{"id":15384,"date":"2015-06-06T13:30:09","date_gmt":"2015-06-06T20:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15384"},"modified":"2015-06-06T13:30:09","modified_gmt":"2015-06-06T20:30:09","slug":"a-chickenhawk-bbq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/06\/a-chickenhawk-bbq\/","title":{"rendered":"A ChickenHawk BBQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

From my feline perspective, chickens and ChickenHawks are rather similar.  Both are birds.  Both have brains about the size of a pea.  And both are best when smothered in BBQ sauce.  So lets tuck our napkins under our chins and have a ChickenHawk BBQ.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0606ChickenHawk\"<\/p>\n

As the GOP\u2019s 2016 cast of men who would be president grows, so too do its ranks of chicken hawks\u2014candidates who have never served in the military but are eager send American men and women into wars overseas. While it\u2019s no surprise that these Republicans are feeding off each other in a feedback loop of one-upmanship, this latest round of boasting is not occurring in a vacuum. The U.S., as the world’s largest military force, faces many major challenges in the coming years \u2014not just ISIS in the Middle East, but also China enlarging its maritime borders. <\/p>\n

What follows are profiles of five candidates who are chicken hawks. None have served in the military but they all – unlike Obama<\/a> – are willing to deploy ground troops overseas to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Other Republicans running similarly have puffed out their warmongering chests, such as Scott Walker saying that he would take on ISIS like he bullied Wisconsin\u2019s public employee unions<\/a> and Jeb Bush endorsing W\u2019s invasion of Iraq. Lindsey Graham also is calling for 10,000 ground troops, but he served in the military. These five haven\u2019t:   <\/p>\n

1. Mark Rubio<\/h6>\n

On CNN\u2019s The Lead<\/a> last September, Rubio made it clear ground troops would \u201clikely be needed\u201d to \u201cfinish the job\u201d on ISIS. He said, "The chances of local forces alone being able to defeat ISIL, or any group for that matter on the ground is dubious at best\u2026 It’s important for the President to be honest with the American people that at some point in the future, this might require some element of U.S. ground power in order to finish the job."<\/p>\n

The Florida Senator quickly earned the respect of the hawkish wing of the foreign policy establishment, especially the neocons that got us into Iraq for spouting the right bellicose talking points<\/a>. Unfortunately, he doesn\u2019t seem to know that Iran – despite being a favorite punching bag of this same neocon set – is a mortal enemy of ISIS, not in alliance with it. As Think Progress noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Speaking before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, Rubio told radio and TV host Sean Hannity that \u201cif we wanted to defeat [ISIS] militarily,we could do it. [Obama] doesn\u2019t want to upset Iran<\/strong>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s just one problem: Iran has been fighting ISIS just like the United States and has publicly urged America to take a larger role in the operation. Obama has even sent a letter to Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggesting anti-ISIS cooperation.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s scary is that for many foreign policy experts, he\u2019s considered the intelligent one<\/a> in Republican circles. Meanwhile, what he did during his Military age years (18-35)? Like the others on this list, Rubio spent his military-age years, well, running for President. He attended law school, interned for Florida U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, worked on the Dole-Kemp campaign and eventually got elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2000, and rose to become Speaker of the Florida House.<\/p>\n

The wars Rubio decided not to fight in include: Gulf War, Bosnian War, Kosovo War, War in Afghanistan and Iraq War. The American troops killed in those conflicts totaled 7,041\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Alternet<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now, I know you can\u2019s have a real BBQ with just one chicken or just one ChickenHawk.  So click through for the other four.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From my feline perspective, chickens and ChickenHawks are rather similar.  Both are birds.  Both have brains about the size of a pea.  And both are best when smothered in BBQ sauce.  So lets tuck our napkins under our chins and have a ChickenHawk BBQ. As the GOP\u2019s 2016 cast of men who would be president […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}