September 11,
2024
Donald Trump and
Kamala Harris not only proved last night that they have no fleshed out foreign
policy visions of their own, but that they feel most comfortable pantomiming
like they do, using bafflingly cartoonish language about each other, playing so
fast and loose with history, facts, and figures so as to make the entire debate
over what to do in Ukraine and Gaza absolutely incoherent.
So much for
“America First.”
An “America
First” answer to the question posed to Harris about what she would do about the
more than 40,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza — which the moderator pointed out
Harris was “concerned” about nine months ago — would be to say that continuing
to fund it directly would ultimately hurt America, put our troops in the region
at risk, and doom our integrity as nation of laws and a beacon of moral clarity
forever. At the very least, she could point out that Benjamin Netanyahu is a
bad faith actor who represents his people but not the American people, and we
cannot aid or assist him if he continues to flout the Geneva Conventions in a
desperate bid to stay in power. Full stop.
Instead she
says:
"What we
know is that this war must end it and immediately, and the way it will end is
we need a ceasefire deal, and we need the hostages out, and so we will continue
to work around the clock on that, also understanding that we must chart a
course for a two state solution, and in that solution, there must be security
for the Israeli people and Israel, and an equal measure for the Palestinians.
But the one thing I will assure you always, I will always give Israel the
ability to defend itself, in particular, as it relates to as it relates to
Iran, and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel."
Trump for his
part, decided to lay napalm down, but unlike the Trump of 2016 who emphasized
that it was not in the best interest of the United States to be sucked into
other countries’ wars and conflicts, that we should not be the world’s police,
he chose to accuse Kamala of “hating Israel.” When asked how he would negotiate
with Netanyahu and Hamas to get the hostages out and to stop civilian suffering
— a layup question for the man who loves “to talk” really — he said this:
“(Harris) she
hates Israel. She wouldn't even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to
make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a
sorority party of hers. She went to go to the sorority party. She hates Israel.
If she's president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from
now, and I've been pretty good at predictions, and I hope I'm wrong about that
one. She hates Israel at the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab
population because the whole place is going to get blown up, Arabs, Jewish
people, Israel will be gone. It would have never happened. Iran was broke under
Donald Trump.”
Onto Ukraine.
Trump had one of his brighter moments in an otherwise dim evening of missed
opportunities (like saying nothing when Harris boasted endorsements from Iraq
War architect Dick Cheney and daughter Liz) when he said he wanted to end the
war in Ukraine and would do so by bringing Ukrainian President Zelensky and
Russian President Putin together in a room to resolve it in order to avoid more
death and “World War III.” He then repeated unexplained assertions about
"millions" dead (without clarifying who, by whom, or where) and
ticked off a few points in his usual jag about NATO members not paying enough
into the system.
But his grasp of
why that war happened and how it would suddenly “end” began and ended with his
concept that Biden was “weak,” and that Harris is “weak.” It was, frankly,
weak.
Harris, for her
part, acted as though it was still 2022 and would be forever as long as the
U.S. kept funding the war. Again, no real explanation as to why this was in
anyone’s best interest, even Ukraine’s, to continue on this course, other than,
you know, Russian domination of the rest of Europe.
“If Donald Trump
were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now and understand what
that would mean, because Putin's agenda is not just about Ukraine. Understand
why the European allies and our NATO allies are thankful that you are no longer
president, and that we understand the importance of the greatest military
alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO, and what we have done to
preserve the ability of Zelensky and the Ukrainians to fight for their
independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the
rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”
On Afghanistan,
oh my. It was a good idea to get out, agreed by both. But why? Doesn’t matter.
What matters is that according to Harris, Trump, “negotiated directly with a
terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban
getting 5000 terrorists, Taliban terrorists, released. And get this. No, get
this. And the president at the time, invited the Taliban to Camp David, a place
of storied significance for us as Americans, a place where we honor the
importance of American diplomacy, where we invite and receive respected world
leaders.”
She also pulled
the "as of today, there is not one member of the United States military
who is in active duty in a combat zone," which is a lie and everyone knows
it. Just ask our troops getting droned in Iraq and Syria. And the U.S. Navy
might have something to say about what they have been doing stationed in the
Red Sea for the last 10 months.
Instead of
owning that his negotiations helped to end one of the biggest U.S. foreign
policy failures of the last century, Trump boasted that he threatened to blow
up the Taliban leader’s house and that is how he got the Taliban to stop
shooting our soldiers. He briefly mentioned the negotiations with the Taliban,
and how it was right to get out of the war, but then went straight into blaming
the Biden administration for the catastrophic withdrawal of August 2021. “And
by the way, that's why Russia attacked Ukraine, because they saw how
incompetent she and her boss are.”
China, where’s
China? The only mention of Asia in the debate last night was over Trump’s
proposed new tariffs and Harris avoiding the question as to why Biden never
lifted the ones he imposed during Trump's presidency. Oh yeah, and Harris
accusing Trump of saying nice things about Xi Jinping during COVID. The rest of
the foreign policy discussion went like this:
Harris: “It is
well known he exchanged love letters with Kim Jong Un and it is absolutely well
known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president
again because they're so clear, they can manipulate you with flattery and
favors, and that is why so many military leaders who you have worked with have
told me you are a disgrace.”
Trump:
“(Hungary’s president) Victor Orban said you need Trump back as president. They
were afraid of him. China was afraid. And I don't like to use the word afraid,
but I'm just quoting him. North Korea was afraid of him. Look at what's going
on with North Korea. By the way, he said Russia was afraid of him. … He said
the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when
Trump was president.”
After this
debate, the American voter, the American people, should be afraid. To be sure,
they will be voting on a whole host of issues and opinions that likely have
nothing to do with Gaza, Ukraine, NATO, or the whims of the world’s strongmen.
But to call any of this “America first” is pure gaslighting. On foreign policy,
we come in dead last.
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