Reasons

Allow me to try and beat the pro-Edwards commentariat to the punch: antisemite!

"Allow me to try and beat the pro-Edwards commentariat to the punch: antisemite!"

I believe it's the pro-Romney commentariat that throws that particular punch...

Obama's speech sounds good. I agree that its better to criticise the ideology underlying the Iraq war, rather than some of the details about intelligence. Obviously, the whole neocon ideology behind the war is seriously flawed.

This leads me to wonder. Does Obama really think we need to increase the size of the Army and Marines? Or, is he just saying that for political reasons? I hope its the latter. Increasing our bloated military makes no sense to me.

Its one thing to waste money on some specific military hardware, which you will only pay for for a little while. Increasing the number of troops means you'll be spending the extra money indefinitely.

Hijack the thread because there was no sports post last night.

Petey,

I'm curious if your views on Ben Gordon have changed at all over the past few months, looking back at his season.

Matt (or Ezra, or anybody who sees anything especially coherent in Obama's speech, for that matter): how does Obama's pledge to "leave all options on the table" with Iran mesh with Ezra's generous interpretation of Obama's "21st century struggle" line? If Obama actually realizes that invading other countries is counterproductive to fighting terror, then why does he bother making clear that war with Iran is an option on the proverbial table? I'm not seeing an Yglesian foreign policy here. To be frank, I'm not seeing much of a foreign policy here at all - just a lot of broad strokes that allow sympathetic listeners to fill in the blanks.

"Does Obama really think we need to increase the size of the Army and Marines? Or, is he just saying that for political reasons?"

All of the main Democratic candidates are going to have a remarkably similar foreign policy outlook, including increased manpower. With rare exceptions, it'll all be stuff straight out of the Kerry '04 outlook.

Folks who find big differences between the candidates are generally going to be folks who are emotionally invested in finding big differences, and thus are intent on reading meaning into places where there is no actual meaning to be had.

If you're on the dovish side of the Democratic Party, you can find reassurance in Obama's biography or in Edwards' domestic ambitions. But you're simply not going to find a whole lot of guarantees of dovishness in speeches or policy papers.

"I'm curious if your views on Ben Gordon have changed at all over the past few months, looking back at his season."

Nope. Nice complementary player. Limited trade value.

As you may or may not recall, the whole discussion was in context of trade value, and my position was that Deng was the one non-rookie / non-draft pick Bull with a high trade value.

(And I'd generally suggest going back to the last bball thread in such situations, as long as it's still on the main page.)

All of the main Democratic candidates are going to have a remarkably similar foreign policy outlook, including increased manpower.

Really? Have Edwards and Hillary already come out for an increase in the size of the military?

Any bets how soon a GOP candidate cites Obama's pledge to increase the size of the military as proof that he is just another spending liberal, always willing to increase the size of the gummint?

"Really? Have Edwards and Hillary already come out for an increase in the size of the military?"

To the best of my knowledge, they haven't. But I haven't been following such arcana very closely.

But I'd strongly expect they both will. Increasing manpower is pretty standard mainstream Democratic foreign policy thinking. It was a core part of Kerry's '04 platform, for example.

But I haven't been following such arcana very closely.

It's good to see that you are not letting that stop you from making strong pronouncements about "such arcana" however.

"To be frank, I'm not seeing much of a foreign policy here at all - just a lot of broad strokes that allow sympathetic listeners to fill in the blanks."

I believe that was the idea.

"how does Obama's pledge to "leave all options on the table" with Iran mesh with Ezra's generous interpretation of Obama's "21st century struggle" line? ... I'm not seeing an Yglesian foreign policy here."

Nor will you.

Everyone has been wildly overparsing the candidates' Iran comments to date. But to repeat myself, folks who find big differences between the Democratic candidates on foreign policy are generally going to be folks who are emotionally invested in finding big differences.

All of the major candidates would very likely pursue a middle ground foreign policy based in reality - even Hillary. It'll be a big change from the current administration, but if you're looking for a dramatic shift in mainstream Democratic foreign policy, you're not likely to get it with any of the major candidates.

"It's good to see that you are not letting that stop you from making strong pronouncements about "such arcana" however."

I only think it would be a problem if I didn't admit what I didn't know...

I only think it would be a problem if I didn't admit what I didn't know...

Well, technically, you didn't admit what you didn't know when you first posted your pronouncements as to the candidates' positions. Only after Al pressed you did you indeed admit what you did not know.

That said, I tend to agree with what you're saying. Just couldn't resist the jab.

BTW, a quick Google search shows Hillary calling for an increase in the size of the military at least as recently as 2005. Edwards, notably, was for maintaining the size of the military (not increasing) in 2004. Didn't find anything more recent on his position.

It's never good enough, eh guys?

LOL!

First of all, another cop-out by Obama. Edwards decision to go with more detailed plans sooner is making Obama look like he's not ready to lead. He doesn't yet know what he really believes or how far he's willing to go fighting for it.

I think Ezra misses what's wrong about Obama's approach:

It was an attempt to respond to terrorists the way we would've responded to Russians.

The Senate voted 98-0 to attack Afghanistan in direct response to 9/11 so we are all willing to invade and occupy a foreign country in the fight against terror. We had CIA officers riding into battle on horseback. And we did it with the full support and cooperation of the rest of the world. That's how I believe we should respond to anyone that attacks us. We used intelligence information to locate those who attacked us.

Iraq was different. Iraq was completely fabricated on the threat of WMD and sold on the idea that we could create democracy by force. There was no attack and no world-wide support. This goes to Edwards point about intelligence. Intelligence should never be used to start a war.

The fact that Clinton doesn't claim to have made a mistake in voting for Iraq proves to me that she wants the power to start war. She believes in a strong executive branch. Unfortunately, she's also got a touch of the small-man syndrome. She always has to prove how tough she is. She never backs down from a fight. Those aren't traits I'm particularly comfortable with at this point.

So, again, I don't know where that leaves us with Obama. Edwards will fight Afghanistan but not Iraq. Clinton would fight Afghanistan and Iraq. We know that Obama would not have voted for Iraq, but what does he believe about the war in Afghanistan?

We know that Obama would not have voted for Iraq, but what does he believe about the war in Afghanistan?

This seems genuinely crazy to me. Someone hits us, we hit back. It doesn't even matter what any candidate says about this: we just do it. If we'd elected a piece of wood to be President, we'd still have gone in.

Just Karl,

I don't think you are accurately reading Obama's speech. First off, for the record, Obama has consistently noted his belief that the war in Afghanistan was necessary. What Obama is arguing for now is a nuanced view of the so-called "war on terror." A recognition that other than in Afghanistan we can't view it as a war between nation-states. Afghanistan was a unique situation -- a country that openly allowed terrorist organizations to establish a home base within its borders to train jihadists. That is not the model of terrorism now and is highly unlikely to be the model of terrorism in the future. The sooner the pubilc understands this the sooner our foriegn policy will re-establish some sanity.

I'm perfectly willing to vote for Edwards, but I think that his current view on invading Iraq is totally wrong. It was a terrible idea to invade Iraq, but I think it would have been much worse to invade if Iraq had had chemical and biological weapons.

Given what we know now (see incompetence) it is impossible for me to believe that none of such weapons would end up in the hands of un-deterable terrorists such as al Qaeda in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein was evil, crazy and stupid, but deterable. I made this argument before the invasion http://tinyurl.com/2prgfn. To argue that it would have been reasonable to invade if Iraq had possessed WMD is totally crazy.

Re: It'll be a big change from the current administration, but if you're looking for a dramatic shift in mainstream Democratic foreign policy, you're not likely to get it with any of the major candidates.

What constitutes a "dramatic shift"? Good grief, does anyone here really think any Democrat running would continue Bush's current policies? Frankly I think Matt is straining at gnats here. I don't care why a Democrat says we should get out of Iraq as long as he's serious about doing so. If s/he says the Delphic Oracle told him to, I'll gladly send a hecatomb to Apollo once we're done with the mess.

"First of all, another cop-out by Obama. Edwards decision to go with more detailed plans sooner is making Obama look like he's not ready to lead. He doesn't yet know what he really believes or how far he's willing to go fighting for it."

Except the people who read detailed plans don't make up the majority of the electorate. Hell, they don't even make up the majority of primary voters. Having a base of pretty much policy wonks is usually a recipe for disaster.

It is so funny how people like Ezra and mydd keep excusing the fabulous Edwards when he fails to be fabulous.
The simple fact is that Edwards was a center right dem who voted for the war because it appealed to his right leaning creds and would give him his tough on terror creds for his presidential run. Just as after he saw the tide turning against the war he wrote his oped and became the great populist with left leanings. I am not saying anything other than Edwards is simply a politician and not one who walks on water. He positions himself in whatever image he feels will garner him votes. Plus, being out of the Senate, he knew he would need the support of the netroots.
Just as Obama is a politician who must position himself more moderate in order to win the confidence of mainstream America in order to break his glass ceiling. With Hillary to the right and Edwards to the left, he is taking the in between the two.
When it gets down to brass tacks, all the dems are going to have somewhat similar positions on the war.
Obama's claim is that he was against it. He called what would happen before we ever went in.
His speech yesterday was good. He answered the critics who said he had no substance.

Perhaps Obama and Pelosi match in their "foreign policy" criteria on American-initiated war? Pelosi led a majority of House Democrats to vote against the Iraq War Resolution and stated that Iraq was not an "imminent threat" to America or to American security. How is Obama's position different from this of a major Democratic Congressional leader?

Apparently this argument is because our current crop of Democratic candidates have to explain their complicit votes to even start this war. Let's not simply defend these candidates as representing a "Democratic foreign policy" when the majority of Congressional Democrats opposed this foreign policy action to begin with.

I don't happen to believe that Afghanistan was all that unique. It's certainly not the first time we've been attacked. What does Obama mean by 20th Century mind-set? We invaded Afghanistan with 19th century technology. What is the 21st century mind-set on fighting terror, exactly? I'd rather not gamble on which direction the ax will fall the after I vote for him in the primary. I think Edwards made his decision after 04. He knows where he wants to go. I think Clinton does, too. We were in conflicts all over the world during the first Clinton Administration.

I think the post and Edwards have it totally backward with concern to ideology vs trivia. None of us knew the intelligence on WMD. We were concerned enough that we sent the UN, and I was worried that war was wrong because it'd cause Iraq to use chemical weapons or to let them fall into the wrong hands. And staking opposition back then on Bush's competence would have been a triple loser: (1) Bush hadn't proved this to the satisfaction of most people; (2) in a crisis, you go to war with the president you have; and (3) it really is trivia compared to saying, THIS WAR IS WRONG. And that's just what Obama said, with reasons basically the same as Gore's, involving concern for the real problem on the ground after 9/11 plus the broader problem of America's vision in how it uses power, and he has nothing to apologize for.

Just Karl, how often have we been attacked in the homeland since the War of 1812? Twice? Even then, Hawaii wasn't even a state when Pearl Harbor happened. So really, the one time we were hit by anyone domestically was in 2001. Unless you are talking about invading nuclear-armed, unstable Pakistan, where bin Laden is right now, the Afghanistan situation is going to stay pretty unique for a while. Terrorism is a postmodern form of conflict that is not really dependent on states. Just about the only other surviving state that housed al-Qaeda - Sudan - is unlikely to be overthrown by us soon because we are probably going to try to keep the cease fire in the South in play and we don't want to end up occupying one of the biggest countries in Africa.

A 20th-century mindset would be an understanding of international politics based on states, which is how we approached the Cold War. Both containment and rollback were state-based preferences. A more postmodern, 21st century view of international politics would be more focused on the cracks within the state system and problems relating to global governance. Non-state terrorism, the international illegal arms trade, the drug trade, human trafficking, the spread of diseases like HIV/AIDS and bird flu, loose nukes, etc. are all part of the soft underbelly of globalization that needs to be taken care off with methods that are crafted keeping in mind these forces are not controlled by states (unlike, for instance, conventional militaries). Issues of global governance and cooperation, such as global warming, keeping up the fish population in our world's waters, nuclear non-proliferation and controlling piracy are a little more state-based, but like the former set of issues, are still best solved with international cooperation and global governance. These are all issues dealing with anarchy, not, for instance, where exactly the Red Army's troops are, which would be a more 20th-century issue.

What Jim W said. If we build a bigger hammer, we'll just have to use it. And who needs it?

And no big change in foreign policy DOCTRINE is necessary or desirable, folks. The Balkans was right. Afghanistan was right. Iraq was wrong. It's not like there's worlds of difference between positions here--except that in the crucial case, invading Iraq was wrong. Pragmatically. Prudentially. If we could have pulled it off and built a functional state there, would it have been so wrong? The whole difference was in estimating the odds of that. Obama was right. Many (Matt?) were wrong.

Oh, and Just Karl? Karl Rove. Concern troll. Toxic Mr. Right. Young Spartacist! Whatever--*yawn*!

Reality Man,

The WTC was attacked in 1993. American ships were sunk in the Atlantic by Germans before both WWI and WWII. Remember the USS Maine? (wink, wink) Or the Gulf of Tonken? (nudge, nudge) We get attacked relatively frequently.

Your thoughts on global governance are precisely the type of talk I want to hear from Obama before I vote. It scares the shit out of me. I don't see America's role in the world as patching the cracks of those hardest hit by globalization. This exactly the attitude that leads to overreaching disasters like Iraq. The job of the American military is to protect the people of the United States.

As far as 21st Century non-state actor thinking goes, it's simply a repackaged criminal enforcement policy(which I don't disagree with now and didn't when Clinton employed it) The world is still composed of states and if we want to catch the terrorists we either need the cooperation of states like Pakistan, or we need to be willing to go around them or through them. At the end of the day, the terrorist suspect is either offered up for prosecution or there is a state actor who provides refuge.

The real problem is thinking that we can rebuild or establish democracy throughout the world. I'd like to promote democracy not push it.

crazy woman,

so sorry to bore you.

As far as 21st Century non-state actor thinking goes, it's simply a repackaged criminal enforcement policy(which I don't disagree with now and didn't when Clinton employed it) The world is still composed of states and if we want to catch the terrorists we either need the cooperation of states like Pakistan, or we need to be willing to go around them or through them. - Just Karl

The terrorists were in Afghanistan, which was not a state. The Taliban were not recognized as the government of Afghanistan by the vast majority of the world's governments, and they did not exert effective control over the country's territory. Afghanistan bore a closer resemblance to Somalia than to Iraq.

Obama understands that the 9/11 attacks were launched by non-state actors operating out of uncontrolled territory in a failed state. The appropriate response was to unseat the pseudo-government of the failed state, which we did, and then to clean up the uncontrolled territory and establish a governing power capable of denying that territory to terrorists. Had we concentrated on that task in Afghanistan, we might by now have been successful, and it would have been astronomically cheaper, in money and lives, than the course we undertook, which was to invade and destabilize the stable country of Iraq -- turning a totalitarian, non-terrorist territory into a failed-state terrorist breeding ground.

Obama is right, and you're wrong. Obama understands why we fought in Afghanistan. You don't. "We hit back" is not a strategy. "It wasn't the first time we've been hit" is a remarkably ignorant perspective. What's important is not the fact that you have been "hit"; what's important is who hit you, how, and why. That dictates your strategic approach. A military commander who just fires off a few shells in the direction of the "enemy" each time he is "hit" is an idiot.

Could you be more arrogant? I think the point of Afghanistan was to get Osama and destabalize al Qaeda and you think the point was to "unseat" the Taliban, and you think I'm the idiot? By your reasoning we should "clean-up" Somalia, then. Failed states are the threat. That is not what I'm looking for in a candidate.

Going around creating "pseudo-governments" in "failed states" is very, very 20th Century, and it's exactly why the middle east is the way it is today.

Leaving Afghanistan to fester, and intervening only with military strikes whenever a group arises there which is not to our liking, is precisely the approach which led to the problem in the first place. The same is happening in Somalia at the moment. We should not "clean up" Somalia; we should collaborate with both internal groups which possess substantial political strength and with neighboring states to try to establish a stable government.

I respect the position that Obama is taking and unbelievably am considering helping him if he keeps it up.

The problem with this post is that on several occasions Obama said he opposed the war because Bush didn't make the case that there were WMD--that is, if Obama had thought there were WMDs, he would have supported the war.

Here's one example, toward the end of his appearace on Charlie Rose: "President Bush didn't make the case, because I didn't see weapons of mass destruction."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6111662663051664637

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