Apparently trying to one-up President Barack Obama, who last month twisted American history and logic to equate US government mass spying with Paul Revere and other revolutionaries’ actions to protect Americans from an oppressive government, House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is claiming President George Washington and the American founders would support Cantor’s world-wide interventionist agenda.
Cantor made the laughable assertion a key theme of his “An America That Leads” speech Monday at the Virginia Military Institute. The agenda Cantor proposes in his speech, and that we can expect the Republican leadership of the House to push, can be summed up as war, war, and more war. Here are some ways Cantor proposes America “leads”:
• Cantor laments any easing of sanctions on Iran and suggests imposing new sanctions, as well as employing the “credible threat of the use of military force” in diplomatic talks with Iran;
• Cantor laments that the US has forgone a military attack on Syria and calls on the US to take action to “change the balance of power on the ground” in Syria;
• Cantor laments that the US military may soon exit Afghanistan and calls for the military presence to continue;
• Cantor laments the easing of US intervention in Libya and calls for the US to “bolster the capabilities of the Libyan security forces and, as necessary, be willing to engage in and support counter-terrorism efforts;”
• Cantor laments that North Korea has, despite US sanctions, “yet to pay a meaningful price” and calls for increasing the sanctions and conducting joint military actions with “regional allies;”
• Cantor laments the US government’s failure to more aggressively challenge China regarding sea lanes in the vicinity of China and several other nations and calls for the US to provide “guidance, security, and coordination” in Asia;
• Cantor calls for “equipping security forces” in countries around the world for use in those countries and in their respective regions;
• Cantor laments that “we cannot continue to blindly reduce defense spending” (throwing aside the reality of a decade-plus of huge increases in military, intelligence, and “homeland security” spending) because the US needs to “project adequate military power in any theater, be it the Middle East, Latin America or Asia;” and
• Cantor calls on the US to “invest” in a “more lethal military” — to “promote peace and stability,” he says.
Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.