Keywords or Terms: ABC NEWS; Eighth 2016 Republican Presidential
Debate; White House; Waterboarding; Muslims; Christians; International Treaties; Guantanamo Base, Cuba; Marco Rubio;
Ted Cruz; Donald Trumps; America’s Enemies; North Korea; United Nations; Affordable Care Act
If you missed ABC
News televised eighth GOP presidential candidates’ debate on Saturday relax,
nothing much has changed in their usual rhetoric. Excellent examples of violation of
international laws and decorum spiced up many of the presidential candidates’
claims; with good old Donald Trump alleging so much has been done to Christians
that he is ready to do more than waterboarding people, to correct for disenfranchisement.
For all the allegations against the last Republican Administration in the White
House, none was so significant or reminiscent of a need for change in the way
America handles her enemies, as the one now being proposed. Left to the
Republican front runner, real estate mogul Donald Trump, relations with the
rest of the world, especially Muslim countries are waste of time and there
hardly a need to respect international treaties, civil liberties and human
decency in dealing with foreign policies and or attempting to fight
international terrorism for national security's sake. How about the third runner
up Republican Candidate, Marco Rubio, the supposedly establishment preference
in light of the shakeup in Republican race for the White House? Well here is
his vision of Guantanamo base, Cuba, that ill-repute land of concentration for
suspected terrorists: “[America] should be putting people into
Guantanamo, not emptying it out, and we shouldn’t be releasing these killers
who are rejoining the battlefield against the United States.” The more
extreme America gets in fighting global terrorism for national security sake,
the better for Republicans. Donald Trump appears to have reinforced his
continued dictate for addressing religious differences or the constitutional separation
of state and religion; and Marco Rubio has hunkered down on the most recent
Republican White House’s belligerence in fighting terrorism.
While the outcome of
Saturday’s debate has set in motion another hot topic debate over entering or entertaining foreign wars by America, it appears that the claim of who advised against the
Iraq war in the first place or later instances, became a football for nearly
all the seven candidates on the rostrum. Interestingly, Donald Trump in his
usual narcissistic approach at representing his “own” facts: “I’m the only one
up here, when the War in Iraq, I was the one who said, don’t go, don’t do it,
you’re going to destabilize the Middle East. So I’m not the one with the
trigger.” If the question was, was it actually true that the reality show host
made his opposition to America entering into foreign war in Iraq by August 2004
or earlier, no one can actually say; however, few people can hardly or truly appreciate that
he considers some offshoot of America’s effort to fight global terrorism, including entering into two foreign wars, essentially characterized by some abuse of human decency
and civil liberties as contained in America’s signed UN international treaties, as permissible or dismal.
Rather than reflect on the past and conceive of a more humane posture in addressing issues of hostilities from the outside world, Mr. Trump
promises more hostile, if not more completely inhuman policies and behaviors to
seek information from America’s enemy or punish their actions.
This is not satire, to be sure, the first time
I heard Republican aspirants at the eighth GOP debate on ABC News discuss
federal responsibility regarding immigration and naturalization issues, a hot button issue considering that many republican aspirants promised a more anti-immigration stance in
current campaign cycle, and the front runner, Donald Trump, further
articulates building a huge and long wall to separate the Americas, North from
South, in the bid to control “invasion” of undocumented Mexicans, the
estimation of how recent past Democratic and Republican White Houses in last
two decades had ramped up effort at
deportation, were relatively subject to inquisition; or for lack of better words, further clarification. Indeed, Ted Cruz, the winner of the Iowa Caucuses, declared: “In eight years, Bill Clinton deported 12 million
people. In eight years, George W. Bush deported 10 million people.” If Administrators of US Department of Homeland Security have
listened to data flung around regarding voluntary and involuntary deportation
of undocumented immigrants by the Republican candidates in the debate, they
probably would have been dismayed.
Whether Republican candidates
understood what constituted formal deportation or not is very much debatable;
however, from policymakers who know better, there has actually been a growing
number of formal deportation occurring during the current White House
Administration, more than at any comparative time with the George Bush and Bill
Clinton’s White Houses, just as patterns in immigration and deportation
policies have shown a relative decline in the number of undocumented immigrants
that were deported and has no other opportunity of re-entry, excepts committing a felony. Then, as in now,
there has been active effort to maintain an increasing level of removal of
undocumented immigrants from the United States. The parallel comparisons of
effort to remove undocumented immigrants from US, served as a fodder for unsubstantiated
claims by Republicans discussing the issues or resorting to deportation to
address the issue of large numbers of undocumented immigrants living among us.
There were two fascinating
claims from Republican Ted Cruz that needs more elucidation because of the
coldness of the misinformation on China’s hegemony in Asia minor. For the
Canadian-born Texas Senator, “[China] has total, absolute control, practically,
of North Korea.” The reality of Chino-Korean relationship is totally different
from the Senator’s conception. Because North Korean has remained defiant in its
test of nuclear weapons and it appears that China considers North Koreans as
its client state hardly bestows on the Chinese the complete right to undermine
that nation’s choice of self-determination, no matter how we as Americans
abhors many of the rogue state’s actions. Neither, can anyone truly know or understand
the extent of Chinese relationship with the North Koreans. Past White House
administrations’ attempts to bring North Korea to the fold of responsible
nuclear states, through negotiations and a hash out of what is considered
President William Clinton’s Agreed Framework, hardly served as a failure to act
or a deliberate effort not to exploit Chinese hegemony over North Korea. The
fact is, the Korean Peninsula has remained an unstable region due to insistent incursions
from Northern Korea to South Korea; and, other indeterminable variables that have made reigning
North Korea in, rather difficult. All proactive policies on North Korea from
both past Democratic and Republican White Houses have not failed completely in
their sense of purpose: making North Korean leaders responsible for their
actions and holding them accountable for actions that we consider as detrimental
to the stability of Asia minor and specifically, the Korean Peninsula. Offering
a caviar to help tore the ice between the North and South Korea and calling upon
China to exercise her prerogative relational influence on North Koreans are not
weak endeavors or total failure of foreign policy in that region of the world. The fact that America is dealing with a reclusive or completely closed up society to the rest of the world has complicated matters further; and made foreign policy administration difficult in the context of a nuclear North Korea.
If Ted Cruz perceives North
Korean détente as Chinese failure to enforce some degree of influence on that
rogue nation to abide by international laws and rules of good behavior as broadly
defined by the United Nations, and by default United States, maybe he could
learn a thing or two about international diplomacy: you cannot achieve a
leverage over other nations that you do not completely agree with their foreign
policies or preferred national religious affiliation by carpet bombing them to oblivion.
International politics and foreign affairs are different from running a resinous
détente and deluded presidential campaign, tainted by bigotry and evangelic religiosity.
Crucial part of decades of international entanglements in the Korean Peninsula
is more than laying claim against China or defeating North Korea by throwing around unsubstantiated statements or falsehood. That North Korea took millions from a deal to assuage her behavior from a
prior Democratic Administration is an issue subject to critical debates. United States has been forced to make
concessions in some deals to achieve leverage over thorny issues of
international conflict that appears as a shift in balance of power to the left,
that could have readily put the interest of its allies and self in jeopardy, if
otherwise; however, never a failure of common purpose. If a naïve Senator does
not understand this intricate nature of foreign policy, maybe he has no
business running for the White House oval office; especially when the question
of his constitutional qualification for the office is still on the table.
Clinton’s email
controversy once again, appears to be a piñata for the Republicans all over
again. Even after known facts about the uncertainty of allegations why her
private server had been used in transaction America’s foreign policies and
other verified fact that other Secretaries of State, General Powell and Dr. Condoleezza
Rice, had transmitted classified information over private email accounts. We
are within the power to change some of the perceived short comings of how the
State Department handles sensitive information; however, there is no room for
crusification of one individual for political gains of a politician. If
Republican aspirant Marco Rubio believes he knows better than the investigative
bodies looking into the shortcomings of how US State Department communicates,
maybe he should get a job with the body and not be running for the presidency.
However, if he understands the difficulties of laying claims of wrong doing of
public officials, maybe he should exercise restraint on the way he categorized
Ms. Clinton’s probable error; generally saying that the former US Secretary of
State purposely put classified emails unto a private server for any gains or a
deliberate effort to skirt known US State Department practices, is probably
going too far. For the records, other US Intelligence agencies have warned that
some of the emails Republicans like Marco Rubio are asking to be released to
the public are just too sensitive for public releases, must be acceded. It is
not just in our national interest.
Finally, if Donald Trump
is alleging that insurance companies are getting rich under OBAMACARE, maybe he
should once again familiarize himself with insurance companies quarterly
report. As reported by Moody’s and poor and some other financial reporting
outlets, health insurance companies have been losing a heal of money since the
institution of the Affordable Care Act. The truth of the matter is this: Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to cut down was designed to cut down on health care costs,
including excessive premiums, bloating health insurance administrative costs
and routine over-billing of American consumers. In the ear of the American consumers,
ACA, is a life saver, even when and where Republicans are bent on overturning
the law. Coming to a presidential debate to announce erroneously that insurance
companies are making away under the Affordable Care Act, is a sign of dis- ingenuousness and the current state of disillusion over OBAMACARE by the Republicans,
especially, their current polls' front runner.
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