The Ruckus Over Obama

He's laid out his foreign policy, and now gets the heat. Sully as an excellent wrap up here. Key points:

"Outflanking Bush-Cheney with a serious, aggressive, intelligent campaign against Islamist terror? It's what the country wants. And it seems to be what Obama is offering. He manages to decouple the war in Iraq from the broader war on Islamist terror thus:


"Just because the President misrepresents our enemies does not mean we do not have them. The terrorists are at war with us. The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, but the threat is real. They distort Islam. They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for...

"The President would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of al Qaeda's war against us, not an Iraqi civil war. He elevates al Qaeda in Iraq – which didn't exist before our invasion – and overlooks the people who hit us on 9/11, who are training new recruits in Pakistan. He lumps together groups with very different goals: al Qaeda and Iran, Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents. He confuses our mission...

"By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

"When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.""

Of course none of this is articulated by the M$M, but they simply focus on the fact that Obama would unilaterally invade Pakistan should it be necessary, which, of course, has gotten the Democrats up in arms. I think the passage above displays Obama's reasonable criteria for doing so, but I'd like to make one more point. According to both international law, and the law of common sense a nation has the right to protect its borders by any means necessary. We had to go address this topic when Kerry was running, and the Bush team distracted us by saying that Kerry would ask the UN first before defending the nation. This claim is both outlandish and dumb. No one in their right mind would ask anyone else for the right to defend their self. The only question is when it becomes necessary to take action, which is then a question of the candidate's character, reason, and irascibility. As time has shown Bush lacks that (a dearth that was on display from before he was even elected) and Obama seems to have it. This isn't to say that Clinton, or Edwards don't have it either, but Obama wins this week for articulating his position in frank and concrete terms before his competition.