Who CAN you trust on war and peace?
A DUer recently asked us 'how can we trust Hillary Clinton on issue of war and peace.' The same DUer is also now publicly backing Martin O'Malley. This not only begs the question of how can we trust O'Malley on issues of war and peace but how can we trust any candidate testing the presidential waters?
And who are 'we?' And what is our collective position we should trust someone on?
Since a newly avowed O'Malley supporter has asked the question, It's only fair we examine his positions first.
Like Hillary before him, in 2000 O`Malley adopted the manifesto, "A New Politics for a New America" which lays out the case for, among other things, Liberal Internationalism.
What is Liberal Internationalism? Look it up. Liberal internationalism is a foreign policy doctrine that argues liberal states should intervene in other sovereign states in order to pursue liberal objectives. Such intervention can include both military invasion and humanitarian aid. It emerged during the nineteenth century, notably under the auspices of British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston and was developed in the second decade of the 20th century under U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (D).
FDR used Liberal Internationalism to rally the United States and its allies to fight the Nazis and fascism. Harry Truman wielded liberal internationalism to forge global free trade agreements and the reconstruction of Europe and Japan. Unfortunately, it was also the guiding principle behind our involvement in Korea and Viet Nam and drove the cold war.
Liberal Internationalism was the cornerstone of President Kennedy's entire foreign policy, nowhere better indicated than in his inaugural speech: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Jimmy Carter insisted U.S. foreign relations should be "rebuilt upon the premise that the United States had a vital practical as well as moral interest in the promotion of a liberal world order." The principal foreign policymakers in the Carter Administration were in full agreement with the general tenets of Wilsonian internationalism. Brzezinski argues for a fusion of power and principle as "the only way to ensure global stability and peace while we accommodate to the inevitable and necessary reality of global change and progress." Human rights "was the wave of the present. It was the 'central form in which mankind is expressing its new political awakening,' and it was essential for the United States to be identified with this."
"As President," Carter reflects, "I hoped and believed that the expansion of human rights might be the wave of the future throughout the world, and I wanted the United States to be on the crest of this movement." Carter understood human rights to be more than "democratic principles such as those expressed in the Bill of Rights." LINK
Bill Clinton channeled Liberal Internationalism when he intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo (and should have in Rwanda). He expanded free trade, enlarged NATO, and pressed hard for peace in the Middle East.
Writer Juilan Ku writes a short but otherwise enlightening piece on President Obama and the difference between Liberal Internationalism and Neoconservatism. Neoconservativism tends to support unilateral or at least liberal coalitions acting alone whereas liberal internationalists are deeply committed to international institutions and their legal processes.
Short but accurate distinction. We can expand on this with the help of President Obama referring to Libya:
In 2002 Hillary Clinton, like John Kerry, Joe Biden and other national representatives of the Democratic party, voted for the Iraq War resolution. An unfortunate and misguided action to be sure. She has since acknowledged the mistake and apologized for it. But in her speech on the Senate floor leading to that vote, she did what Kerry, Biden and others did - invoked the tenets of liberal internationalism. Coalitions. Humanitarian aspects. Like Viet Nam, this was a misuse of Liberal Internationalism to be sure but it still cannot be denied that liberal internationalism is and has been the underlying foreign policy doctrine of the Democratic party.
And Martin O'Malley has embraced it.
But O'Malley didn't vote for the War in Iraq and THAT IS THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE AND YOU KNOW IT!!!!
Of course he didn't. He wasn't a Senator or Representative at the time. But he's a proponent of the reasoning every Democrat who voted for it used when they voted for it. Logic dictates he would have voted for it then. It's a similar argument used in favor of Howard Dean in 2004. Dean wasn't there to vote on the IWR even though he was in favor of what the IWR said.
But haven't you said O'Malley is a foreign policy lightweight? If you believe that, how can he possibly know anything about this fancy shmancy 'liberal internationalism' that you obviously just made up!
Yeah, I have said that about O'Malley. He apparently has no real opinions of his own. On his 8-day trip to Israel, Jordan & the Palestinian territories in 2013, O'Malley said, "I'm sure all of you will ask me foreign policy questions. I respect your right to ask them, and I hope you'll respect my right to shy away from answering them." If I was to do a little cynical political mind reading here (as so many do with Hillary Clinton) I could say "O'Malley doesn't want to answer questions of war and peace because he doesn't want quotes to come back and haunt him."
He then deferred to President Obama's policies on everything asked of him.
Wait! He did offer up one thing of substance. A reporter pointed out that on his way into Bethlehem, he would see the controversial separation barrier Israel has erected in the West Bank. O'Malley said he had seen something similar in Northern Ireland. "They call it the peace wall," he noted.
So you're saying you won't vote for O'Malley? Is that what you're saying???
On the contrary, I'd be ecstatic to push the button for him over anyone in the GOP circus.
But what about Sanders? He's a real peace warrior!
Yeah, see, that's the flip side of the 'trust on war and peace' question. How long would it take him to call a threat a threat and act on it? You can trust a hawk only so far. And you can only trust a dove so far, too, but for the opposite reason.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and it was so nice and quiet the last two weeks. 
O'Malley wasn't in Congress at the time,
So he is being accused of potentially voting the same way other Democrats did IF he had the opportunity. It seems strange to me that a self-professed HRC supporter would take that tact since she did vote for the war, but I suppose I don't understand the mind of the disruptor.
AAR, since HRC has 75% of support of our party, I also don't understand the rabid need to bash a really decent Democratic Governor who has 2% of the vote. O'Malley has taken the high road and avoided bashing HRC, why can't her supporters (real or pretend) do the same for the other Democrats mulling a run.
Me? I plan on voting for candidates who are "proponents of the reasoning every Democrat."
of vice news. Google James Murdoch.
They voted for a resolution titled "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" because they didn't want there to be use of military force against Iraq?
