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Obama Rebukes the Republican Warmonger Doctrine of Unjustified War
While honoring the sacrifices of the fallen, President Obama took the time to make it specifically clear that he will never subscribed to the Bush Doctrine of endless unjustified war.
Here is the video courtesy of C-SPAN:
One section of President Obama’s Memorial Day remarks stood out,
Especially for those who’ve lost a loved one, this chapter will remain open long after the guns have fallen silent. Today, with the war in Iraq finally over, it is fitting to pay tribute to the sacrifice that spanned that conflict.
In March of 2003, on the first day of the invasion, one of our helicopters crashed near the Iraqi border with Kuwait. On it were four Marines: Major Jay Aubin; Captain Ryan Beaupre; Corporal Brian Kennedy; and Staff Sergeant Kendall Waters-Bey. Together, they became the first American casualties of the Iraq war. Their families and friends barely had time to register the beginning of the conflict before being forced to confront its awesome costs.
Eight years, seven months and 25 days later, Army Specialist David Hickman was on patrol in Baghdad. That’s when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb. He became the last of nearly 4,500 American patriots to give their lives in Iraq. A month after David’s death — the days before the last American troops, including David, were scheduled to come home — I met with the Hickman family at Fort Bragg. Right now, the Hickmans are beginning a very difficult journey that so many of your families have traveled before them — a journey that even more families will take in the months and years ahead.
To the families here today, I repeat what I said to the Hickmans: I cannot begin to fully understand your loss. As a father, I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to hear that knock on the door and learn that your worst fears have come true. But as Commander-In-Chief, I can tell you that sending our troops into harm’s way is the most wrenching decision that I have to make. I can promise you I will never do so unless it’s absolutely necessary, and that when we do, we must give our troops a clear mission and the full support of a grateful nation.
And as a country, all of us can and should ask ourselves how we can help you shoulder a burden that nobody should have to bear alone. As we honor your mothers and fathers, your sons and daughters, we have given — who have given their last full measure of devotion to this country, we have to ask ourselves how can we support you and your families and give you some strength?
One thing we can do is remember these heroes as you remember them — not just as a rank, or a number, or a name on a headstone, but as Americans, often far too young, who were guided by a deep and abiding love for their families, for each other, and for this country.
Beyond the now standard presidential Memorial Day message honoring the fallen, there was a statement of principle. Throughout his presidency, Obama has rejected the Bush Doctrine in both words and deeds. There has been no talk of an “Axis of Evil,” or “fighting them there so that we don’t have to fight them here.” President Obama has very clearly separated the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan from the hunt for al-Qaeda, and his administration’s anti-terrorism efforts.
The Bush administration used 9/11 as free pass to engage in full scale warfare in a nation that had nothing to do with Bin Laden or al-Qaeda, whereas the Obama administration has been focused on combating terrorism, ending the wars that Bush started, and a very specific and limited use of the military.
Much of the disgruntlement with Obama from the far left is derived from the idea that he hasn’t brought all of the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but when since World War II has any president brought all of the troops home after an invasion? No president, Democrat or Republican, has pulled all of the troops out of Germany and Japan. Eisenhower didn’t do it in Korea. No president brought all of the troops home after Vietnam, and if Obama can get all of the troops out of either Iraq or Afghanistan it will be a miraculous feat, because no president has been able to take on the military industrial complex and win.
The war industry knows that at best it will only have to tolerate Obama for eight years. Presidents have finite terms, but the military industrial complex is entrenched. Just like any bureaucracy, it can afford to wait out any the agenda of a president. The reality of modern world is that the American people are left with a choice between Democrats who believe in a judicious and justified use of force, and Republicans who are still so enamored by and enthralled with the Bush Doctrine that they can’t wait to line up the next target in their perpetual war agenda (Iran).
2012 is an important year, because the United States is at a crossroads. The nation will either return to the path of new and perpetual war, or it will take another step towards relegating the Bush Doctrine to dust heap of American foreign policy blunders.
Barack Obama solemnly remembered the human cost of the Bush Doctrine, but it is the voters who decide what our memories on future Memorial Days will be.
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13 Responses to Obama Rebukes the Republican Warmonger Doctrine of Unjustified War
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Reynardine
May. 28th, 2012 at 10:35 pm
There is an old piper’s tune from WWI, called, I think, “The Poppies of Flanders”. I can’t send notation or a melody, but here are the words:
Peaches blush in the summertime
Apples in the autumn
Redder still the poppies blow
In Flanders, where we fought ‘em.
In shady groves where blood once flowed
The peaceful roe deer wanders.
The grass can tell its sweet green lies
But the poppies speak of Flanders.
If I who crawl the earth below
Could grow wings of the gander
I’d fly where all the heroes go:
To my comrades dead at Flanders.
Or, as Long John Silver said, sometimes them as dies is the lucky ones.
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 28th, 2012 at 10:51 pm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_...
Flanders Fields is the generic name of the World War I battlefields in the medieval County of Flanders. At the time of World War I, the county no longer existed but corresponded approximately to the Belgian provinces East Flanders and West Flanders and the French Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. The name is particularly associated with the battles of Ypres, Passchendaele, and the Somme. For most of the war, the front line ran continuously from south of Zeebrugge, Belgium, to the Swiss border with France (Alsace and Vosges regions). Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote a poem,inspired by his service during the 2nd Battle of Ypres.
Its called
In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
Reynardine
May. 29th, 2012 at 9:49 am
It was the great, stationary lines of this front that cost so heavily- that, and that improved medical care meant that many men who would have died survived horribly maimed and disfigured.
Something that people miss about “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”- any version of it- was that the principal characters were all scarred by that war, and so was post-war Europe. Men in the trenches were often so pinned down by fire that they had to watch (and smell) their dead rot unburied before their eyes; under field conditions, on the Flanders front and still more in the marshes of Volhynia, the putrefaction bacteria often caused both the decaying corpses and the maggots that devoured them to glow at night. When a man died in the trench, they covered him with earth if they could, but often, someone who had fought and ate and slept beside you a day or a week or a month ago, was now undergoing this hideous transformation beside you. Even without that, large numbers of men being forced to dwell with their own excretions must have made it like Andersonville Prison with artillery.
We had a tropical storm here over Memorial Day weekend. I had meant to plant argemone poppies (the only kind that thrive here) in memory of that needless and evil-working war and its successors. I yet will. I hope never to have to plant them for one that is yet to be.
Dorothy Rissman
May. 28th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Jason, thank you for this. dr
Cha
May. 28th, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Excellent Piece on the Reality of the Obama Admin and what it’s doing and where its focus is pertaining to our Military! And, also what another bush-cheney nightmare we would have ahead if the willards STEAL the Election.
Thank you, Jason.
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 28th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
The president could help himself greatly if he hammered this home on Romney, Lieberman, McCain and Graham. I think this could be a very strong point for him to make. The country hates war, the GOP wants more. The country wants to help its vets, the GOP wants to cut them out of America’s help. He needs to tell the vets of America what Paul Ryan intends to do to them
Poet
May. 29th, 2012 at 11:55 am
While it appears that President Obama does not support war, the proof is in actions. I cannot support the drone attack policy HE has increased. These weapons get way too many of the innocents and any killing is inhumane. America needs to put it’s policy where it’s mouth is! Weapons dealers/America exports weapons to so many places. This is much the same as engaging in outright wars. Rhetoric is soothing, but show us the proof. America ought to be making/defining friends based on how we could improve this world and not by defining enemies, exporting CIA shenanigans, exporting weapons of death, repressing American citizens who dissent and the list goes on…WHAT about America’s crumbling inner cities, infrastructure, his support of Chase/Dimon fraud, the fake help for homeowners under water, and much more? Talk is cheap and it is all done with a somber tone until the next smile and fundraiser. Cynical? NO. Reality is more powerful than feel good pieces for the voter. Waiting for the next show to drop! Peace
Jo Hargis
May. 29th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Of course I respect your opinion, but I just have to point out (as I’m sure you’ve heard before), drones kill FAR less people than regular combat and boots on the ground. They are so specific and they really do try to minimize any collateral casualties. We just got the latest #2 Al Qaeda guy yesterday with a drone attack, which specifically targeted him.
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 29th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
You bring up a lot of other issues that have nothing to do with war. And its obvious you are follower of the The Donald. Most of what you are saying is RWNJ BS
Fake help for homeowners? Maybe we should call in the B-52′s to make you happy.
Reynardine
May. 29th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
It appears Donald Dumb wants to be the back of Rott’s ticket, and his antics are already causing embarrassment to the Mimney campaign.
mary aseltyne
May. 30th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Bush used our troops as if they were his private army, and he did not ‘listen to his generals’ the way he pretended. If he had listened, he never would have sent ground troops into Iraq that were so poorly equipped and undermanned. Bush completely ignored the “Powell Doctrine”, and our troops are still paying a heavy price, with loss of limb or permanent brain damage, for Bush’s stupid decisions.
j
May. 31st, 2012 at 7:51 am
Has anyone else read the article by retired Justice Stevens, who is very vocal against Citizens United, he offers an opinion that money from foreign governments could be buying our elections.
My money is on Netanyahu – he wants us to go to war with Iran so bad he can taste it, the neocons are ready and willing,so the aid we give to Israel i8s probably coming back to the coffers of the repubs!
Reynardine
May. 31st, 2012 at 8:38 am
I read an article about an interview with Justice Stevens to the same effect. He believes that the presence of foreign donors is going to force the Supreme Court to scale back Citizens United.