Does the book address how to make international law more effective so we have better diplomatic tools?

I'm glad Kevin's finally applying some skepticism to those chest beaters over at Democracy Arsenal.

Carl: No, not specifically, althoug WAOM's chapter about the United Nations is fairly decent.

As an aside, Democracy Arsenal isn't associated with either the DLC or PPI (as far as I know). In any case, I typically link to stuff I like and ignore stuff I don't. I like some of the posts at DA and link to them, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything they say.

So, what would the prescription be? How about: The US will take appropriate counter-measures, up to and including military force, upon any attack, including attacks on US possessions, vessels, and citizens.

This doesn't address the pre-emptive question, though--and I'm not sure that needs to be addressed.

Taking to extreme the concept of internalization of Repub's absurd talking points about Dems' 'lack of seriousness' on national security by writing a tome to answer them.

'Go fuck yourself' would have sufficed.

great points kevin- that the left desperately needs to answer

J.S.

I think the problem is in specifying force. Only the most ardent right-wing hawks (those without power or influence) come right out and say they'd attack or bomb this or that nation. The Republican mainstream always keeps its options open, and obviously has in almost every case, so it's expecting a bit much to have tough-minded liberals coming out with specifics about how we should be using force, which is always about real-world human beings and actors, not abstract entities.

That said, I think this "tough" posturing is a bunch of crap in some ways, but at least the things you mentioned in the first paragraph sound like sensible approaches to me, in general, though I wonder where there's more lip-synch there than actual readiness to sing those tunes all the way through, and in a just manner.

And yet, in a 14-part book about the war on terror, shouldn't at least one chapter be devoted to Iraq?

Good question Kevin. The reason why there wasn't the one chapter devoted to Iraq from the liberals was because they would have to admit Bush and conservatives were right about Iraq. The killing of Al-Zarqawi and Bush's visit to Iraq yesterday marks a turning point in the war that shows the terrorists can't win. With their terrorist infrastructure destroyed by the killing of Al-Zarqawi, the terrorists have been effectively eliminated in Iraq and the fledgling free and democratic government in Iraq has prevailed.

J. S.

Go fuck yourself.

I wrote a diary on Iran today for the DKos extended community, and it basically boils down to framing aggression against Iran as a Bush "mulligan". I have no fear of Iran, and don't know any American who feels they can outcompete us on the world stage, especially the way they're currently constituted, so why are we so worried about threatening force against them in order to win our struggle for influence and power with them? What's wrong with a little healthy competition, rather than being a bully who breaks one of the upstart's legs before agreeing to a golf game with him?

And, as a preemptive by the way, I don't buy the nuclear bogeyman, or that we should not fully enforce the NPT, allowing some nations to skate (like Israel), as the real reason we're putting pressure on Iran. Or that their figurehead president is actually in charge. Or that Iran would deploy nukes against Israel, or give them to terrorists. Or that Iran is expansionary and an aggressor (especially). I don't buy any of that, and it's all a bunch of crap. This really boils down to a power game between us and Iran, and we should have no fear of not being able to outcompete them. What cowards we've become!

Though, with Bush in charge, maybe we should be fearful of our ability to compete.

Excellent post, and a real marker in the debate (or where the debate SHOULD be headed).

When I posted in chats about Beinart's book, the problem as I see it is not one of policy, but of politics and psychology. Liberals are in a real Catch-22, because the American mindset is generally pro-war (or at lest depressingly easily duped into supporting war). Yet our beliefs require us to use all options short of military action to solve conflicts.

Until we can convince the American public that war is as destructive to the fabric of life here as it is abroad, and that it simply costs too much in blood and treasure for us as a country to be reflexively in favor of the military option, it will be easy for us to be demagogued on this issue.

Right now, the only solution I can see is to take our lumps, continue stating our case, and fight back against charges of weakness and disloyalty. Maybe the public will come around. The other direction leads to some version of imperialism or outright fascism.

If anyone has a better solution to an admittedly thorny problem, I'm all ears. It's very frustrating to know you are right, yet the public discourse rejects the best arguments (i.e., a de-emphasis of the military role in foreign policy) seemingly out of hand.

The killing of Al-Zarqawi and Bush's visit to Iraq yesterday marks a turning point in the war that shows the terrorists can't win.

Sorry, Al, but until Bush is able to make a formal visit to Iraq instead of sneaking in like a thief as he's done everytime he's visited in the past 3 years, his Iraq crusade remains f*cked up.

Kevin, by using the phrase "how tough", you play into the hands of the hawks, by playing on their turf. The implication is that if you're aggressive with the military you're tough, and if you're more cautious you're not tough, with the implication that you're not tough enough.

In his inaugural address, JFK said "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." The Bush administration fears to negotiate, and it opposes the very concept of binding treaties, perhaps because it has so little confidence in its abilities on that front that it's sure it will get taken by those clever furriners.

A focus on effective diplomacy can make the use of force more effective when it is needed. For example, Bush Sr. was able to line up almost the entire international community to oppose Saddam's invasion of Iraq, and limited the war to the legitimate objective of expelling Saddam from Kuwait (not that I support everything done in that war, like the attacks on civilian infrastructure).

Do we know where the Republicans stand on these issues beyond their capacity to screw up everywhere?

Dems are stupid to let the Republicans dictate the terms of the debate in a manner which makes the liberals appear to be defensive whereas the record of the current administration demands that its should be the GOP which should be defending its positions on national security.

Really it's about honesty.

A lot of liberals would support military intervention to eliminate actual imminent threats, to remove world leaders who are actually committing genocide, and to destroy terrorist training camps in places like northern Iraq before the war. We'd also like a frank and honest public discussion of expected repercussions, exit strategies, and how our actions will affect our standing in the region and the world (including the number and motivation level of international terrorists).

Any discussion of the Bush Doctrine has to include an in depth analysis of how the rhetoric had nothing to do with the actual motives, actions, or results.

I'm willing to use military force to get California out of the union. How's that?

Shouldn't at least one chapter be devoted entirely to the Bush Doctrine and what we'd replace it with?

What exactly is the Bush Doctrine? Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out?

God knows this discussion would do nothing except magnify liberal fissures, rather than finding common ground.

Kevin, we need to have those fights now. If we just paper over such issues, they will be exposed with a vengeance come the next close election. To reclaim a lasting majority, the Democrats must show they are tough enough to deal decisively with the hard issues and not just dance around the edges.

File under: Why NOT to elect liberals in a time of war.

"Maybe I'm asking the impossible. God knows this discussion would do nothing except magnify liberal fissures"

if toughminded liberals are going to criticize their weak-kneed brethren, shouldn't they be a little more forthcoming about exactly how tough they think we ought to be?

Well, exactly as toughminded as the Republicans demand, of course.

Shockingly, liberals are so devoted to finding diplomatic appeasement options that they don't even address the option of giving our troops a chance to serve their country.

This is news?

I'm sick of hearing "But what would the Democrats do?"

How about: The Democrats would do what they did the last time they controlled the executive branch. It is a virtual certainty that a good number of Clinton administration officials would serve in a new Democratic administration because that's just how Washington works.

So what did Democrats do? Work through NATO to stop genocide; broker peace agreements in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; intervene in Haiti and Somalia.

And of course there's the other stuff - more progressive taxation, balanced budgets, saving Social Security and Medicare, more jobs, increased minimum wage.

People talk as if there's absolutely no way of knowing how the Democrats would govern and how it would be different than what we have now (one example: Tim Russert last night on Letterman). I don't like those people.

Kevin,

My response would be to look at the Founding Father’s intent. This can be gleaned most readily from looking at the Federalist Papers, Essay No. 3, which says “The JUST causes of war, for the most part, arise either from violation of treaties or from direct violence.” Clearly, our current occupation of Iraq does not meet those qualifications, nor do most of the military interventions of the past sixty years.

I interpret the part about ‘violation of treaties’ to mean that if another nation violates or attempts to violate our sovereignty, then war is justified. But the implication is clear – war should only be undertaken for the most direct and egregious assaults on the United States sovereignty. In other words, NOT VERY DAMNED OFTEN!!!

you dems just keep a' worrying about this!
diebold will keep you from having to actually do anything!

"basically the essays in With All Our Might recommend that we ally ourselves with Muslim moderates, support democracy, pay attention to economic development, support nuclear counterproliferation, transform the military, engage with allies, work toward energy independence, etc. etc. With a few minor exceptions, there's really nothing there that MoveOn or Howard Dean or anyone else on the left would argue with very much."

The thing about that quote is, at least on the surface, neither will any Republicans. The major issue with our current foreign policy travails is that there is such a dearth of solutions; if you were to ask Bush about moderate Muslims I'm sure he would have a lovely 30-second sound bite praising Islam as a religion of peace and how it has been hijacked by a radical few, etc. etc. But it's all a difference of degree, not of type. Point blank, if any serious Dem. candidate is asked about taking force off the table when dealing with N. Korea or Iran or such none of them are going to say "I vow not to attack country x." Maybe it just used to be more unspoken, but the fact is that the threat of force was always a threat in any serious foreign policy conflict. The issue is that Bush and co. are way, way more willing to use force and ignore the other stuff than Dems are.

All this boils down to the central issue: how do we differentiate Dems from Repubs on foreign policy? Spouting out a list of good ideas and then saying, "But WE really mean it" is pretty lame. But because of the current quagmire in Iraq and in dealing with the War on Terrorism, there really aren't a lot of other options.

ALevin

Some Democrats love to wank each other.

Determining which circumstances require military action and which don't is a little like pornography: you can't define it, but you know it when you see it. I actually think it would be a mistake for a progressive candidate, or Democratic institutions, to articulate this issue in the same way it would, say health care policy. It can't be expressed in a prescriptive way -- it simply has to remain part of the unexpressed qualities of a capable leader to know when to talk and when to shoot. If the public sees a Democratic candidate that it feels will come up with the right answers when the time comes, Democrats will have slayed that old canard that their default position will always be wimpiness. Although Kevin is being eminently reasonable here, all the cogent essays and position papers in the world won't do it.

Kevin: And yet, if toughminded liberals are going to criticize their weak-kneed brethren, shouldn't they be a little more forthcoming about exactly how tough they think we ought to be?

Pacifism is tough-minded.

Militarism is weak-kneed.

The US now accounts for about 48% of the world's $1.12 TRILLION in annual military expenditures. No other country comes anywhere remotely close to that. The next runners-up are the UK, France, Japan and China with 4% to 5% each.

All of this fake, phony posturing about when and where and how to use "military force" is really about justifying that obscenity, so that US taxpayers will continue to fork over a half a trillion dollars every year to line the pockets of the wealthy and powerful CEOs of the corporations that comprise the military-industrial-petroleum complex.

I think that the USA should be "tough enough" to relate to the rest of the world without spending as much as the entire rest of the world combined -- including all of our allies -- on the military.

I think that "liberals" should be tough enough to challenge this obscene insanity and demand that the HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS in annual US military expenditures be substantially re-directed to meet actual human needs, and address the actual threats to human survival, both domestically and internationally.

Isn't it also obvious that there can't be any sane, general answer to the question of how "tough" to be? It's like asking, "How much money should we spend on government?" Doesn't make any sense. You have to talk about particular situations, particular policies.

Bush and his crew didn't go into Iraq because they're "tougher" than the lefties who opposed the war. They went into Iraq because they thought it would be easy -- i.e. because they're stupid. Liberals like Beinart, who supported them, are equally stupid -- they haven't shown that they deserve some sort of "toughness" credential.

A focus on effective diplomacy can make the use of force more effective when it is needed. For example, Bush Sr. was able to line up almost the entire international community to oppose Saddam's invasion of Iraq, and limited the war to the legitimate objective of expelling Saddam from Kuwait (not that I support everything done in that war, like the attacks on civilian infrastructure).

Posted by: Joe Buck on June 14, 2006 at 1:11 PM | PERMALINK

But that's the question Joe. When is military force or going to war to be used to achieve your diplomatic goals?

These deficiencies in the book that Kevin points out means that it would be a waste of time to even read.

An interesting thought experiment here might to be consider would Bush the Elder have gone it alone if the UN or the international community (apart from Great Britain) did not agree with the US’s goal of expelling Saddam from Kuwait. Given the geo-political, strategic and economics concerns, I believe that he would have acted unilaterally. Especially since there was no way that Bush the Elder would have gone on to Baghdad to remove Saddam from power.

Would you guys have supported or opposed the first Gulf War if it was just the US acting unilaterally in pursuit of its diplomatic goal of restoring Kuwaiti sovereignty?

I agree with Andrew Bacevich that we should follow Article I, section 8 of the constitution and let congress declare war, and not go to war otherwise. It's what the framers intended, because the legislative branch is the closest approximation to the collective will of the citizenry. You know, the ones actually doing the fighting and dying. So the way to solve the problem is to give congress a spine transplant, or, in other words, to get our elected representatives to do their constitutional duty. The use of force resolution, which gave Bush a blank check to use our military, was a monumental cop-out and a tremendous disservice to the citizens of the United States.

It doesn't really make sense to try and come up with a rule of thumb about when to use forcce and when not. How would you end up with anything other than a mish-mash of hypothetical situations, resulting in policy that's a bland gruel of the lowest common denominators of all the possible places and situations one could imagine applpying force.

It would seem better to select a number of situations from the past that combined instances where you do and don't agree with either the use of force or the lack of such use. But even then, you're using hindsight and necessarily avoiding the uncertainty leading up to those situations, so the exercise is of limitied value.

A lot of liberals would support military intervention to eliminate actual imminent threats, to remove world leaders who are actually committing genocide, and to destroy terrorist training camps in places like northern Iraq before the war. We'd also like a frank and honest public discussion of expected repercussions, exit strategies, and how our actions will affect our standing in the region and the world (including the number and motivation level of international terrorists).

I buttonholed David Greenberg about this at a party last weekend, and he was kind enough to listen as I argued that liberals don't have an aversion to a strong defense -- it's more that we have an aversion to an incompetent defense or, more accurately, an aversion to aggression masquerading as self-defense.

The reason that "liberals" like Beinart aren't going to get close to the question of when the military should be used to carry out US policy is that probably 70-90% of Americans think the military ought to be used ALL the time. We've been conditioned by our magnificent "victories" in the 20th century to believe our military can right all wrongs in other countries. In their view, only an idiot would challenge that perception.

The perception is of course different from the reality of the latter half of the 20th century. But I think there's a belief in the American people that Korea and Vietnam were anomolies and we've figured out "how" to use our military effectively now. As a former warrior, I'm not convinced. My view: "If you continue to live by the sword, you're probably going to die by the sword."

this should be an interesting debate:

http://www.theamericanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9954

The thing is that almost anything we'd articulate would be better than the Republican's "we'll bomb whoever we want to bomb, when we want to bomb, with or without reason."

As for the drunken trolls who think that Iraq is a huge success and that Bush & Co. could run over their grandmothers and it would be A-OK, why is it that you never talk about Afghanistan? Why don't you tell us all what a huge victory that has been?

Posted by: Al on June 14, 2006 at 12:55 PM | PERMALINK

This post was so amazingly crass it's got to be an Al alias. Doesn't it?

brewmn covers the psychological level and Joe Buck the "perception" factor. Democrats have to state their own case away from the delusional ground broken by Bush and his cadre of interventionist failures.

The US has been too willing to use force independently and to meddle in other countries' politics. In the long run this has bitten us. The present administration has done the most -- in fact it is the only post-WWII administration to bequeath such a legacy -- to destroy international relationships, partnerships, alliances and treaties. It has been an international wrecking ball.

International law and direct threat to the US or to its allies with which it has mutual defence treaties should be the guide.

International aggression and being bully boy tough is immature and ineffective. Hence the present loss in life and treasure and (immeasurable) goodwill.

Kevin, you're tilting at windmills raised by a particularly unrealistic and unworldly group of Repubnuts.

GREAT point, Kevin. You're exactly right. If the democrats want to be taken seriously on national security, they've got to be explicit. It's time to have this debate. I still think the dems are going to pull defeat from the jaws of victory unless they can say things about national security that the electorate can take seriously. "Last resort" sounds like a cop-out to everyone except the doves, and the doves are not gonna win you an election.

Taobhan is right on, unfortunately. Americans are disgustingly bellicose. The rah-rah good cheer on the news we'd killed Zarqawi creeped me out. It's a very good thing that he's out of action, but there must be a more somber and appropriate way to react to the news that a human being has been concussed to death in the twisted wreckage of a bombed house, along with three other terrorists, a woman and a child.

To me it's fairly simple: use military force where the use of it won't make things worse. Now on the one hand you can say that's very difficult, but on the other it's easy to see certain situations were the use of military force CAN'T make things worse, such as Rawanda, or Kosovo.

Iran? Use of military force would make things immeasurably worse. Ergo, we should not use military force.

notthere is also right on. The number one benchmark should be the consensus of democratic industrialized nations on whether the use of force is merited and wise.

Kevin Drum >"...Shouldn't at least one chapter be devoted entirely to the Bush Doctrine and what we'd replace it with?..."

Sure if there was actually a Bush Doctrine other than "my homies good, your homies bad" & "gimme all the oil"

You folks gotta be kidding if you are taking any of this crap seriously; seriously

None of this is going anywhere as long as you continue to play the other`s game on the other`s turf, using the other`s rules

Absurd

"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" - Sun Tzu

What the people in the Middle East are fighting against fundamentally is the feudal monarchical regimes they have to live under, regimes that have seamless evolved into modern transnational corporations. Opposing those regimes is opposing globalization and corporate culture. We can't be against corporate culture and corporate personhood as it exists in the United States without opposing these regimes even more forcibly, and destroying corporate personhood here is only a start and probably won't work unless it can be done trans-nationally, and that means we would have to take a direct lead in attacking, not 'terrorism', but the oily feudalists who are ostensibly our allies.

"Would you guys have supported or opposed the first Gulf War if it was just the US acting unilaterally in pursuit of its diplomatic goal of restoring Kuwaiti sovereignty?"

Shorter Chicounsel:

"When did you liberals agree to stop beating your wives?"

It's time to have this debate.

If the link I posted to is correct, we are having this debate now.

In the recent race in California's 50th Congressional district, the Iraq war was not extensively debated. It was, indeed, ignored almost completely.

In the 21st Century resorting to using military force to gain your political goals is a sure sign of failure/incompetence

PERIOD

Nothing in that statement suggests that nation-states don`t have the right to defend themselves when attacked so go f*ck yourselves Fascist Trolls (American Chicken etc)

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

Nibbling at the margins. Maybe it's time that liberals (or progressives or whatever the hell we're calling ourselves) start speaking plainly about our drift toward empire, and start asking some pointed questions about just why we need to spend more money on arms than the next dozen or so powers combined -- especially when not one of them is anything like an enemy.

We won't hear anything about this from the Beltway crowd, save some vague mumbled condescension about "isolationism".

"When did you liberals agree to stop beating your wives?"

Hey don't give Peter Beinart the idea. Next thing you know he will write a magnum opus on why the Democrats should start being nice to their other halves, and the DLC or DNC or whatever, will produce a 600 page collection of essays on Good Husbandary.

Nibbling at the margins. Maybe it's time that liberals (or progressives or whatever the hell we're calling ourselves) start speaking plainly about our drift toward empire, and start asking some pointed questions about just why we need to spend more money on arms than the next dozen or so powers combined

Rest of the world, combined, I believe you'll find, not just "the next dozen or so powers".

We've been talking about the Bush doctrine for years now. It's called "Ready, Fire, Aim".

brewmn, is exactly right about the psychology of the American public. Part of the problem is the lack of an honest tv media to stand up to these idiots.
We need to get Soros to leverage buyout CNN from Time Warner Inc. (I can dream, can't I?) and use the television medium to articulate an intelligent policy on a consistent basis.
The political forum cannot be changed without the public's knowledge of the facts and an understanding of possible solutions.
Why would people support a more prudent use of force if they think the military is the only thing that protects, "our freedoms" from oppression?

There isn't a magic formula that tells us when it's right to support military action and when it isn't.

No terrorist of any race or religion wants to destroy America or the American way of life without reason.

There are many terrorist organizations around the world, many of which you Americans haven't even heard of. They do plenty of destruction, trust me. They aren't any less than Al-Qaeda.

So, Kevin, to answer your question, An American President should not engage militarily with any terrorist organization that are of no threat to the U.S. He should, however, engage with organizations that are a threat to the U.S.

Now, how would he know which organization is a threat to the U.S. and which isn't? I am sure that any President knows the answer to this question or can easily find out.

The real challenge is to let American public know about which organization is of a threat to their lives and which aren't. The first step towards being informed on this topic is to stop watching TV.

So, Kevin, stop posting fucking book reviews on national security and develop a brain.

sglover >"...start asking some pointed questions about just why we need to spend more money on arms than the next dozen or so powers combined..."

Excellent point

This type of over powering military "might" buildup is the traditional Balance of Power methodology to insure that "those others" can`t decide to gang up on the, ta da !, mighty King of the Hill since, ya know, no matter how buddy buddy "they" might be today ya never know what "they" might be up to tomorrow or next week or...

One might even label it Primate Posturing if one was of clear objective mind

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H. L. Mencken

Why do you liberals worry about this? 100 thousand people die from crime every year in the USA. So what if a couple thousand buy it in a war.We have oil interests to protect the military complex ect. Gotta break a few eggs....

Now here is some actual "tough-minded" thinking of the sort that Democrats and "liberals" should embrace, instead of fawning obsequiously before the altar of the half-trillion-dollar-per-year corporate military-industrial-petroleum complex:

The 'war on terror' is a dangerous diversion and prevents the international community from responding effectively to the most likely causes of future conflict, according to a new report, Global Responses to Global Threats: Sustainable Security for the 21st Century, published 12 June 2006.

The result of an 18-month long study by Oxford Research Group, one of Britain's leading independent think tanks, the authors argue that the genuine threats to peace and the likely causes of future conflict are:

• climate change,
  
• competition over resources,
  
• socio-economic marginalisation, and
  
• global militarisation.

These are the trends that are likely to lead to substantial global and regional instability and large-scale loss of life of a magnitude unmatched by other potential threats, including terrorism.

They are far more important than the current focus on the 'war on terror'. This deeply flawed strategy is consuming hundreds of billions of dollars, creating more recruits and supporters of terrorism than it defeats, and is diverting attention from threats to security that are far more serious, lasting and destructive than that of international terrorism.

Furthermore, the current response to insecurity is essentially about "control" - attempting to maintain the status quo through military force, without addressing the root causes. The authors argue that such security policies are self-defeating in the long-term, and so a new approach is urgently needed.

An alternative "sustainable security" approach aims to address the root causes of those threats, cooperatively using the most effective means available. For example:

• renewable energy and conservation as the most important response to climate change;
  
• energy efficiency as a response to resource competition;
  
• intensive poverty reduction programmes as a means to address marginalisation; and
  
• the halting and reversal of WMD development and proliferation as a main component of checking global militarisation.

These provide the best chance of averting global disaster, as well as addressing some of the root causes of terrorism.

What's hilarious is that this bunch of pussies who were too afraid of peer pressure to stand up like men while their country was being taken to a disastrous war based on an obvious hoax, try to compensate for their complete lack of balls by giving their book the "manly" title of "With All Our Might".

With all your might? ROTFLMAO.

rush l
Let's say I take this as a serious question instead of a ridiculous sally to provoke heated response. Then the obvious question is : Do we get to keep any allies at all ? We can't be everywhere and do everything : will people realize that we can be depended on not to jump into every dispute with hobnailed boots and try to run rampant over every disagreement ? Even a dog gets surly when you beat it constantly.

[i]I interpret the part about ‘violation of treaties’ to mean that if another nation violates or attempts to violate our sovereignty, then war is justified. But the implication is clear – war should only be undertaken for the most direct and egregious assaults on the United States sovereignty. In other words, NOT VERY DAMNED OFTEN!!![/i]

That's an awfully narrow view of when to use military intervention. Under that interpretation we wouldn't have lifted a finger against Hitler if he hadn't been retarded enough to Declare war on us after Pearl Harbor. Ditto vis a vis the Cuban Missile Crisis, Somalia and Darfur. Don't you think any doctrine that doesn't include the ability to engage psychopathic mass murderers before they arrive on your doorstep is fatally flawed from the get-go?

We are confusing means and ends here. As a means, military force should be a last resort.
I don't think that's a tricky idea at all. Call it the Sherman doctrine .

But to what end ? Is it the last resort for preventing genocide, is it a last resort for securing access to oil or is it a last resort to keeping the country from being overrun ?
The reason our invasion of Iraq was so clearly a bad idea is that Saddam Hussein was not a serious threat. If, as was originally claimed, Saddam was an imminent serious threat to us or his neighbors, one that could not be reduced by any other means, then war was a valid option, maybe a necessary one. But, as the evidence of this was so clearly hyped and corrupted and bogus, those who supported this war, like Peter Beinart and company, need to do some serious soul searching to determine how they were so easily misled or what other grandiose ideas they were harboring.

sglover wrote: ... start asking some pointed questions about just why we need to spend more money on arms than the next dozen or so powers combined

cmdicely replied: Rest of the world, combined, I believe you'll find, not just "the next dozen or so powers".

See my comment above, posted at 1:41pm:

The US now accounts for about 48% of the world's $1.12 TRILLION in annual military expenditures. No other country comes anywhere remotely close to that. The next runners-up are the UK, France, Japan and China with 4% to 5% each.

Don't you think any doctrine that doesn't include the ability to engage psychopathic mass murderers before they arrive on your doorstep is fatally flawed from the get-go?

The entire concept of separate, soveriegn nation-states is fundamentally flawed from the get-go in a way which makes any doctrine of the use of military force by such nation-states fundamentally flawed.

The relevant questions ought to be (1) how do we structure a world government to deal with the flaws in the separate-states structure, (2) how do we make such a government implementable, (3) what fundamentally flawed doctrine of military force is least bad to follow until then, including (but not limiting oneself to) consideration of the effect of the use of such doctrine on the process required to answer question (2).

To me, it seems like limiting the use of military force to (1) the clearest cases of direct and specific provocation, actual attacks either carried out or in the process of being carried out (the latter being the traditional, narrow definition of "imminent threat"), and (2) cases where a body granted such authority by widely accepted treaty has judged a threat to international peace and security and found that military force is necessary to address it is, among the fundamentally flawed universe of options, far less flawed than most of the options presented to it.

That's an awfully narrow view of when to use military intervention. Under that interpretation we wouldn't have lifted a finger against Hitler if he hadn't been retarded enough to Declare war on us after Pearl Harbor. Ditto vis a vis the Cuban Missile Crisis, Somalia and Darfur. Don't you think any doctrine that doesn't include the ability to engage psychopathic mass murderers before they arrive on your doorstep is fatally flawed from the get-go?

Ummmm.... But Hitler did declare war against us. Or are we supposed to concoct foreign policies for parallel universe America, too?

Otherwise, you're not exactly making a strong case. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, we managed to avoid ending industrial civilization thanks to dumb luck, and that affair was over an issue that was essentially meaningless (the U.S. had a tremendous superiority in deliverable nuclear weapons, many of them right on the Soviet border). Nobody considers our experience in Somalia a success in any sense, and while the situation in Darfur is certainly horrific, I've yet to hear anybody come up with a plausible intervention scenario there that won't be a reprise of Mogadishu. Our wonderful Southeast Asian adventure was billed by many as a way of keeping Communist hordes from "our doorstep". Thirty years after the defeat, we're still not seeing any Vietnamese landing craft off the California coast.

Shit, we don't need to stop with post-WW II history. The only reason our war with Spain isn't more of a national disgrace is that it's relatively obscure; our counter-insurgency campaign in the Phillipines is a stain on our history. Woodie Wilson's bizarro-land "War to end all wars" logic was as well-informed as any neo-con wish-thinking, and every bit as successful.

We happened to fight a struggle for survival against foes -- Hitlerite Germany and Imperial Japan -- whose malignancy was such that almost any tactic had some redeeming value. But that situation was truly extraordinary. It's time we start learning from ALL of our history, and shed the illusion that we have any special talent for "benevolent" or "wise" uses of military force.

...they don't even want us to spend 1/2 trillion dollars to remain the world's superpower.
Posted by: Cheney on June 14, 2006 at 3:53 PM | PERMALINK

Gee, anyone? If we could have Cheney wake up in a gang-infested neighborhood in some hypothetical inner-city, and see me standing there with an UZI, do you think he'd write a bad-check for $500 Billion to buy the UZI?

Personally, if I were in that position, I'd just write a check to hire some police to enforce some security, law, and order.
As soon as Cheney falls asleep, of course, with his UZI under his pillow, a gang banger comes along and slits his throat. Poor Cheney.

When to use force? When our security is threatened or when our cost to end in a great evil is substantially less than the evil itself. Since the War of 1812 or standard for the use of force has been whether a friend of those in power can make a nickel out of it. Sometimes -- as in Grenada, for example -- it's whether the use of power can help boost a party's opinion poll numbers.

The relevant questions ought to be (1) how do we structure a world government to deal with the flaws in the separate-states structure, (2) how do we make such a government implementable, (3) what fundamentally flawed doctrine of military force is least bad to follow until then, including (but not limiting oneself to) consideration of the effect of the use of such doctrine on the process required to answer question (2).

Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't believe there's enough wisdom in the world to make it happen. In the meantime, my reading of the last several decades of American foreign policy suggests that the availability of our enormous military machine induces our "leaders" into adventures that bring us little or no measurable benefit. For the short term, I'm more inclined to defang the beasts at home, and let the rest of the world attend to its problems.

Oooooo..... Isolationism. Horrible, I know.

So what did Democrats do? Work through NATO to stop genocide;

That worked great for the people of Rwanda, didn't it?

broker peace agreements in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; intervene in Haiti and Somalia.

...and launch cruise missile attacks against two sovereign nations.

Umm, a question: what exactly is wrong with "standard liberal boilerplate"? I mean, except of course that you've read it before and therefore it lacks the shiny-new-object status that we all adore. Bummer that in the face of NeoCon repetition of talking points, we end up repeating our own, but there you have it.

*******

And, on the issue of when to use military force: if you're a liberal, it's impractical to specify, except to say "as a last resort," because you never know what will be available in specific situations. The trick is to have a sufficiently long list of "resorts," so you never get to that "last resort." In the case of the middle east, the list would look something like

"ally ourselves with Muslim moderates, support democracy, pay attention to economic development, support nuclear counterproliferation, transform the military, engage with allies, work toward energy independence, etc. etc." Which is a quote from your own post.

What I'm trying to get at here is that our decision to use military force shouldn't be dependent on some litmus test of how badly others must behave in order to deserve "military" punishment. That's how the Republicans have framed the question, even more so since 9/11, and it hasn't turned out well at all. (Reminds me of the "just war" theorizing, which seems to exist primarily so that ROTC students in Catholic universities will have something to think about other than sex.)

Instead, the decision to use force ought to be based on how many tools we have at our disposal to change the situation. When we've exhausted the list, we use force and hope it works. Often, it doesn't, hence the focus on making sure the list of options is a long one.

Dividing liberals into "tough-minded" and "weak-kneed" groups buys into the litmus test for military punishment concept, and it's just not a very useful concept when it comes to dealing with other nations. The discussion "magnifies liberal fissures" because it asks liberals to come up with artificial answers to the wrong question.

So no, I don't think liberals should have to be more forthcoming about exactly how tough we think we ought to be.

So brooksfoe and nothtere want to leave the decision to use our military up to the "industrialized" nations of the world and international law.

Please please please run on that issue.

Kevins suggestions for the democrats:
align ourselves with muslim moderates
support democracy
pay attention to economic development
support nuclear counterproliferation
transform the military
engage with allies
work towards energy independence

Aside from being "feel good" cliches that the left has absolutely no concrete plans of implemntation for, it is also exactly what this administration is doing.

The left has absolutely no chance this fall. You almost feel sorry for them, not really.

Military plans at the UN level should be made on maps without borders.

It should be shameful, not a matter of national Sovereignty, that a third party has escaped into your borders.

just why we need to spend more money on arms than the next dozen or so powers combined

Err..because at this point in time we must defend our access to oil.

Jimmy Carter was so right.

cmdicely,

The relevant questions ought to be (1) how do we structure a world government to deal with the flaws in the separate-states structure, (2) how do we make such a government implementable,

"World Government." Dream on. The social, economic, political and cultural divisions in the world mean that "world government" will be impossible for the foreseeable future.

To me, it seems like limiting the use of military force to (1) the clearest cases of direct and specific provocation, actual attacks either carried out or in the process of being carried out (the latter being the traditional, narrow definition of "imminent threat"), and (2) cases where a body granted such authority by widely accepted treaty has judged a threat to international peace and security and found that military force is necessary to address it is, among the fundamentally flawed universe of options, far less flawed than most of the options presented to it.

Of course, this language is so vague it's hard to know what it means at all. The next time an African or Asian country starts to systematically slaughter millions of its own people, do you believe military intervention by the U.S. to stop the killing should not be an option?

Too bad OBF you don't consider the U.S. remaining as the world's superpower could even possibly be "enforc[ing] some security, law, and order." And, you really wonder why that kind of thinking keeps losing elections?
Posted by: Cheney on June 14, 2006 at 4:11 PM | PERMALINK

Cheney, it's pretty fucking clear that the US is not enforcing some security law and order in Iraq.

The sad thing is - I'm sure we COULD. I KNOW we could. If Bush had taken Rumsfeld's head out of his ass, and sent enough troops to police the streets and secure the weapons sites and depots.

Instead, Rummy got to "test out" his "Military Transformation" hypothesis, and 300 TONS of high explosives got loose from Al Qa Qaa and are now fucking killing our troops, as well as hundreds of innocent Iraqi civillians PER DAY.

Just calling yourself "the worlds only superpower" doesn't make it so. Just having the world's most powerful military doesn't either. You've got to know when to pull your head out of your ass and USE it for something other than a butt-plug.

I love your blog, Kevin, but whenever it comes to the "vision thing" in foreign policy, I think you are barking up an inexistant tree. Our overseas interests are of course incredibly entangled in "globally local" politics that are far more complex than the domestic US scene. As such, our manoeuvering room is far smaller, and idealistic concerns rapidly give in to pragmatic ones. That's the way it is, no matter how we want it to be, or how we say we want it to be. "Visionary" presidents are inevitably the most irresponsible ones, because their idealistic blah-blah most misleads us from the sinuous contours of reality. In domestic politics, that's okay, because even if Americans are not of the same mind, they're still mostly following the same familiar trajectory (roughly called the American Dream). Foreigners are up to all sorts of different things, and they don't give a hoot (as much as they can) for our visions. They act accordingly...

Oh, I thought the goal was to "enforce some security, law, and order" to the benefit of the U.S.?
Posted by: Cheney on June 14, 2006 at 4:24 PM | PERMALINK

No - it was an allegory, moron.

But now that you mention it - no, the neocon goal is NOT to enforce security, law, and order. The neocon goal is to create chaos and destruction, so they can use it as a false justification to curtail rights, and defraud the taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars on fraudulent reconstruction contracts. It's war profiteering. Plain and simple.

Osama,

Just calling yourself "the worlds only superpower" doesn't make it so.

True, but in the case of the United States, it's so anyway. See, for example, SecularAnimist's military spending figures to give you an idea of the military dimension of our superpower status.

We're also really the only economic and cultural superpower in the world, although China or India might rival our economic preeminence in a few decades.

So, we are not really fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here?
Posted by: Cheney on June 14, 2006 at 4:30 PM | PERMALINK

No.

We are creating more terrorists over there, so the neocon war profiteering cabal doesn't have to worry about running out of reasons to continue defrauding taxpayers over here.

True, but in the case of the United States, it's so anyway. See, for example, SecularAnimist's military spending figures to give you an idea of the military dimension of our superpower status.
Posted by: GOP on June 14, 2006 at 4:31 PM | PERMALINK

I wonder what percentage of that figure is FRAUD, and how much we can reduce it and STILL be a superpower.

I wonder how much we could reduce it further, and still be a superpower, by virtue of using our force more intelligently.

Near as I can tell, our foreign policy with regards to the use of force and without regards to the party that the president belongs to is always: we will use force when we goddamn feel the need to. And as much as the public would like to know when that need is (or do they?), on foreign policy matters, we have far less information available to evaluate our politicians' choices than we do for domestic policy. It's not really until you are in that you see what's actually going on out there... Any preconceived notion of force (e.g. the Bush Doctrine) is going to collide with reality the minute it is applied -- more like slam into it.

I am perfectly happy with a Democratic candidate that shows herself to be pragmatic.

"I feel sort of stupid for saying something so obvious, but the argument is about when to use military force."

Whenever Hillary says, I gather.

they don't even want us to spend 1/2 trillion dollars to remain the world's superpower.

IF you're interested in democracy promotion then you certainly are not going to remain the world's only superpower. More democracy will lessen U.S. global power and influence not increase our power.
Just look at France and Germany. Neither one of them joined the, 'coalition of the willing' and even Great Britain won't join us in an attack on Iran.
I don't think the right wing wants to promote freedom and democracy. Cheney's view of foreign policy is use our armed forces to promote U.S. domination of the world, which is the antithesis of a democratic republic.

Oops. Orthographic and other errors today. Sorry! Of course "inexistent". And without bold:

Near as I can tell, our foreign policy with regards to the use of force and without regards to the party that the president belongs to is always: we will use force when we goddamn feel the need to. And as much as the public would like to know when that need is (or do they?), on foreign policy matters, we have far less information available to evaluate our politicians' choices than we do for domestic policy. It's not really until you are in that you see what's actually going on out there... Any preconceived notion of force (e.g. the Bush Doctrine) is going to collide with reality the minute it is applied -- more like slam into it.

I am perfectly happy with a Democratic candidate that shows herself to be pragmatic.

Our view, of course, is the Bush Doctrine - officially enunciated on September 20, 2002, in a policy document issued by the Bush administration and titled 'The National Security Strategy of the United States of America'. It originated from a set of foreign policies adopted by the President of the United States George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. In an address to the United States Congress after the attacks, President Bush declared that the U.S. would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," a statement that was followed by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

A statement also followed by the US designation of Pakistan -- a nation that has limited US access to fight Taliban and al-Qaeda units on its territory, shown little willingness to hunt them down on its own, and otherwise demonstrated it to be in the "those who harbor them" category (in addition to having a long-term, well-established, and continuing relationship with various groups linked to al-Qaeda) -- as a major non-NATO ally. Demonstrating that the "Bush Doctrine" was nothing but a manly-sounding lie.

"So what did Democrats do? Work through NATO to stop genocide;

That worked great for the people of Rwanda, didn't it?"

Yes, we all remember the hue and cry from the Republicans over the slaughter in Africa.

"broker peace agreements in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; intervene in Haiti and Somalia.

...and launch cruise missile attacks against two sovereign nations."

WTF? Your party wholeheartedly supported a fullscale invasion of a "sovereign nation."
This is why protofascists like Bush get elected. Because of morons like you, who can't remember what happened three years ago, let alone learn lessons from what happened three or four decades ago.

You know, I don't recall Clinton calling you all a bunch of pussies for opposing his intervention in the Balkans, although he well could have.

Of all the reprehensible things the modern Republican Party has done, by far is the using of foreign policy and the military as a means of political division and to shore up their political support. It shows you don't give a damn about America or the people in it, but only your own political power. Disgusting.

History will not be kind to you.

Of course, this language is so vague it's hard to know what it means at all.

You say that quite frequently about lots of pretty specific things.

I think it illustrates, mostly, that you have a serious deficiency when it comes to reading comprehension.

cmdicely,

You say that quite frequently about lots of pretty specific things.

Yeah, like "provocation," whatever that's supposed to cover. That's a typical example of your extremely unspecific "pretty specific things."

Yeah, like "provocation," whatever that's supposed to cover.

I think you've proven my point quite well.

This liberal favors mandatory military service for all and hanging traitors on the National Mall. Hope that is tough enough for TNR.

brewmn,

Yes, we all remember the hue and cry from the Republicans over the slaughter in Africa. ....

There wasn't much hue and cry from the Democrats, either, and it was a Democratic president, not a Republican one, who chose to sit on his hands while a million people were being slaughtered in Rwanda.

Your party wholeheartedly supported a fullscale invasion of a "sovereign nation."

Assuming this means the War in Iraq, neither party "wholeheartedly" supported it. Anyway, you're changing the subject. The Democrat Clinton Administration launched cruise missile attacks against two sovereign nations.

cmdicely,

I think you've proven my point quite well.

I think your point is nonsensical.

cmdicely,

A statement also followed by the US designation of Pakistan -- a nation that has limited US access to fight Taliban and al-Qaeda units on its territory, shown little willingness to hunt them down on its own, and otherwise demonstrated it to be in the "those who harbor them" category (in addition to having a long-term, well-established, and continuing relationship with various groups linked to al-Qaeda) -- as a major non-NATO ally. Demonstrating that the "Bush Doctrine" was nothing but a manly-sounding lie.

Speaking of nonsense....so your interpretation of the Bush Doctrine, as described in the statement you quote, is that unless a country gives the United States unlimited access to "fight Taliban and al-Qaeda units on its territory," it will not be considered an ally.

Let me know when the British government, for example, gives the U.S. this unlimited access.

GOP and Cheney,
The Bush doctrine you've desrcibed is suffuciently loose that one can make up a reason for invading half the world. The invasion of Iraq was bogus from the beginning. Saddam was not an islamic fundamentalist, he had almost nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he was no significant threat and he had no serious wmd, certainly nothing that could produce a mushroom cloud. The evidence is overwhelming that Bush and company were selling us a phony war because of a different agenda - whether that's the grandiose schemes of the neo-cons or fear of losing control of the oil supply, or payback for Saddam. But the Bush doctrine ? Please. You can make nearly as good a case for invading South Boston in search of IRA holdouts.

Speaking of nonsense....so your interpretation of the Bush Doctrine, as described in the statement you quote, is that unless a country gives the United States unlimited access to "fight Taliban and al-Qaeda units on its territory," it will not be considered an ally.

My interpretation is that if a country actively obstructs US efforts to go after al-Qaeda -- the terrorists who attacked the US -- while itself tolerating their continued presence within their own territory, and sponsors groups linked to al-Qaeda as instruments of national policy, and otherwise aids and harbors al-Qaeda, they are clearly "harboring" al-Qaeda.

If one then applies the Bush Doctrine, we must make no distinction between them and al-Qaeda.

Giving them a new designation as an "major ally" seems to be diametrically opposed from what the Bush Doctrine suggests.

Pakistan clearly has, during the "War on Terror" and after the pronouncement of the "Bush Doctrine, harbored al-Qaeda; and the US clearly nonetheless made a pretty substantial distinction between al-Qaeda and Pakistan in terms of treatment. Should it have? Perhaps; its wisdom is an entirely separate question from its consistency with the "Bush Doctrine".

EXPECTATIONS !???!!?!

PELOSI THEN

"Yes, he has chemical weapons, he has biological weapons, he is trying to get nuclear weapons." And she told Tim Russert on a November 17, 2002 appearance NBC's Meet the Press, "Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that."

But flash forward to the "Take Back America" rally where Pelosi insisted:

PELOSI NOW

"[T]here was never anything in the intelligence that said Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States, never."

This liberal favors mandatory military service for all and hanging traitors on the National Mall. Hope that is tough enough for TNR.

Sure you're a liberal? Cause that's pretty gross.

Anyway, I think I'm in concurrence with cmdicely's evaluation of the Pakistani situation. This country will be the next president's nightmare, because all that holds it together is Musharraf. As someone said about the Shah's Iran in the mid-1970's, it's a one-bullet state.

If Bush doesn't find some way to fix the situation, that will be his legacy.

ZDD,

Lots of nations have nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons. Most of them do not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

Saying that a nation has or intends to acquire those weapons is not stating that there exists an imminent threat to the United states.

Otherwise, we'd be invading the United Kingdom.

so your interpretation of the Bush Doctrine, as described in the statement you quote, is that unless a country gives the United States unlimited access to "fight Taliban and al-Qaeda units on its territory," it will not be considered an ally.

According to Bush, that seems to be the case. As The Decider said on November 6, 2001 "Over time it's going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."

So since Pakistan, by actively hampering and limiting our ability to hunt for Bin Laden, is not therefore "with us" it is by Bush's own criteria "against us" in the War on Terror (TM).

Lots of nations have nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons. Most of them do not pose an imminent threat to the United States. Saying that a nation has or intends to acquire those weapons is not stating that there exists an imminent threat to the United states.
Otherwise, we'd be invading the United Kingdom.

Or China, or India, or North Korea, or our good friend and ally Pakistan....

This country will be the next president's nightmare, because all that holds it together is Musharraf. As someone said about the Shah's Iran in the mid-1970's, it's a one-bullet state.

Recall also what happened to Yugoslavia after Tito died.

This country will be the next president's nightmare, because all that holds it together is Musharraf. As someone said about the Shah's Iran in the mid-1970's, it's a one-bullet state.

Recall also what happened to Yugoslavia after Tito died.

It's ridiculous, isn't it? We've spent the last three years wasting time in Iraq, a country that posed no significant threat to the US or its allies, and our good buddy is the nuclear power with an intelligence apparatus stocked with hard core islamists. You could jump up and down saying "Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are gonna be real problems real soon!" and conservatives would get pissed off at you for not clapping hard enough about Zarqawi's body.

"Ummmm.... But Hitler did declare war against us. Or are we supposed to concoct foreign policies for parallel universe America, too?"

Posting a doctrine that would dictate our conduct in future theoretical situations requires that we run through theoretical situations, don't you think? In the case of Hitler and World War II, FDR was spared a very fractious fight with isolationists when Hitler decided to throw his hat in the ring- something he didn't have to do and that made no sense at all. If the policy the poster outlined tied the fate of the free western world to the irrational decision of a meglomaniac, then I'd venture to say that it is flawed.

"Otherwise, you're not exactly making a strong case. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, we managed to avoid ending industrial civilization thanks to dumb luck, and that affair was over an issue that was essentially meaningless"

I'm a left-of-the-aisle type myself, but I'd hardly call the concept of allowing Castro to have a few dozen nukes to play with after the Soviet Union went belly up "meaningless." That would have been a security concern with very real (albeit possible) consequences.

"Nobody considers our experience in Somalia a success in any sense,"

But most people supported an intervention, contrarian republicans aside. Results of a poor executed doctrine should not besmirch the doctrine itself.

"Our wonderful Southeast Asian adventure was billed by many as a way of keeping Communist hordes from "our doorstep". Thirty years after the defeat, we're still not seeing any Vietnamese landing craft off the California coast."

But there's a difference between a humanitarian intervention (Africa, Serbia) and a political intervention (Vietnam, Korea). No one thinks that the Sudanese government is going to invade Pawtucket, yet 70% of the United States favors intervention.

"We happened to fight a struggle for survival against foes -- Hitlerite Germany and Imperial Japan -- whose malignancy was such that almost any tactic had some redeeming value. But that situation was truly extraordinary."

Extraordinary? Hmm, yeah- "expansionist Empire seeks to conquer its neighbors and mistreat the populace." That hasn't happened very often, now has it?

"It's time we start learning from ALL of our history, and shed the illusion that we have any special talent for "benevolent" or "wise" uses of military force."

Admitting that we've F---ed up repeatedly is one thing, renouncing any possibility of doing interventions correctly ever again is something entirely different. There have been just wars in the past few centuries, and most citizens have felt the obligation to fight them. Assuming that the public doesn't have the will to fight a just war is not a winning election strategy.

I'm always astonished at the trolls who smugly commend themselves for being willing to use military force "against threats" and sneer complacently at liberals as they struggle to define "exactly how tough they think we ought to be." Kindness, generosity, courage and humility are considered virtues throughout the civilized world, but clearly not in trollverse.

Anyhow, threats are not just external realities--they are also in the eye of the individual beholder. Hostile and anxious beholders will feel threatened by situations that others do not regard as threatening. More aggressive temperaments will lash out at perceived threats more quickly and brutally. People who are quick to lash out at perceived, but false, threats are called bullies, thugs and delusional. And Republicans.

What we have learned over the past several years is that we should never, never let the paranoid political bullies of Bushco define threats: Their track record has been very consistent: take bad situations and made them more dangerous.

And the question about how tough we liberals think we ought to be is not precise. "Being tough" isn't a synonym for "use the military against anything that scares you." But if the question was meant to be, "when are liberals willing to use military force?", the answer, imho, encompasses "just war theory": when the cause is just (and real), when all other alternatives have been exhausted, when the use of the military will be effective and when the use of force will improve the condition of those who will suffer the consequences of the war.

Gandhi argued that people need to undergo spiritual regeneration before gaining political power. I believe that Americans need to reflect on that insight before we debate when we ought to use military force. Are American's moral enough to use our political and military power wisely? Reading the trollspew on a thread like this or reflecting on the incompetence of GWB convinces me that no, we aren't.

The Bush doctrine you've desrcibed is suffuciently loose that one can make up a reason for invading half the world.

Then I guess so is the Cmdicely Doctrine of "provocation."

"Islamic Head of State Al-JaWhatsHisFace just made a Death-To-America speech. That's provocation. Therefore, we may now justly attack his country."

Jay --
Other than misrepresenting what I said, the irony that the USA is at present a global terrorist itself has clearly eluded you.

... the USA is at present a global terrorist ...

That's going at the top of today's list of loony lefty lines. Although, it's not midnight yet, so keep those letters and cards coming.

On Iraq:

Withdraw troops. The main violence is happening between Sunnis and Shiites. They will fight each other until Rapture. Staying in Iraq will only result in our blood and treasure being drained. HOWEVER, if, after the withdraw, the CIA locates any Al Qaeda strongholds, we should launch isolated strikes on those strongholds, like we should have launched the strike on the camp in Khurmal. The Democrats should run on a platform where troops would be withdrawn, but at the same time if any Al Qaeda strongholds would be established in Iraq in the future, they would be dealt with.

We should not cross over into Pakistan. If we do so, then there might be an uprising against the Pakistani government, which is the only friendly government that could probably ever exist there. We should, however, send more military forces into Afghanistan. President Bush allowed 80% of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to escape to the mountains. He believed that once he captured Kabul, those insurgents would be rendered politically powerless and irrelevant. Bush is wrong, and is just as essential that we escalate in Afghanistan as it is we withdraw from Iraq. Sadly, the opposite seems to be happening.

As for Iran, there is still possibility the crisis could be solved diplomatically, but it would require a real carrot and a real stick, not simply small promises of economic integration and weak threats of sanctions and a possible military strike with military forces that are not available to the point we need them to be.

THE STICK: We must either build a military alliance for a last resort against Iran, or, if our allies are unwilling to join us, reposition our military forces in Europe and East Asia to commit themselves to the more essential task of preparing for war with Iran. We must also prepare for the economic damage caused by an oil shortage, so that Tehran knows we will bear that burden.

THE CARROT: The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest we ever came to nuclear annihilation, and it was resolved when the U.S. secretly offered to dismantle nuclear sites in Turkey in exchange for a Soviet dismantling of the nuclear sites in Cuba. Iran itself faces a nuclear threat in the region: Israel, which posesses over two hundred nuclear weapons. We fund Israel with roughly $3 Billion a year and provide them with diplomatic support. Israel needs us more than we need them, and because of this, it may be possible that Israel's nukes could be our bargaining chips. We will offer Iran and all the Arab nations a deal: if Iran renounces its nuclear program, and if all Arab nations renounce the pursuit of nuclear weapons, Israel will be forced to disarm. If any of those nations ever acquire nuclear weapons, Israel will be reaquipped with nuclear weapons, and the Arab world will live in the shadow of mutally assured destruction.

The U.S. in involved in a massive military commitment in Iraq. The most dangerous enemies that the U.S. faces, however, are not the Sunnis and Shiites fighting a civil war against each other in Iraq. Most of them hate and fear each other too much to care about the U.S.

The most deadly threats facing the U.S. are radical Islam around the globe, Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, specifically, and the possibility of a nuclear Iran. Bush has failed to deal with these threats. It is essential that the next President deal with them quickly. A hot potato of international disaster can only be passed on to successors for so long before it explodes.

It seems that liberalism cannot come to grips with any coherent policy about the use of force. Why is that?

Then I guess so is the Cmdicely Doctrine of "provocation."

"Islamic Head of State Al-JaWhatsHisFace just made a Death-To-America speech. That's provocation. Therefore, we may now justly attack his country."

How is that an actual attack either carried out or in the process of being carried out? If its not, what does it have to do with any characterization of "provocation" I've made int his thread?

Anything on how? I doubt it. I'd be curious to see some good ideas, but I'm burnt out on the subject. I think the dems have missed their window on the topic and cried wolf on securty too many times. I've seen to many non-strategies from them for me to even pay attention. For me to pay attention to them, they will need a lot of credible and substantive buzz.

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