So this is Edwards plan(???)…
“What we need is not more slogans but a comprehensive strategy to deal with the complex challenge of both delivering justice and being just.”
“We will need imagination and courage to imagine great possibilities, to create a world where terrorism belongs to the past.”
“Edwards believes military force is justified to protect our vital national interests; to respond to acts of aggression by other nations and non-state actors; to protect treaty allies and alliance commitments; to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons; and to prevent or stop genocide.”
“As president, Edwards will institute regular, on-on-one meetings with top military leadership.”
“As president, Edwards will launch a comprehensive, tough review of fraud, waste, and abuse, such as missile defense and offensive space-based weapons, that are costly and unlikely to work.”
“The force structure of our military should match its mission. our forces are not equipped to meet the challenges of stabilizing weak states. Civilians and experienced government employees need to be involved in stabilizing states with weak governments, and providing humanitarian assistance where disasters have struck.”
“Ensuring national security requires more than the exercise of raw power. Fighting global warming will also protect our security interests — a recent report authored by a group of top military leaders said that, if unchecked, global warming could lead to civil strife, genocide, and increased terrorism. Solving global poverty is a moral imperative, but it is also a security issue — global poverty increases the risk to America by providing a safe harbor for instability, extremism, and terrorism. Living up to our American ideals by protecting basic freedoms will help us avoid actions that give terrorists or even other nations an excuse to abandon international law.”
So, if stopping genocide and stabilizing weak states is in our national interests, then I assume, that once Edwards pulls our troops out of Iraq, he will be prepared to send them back in after several months, once the ‘civil war’ devolves into pure genocide, and further weakens Iraq’s government…
And I suppose to many people have lost sight that we do have, and are following a strategy in our “Global War on Terror,” aka the long war, aka the War Against Islamofascism.
Today, we face a global terrorist movement and must confront the radical ideology that justifies the use of violence against innocents in the name of religion. As laid out in this strategy, to win the War on Terror, we will:
* Advance effective democracies as the long–term antidote to the ideology of terrorism;
* Prevent attacks by terrorist networks;
* Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states;
* Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror; and
* Lay the foundations and build the institutions and structures we need to carry the fight forward against terror and help ensure our ultimate success.
But of course, when the President says that Iraq is the central front in the GWOT, what he’s not saying is there are other areas of operation in which we are engaged. Economic, Diplomatic, Cultural, Political, and Military. Those are all fronts which have activity occurring somewhere around the globe. All the time. It is simplistic to think that we are only engaging terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, to be fair, there are some things which Edwards gets right. But, there are many that simply make it sound like he’s chopped up the position papers of several advisor’s and spewed out what sounded like it would get him votes.