Tom Cotton: I only regret the wars I haven't tried to start.
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) March 17, 2015
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, on Sunday seemed to be confused about Iran occupying their capital, Tehran. Using it as a reason they must be stopped from Obtaining a nuclear weapon. While attempting to make a point about Iran’s control of the region, Cotton, seemed to not entirely understand the geography of the area…. “Moreover, we have to stand up to Iran’s attempts to drive for regional dominance,” Cotton said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “They already control Tehran and, increasingly, they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad. And now, Sana’a as well.”…. “They do all that without a nuclear weapon. What they would do without a nuclear weapon.”
It would be tempting- and way too easy- to ridicule Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for his ignorance, sociopathic, narrow-minded Tea Party hatred of the fact that The Black Man in the White House © is still drawing breath. His rampant sexism would also make him an inviting target, one that I’ll leave for another time. His ridiculous and embarrassing letter to Iran (which 46 other Republicans Senators) co-signed, displays a distressing lack of respect for the President and a disturbing ignorance of how American government works. His lack of remorse and indeed his pride in the letter should be taken as evidence as just how truly unfit for office he is.
Unfortunately for Cotton, the letter is merely the most recent example of how a narrow, racist world view combined with the willingness to believe propaganda over fact can do significant damage to the country he purports to love. Like so many Republicans in Washington, Cotton appears to believe that power rightfully belongs to Republicans, and that anything not reflecting that truth is merely a diversion, a detour from God-ordained truth surely to be corrected during the next election cycle.
Tom Cotton is the living illustration of John Cleese’s theory that the truly stupid are those too stupid to recognize that they are in fact stupid. Unfortunately for America, Cotton is taking almost half the Senate along for a ride destined to end badly. Republicans have figuratively shot themselves in the foot, with everyone from the President to late-night comedians ridiculing them…and deservedly so. They have Cotton to thank for their latest embarrassing episode.
WASHINGTON — It’s hard to believe freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) caused such a stir in the Senate with his letter to Iran even before his maiden floor speech. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who led an unsuccessful fight against Obamacare, couldn’t even do that.
But Cotton — now famous for orchestrating the controversial letter to Iran with the signatures of 46 of his GOP colleagues — finally got the chance to do just that on Monday evening. Cotton began, as one does, with Adolf Hitler.
“The world is growing ever more dangerous, and our defense spending is wholly inadequate to confront the danger,” Cotton said. “To be exact, during the last four or five years, the world has grown gravely darker. We have steadily disarmed, partly with a sincere desire to give a lead to other countries and partly due to the severe financial pressure of the time. But a change must now be made. We must not continue longer on a course in which we alone are growing weaker while every other nation is growing stronger.”
He continued: “I wish I could take credit for those eloquent but ominous words, but I cannot. Winston Churchill sounded that warning in 1933 as Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany. Tragically, Great Britain and the West didn’t heed this warning, when they might have strangled that monster in his crib. Rather they let the locust continue to eat away at the common defense.”
Cotton, who’s has demonstrated himself to be a friend of defense contractors who profit from war with Iran, seems to represent Republicans who believe that war is the answer- to virtually every foreign policy question. Negotiation only demonstrates moral weakness and lack of resolve, and the only way to project American strength is by bombing our enemies back to the Stone Age.
The argument can be made that the world is indeed becoming a more dangerous place, but there are two ways to react to that danger. You can preemptively destroy an enemy militarily and risk having another, even more dangerous, enemy that will rise from the ashes and remain a threat for generations…or you can attempt to talk to that enemy in an effort to create a world in which peaceful coexistence is possible. The only people who benefit from wars are defense contractors and their shareholders. Every dollar spent on a weapons system is a dollar that won’t go to feed the hungry, educate children, or repair and replace our crumbling infrastructure. What good will it do to turn Iran into a parking lot when our bridges, sewers, and cities crumble around us from neglect and lack of resolve?
How can ignorance and reaction serve to create an America worthy of respect and admiration? How can fearful, hawkish reactionaries like Tom Cotton have anything positive to contribute to making this country a better and safer place? Hatred and violence only begets more of the same; only truly enlightened leaders recognize that war isn’t the answer…and no one has or likely will ever think of Cotton as anything close to being an enlightened leader.
When stupid people elect stupid people, we get leaders like Sen. Tom Cotton. Welcome to our new Idiocracy.
