Foreign Policy & Slippery Slopes

The recent Mumbai attacks led Tom Brokaw to pose a very serious question to Barack Obama.  Obama’s response is worth examining.  Here’s the exchange:

MR. BROKAW:  I want to move now to international affairs, the war on terror. Obviously, we have all been stunned by what happened in India at Mumbai.  It is still playing out in that part of the world.  You have said that the United States reserves the right to go after terrorists in Pakistan if you have targets of opportunity.  Does India now also have that right of hot pursuit?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA:  Well, I’m not going to comment on that.  What, what I’m going to restate is a basic principle.  Number one, if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself.  I think that’s universally acknowledged.

The acceptance of the Bush Doctrine by Democrats will continue to stymie Democrats foreign policy for years to come.  It stymied what should have been an otherwise straightforward answer by Obama.  Common wisdom inside the D.C. punditry will compare everything Obama does to Bush’s policies because Obama and other prominent Democrats didn’t speak out forcefully against them during the past six years plus.  When Democrats didn’t speak out against them, I wondered why.  Would it be because they agree with it but don’t want to be seen as similary lawless and morally bankrupt as the Cons have been?  Obama’s response tells me that that very well could be the case.

He did comment on that by stating that country’s can respond to attacks, much like the U.S. did after 9/11.  He didn’t qualify his answer to indicate that any response would arise from moral underpinnings.  His answer is disturbing.  The U.S. should in no way encourage Indian and Pakistani tesnsions to escalate.  Both have nuclear weapons.  A nuclear disaster should be avoided at all costs.  Any oblique non-response to Brokaw’s question moves the world further down a slippery slope we shouldn’t be on.  Russia recently identified the Bush Doctrine as an open door to their invasion of Georgia earlier this year.  How many cases should be allowed to happen before the policy is emphatically rejected by Obama and other future U.S. Presidents?

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Also in foreign policy news, the planned strategic deployment of Marines in Afghanistan is likely to change.  Instead of being posted close to the Afghan/Pakistan border, some Marines will instead be posted closer to Kabul, the capital.  That’s in response to this year’s Taliban advancements through Afghanistan.  It’s a situation that deteriorates every day.  President-elect Obama won’t have enough troops available to him to sufficiently take care of events in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  One has to take priority.  To boot, Bush is leaving Obama a severely depleted military – personnel and materiel have been significantly weakened.

In The News 10/27/08

Could waves (from storms or even tsunamis) pass by off-shore drilling platforms or even very small islands?  French and British physicists think so.  Their work needs to be taken from the lab to a more realistic situation before viability can be assessed.

Companies are going to make the recession deeper and longer.  They’re cutting wages and jobs as the economy continues to weaken.  It protects shareholders and executives, but prevents short- to medium-term economic growth.  You want consumption to pick back up?  It’s easy: increase wages.  When lower- and middle-class workers earn more, they buy more.  The past 8 years have clearly shown that when the upper-class makes more, they save more.  They don’t spend their money.  They don’t increase the size of business or create enough jobs.

The Bush doctrine is still in full effect.  U.S. commandos executed a strike into Syria over the weekend.  A couple of questions spring to mind.  First, don’t we have a Secretary of State?  Or is she too busy shopping for shoes to actually do her freaking job?  Second, do Americans realize that these kinds of actions solidify our wrecked image abroad?  The U.S. strikes with impunity into sovereign countries that it considers weak.  Actually, I think Americans do understand what’s going on: it’s one reason why Obama continues to lead McCain.  Unfortunately, this insane policy ensures that there will be future tension between the U.S. and interests in and around the Middle East. Anything to justify the War budget.

Corrupt Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been found guilty of lying about gifts he received and never reported.  An interesting facet of this case: if Stevens wins his re-election campaign this year, he can serve in Congress even though he is a convicted felon.  Why is that interesting?  Republicans have passed laws around the country denying convicted felons voting rights because they tend to vote Democratic.  The hypocrisy is disgusting, though unsurprising.  Stevens should be allowed to serve again once he pays his debt back to society, just like voters should be allowed to vote again once their debts have been repaid.  Stevens certainly shouldn’t be allowed to take part in any further Senate proceedings until his sentence has been served in full.  [Update]: Irony strikes in this case.  According to Alaska state law, Sen. Stevens can’t register to vote due to his felon status.  Which means he can’t vote for himself.  It’s only one felon, but it is interesting to see a Republican get caught up in conservative voter suppression strategies.