his army once in for all and leave. But no. Nation build and stay for 20 years. An exercise run “by a bunch of fucking incompetents and ideologues who had taken our country down a path of destruction,” Dreher said. “And for what?” Same in Ukraine. After Obama's meddling got the Crimea severed, Trump armed them and got the situation stabilized. Then came the Biden Cabal - led by the odious Vicki Nuland - and, within a year, we had a major war break out in Eastern Europe. So, no, we're not anti-war and conservatives will remain the ones who actually fight the wars. We want a strong defense that will put fear in the heart of any aggressor. We were sick of seeing our sons get killed and maimed for some progressive wet dream of nation building and meddling by State Department and CIA cretins.
There are no Republicans/Conservatives. There are no Democrats/Liberals. There are only Americans with widely diverse conceptions of right and wrong, but with a broad agreement on following the Constitution. And there are two warring parties, who wish to use identity politics to turn Americans on each other by inducing them to ally with one party against the other, in a Cain and Abel kind of quarrel, so the party can benefit in their power and influence at the expense of the other. How can we create peace abroad when we are at war with one another at home?
I mean, I was around when the "coalition of the willing" went into Iraq to neutralize a nonexistent threat, and wound up ruining the country, killing hundreds of thousands, ultimately for nothing. And hey 20 years of Afghanistan and tens of thousands of drone strikes all over the world, nothing to see there, just a bunch of dead nobodies that we don't care about.
So perhaps the "anti war right" is just people who are sick of the tail of destruction and tragedy to follows US policy everywhere it goes.
And frankly, the Free Press is very one sided about the whole Ukraine conflict. Its like, you really believe Putin is a madman who woke up one day and decided to invade his neighbour and conduct genocide. Grow up, this is the real world and if you actually bothered to cover this subject like you do others you'd see how this war was totally avoidable but yet ultimately inevitable given the actions of 3rd parties i.e not Russia nor Ukraine
Count me in. It ain't rocket surgery. Over the decades I have watched from the sidelines as American citizens - the titular masters of their government - have been brushed aside by that government in its profligate spending and reckless pursuit of foreign adventuring - while it couldn't care less about the welfare of those who pay all the bills for it.
It is so disheartening. Just the briefest of research reveals that not only are Americans the hardest-working and most productive on the planet, their work produces enough goods and services that Every One of them could live comfortable lives, free from worries about groceries or gas for their cars. Families could easily live on one paycheck, freeing a spouse to spend full time making a home for that family instead of paying her/his part of the bills each month. Home ownership - now out of reach for nearly all young men and women starting their lives together - would be easily WITHIN reach.
Why is it not? Well, where would you like to start? $85B USD of hardware, abandoned in the desert? Gone. Over $100B - and counting - to defend the borders of a country few can find on a map, after provoking Russia into a war of attrition after threatening to place a NATO ally on its border? Flooding the nation with 2-3 million illegal aliens, many, if not most of whom will end up on the public dole?
No, as the old song goes, we could all be wearing Spandex, but that is not going to happen. Why? Because we are lazy? No, because people who bear no consequence for wrong decisions are driving us over the cliff. You know the quote from the immortal Pogo the Possum: we have met the enemy, and he is us.
I used to be an anti-war liberal, but the left has lost their minds and drifted so far from the values I thought they represented. I guess this now makes me an "anti-war conservative." I'm okay with that.
The author makes too many unsupported generalizations about the “right” and “left” wings. The fact is that more and more AMERICANS are seeing the consequences of poor policies playing out in our own lives. Foreign wars come home quickly when it’s my outstanding grandson being offered up as cannon fodder by a Marine Corps leadership that has lost its compass and mind. Pronoun obsession is just a symptom of the larger degradation of our military readiness by people who should have never been commissioned to begin with. War fighting is ugly, and should not be undertaken lightly. We must all become “citizen soldiers” to keep in check an evolved military that can no longer clearly define its mission as defense of the country.
Overall, this article is on-point. The one thing I would push back on is the idea that opposing Democrats is a factor driving conservatives to become anti-interventionist. This is the type of pettiness that characterizes the left, not the right.
And perhaps there should have been more mention of the fact that America is now beyond bankrupt. Once upon a time, we could afford to be the world's unpaid police force. Those days are long gone. And anyone who has driven more than a few miles on American roads can see and feel the decline.
The authoritarian Left and authoritarian Right will do and say whatever it takes in the acquisition and maintenance of power. I'm a small "L" libertarian and a retired Marine who believes in a strong military for deterrence and defense, but I also believe that throwing away the lives of young Americans for wars of choice is completely immoral.
No one is calling for withdrawing from the world economically or diplomaticaly. I find it insane and enraging that war hawks on both sides have managed to redefine the desire to avoid wars of choice as "isolationism."
Mr. Grafstein writes, "...yes, the anti-war movement in America used to be on the left..."
OR maybe "left" and "right" are meaningless distinctions. A point that's emphasized further down in the article when Mr. Grafstein quotes a podcaster observing, "It’s just marketing...People want to root for one side or the other."
The Ukraine War, as it's being fought now, is unwinnable. The West wins it when Putin drops dead (which has to happen sooner or later.). Russia wins it when the U.S. realizes they'd get a better return on their investment by setting fire to $13 billion in the Washington Mall and selling the resulting video to pay-per-view.
I feel for the individuals whose lives have been ruined by various politicians' delusions of manifest destiny and recall lines written by the long dead and obscure Greek philosopher Bion:
"The boys throw stones at the frogs for sport
But the frogs die in earnest."
War SUCKS.
Trump clarified things and brought back traditional American foreign policy. A strong military. Kinetic war ONLY if it is a direct American interest with clear and achievable aims. Seeking good and peaceful relations with ALL countries. FAIR trade not free trade. Secure borders. AMERICA FIRST NOT LAST.
It’s an interesting shift the nation and the party has gone through. Many of us were naive after 9-11, but the nation has learned a painful lesson. It’s not shocking that we’re reevaluating our current national priorities on the world stage after such costly and failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The GOP is the party of the military and has a much higher number of members who have served in the US military and have seen first hand the impact of US military commitments in loss of life and limb. While the vast majority of Democrat voters who support arming and funding a U.S. commitment to the Ukrainian war have never considered military service themselves or for their children. Somewhat ironic.