The Obam-"duh" Doctrine, Ctd...

All the way back in December of 2009, President Obama received the Nobel Peace prize and I noted that conservatives were stunned that the President would advocate for the use of force in defense of this country and in limited times when the humanitarian call for action was too great. And I said way back then, that this was unveiling of the Obama doctrine. And I was right.

President Obama proved last night that he's a man of his word. He does not oppose the use of military force but he understands that military force alone cannot, and we as a country cannot, force political change. We can create conditions where mass violence is minimized, but we cannot through our military might form a brand new government for a country out of whole cloth. And for god sakes, we don't need to save the whole world by ourselves! It's OK to ask friends for some help. One of my favorite quotes during the 2004 Presidential campaign, John Kerry mused regarding Iraq, "Mr. President, it's not leadership if no one is following."

Some conservatives and liberals argue that by imposing the "no-fly zone" implicitly calls for regime change. I disagree. We are not taking part in a civil war. We are merely making it a fair fight. We have removed Gaddaffi's ability to attack from the air (which is imprecise and kills more civilians) and limited his ability to use mass artillery.  The Obama Doctrine is essentially limited strategic force with a cooperative massive effort on the diplomatic end to ensure foreign policy goals. Last night, the President essentially said "Gaddaffi must go, but we don't have to kill him for that to happen." After the sobering lesson of Iraq, we've learned that the U.S. Armed Forces are really good at blowing stuff up. They are not good at making a government for a foreign country.

Meanwhile, France and the U.K. are taking the reins, because this is in their backyard and the conflict is a more vital interest to them. We are also supplying our high tech know-how with radar jamming and other advanced rescue capability.

I think it's a pretty sensible policy. We will stop mass murder where and when we can. We are in the business of stopping things from happening not making things happening. The military is responsible for destructive capability and constructive capability will be the purview of our state department and diplomatic efforts in the region, which by definition, includes partners willing to help and help pay for those shared goals.

The era of the superpower died in 1990 and really died on September 11, 2001. With actual threats that are so defuse and varied, no one nation will be able to fight it all by itself. The new era requires cooperation with friends and allies, which happens to be the best for security and fiscally. And if working with our friends is called weakness by some conservatives, than so be it. I'd rather have a stronger America that looks weak than a weak America that pretends to be strong.

The Obam - "duh" Doctrine

So apparently conservatives are all surprised and a flutter that our Democratic President, or as they would say "Democrat" President stated in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that he believes that war is necessary some times.

Wow. I know this is really controversial and I can't believe that a Democrat would ever believe that sometimes war is justified to meet threats and human rights violations. That we must do our best to negotiate and use other means of persuasion first, but that force can and must be used when the time calls for it against leaders like Hitler and Milosevic and whoever the bad guys are in Darfur.

Duh. This is not crazy political science or theory here. The Bush Doctrine on the other hand, while admirably liberal in policy was not realistic. To be fair, the doctrine was really half crazy conservative and half crazy liberal.

The Bush Doctrine essentially is a mix of two primary concepts preemption and freedom in the form of Democratic government for everybody on the earth. The first principle was preemption; we must attack possible threats first before they become real threats. Unfortunately, that concept isn't legal nor is it a smart use of our limited military power, as we have learned recently troops cost money (money we don't have). How can you guess the right country to attack? Iran may attack Israel, at what point are we justified in bombing their nuclear facilities. The mere chance of an attack is not reason enough to start a war.

The second concept is freedom should be everywhere and we should use military force and diplomatic isolationism to press countries to move towards democratic governments. Sometimes a military dictatorship can be our friend. For example, when Gen. Pervez Musharraf was President of Pakistan he did a much better job than the current president in fighting Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaida even though the current President has created a more democratic government.

The Obama Doctrine basically states that we're going to go after and kill some bad guys who aren't interested in negotiating or peace. We're going to negotiate with the weirdos who may or may not have bad intentions, people like Kim Jong-Il and Ahmedinejad. And we'll only use force if it's for our absolute security or if it's a real crime against humanity such as sectarian violence in Darfur, but Europe needs to step up to the plate and help. Because unlike other doctrines of past presidents we don't want to be the only policeman in the world, it costs a ton and it's not worth the problems. We've got problems here that we need to fix. As Obama correctly stated in his Afghanistan speech, "the nation I'm most interested in building is our own."

Tip to the world. We're back to the time when America won't attack unless you've demonstrated a history of being an evil-doer. So that's yes to Al-Qaida and no to Iran, because Iran's people are more pro-American than their government, so isolating that country further pushes those fans away, get it?

Just remember this bad guys, "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood."