Gary Hart: Barack Obama was right to be candid about Pakistan [View All]

[beachmom]

From HuffPost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/candor-in-the-age-of-spin_b_59816.html

Though there are a few, very rare occasions where the immediacy of a threat requires both swift and secret action, the Constitutional principles upon which our nation was founded require us to be as honest, as straightforward, and as candid as we can be with ourselves and with the world about what we are up to. By the hollow "dead or alive" rhetoric now conveniently forgotten, we have already announced our intentions to do what it takes. So, Senator Obama does not seem to have gone any further than the ineffective incumbent on this issue. It would be amazing if there is a Pakistani alive, including President Pervez Musharraf, who doubts that we would land the 82nd Airborne, Delta Force, Rangers, and the entire Marine Corps right on top of the bearded villain...if we could just find him...without asking permission from anyone.

It seems to me that is all Senator Obama was saying. But the broader issue, like too many others, should be the subject of serious discussion--presuming the geniuses who preside over these "debates" could find the methods for doing so: In this age of information revolution, where there are few secrets and nothing is secret very long, when should and when should not the United States announce its intentions to take unilateral action.

I admire Gary Hart's expertise on foreign policy, and I want to make it clear that this is a much bigger question than any presidential primary. What Obama said was neither a change in U.S. policy nor something we didn't already know deep down. The fact that many in the foreign policy establishment immediately rebuked him for being honest is really stunning. I'm glad that Gary Hart is not with that crowd.

Check out the Think Tank he founded, and for which John Kerry sits on the Board of Directors:

http://www.americansecurityproject.org/

I truly hope that as time goes by it is a true rival to the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and even the Brookings Institution in foreign policy thought.