National Security

When the primaries are over and the two major parties have their candidates, John McCain will attempt to focus the debate on the topic of national security, a subject that he feels more comfortable with than economic policy. Hillary Clinton has already given us a taste of the fear mongering ads that he might produce with her 3 AM Ad. I might have expected it from McCain, but I was really disappointed to see Hillary stoop to this level. Anyone who has knowledge of how our government operates in a crisis situation knows that the president does not make national security decisions in a vacuum. The first thing that would happen if the president received such a call would be an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. One might hope that in a crisis the president would use the wealth of information and suggested responses offered by the members of the NSC to analyze the situation. An appropriate response to the crisis would depend on the quality of the advisors the president chose and his or her ability to exercise judgment based on their assessment of the situation from various perspectives. Certainly one would hope that the president would not make a hasty decision based on personal knowledge and experience alone.

In making his case that he is the best prepared in the national security department, McCain will undoubtedly tout his military background and experience. But in looking back in history, the presidents who commanded our troops during the times of greatest conflict had little to no military experience. Woodrow Wilson, president during WWI and Franklin Roosevelt, president during WWII had no military experience at all. Abraham Lincoln was a captain in the Blackhawk War, but that certainly did not prepare him for the Civil War. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were all in WWII, but that did not stop them from blundering into a failed war in Vietnam. Kennedy’s war experience did not prevent him from a poor decision in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

A nation is most secure when wars are prevented through appropriate diplomacy, strategic alliances, and industrial, economic and military strength. Right now, our nation is probably about as insecure as it has ever been in its history.

We are involved in two wars that seem to have no end in sight. The enemy is not a military force that can be conquered and subdued. There is no military objective, territory to be taken, government to be toppled. Terrorists are criminals-murders, sometimes insane or antisocial individuals and sometimes murderous gangs. Although they use a particular altered ideology for recruitment, identifying them with a particular religious belief is giving them more legitimacy than they deserve. Police action supported by the population being preyed upon is the appropriate intervention, not military occupation by a foreign army. Unless the overwhelming majority of the population of Afghanistan and Iraq support their governments’ in controlling terrorist gangs, there is no end to this conflict. Our military is stretched to the breaking point acting as a police force fighting terrorists without the support of the population and in some cases the government they are trying to defend.

The United States is economically vulnerable. We owe money to our enemies, we have let our industrial base decline, and we depend on foreign nations that are not democratic or are even openly hostile to our political and economic system for the energy we need to function as a society. If we had to defend ourselves, we would not have the ability to independently equip our troops with the basic necessities. In a world conflict, we would not have the fuel needed to transport our troops and supplies, and operate our advanced military equipment.

Our relationship with our allies has deteriorated, and our influence on the diplomatic front has taken a dramatic hit as a consequence of the invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s reliance on threats and intimidation instead of working with other nations to find solutions to world conflicts. The idea that the United States was the lone “super power” after the fall of the Soviet Union seems to have left us with a superiority complex that is less than attractive to the rest of the world community.

So, in picking a president to bolster our national security, I am not looking for a military leader, and certainly not someone who supported the decisions and policies of the current administration. I want a leader who is better at preventing wars than deciding how to fight them; who has a plan to rebuild our military to discourage attacks, not make it into an Iraqi police force for the next hundred years. We need a president who has a plan to strengthen our economy and bring back the industrial capacity that allowed us to be the “arsenal of democracy” during the two world wars. We need a leader who will challenge us to marshal our resources and our technological creativity to solve our energy problems. Finally, we need a president who can work with the leaders of other nations to solve our shared problems and create a force for freedom that is formidable and united enough to discourage others from waging attacks against us.

If all else fails, and that call comes to the White House at 3 AM; I want a president who is humble enough to seek the counsel of the best minds available and ensure the support of our allies before taking action. I want a president who will consider the options, the possible consequences, and plan accordingly. President Bush and his advisors dropped the ball when it came to analyzing the options and possible consequences regarding Iraq, and the members of Congress that voted him the power to invade failed us. Certainly there were many experienced military and political leaders making this decision, from the Bush advisors to the Congress. What was lacking was the ability to correctly analyze the situation, and exercise good judgment. Senators Clinton and McCain both voted to “authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.”

In contrast, here is Barack Obama’s assessment of the situation. I’ll take his judgment over McCain and Clinton’s experience.

….“That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Queda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Queda, thru effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons in already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.” …

Barack Obama Speech October, 2002