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A big round of applause for George Will’s Sunday, Nov. 7th, column in the [2]Washington Post [2] – and especially for the final two paragraphs:
Finally, give a thought to a subject almost no one has wanted to talk about this autumn. The nation is in the 10th year of its longest war and in what has been for American forces the deadliest year of that war. Do not assume that all freshman Republicans will support the current strategy and objectives – whatever they are – in Afghanistan [3].
The flavorful ingredients in the simmering stew that is the Tea Party impulse include a dash of the foreign policy skepticism associated with the Robert Taft tradition of conservatism. The Ohio senator died in 1953; the need for his prudence did not.
I have no idea how many Tea Partiers are skeptics of U.S. military intervention abroad. No matter. Such skepticism is the proper attitude – and I hope that whatever powers be ascending in Washington are duly (that is, highly) skeptical of such intervention. Neo-conservatism in this arena reflects a hubris that neither America nor the world can endure.
Uncle Sam cannot balance his own budget or adequately run the crown jewel of his own military hospitals [4]. How in the world can he build nations?