Texas’ senior U.S. senator sees helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion through the prism of how isolationism played a role in the years before World War II.
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Anyone who’s ever listened to off-the-cuff remarks by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn over the past couple of dozen years has probably heard him talk about how his dad piloted a B-17 in World War II and was shot down and then held captive in a German prisoner of war camp until the Allied forces defeated the Nazis.
Cornyn, Texas’ senior senator and a candidate to lead the Senate Republican Conference next year, repeated the anecdote during a recent luncheon appearance in Round Rock and added that his father and namesake went on to spend 31 years as a career military officer. Cornyn wasn’t necessarily bragging, but who would blame him if he were?
Instead, he retold the story to draw a modern parallel that could be seen as a subtle warning to some of his fellow Republicans in public office or running for the same.
Cornyn told the Round Rock Chamber of Commerce amid the clanging of knives and forks against luncheon plates that it was imperative that the United States not waver in its financial support for Ukraine, which has somehow managed to not only hold its own against Russia, but even gain an advantage or two in the 2½ years since it was invaded.
The parallel was that back in Cornyn’s dad’s days there was a stubborn strain of American reluctance to come to the aid of Europe in the face of German aggression until the events of Dec. 7, 1941, thrust the nation into a global two-front war.
And that reluctance probably made the war longer and bloodier, Cornyn said.
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In his remarks to the crowd, which came as part of a Q&A session with a moderator, Cornyn did perhaps his best impression of a partisan politician trying to dance around the matters of partisanship and politics. But in a news conference with reporters after the meal, politics were front and center, and Cornyn wasn’t shy about sharing his antipathy for the Democrats with just over two months to go until the Nov. 5 election.
But he also acknowledged that some of his fellow Republicans should be heeding his warning: Coming to the aid of Ukraine is in the best interest of the United States. Not stated outright, but implicit in a question from a reporter, was that Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said not long after Russia launched its invasion, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
Other Republicans have also expressed skepticism about U.S. taxpayers underwriting Ukraine’s defense. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, last year said the aid the nation is sending to Ukraine should be redirected to Israel.
“Ukraine is not an ally, to start with,” Hawley said.
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Former President Donald Trump, who is again leading the GOP ticket, has said the money the United States sends to Ukraine should be a loan, not a gift.
Here’s how Cornyn framed his response:
“As I read history, we’ve always had these debates about what the United States should be. And obviously, we’ve got priorities here at home we need to attend to. And those are very, very important.
“But the fact is that no country in the world can play the leadership role that the United States does, because there’s simply no other country that can fill that void. And when America doesn’t take a leadership role, it becomes a very dangerous world. We get drawn into conflicts that we frankly don’t want to be involved in.”
Cornyn went on to note that Republican resistance to international intervention is not new. He pointed out that in 1952, the year he was born, the contest for the GOP presidential nomination was between a committed isolationist, U.S. Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, and former Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander in World War II, who led the international force that liberated Western Europe. The Republicans, Cornyn noted, went with the internationalist. And so did the nation.
“I’m not disturbed by the fact that we have different points of view,” Cornyn said of the Republican Party of 72 years after Ike’s first election. “I think it’s important we put those on the table, that we talk through them and discuss what makes sense.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-01 00:15:00
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