Correspondence
Correspondence Between Isolation and Intervention In your editorial “Between Iraq and a Hard Place” (Sept. 30), you argued that my past opposition to the use of force in situations where our...
...My opposition was based on more than my fear that “a single American pilot” might be shot down...
...I believe my record on foreign-policy questions is that of a believer in strong, global American leadership...
...If Saddam successfully challenges one directive, he will soon challenge others...
...I even supported President Bush’s decision to use our military to alleviate famine in Somalia...
...Gaining and holding ground is the measure of military success...
...Does the former position make me an isolationist and the latter a hypocrite...
...I like to believe that it makes me an interventionist with sound judgment about when and how to use force and about what causes are worth the loss of American lives...
...Bruce Blosil Provo, UT...
...Security Council, and the Desert Storm coalition...
...I spoke out for a more aggressive approach toward the North Korean nuclear program, suggesting that if all else failed we would have to use force to destroy that country’s reactors...
...Since the Kennedy administration we have had ample evidence of how tax cuts can stimulate growth...
...I did not call for stronger military action against Iraq because of an impulse to take sides in a Kurdish civil war...
...This is not to say that the fate of the Kurds in Iraq is unrelated to U.S...
...30), you argued that my past opposition to the use of force in situations where our vital security interests were not threatened (e.g., Bosnia) made my recent criticism of the administration’s response to Iraq inconsistent and thus incredible...
...However, I caution STANDARD editors not to treat the loss of one American as a concern that merits derision...
...Those who blame the Reagan tax cuts for the huge deficits of the 1980s ignore both the dramatic increase in receipts to the government during that decade and the inefficiencies of having let Washington disburse too much of our wealth...
...And until he meets with firm resistance he will continue to test our resolve until he once again poses an immediate threat to the United States and our allies...
...security...
...As the editors note, I opposed U.S...
...John S. McCain Washington, DC Love Those Tax Cuts Iwas pleased to read William Tucker’s valuable article “Why, and How, Tax Cuts Really Do Work” (Sept...
...These are hardly the views of an isolationist...
...American credibility is a strategic interest...
...airstrikes in Bosnia...
...To launch a few airstrikes and hope for the best is not a defensible military strategy and usually initiates the kind of offensive incrementalism that has led us to disaster in the past...
...This comes as no surprise to those who have been willing to study the economics rather than the politics of this issue...
...Without realizing it, they make the perfect case against the Clinton “targeted” tax breaks, which are scarcely better than new government programs...
...We promised the Kurds protection from Saddam, and the administration’s complete abandonment of them deserves criticism...
...Protecting our interest in the Persian Gulf ’s stability requires our firm insistence that Saddam Hussein abide by every commitment imposed on him by the United States, the U.N...
...Liberals and the press, however, seem unwilling to give supply-side economics its due by separating the straightforward financial data from the complex political spending decisions...
...But I reject the charge that my support for stronger military action against Iraq is an exception to that reluctance, and dismiss the implied charge that I represent an increasing Republican aversion to an interventionist foreign policy that should restrain my criticism of administration vacillation and weakness...
...I strongly support maintaining our alliances, the expansion of NATO, and our military presence in the Pacific...
...In 1983, I opposed the deployment of our Marines to Lebanon...
...security...
...I cheerfully plead guilty to the charge that I am reluctant to risk American lives in conflicts that do not threaten U.S...
...In 1991, I supported Desert Shield/Desert Storm...
...But an interventionist foreign policy does not require the use of force in all conflicts that succeed in getting CNN’s and our attention...
...Sen...
...And they make the case for Dole’s across-the-board tax cuts: In a market economy, individuals and families make the efficient choice of how to spend their own money...
...I feared that the occasional airstrike was bound to be ineffectual...
...When we fail to keep our word, we are less secure...
...The multiplier effect of tax cuts has worked wonders on the economies of Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California...
Vol. 2 • October 1996 • No. 5
