Carly Fiorina's Foreign Attitude

Carly Fiorina looks at the world and see enemies, adversaries and opponents. Her campaign rhetoric on the “threat to America” that Russia poses at this point in time is just so off base.

In a one-woman campaign to revive the Cold War, Carly Fiorina views our old nemesis Russia as an enemy in the war for renewed American world dominance. In the past, the influence of the United States in the world was based upon the freedoms its citizens enjoyed and the right to pursue their dreams and because of that, great wealth was created. New products and breakthroughs in communications, industry and social and spiritual thought were sprung by the resulting freedom of choice to pursue what each person wished for themselves. This drew the envy of the world. 

But when our governing parties decided to force ourselves and our way of thinking onto other nations was where our nation got off the rails.

Our military excursions into Asia were rebuffed by China from the 1950s to the 1970s so we never got militarily what we could have achieved economically in that part of the world and only strengthened the hand of the Communists to boot. China’s attitude towards the United States remains one of distrust and we have given them plenty of reason.

Russia also has had a history of Western “influence” when a multinational force made up of French, British, Canadian, American and Australian troops came into the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1918. They didn’t win but served as the fodder of the “Enemy Without” paranoia so crucial in keeping dictators in power.

And we wonder why these people distrust the United States?

But time, communication, commerce and the free market have a way of changing the attitudes of former adversaries if we allow this to take place. In the years since 9/11 the United States has lost some steam but has gained some equilibrium with some of our most powerful trading partners. China has emerged as a powerful entity even though they are an angry regime looking to take out a century of angst on somebody.

Russia too has seen its setbacks from the collapse of their Communist Government to their struggles with control over Ukraine and the Muslim expansion on their doorstep of which we here in the United States only are grimly seeing more of with the advancement of Internet media.

Enter Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard Chief Operating Officer who, from all her talk of adversaries in the world, shows that she will do nothing to bring our commonalities to light but will only continue to highlight the differences between us.  

The one BIG difference is Bashar Assad.  The current policy of the United States under President Barack Obama holds the view that Assad as The Devil. Republican Candidate for the presidency Carly Fiorina shares that view. This stuff is just so out of place right now since we as a nation have much bigger fish to fry and yet the focus remains on Russia? I just don’t get it. 

Growing up, we all learned that Russia was America’s adversary and our biggest challenge in the world. They weren’t like us, they didn't like us and they only wished to dominate the world and that may have been true then but at the same time, so did WE.

Little have we in the West ever cared for the nuances of the big, wide world we live in. First, there are really BAD people in the world and Second, there are WORSE people in the world.

How dare the Russian government look out for their own interests in the region! How dare Bashar Assad fight to save his neck? How dare THEY defy the United States right, half a world away, to determine what goes on in their countries and the countries they share borders with?! Until something happens to Assad, he’s still in charge of Syria. He was there first. Just because the United States, whose actions and complicity in the overthrow of established governments in North Africa these past decades have even violated our own Constitution, says it should be so does not mean it should be so. 

And all that support money and armaments we sent to Assad over the years? Oh, well, just forget about that stuff...hey, look, I think I just saw him gas a few civilians! Nothing to see here folks, move along. Just like Saddam Hussein, he was our guy until he wasn't our guy.  Once you decide you don't want to dance to our tune, that's it for you. 

It has been our own bone-headed interventions that have gotten us to where we are today and there is nobody else to blame but our own shiftless leadership. This must change or we as a country will not stand.

So when I hear Ms. Fiorina coming out sounding like an old Cold War “error” politician, I cringe.

Declaring countries as enemies right out of the gate and seeing Communists in her cornflakes isn’t going to get the United States back to the forefront of freedom and free trade. It was just this sort of wrong thinking that got us to where we are right now and the sooner we face up to it, the sooner we can rectify it. 

We don’t need a return to an adversarial past of us versus them, we need a way to acknowledge, respect and negotiate with the other powerful and long established civilizations in this day and age who, like us, are struggling with the same issues of keeping people employed, fed and free of worry of attack so that they can pursue, as best they can, the things they want to do in life. It doesn’t always work out but to have opportunity is the yearning of those of us who want to live in this world now and worry about the next one when we get there. Many of us want the same things in life.

Russia, China and the United States share many of the same issues right now especially the very present enemy at our gates some of whom think that dying is better than living and others who think the world owes them a living.

The LAST THING we need, Ms. Fiorina, is to think of each other as adversaries or enemies.  

Just the opposite is needed at this time.