Graham mocks Kasich’s proposed Judeo-Christian agency: ‘I think that was the Crusades’
Lindsey Graham doesn’t like John Kasich’s idea for a new federal agency to promote “Judeo-Christian values” in the Middle East and other world hotspots, joking that it sounded like “the Crusades.”
On Tuesday, the Ohio governor announced his idea in a foreign policy speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
“U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting have lost their focus on the case for Western values and ideals and effectively countering our opponents’ propaganda and disinformation,” Kasich said. “I will consolidate them into a new agency that has a clear mandate to promote the core, Judeo-Christian Western values that we and our friends and allies share: the values of human rights, the values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.”
“I don’t think we should be promoting Judeo-Christian values in the Arab world,” Graham told Real Clear Politics in an interview. “I think that was the Crusades.”
The U.S. should be focused on fighting radical Islam instead, Graham argued.
“John Kasich is trying to do a good thing, but you’ve got to watch your words in this business,” Graham added. “Our enemies can take our words and use them against us.”
The South Carolina senator, who has been consistently critical of the Obama administration’s strategy toward ISIL, said his fellow Republicans are starting to get the right idea but some are “just parroting, ‘boots on the ground.’”
Graham has called for sending at least 10,000 U.S. troops back to Iraq to bolster the Iraqi military and combat ISIL.