28 Mar 2011, 8:20 pm
FULL TEXT OF PRES. OBAMA'S ADDRESS RE: LIBYA
First, a quick review of the speech as performance and for efficacy in getting his points across: not bad. To me, he only sounded 100% sincere in one or two places, however. If he could deliver an entire address in that tone of voice it would be awesome. As for the validity of the points he made: excellent. Lies and BS: no more than the usual amount for any Prez, especially in such a delicate situation. Combining style and substance so as to be memorable: not really.
As I said elsewhere, I don't envy him in this situation; I envy his speechwriter (even if it's himself) even less. A tough chore. One of the toughest aspects: why Libya and not elsewhere? It was in answering that question that he impressed me as being totally sincere for just a moment. I've underlined the sincere part:
From there he went into the list of circumstances that made this intervention justified: international mandate yada yada yada. Many people will make from that list a set of rules that comprise an "Obama Doctrine". In point of fact, Sec. Clinton listed them the other day and I read one article that listed them as the "Hillary Doctrine".
There's really nothing new or surprising in that list. But there was, in that speech, a hint or two about what could have been, but was not, presented as a momentous "Obama Doctrine". Though not enumerated specifically enough to be eligible for doctrinehood, it may nevertheless be a description of how Obama intends to act in similar circumstances. Though not enumerated today, it could be tomorrow. What is this nascent doctrine? First the two bits from the speech:
• "...our own future is safer and brighter if more of mankind can live with* the bright light of freedom and dignity."
•"...[had the US not acted] repressive leaders [would have] concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power."
At the risk of encouraging diatribes from those less apt to see any good in our 40th Prez, I'll call these statements Reaganesque. Especially the first. The second is what most contributes to me having titled this thread with that Pax _____ usage/formula. To me, a Pax is a systematic, strategic, and long-term approach to making the world conform to some standard of behavior that's conducive to wars and similar atrocities not being committed. By necessity, a Pax entails the use of force or the strong threat of its use. (We've not yet reached the point where one might form that does not require such force or threat.) By expanding upon these two points, and referencing the "Hillary Doctrine" or some such rules as a relevant set of guidelines, President Obama could have set forth a doctrine for international affairs that would have been worthy of the appellation.
[Note: heretofore, Paxi have not just been used to secure peace for peace's sake, but also to serve the selfish ends of the entity doing the enforcing, though more so in the case of Rome than of Britain. The Pax Britannica wasn't completely selfish. In this thread I'm envisioning one that would be even less so.]
I can best explain what I mean about expanding on that first quote by providing a few paragraphs for an Obama speech - paragraphs that could have been delivered tonight:
What are America's vital interests, and what do we have to do to defend the homeland? Once upon a time we had relatively few vital interests overseas. Regardless of what happened in far-off lands here at home we could pursue our goals, make progress, and count on the fact that our children would have things better than our parents did. When George Washington said we should avoid "foreign entanglements" that was a very realistic possibility, but even if we had embraced isolationism then it wouldn't have lasted long. Some Americans still clung to the idea through one world war, but the second, and the cold war that followed, made almost all of us realize how small the world had become. And yet, that was nothing compared to more recent events like the Asian financial crisis of 1997, which reverberated worldwide, and just four years later the attacks of 9/11, which drove home once and for all the realization that oceans are not the protection we'd once prayed they would be.
Today, our vital interests include the absolute necessity that the world, which is not going to sit still, advance toward freedom and not toward tyranny and repression. A wise President** once said "our own future is safer and brighter if more of mankind can live under the bright light of freedom and dignity," but that's now outdated. The fact is, we can only have a safe and bright future if more of mankind lives free. Free peoples don't start wars. They don't teach hatred. They don't nurture resentments. Free peoples want, above all, for everyone to be free. Having freedom makes it so much easier to realize how right Martin Luther King was when he said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." My predecessor said, "The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom," and he also was right.
Libya is bordered east and west by nations where freedom isn't just on the march - it's sprinting all out. Americans have always been thrilled by the sight of freedom taking hold in new soil. Our hearts leaped when Iraqis held up purple fingers, and when the Berlin Wall fell. We've always felt that America had a moral duty to encourage freedom everywhere. What I'm saying today is that we have a practical need for freedom everywhere. Encouraging it isn't just a matter of ideals, but of hard-nosed self-interest. The world is too small for it to be otherwise.
Therefore, it shall be the policy of this administration to use its diplomatic influence, economic strength, foreign aid and sponsored development programs, and military resources, to encourage and nurture the movement from tyranny and repression to freedom and self-determination, whether that movement be as rapid as we're seeing today in Libya, or a slow and grinding process, as it so often is, whenever and wherever we can do so without damaging our other vital national interests more than we advance them. That tricky judgment will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, and in consultation with Congress, but it will be made with the full and avid appreciation, as never before, of how the march of freedom worldwide serves those interests.
Thank-you, good night, and God bless America.
The second bulleted quote hints at the complementary principle that would comprise a Pax Obamacana. A strategic and systematic approach to the long-term effort to put the Obama Doctrine into effect includes the recognition that what we do today in one hemisphere will influence how a tyrant in another hemisphere behaves tomorrow. I remember with irony how it was Ghaddafi who learned a lesson from what Bush did to Saddam, and gave up his WMD programs. Would Ghaddafi's decisions tomorrow be influenced by having witnessed the Obama Doctrine forcefully applied in country after country? You bet they would. When the President and Congress are working out of that cost/benefit equation I mentioned it's vital to understand that when enforcing a Pax you must employ leverage. It makes sense to pay dearly to make a point so long as that point gets across and thus saves you from expenses down the road. One military action can accomplish the work of three if everyone comes to realize that we won't hesitate to do the same again and again. When we are timid, however, or take only the short-term view, the blood and treasure we spend has no impact beyond the immediate and local. In fact, if we spend blood and treasure many times to help freedom expand, as we have, but then let just one asshat egomaniac like Ghaddafi or Saddam get away with some act that defies every principle for which we'd fought, we condemn all that former blood and treasure to immediate and local relevance only, when it could have been leveraged: built up like brick upon brick to make a structure stronger than the sum of its parts.
When Obama talked about repressive leaders potentially learning "that violence is the best strategy to cling to power," he was hinting at one of the pillars of a Pax. If one is not going to adopt a policy like the Obama Doctrine, which essentially makes policing the world a matter of national security, one really needn't be concerned about what lessons one gives to bad actors. Isolationists aren't teachers - jurists are.
Okay. That said, I'm not advocating that Obama actually put forward what I've described as "The Obama Doctrine" or make any attempt to impose a Pax Obamacana. Nor am I predicting that he will. In fact, my cynical realism inclines quite a different way. He used the language of a Pax in this speech, but he won't make any real effort to systematically enforce it, much less make it explicit. He was simply mouthing words that might help him in his current predicament. In a way he's just digging us deeper into a hole. If I were a freedom-lover in Iran or Myanmar or Belarus I might well be inclined to read into that address a promise. I think Obama had his fingers crossed. I'm not saying that doing what we've done about Libya is wrong. If it's true that "if we [had] waited one more day, Benghazi – a city nearly the size of Charlotte – could [have] suffer[ed] a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," then letting those missiles fly was a no-brainer. But justifying that decision by hinting as I've characterized that hinting sets us up to play the same horrible trick we've played on Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Iran, Iraq, and one could even say Vietnam - to different degrees. It's immoral to encourage someone to risk their lives for freedom in the belief that you'll help them and then fail to come through. Do it consistently enough and sooner or later your rhetoric of freedom will sound hollow and taste bitter.
Take a look once more at the first quote I posted, where I'd underlined what I thought Obama had voiced with honest sincerity. Had he made more of a point about this being a unique situation - a one off - a totally weird set of circumstances that would never be repeated, he'd have made me happier. Mind you, it's not that I disagree with the higher purposes he discussed, or would hate to see a Pax Americana. I'll take any Pax I can get so long as I was confident it could and would be enforced. But I doubt it could and fear it wouldn't even if it could. So why hint at it?
* Shouldn't that be "live in..."? or "under"?
** See the same bulleted quote above!
First, a quick review of the speech as performance and for efficacy in getting his points across: not bad. To me, he only sounded 100% sincere in one or two places, however. If he could deliver an entire address in that tone of voice it would be awesome. As for the validity of the points he made: excellent. Lies and BS: no more than the usual amount for any Prez, especially in such a delicate situation. Combining style and substance so as to be memorable: not really.
As I said elsewhere, I don't envy him in this situation; I envy his speechwriter (even if it's himself) even less. A tough chore. One of the toughest aspects: why Libya and not elsewhere? It was in answering that question that he impressed me as being totally sincere for just a moment. I've underlined the sincere part:
...America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right. In this particular country – Libya; at this particular moment, we...
From there he went into the list of circumstances that made this intervention justified: international mandate yada yada yada. Many people will make from that list a set of rules that comprise an "Obama Doctrine". In point of fact, Sec. Clinton listed them the other day and I read one article that listed them as the "Hillary Doctrine".
There's really nothing new or surprising in that list. But there was, in that speech, a hint or two about what could have been, but was not, presented as a momentous "Obama Doctrine". Though not enumerated specifically enough to be eligible for doctrinehood, it may nevertheless be a description of how Obama intends to act in similar circumstances. Though not enumerated today, it could be tomorrow. What is this nascent doctrine? First the two bits from the speech:
• "...our own future is safer and brighter if more of mankind can live with* the bright light of freedom and dignity."
•"...[had the US not acted] repressive leaders [would have] concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power."
At the risk of encouraging diatribes from those less apt to see any good in our 40th Prez, I'll call these statements Reaganesque. Especially the first. The second is what most contributes to me having titled this thread with that Pax _____ usage/formula. To me, a Pax is a systematic, strategic, and long-term approach to making the world conform to some standard of behavior that's conducive to wars and similar atrocities not being committed. By necessity, a Pax entails the use of force or the strong threat of its use. (We've not yet reached the point where one might form that does not require such force or threat.) By expanding upon these two points, and referencing the "Hillary Doctrine" or some such rules as a relevant set of guidelines, President Obama could have set forth a doctrine for international affairs that would have been worthy of the appellation.
[Note: heretofore, Paxi have not just been used to secure peace for peace's sake, but also to serve the selfish ends of the entity doing the enforcing, though more so in the case of Rome than of Britain. The Pax Britannica wasn't completely selfish. In this thread I'm envisioning one that would be even less so.]
I can best explain what I mean about expanding on that first quote by providing a few paragraphs for an Obama speech - paragraphs that could have been delivered tonight:
What are America's vital interests, and what do we have to do to defend the homeland? Once upon a time we had relatively few vital interests overseas. Regardless of what happened in far-off lands here at home we could pursue our goals, make progress, and count on the fact that our children would have things better than our parents did. When George Washington said we should avoid "foreign entanglements" that was a very realistic possibility, but even if we had embraced isolationism then it wouldn't have lasted long. Some Americans still clung to the idea through one world war, but the second, and the cold war that followed, made almost all of us realize how small the world had become. And yet, that was nothing compared to more recent events like the Asian financial crisis of 1997, which reverberated worldwide, and just four years later the attacks of 9/11, which drove home once and for all the realization that oceans are not the protection we'd once prayed they would be.
Today, our vital interests include the absolute necessity that the world, which is not going to sit still, advance toward freedom and not toward tyranny and repression. A wise President** once said "our own future is safer and brighter if more of mankind can live under the bright light of freedom and dignity," but that's now outdated. The fact is, we can only have a safe and bright future if more of mankind lives free. Free peoples don't start wars. They don't teach hatred. They don't nurture resentments. Free peoples want, above all, for everyone to be free. Having freedom makes it so much easier to realize how right Martin Luther King was when he said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." My predecessor said, "The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom," and he also was right.
Libya is bordered east and west by nations where freedom isn't just on the march - it's sprinting all out. Americans have always been thrilled by the sight of freedom taking hold in new soil. Our hearts leaped when Iraqis held up purple fingers, and when the Berlin Wall fell. We've always felt that America had a moral duty to encourage freedom everywhere. What I'm saying today is that we have a practical need for freedom everywhere. Encouraging it isn't just a matter of ideals, but of hard-nosed self-interest. The world is too small for it to be otherwise.
Therefore, it shall be the policy of this administration to use its diplomatic influence, economic strength, foreign aid and sponsored development programs, and military resources, to encourage and nurture the movement from tyranny and repression to freedom and self-determination, whether that movement be as rapid as we're seeing today in Libya, or a slow and grinding process, as it so often is, whenever and wherever we can do so without damaging our other vital national interests more than we advance them. That tricky judgment will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, and in consultation with Congress, but it will be made with the full and avid appreciation, as never before, of how the march of freedom worldwide serves those interests.
Thank-you, good night, and God bless America.
The second bulleted quote hints at the complementary principle that would comprise a Pax Obamacana. A strategic and systematic approach to the long-term effort to put the Obama Doctrine into effect includes the recognition that what we do today in one hemisphere will influence how a tyrant in another hemisphere behaves tomorrow. I remember with irony how it was Ghaddafi who learned a lesson from what Bush did to Saddam, and gave up his WMD programs. Would Ghaddafi's decisions tomorrow be influenced by having witnessed the Obama Doctrine forcefully applied in country after country? You bet they would. When the President and Congress are working out of that cost/benefit equation I mentioned it's vital to understand that when enforcing a Pax you must employ leverage. It makes sense to pay dearly to make a point so long as that point gets across and thus saves you from expenses down the road. One military action can accomplish the work of three if everyone comes to realize that we won't hesitate to do the same again and again. When we are timid, however, or take only the short-term view, the blood and treasure we spend has no impact beyond the immediate and local. In fact, if we spend blood and treasure many times to help freedom expand, as we have, but then let just one asshat egomaniac like Ghaddafi or Saddam get away with some act that defies every principle for which we'd fought, we condemn all that former blood and treasure to immediate and local relevance only, when it could have been leveraged: built up like brick upon brick to make a structure stronger than the sum of its parts.
When Obama talked about repressive leaders potentially learning "that violence is the best strategy to cling to power," he was hinting at one of the pillars of a Pax. If one is not going to adopt a policy like the Obama Doctrine, which essentially makes policing the world a matter of national security, one really needn't be concerned about what lessons one gives to bad actors. Isolationists aren't teachers - jurists are.
Okay. That said, I'm not advocating that Obama actually put forward what I've described as "The Obama Doctrine" or make any attempt to impose a Pax Obamacana. Nor am I predicting that he will. In fact, my cynical realism inclines quite a different way. He used the language of a Pax in this speech, but he won't make any real effort to systematically enforce it, much less make it explicit. He was simply mouthing words that might help him in his current predicament. In a way he's just digging us deeper into a hole. If I were a freedom-lover in Iran or Myanmar or Belarus I might well be inclined to read into that address a promise. I think Obama had his fingers crossed. I'm not saying that doing what we've done about Libya is wrong. If it's true that "if we [had] waited one more day, Benghazi – a city nearly the size of Charlotte – could [have] suffer[ed] a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," then letting those missiles fly was a no-brainer. But justifying that decision by hinting as I've characterized that hinting sets us up to play the same horrible trick we've played on Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Iran, Iraq, and one could even say Vietnam - to different degrees. It's immoral to encourage someone to risk their lives for freedom in the belief that you'll help them and then fail to come through. Do it consistently enough and sooner or later your rhetoric of freedom will sound hollow and taste bitter.
Take a look once more at the first quote I posted, where I'd underlined what I thought Obama had voiced with honest sincerity. Had he made more of a point about this being a unique situation - a one off - a totally weird set of circumstances that would never be repeated, he'd have made me happier. Mind you, it's not that I disagree with the higher purposes he discussed, or would hate to see a Pax Americana. I'll take any Pax I can get so long as I was confident it could and would be enforced. But I doubt it could and fear it wouldn't even if it could. So why hint at it?
* Shouldn't that be "live in..."? or "under"?
** See the same bulleted quote above!
