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Paul’s Syria Op-Ed and the “Brain-Dead” DNC Response

The U.S. is responsible for the actions it takes abroad, and its blunders and wrongdoing shouldn't be ignored or explained away through shallow demagoguery.

Ezra Klein derides the DNC’s response to a recent Rand Paul op-ed as “brain-dead”:

This is the brain-dead patriotism-baiting that Democrats used to loathe. Now they’re turning it on Paul.

Paul was making a few related arguments in his op-ed. The first was that supporters of regime change in Syria have inadvertently aided the rise of jihadist groups including ISIS and would have further empowered such groups if they had gotten their way in toppling the regime. The other was that interventionists typically have a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to taking sides in foreign conflicts, which is so obviously true that no one is even attempting to refute it. He was also making the same point that I touched on in a post earlier this week, which is that if the “limited” strikes on the Syrian regime last year had gone ahead it would have very likely helped ISIS to expand its control over territory in Syria. Hawks that believed it to be imperative to attack the Syrian government last year now believe it to be imperative to attack some of the government’s enemies this year. Presumably next year there will be yet another government or group that simply “must” be bombed. Given all this, Paul questions the judgment of Syria hawks from both parties and urges that the U.S. not make more of the same mistakes.

The DNC responded to this by falling back on two the hoariest of hawkish cliches: they accused Paul of “blaming America” and urging “retreat.” These are both painfully stupid and lazy criticisms, but it seems to be necessary to answer them all the same. Criticizing a specific policy of the U.S. government and identifying its adverse effects do not amount to “blaming America.” For one thing, the policy in question doesn’t reflect the preferences of most Americans. Even if it did reflect what most Americans wanted, though, it is just the mindless quashing of dissent to insist one shouldn’t criticize a government policy that one finds flawed, or to equate such criticism with “blaming America.” Such criticism holds the government accountable for its actions and recognizes when a policy is making things worse in order to correct that policy and avoid future errors. The U.S. is responsible for the actions it takes abroad, and its blunders and wrongdoing shouldn’t be ignored or explained away through shallow demagoguery. The accusation of “retreat” is even more ridiculous, since Paul was urging caution about joining foreign conflicts. The DNC seems to share Republican hard-liners’ views that anything less than constantly going on the attack is the same as “retreating” from the world. The fact that this same lazy and dishonest charge has been repeatedly directed at this administration whenever it has chosen not to indulge its most hawkish critics just makes the DNC’s response even more dimwitted.

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