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Pollak: Buttigieg the Bullsh**ter
by Joel B. Pollak

One night during final exams at Harvard College, I complained to a friend over dinner that I had a fifteen-page paper due the next day and hadn’t started writing it yet. “Just bullshit,” he advised. “It’s the Harvard way.”

That advice came to mind as I tried to make sense of what South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — a fellow Harvard graduate — told an interviewer recently about whether he would be willing to send troops to Mexico.

It seemed to me that he answered the question by saying everything — and also nothing. Classic Harvard bullshit:

Q: Mr. Mayor, after a number of Americans were murdered in Northern Mexico, President Trump suggested sending U.S. troops to help Mexico deal with the cartels. With your military experience, is there a way to deal with the cartels that doesn’t violate Mexico’s sovereignty?

Buttigieg: Well, one of the biggest things I learned during my time deployed abroad is the importance of our alliances, our friendships. And this president, needless to say, has destroyed just about every relationship he can find. That makes America less safe. Whether it is turning our back on Kurdish allies, who put their lives on the line to help us fight ISIS, or right here in our own hemisphere, alienating those very countries that we need to have a better partnership with. Remember, it is in the interest of both the United States and Mexico for Mexico to prosper with greater economic success and security then they have right now. So, if it is in the context of a security partnership, then I would welcome ways to make sure that America is doing what we can to ensure that our neighbor to the south is secure. But doing it in a way that calls into question Mexican sovereignty completely misses how we got here. By the way, a lot of this is a question of the demand side on the United States. Part of what we do is make drug trafficking less profitable by walking away from the failed war on drugs here in the United States. That is a policy that we know through experience hasn’t worked. We have got to do our part here at home, and partner with countries abroad.

Q: But Mayor, specifically — do you see a time when troops can go into Mexico, if Mexico welcomed it, for instance?

Buttigieg: There is a scenario where we could have security cooperation — as we do with countries around the world. Now, I would only order American troops into conflict if there were no other choice, if American lives were on the line, and if this were necessary for us to uphold our treaty obligations. But we could absolutely be in some partnership role if, and only if, it is welcomed by our partner south of the border.

To summarize: he would only send troops in if American lives were at stake. But as a matter of fact, American lives are at stake, which is exactly what the interviewer said in her question. He sounded smart, but actually said nothing.

Continues:

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/11/24/pollak-buttigieg-the-bulls-tter/

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