Dovish better for US than Hawkish

Donald Lambro makes so many errors in “The race to pull out” (Valentines Day) that one can only guess that he gets his information from former Bush administration advisors.

This “left-wing, anti-war” individual doesn’t “oppose a tougher defense posture”. I oppose an alienating ‘offensive posture’ that leaves us warring against a dangerous global enemy with fewer and fewer friends. And, to win a global war of ideas we don’t need more “muscle” in our “foreign policy” -- we need more brains. Forcing our ideas upon others isn’t as powerful as influencing them by ‘walking our talk’. ‘Liberty and justice for all’ is far more motivating than ‘bombs and waterboarding for any suspect.’

Lambro claims Senator Obama “harbors” a “more dovish national security” view -- as if that’s a bad thing. How bad would it be if we had never invaded Iraq -- or did so with the more ‘dovish’ protection of the Iraqi people instead of the more hawkish strategy of ‘shock and awe’. There is little doubt that a ‘more dovish’ approach would have yielded us more Iraqi support in the beginning as well as more allies and international financial support desperately needed as we end this costly fiasco.

And, no approach to war could be more “dangerous and sophomoric” than going it virtually alone, on faulty intelligence, and with inadequate planning. Better not to have gone at all. Or, as Barack Obama insists, gone after Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda where they were… instead of where we wanted them to be.

Obama might ‘look weak’ by being lied to by foreign leaders but that wouldn’t leave us as weak as we are with our military bogged down and overstretched in a seemingly endless war.

Lambro’s final question “How long do you think it will take al Qaeda to re-establish bases throughout the country once we’re out?” misses contextual reality. Al Qaeda doesn’t need to re-establish bases in Iraq if it already has them in Pakistan -- or can establish them in any other lawless areas of the globe where a more thoughtful US foreign policy would harden the ground they seek to crawl into.

If we can believe the Bush administration it also to wants to “pull out” of Iraq. But, for Obama, it is more a function of strengthening our nation’s security than improving the dismal legacy of a hawkish political party.