At a foreign policy discussion Friday on the Johns Hopkins campus in Washington, antiwar activist Fred Boenig and Republican Sen. Tom Cotton had what Politico's Burgess Everett
called a "tense and awkward exchange."
Cotton, whose letter earlier this year to Iranian leaders warning them that any nuclear deal agreed to by President Obama might not hold after he is no longer in office, was making the case for his superhawkish foreign policy to the audience. Obama's approach to Iran and other trouble spots is "dangerous," Cotton said. At one point he asked the meaning of four pins Boenig was wearing. They are recognition of the military service of his four children, Boenig said. One of them, Airman Austin Gates-Benson, committed suicide in Afghanistan in 2010.
Boenig, who hosts a radio show in Pennsylvania, then asked the senator the same question he had asked another superhawk, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), in February: Could he say when the last U.S. military fatality overseas happened. Cotton couldn't.
Boenig noted that it occurred 58 days ago. That fatality was Spc. John M. Dawson, killed by small-arms fire in Afghanistan, the first American in uniform to be killed there since U.S. combat operations officially ended, although 10,000 troops will remain in the country for some time. Another American, Pablo Ruiz, died of non-combat-related causes May 24. Boenig followed up by asking Cotton when Americans can say the war is over in the Middle East:
“There’s no definite answer because our enemies get a vote in this process. I’m deeply sorrowful for your loss and I greatly honor the service that all of your children have rendered, like all of our veterans do. But in the end the best way to honor our veterans … ” Cotton responded.
“Is to have more killed?” interrupted Boenig.
“ … Is to win the wars in which they’ve fought,” Cotton finished. [...]
“It’s very clear what your views are sir. My views are keeping our kids safe, which include my children. Now that you have a child, you will understand,” Boenig warned Cotton, who just celebrated the birth of his first son. “When you speak of sending our kids again, let’s make it worth it not just to send them to politically help some Haliburton or somebody else.”
Cotton said the world is more dangerous "than at any time in our lifetimes" and the nation must remain ever-vigilant. Much of that danger, of course, is a direct by-product of an aggressive U.S. foreign policy, including the invasion and occupation of Iraq that led to the killing of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, sectarian conflict and ethnic cleansing and, most recently, the emergence of the extremist ISIL.
But Cotton, and all too many like him, not only on his side of the aisle in the Senate, are determined to make matters worse with more of the same. Thousands more troops sent to Iraq, more bombing, more drone attacks. This worked so well before, right?