The Cold War never happened

My favorite paleoconservative reliably skewers the stupidity that still issues forth from the hawkish right in the U.S. He points to the following:

Seth Mandel responds to Bandow with the non sequitur of the year:

Really? If President Obama saw Russia establishing allies in the West, he would … [1] enable the slaughter of thousands by shielding murderous dictators like Bashar al-Assad at the UN Security Council? Bandow thinks he would [2] aid, abet, protect, and hide the illicit nuclear weapons program of the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism? He would [3] steal elections? He would [4] jail bloggers? [5] Assassinate whistle blowers on foreign soil and at least tolerate the assassination of journalists at home? [6] Cut off energy supplies in the dead of winter from those who refused to do his bidding? Which one of these things does Bandow think is the appropriate reaction to the enlargement of NATO, and which of these things does Bandow think Washington would do?

Larison, however, fails to score the easy points by just observing that actually, Washington did do more or less all of those things in the Western Hemisphere in the name of anti-communism. (I added the numbers.) What follows is just off the top of my head.

1. Nicaragua, Chile (widening the scope: Saudi Arabia, pre-revolution Cuba and Iran, Indonesia, South Vietnam . . .)
2. Ok, not in Western Hemisphere, but come on, Israel
3. Probably not at home, but certainly abroad, see #1
4. See #3. But also, McCarthyism, the FBI surveillance of lefists and civil rights groups
5. Maybe not journalists, but that doesn't make it any better
6. I'm sure something like this happened, but hell, let's give him one out of six