Brian4Liberty
12-06-2017, 12:39 PM
Congressional Realists ‘Could Caucus in a Phone Booth’ (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/congressional-realists-could-caucus-in-a-phone-booth/)
Meet the eight: They may be scarce, but they're indomitable.
By Finlay Lewis • November 13, 2017
They could caucus in a phone booth. They are known as “realists,” and their default position on questions of foreign policy and national security is one of skepticism about the value of interventions abroad and of respect for privacy at home. In a debate largely being litigated within the ranks of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill, the realists don’t have a prayer of prevailing in an up-or-down vote against the neoconservative wing of the party, proponents of an interventionist ethos to embed American values in lands far removed from domestic shores and traditions.
And yet the realists soldier on. They consider restraint a virtue and argue that foreign military adventures inevitably entail unpleasant and unforeseeable consequences. To nobody’s surprise, the realists were trounced on September 13 when the Senate slammed the door on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s challenge to the legal authority that administrations of both parties have embraced since 9/11 to wage war. Paul’s target was actually two laws, each known as an AUMF, or “authorization for the use of military force.” One AUMF, enacted in 2001, allowed the government to pursue terrorists in the wake of 9/11; the other, passed a year later, flashed a legal green light for the 2003 Iraq invasion.
The Senate vote, rejecting Paul’s measure 61 to 36, was the first on an AUMF in 15 years. The idea that the government is taking war actions on the basis of outdated laws persuades realists such as Paul that Congress is shirking its constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on questions of war and peace. Or, as Representative Dave Brat of Virginia put it in a Facebook post, “Passing the buck.” Trump administration decisions to up the ante in Afghanistan and to launch a retaliatory missile strike against the Assad regime in Syria lend a sense of urgency to the debate.
More broadly, the realist-neocon debate defines a fault line on issues that include sanctions, military spending, basing decisions overseas, NATO expansion, the electronic surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act, and much more.
Within the ranks of the congressional realists are two Capitol Hill lifers—Representatives John Duncan of Tennessee and Walter Jones of North Carolina. Both became realists with the votes they cast years ago on U.S. military intervention in Iraq. The other realists brought their worldview with them as they entered Congress: Rand Paul and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and Representatives Justin Amash of Michigan, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Brat.
At least one Democrat, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, consistently reflects a realist position in her votes and public statements. Other Democrats can be counted on for support on particular issues: California Representative Barbara Lee and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine on the need for an updated AUMF; Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy on issues related to Syria and the Middle East. The underlying philosophy may be different, but realists also can count on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s vote on many issues of consequence to them.
America’s role in world affairs may be the overarching question, but Gabbard’s battlefield experience infuses the debate with the perspective of a veteran whose résumé includes two combat tours in Iraq. A major in a National Guard medical unit responsible for the combat zone welfare of 3,000 soldiers, Gabbard fumes at the failure of decision makers to grapple with what she describes as “the devastation, suffering, and destruction” left in war’s wake. Also on her radar is an oddity of American regime-change policy that has permitted the flow of taxpayer dollars to terrorist networks, even including ISIS and al-Qaeda, as part of the effort to unseat Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has introduced legislation to stop that. Jones, Lee, and Massie are among her House cosponsors. Paul has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.
...
Duncan, also the son of a longtime congressman, voted in 2002 against the Iraq invasion bill. The vote was courageous given the hype and post-9/11 emotionalism of that moment. It placed Duncan in a precarious minority; only seven other Republicans in Congress did likewise. One of them was Rand Paul’s father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
“I thought it might be ending my political career,” Duncan recalls. “It shocked my constituents, and, for three, four years, it was clearly the most unpopular vote I ever cast. Then, slowly, slowly, slowly it became the most popular I ever cast.”
...
Asked how American policy would be different if realists were in charge on Capitol Hill, Massie says, “It would involve a much smaller global footprint for the United States.…We would leave Afghanistan. We would not be trying to engage in another war in Syria. I think we need to listen to South Korea on the issue of North Korea. They stand to have millions of casualties in the first few hours of a war with North Korea.”
...
More: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/congressional-realists-could-caucus-in-a-phone-booth/
Meet the eight: They may be scarce, but they're indomitable.
By Finlay Lewis • November 13, 2017
They could caucus in a phone booth. They are known as “realists,” and their default position on questions of foreign policy and national security is one of skepticism about the value of interventions abroad and of respect for privacy at home. In a debate largely being litigated within the ranks of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill, the realists don’t have a prayer of prevailing in an up-or-down vote against the neoconservative wing of the party, proponents of an interventionist ethos to embed American values in lands far removed from domestic shores and traditions.
And yet the realists soldier on. They consider restraint a virtue and argue that foreign military adventures inevitably entail unpleasant and unforeseeable consequences. To nobody’s surprise, the realists were trounced on September 13 when the Senate slammed the door on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s challenge to the legal authority that administrations of both parties have embraced since 9/11 to wage war. Paul’s target was actually two laws, each known as an AUMF, or “authorization for the use of military force.” One AUMF, enacted in 2001, allowed the government to pursue terrorists in the wake of 9/11; the other, passed a year later, flashed a legal green light for the 2003 Iraq invasion.
The Senate vote, rejecting Paul’s measure 61 to 36, was the first on an AUMF in 15 years. The idea that the government is taking war actions on the basis of outdated laws persuades realists such as Paul that Congress is shirking its constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on questions of war and peace. Or, as Representative Dave Brat of Virginia put it in a Facebook post, “Passing the buck.” Trump administration decisions to up the ante in Afghanistan and to launch a retaliatory missile strike against the Assad regime in Syria lend a sense of urgency to the debate.
More broadly, the realist-neocon debate defines a fault line on issues that include sanctions, military spending, basing decisions overseas, NATO expansion, the electronic surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act, and much more.
Within the ranks of the congressional realists are two Capitol Hill lifers—Representatives John Duncan of Tennessee and Walter Jones of North Carolina. Both became realists with the votes they cast years ago on U.S. military intervention in Iraq. The other realists brought their worldview with them as they entered Congress: Rand Paul and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and Representatives Justin Amash of Michigan, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Brat.
At least one Democrat, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, consistently reflects a realist position in her votes and public statements. Other Democrats can be counted on for support on particular issues: California Representative Barbara Lee and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine on the need for an updated AUMF; Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy on issues related to Syria and the Middle East. The underlying philosophy may be different, but realists also can count on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s vote on many issues of consequence to them.
America’s role in world affairs may be the overarching question, but Gabbard’s battlefield experience infuses the debate with the perspective of a veteran whose résumé includes two combat tours in Iraq. A major in a National Guard medical unit responsible for the combat zone welfare of 3,000 soldiers, Gabbard fumes at the failure of decision makers to grapple with what she describes as “the devastation, suffering, and destruction” left in war’s wake. Also on her radar is an oddity of American regime-change policy that has permitted the flow of taxpayer dollars to terrorist networks, even including ISIS and al-Qaeda, as part of the effort to unseat Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has introduced legislation to stop that. Jones, Lee, and Massie are among her House cosponsors. Paul has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.
...
Duncan, also the son of a longtime congressman, voted in 2002 against the Iraq invasion bill. The vote was courageous given the hype and post-9/11 emotionalism of that moment. It placed Duncan in a precarious minority; only seven other Republicans in Congress did likewise. One of them was Rand Paul’s father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
“I thought it might be ending my political career,” Duncan recalls. “It shocked my constituents, and, for three, four years, it was clearly the most unpopular vote I ever cast. Then, slowly, slowly, slowly it became the most popular I ever cast.”
...
Asked how American policy would be different if realists were in charge on Capitol Hill, Massie says, “It would involve a much smaller global footprint for the United States.…We would leave Afghanistan. We would not be trying to engage in another war in Syria. I think we need to listen to South Korea on the issue of North Korea. They stand to have millions of casualties in the first few hours of a war with North Korea.”
...
More: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/congressional-realists-could-caucus-in-a-phone-booth/