Did you know we live in a complex world? 2009 is a lot more complex than 2002. Bush — the President of Simpleton — done gone and messed up all of Bill Clinton’s and Tony Blair’s dominoes. It’s not the fault of radical Muslims at all. Well — a complex world calls for complex decision-making and discussion. From Bloomberg:
The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it.
The international environment is “more complex” than when President George W. Bush announced the policy in 2002, Kathleen Hicks, the Defense Department’s deputy undersecretary for strategy, said in an interview. “We’d really like to update our use-of-force doctrine to start to take account for that.”
The Sept. 11 terrorist strikes prompted Bush to alter U.S. policy by stressing the option of preemptive military action against groups or countries that threaten the U.S. Critics said that breached international norms and set a dangerous precedent for other nations to adopt a similar policy.
The doctrine is being reassessed as part of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review of strategy, force structure and weapons programs. Hicks is overseeing the review.
“We are looking very explicitly at use of force and use of forces,” she said. “We are looking at how to articulate the use of the U.S. military instrument — how we use military force to achieve national objectives.”
President Barack Obama was elected last year on a platform that included promises to undo many Bush policies. He pledged to extract U.S. forces from Iraq, close the terror detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and give greater U.S. support to the UN.
Norway’s Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the Peace Prize last week, cited a “new climate” in world politics and the restoration of “multilateral diplomacy.” The prize also was widely seen as a repudiation of Bush’s policies.
Now obviously it’s good to undergo reviews and audits so long as the results are not foreordained or conclusions are faulty (or both). How much does the Nobel Peace Prize Committee language of “new climate” mirror or presage the Obama Administration’s new “more complex” international environment? I don’t know. I doubt it’s triggered it. What I do not doubt is that Lefties around the world no doubt think it’s more complex. They claim to play chess, but they fail to recognize that chess is a violent game — after deliberation action is required. How can one play chess and not understand the fundamentals? There is little diplomacy until “Check-mate”. We’ve hunkered down around the King and are again afraid to move — or it least it’s looking that way.
The photo above is by Stephen Coles and is used under a CCL. Here is the link to his Flickr page.
Print
Digg
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Facebook
Yahoo! Buzz
Twitter
Google Bookmarks
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
MSN Reporter
MySpace
Orkut
Ping.fm
Reddit
RSS
Slashdot
Technorati
Tumblr
Webnews.de
The lefties may believe that their foreign policy philosophy is more complex than the Bush administration’s was, but it’s not. They simply blame every bad thing that happens in the world on America (when it’s led by a conservative, anyway) and appease all foreign dictators, no matter how much brutal genocide they perpetrate or how many human rights they oppress.
That’s not more complex, it’s just more naive.
People talk about the Bush administration’s use of pre-emptive force as if Bush handled every foreign threat that way. But while Bush never took pre-emption off the table, he only used it on one country in his whole eight-year administration. So he clearly saw each country differently and handled each threat accordingly.
Unlike Obama, whose foreign policy appears to be stuck in one gear: all Neville Chamberlain, all the time.
A little off topic, but note that last year The Office of the Democratic Candidate for President wanted Mr. Hope’n'Change to appear in Berlin in front of the Brandenburg Gate for a campaign appearance, but got turned down. Now, The Community-Organizer-in-Chief has been invited to appear there as part of the celebration of the end of the Berlin Wall and the demise of Communism, and He turns down the invite, desperate to appear somewhere, anywhere, else…
Neither checkers nor chess. It’s Tiddlywinks.
Proof:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiddlywinks
Only smart people could possibly understand why diplomacy always works. Only smart people can really understand the complexities of Tiddlywinks.
I see that you found my photo of Chinese Checkers useful. I’m glad you did, but I’m not happy to see no credit or link back to the source. The photo carries a license which requires attribution if you’re going to use the work. Please add my name and a link to the Flickr page. Thank you!
Sorry about that. I’ll plead carelessness (venal not mortal I guess). Since it’s nearly 2 years ago I don’t remember the particulars but I imagine I assumed it was a commercial photo from Hasbro etc. when I grabbed it from Google Images. I’ll be more careful next time. Thanks.