Reply #22: Think critically [View All]

[debatepro]

Read the article and speech … and try to use your critical thinking and common sense skills.

Kagan's quotes contradict his thesis which is Obama is an Interventionist all over the place.
All right, you're thinking, but at least he wants us to lead by example, not by meddling everywhere and trying to transform the world in America's image.

This is classic softpower rhetoric not neocon interventionism.
There is more to building democracy than "deposing a dictator and setting up a ballot box." We must build societies with "a strong legislature, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free press, and an honest police force."

This next one is totally a neocon argument...LOL
Okay, you say, but at least Obama is proposing all this Peace Corps-like activity as a substitute for military power.

Kagan:
Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened."

If you go by this logic Obama never said he believed in Pre-emptive war either. There were lots of things missing from Obama's speech like IMMINENTLY THREATENED!!! and PRE-EMPTIVE war!!! Where does Kagan get these quotes from.

1. If you think Obama doesn't think that military force is indeed a last resort then you probably can't be convinced.
2. Neocons and Students of Softpower (Obama) see Imminent Threats differently. For neocons/hardcore realist imminent threat is anything you can manufacture (Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq, speed boats in Iran, etc). we all just have a different view of what is an imminent threat... at least in Obama's case he HAD THE JUDGMENT AND UNDERSTANDING TO KNOW THAT IRAQ WASN'T an IMMINENT THREAT. Can we say that about the other candidates?
3. Also here is a link to the speech Obama gave at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that Kagan is pulling his quotes from. Find "imminently threatened" in that speech.
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/051122-moving_forward/index.php

Like i already said... Kagan cherry picks, then appropriates neocon definitions of threats and views of the world and then applies them to Obama. The only difference is that everyone on the planet knows that Cheney and Obama have a different definition of Imminent threat... heck look at Iraq ... Obama has a more credibility evaluating Iraq's as an imminent threat than Clinton or Edwards. (Thats Mate)