Fox’s Kim Guilfoyle Wants Putin-esque War Leader, Not Civil Liberties

Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle on The
Five
expressed her desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin, or
someone like him, to briefly hold power in the United States, and
“get it done right.” That is, dramatically escalate our war in Iraq
until the Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIL or ISIS) is eliminated.

Let’s not deprive Guilfoyle of context, though. In an
Obama-bashing session Tuesday, co-host Greg Gutfeld lauded a
proposal by London Mayor Boris Johnson to strip of their
citizenship any Brits who go into terrorist zones, and questioned
why our president isn’t doing something similar.

Gutfeld: Can we actually do this without violating their
so-called civil liberties?

Guilfoyle: Um, guess what? I don’t care. In fact, I hope we
violate a lot of their civil liberties. This is war, this is
terror. There should be no mercy involved, because they have shown
none. Can I just make a special request on the magic lamp? Can we
get, like, Netanyahu, or, like, Putin in for 48 hours, you know,
head of the United States. I don’t know, I just want somebody to
get in here and get it done right, so that Americans don’t have to
worry and wake up in the morning fearful of a group that’s
murderous and horrific like ISIS.

First, it seems that Guilfoyle has overstated the threat of
ISIL. “The FBI and Homeland Security Department say there are no
specific or credible terror threats to the U.S. homeland from the
Islamic State militant group,”
reports the Associated Press.

Second, Guilfoyle
isn’t the first neoconservative to fall for the idea that
central-power weilding strongmen like Putin are effective leaders.
They aren’t.

Perhaps the Fox personality isn’t familiar with Russia’s
equivalent to America’s War on Terror: The Chechen Wars. Putin
wasn’t around for the first one, which lasted less than two years.
But when he took power in 2000, he dragged out the second bloody
domestic conflict until mid-2009. Officially. The insurgency
continues
to this day, with over 600 reported terrorist crimes in the
region just last year. The most recent suicide bombing on Russian
soil happened
this past December. I think he’d need more than 48 hours to
take on ISIL. 

Guilfoyle’s comments seem particularly off-color, since Russia’s
latest military aggression is an unjustified land grab in
Ukraine. Did Putin “get in there and get it done right”? He
quickly, successfully seized Crimea, but six months later, it’s
proven to be a 10,000 square miles money pit. Additionally, the war
has brought the ruble to its
lowest value in years, has turned the European Union against
Russia with sanctions, and is putting the country on the
brink of recession.

Big government begets bigger government. The Fox host
admits civil liberties don’t mean shit to her at the first tenuous
sign of danger thousands of miles away. Lucky for her, violating
rights is one of the Kremlin’s favorite hobbies.
Just ask a Russian libertarian: Dissident media is
censored, activists and journalists face prison time, and exiling
is in again. 

The Obama administration has many faults, but if
neoconservatives want authoritarians, they can shuffle off to
Russia and spare the rest of us.