Skip to main content

The continuing militarization of American foreign policy in places most of us never think about....

... like the Darfur region of Sudan.

It is important to read this entire NYT article on the impact of Major-General Scott Gration on the Obama administration's policy towards the genocidal government in Khartoum. You need to read it for yourself, because it is carefully balanced and subject to distortion if I pick out too many quotes about Gration himself.

But it is disturbing on multiple levels:

1) The continuing and apparently expanding use of US military personnel in diplomatic roles. To a greater extent than most previous administrations, President Obama appears to be relying upon military rather than diplomatic personnel to make critical assessments and carry out foreign policy.

2) The lack of transparency in our new foreign policy:

On Monday, the administration unveiled a new policy in Sudan, outlining an effort that officials said was aimed at ending the mass human suffering there, promoting a definitive peace and preventing Sudan from serving as a haven for terrorists.

Though the details of the policy remained classified....


3) The continuing emergence of foreign-policy-via-prolonged internal infighting:

The administration’s new policy signaled the end of one vigorous — some said heated — debate and the likely beginning of another. The administration deliberated for months in meetings led by officials steeped in Sudan’s bloody history.

People close to the talks said views fell generally into two main camps: one advocating a tougher line against Sudan led by the United Nations ambassador, Susan E. Rice, and the other calling for a more conciliatory approach, led by General Gration.


None of these are problems unique to the Obama administration, but combined with the painfully slow internal deliberations on Afghanistan strategy, what appears to be emerging is the image of a President who prefers to preside over internal debates rather than provide a specific, visualized structure of foreign policy. Some would argue that President Obama's willingness to listen to divergent viewpoints is a strength that was sorely lacking in the Bush White House, and there is some truth to that notion.

But it also bespeaks an administration that chews over virtually every foreign policy decision so many times that the original situation may have already changed by the time it makes a decision.

Comments

Delaware Watch said…
"To a greater extent than most previous administrations, President Obama appears to be relying upon military rather than diplomatic personnel to make critical assessments and carry out foreign policy."

A bald assertion w/ no supporting evidence.

"Though the details of the policy remained classified...."

Begs the question. You assume that there isn't a good reason for keeping this classified and then merrily accuse the Obama administration for a lack of transparency.

"The continuing emergence of foreign-policy-via-prolonged internal infighting"

Perhaps you would prefer the Obama administration to act precipitously, even dogmatically. Not me.

"what appears to be emerging is the image of a President who prefers to preside over internal debates rather than provide a specific, visualized structure of foreign policy"

A "specific, visualized structure of foreign policy"--ah, you do prefer a dogmatic approach. That's not very pragmatic and flexible of you.

"Some would argue that President Obama's willingness to listen to divergent viewpoints is a strength"

Indeed.

"But it also bespeaks an administration that chews over virtually every foreign policy decision so many times that the original situation may have already changed by the time it makes a decision."

I say it bespeaks an administration that doesn't see almost every foreign policy concern in black and white terms. I happen to like that.

It's a bit mystifying to me that what you perceive as a slowness to act isn't welcome to you. Why don't you see it as a hesitancy to intervene heavily in international affairs.
mdeals said…
Its a lack of transparency

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

With apologies to Hube: dopey WNJ comments of the week

(Well, Hube, at least I'm pulling out Facebook comments and not poaching on your preserve in the Letters.) You will all remember the case this week of the photo of the young man posing with the .22LR squirrel rifle that his Dad got him for his birthday with resulted in Family Services and the local police attempting to search his house.  The story itself is a travesty since neither the father nor the boy had done anything remotely illegal (and check out the picture for how careful the son is being not to have his finger inside the trigger guard when the photo was taken). But the incident is chiefly important for revealing in the Comments Section--within Delaware--the fact that many backers of "common sense gun laws" really do have the elimination of 2nd Amendment rights and eventual outright confiscation of all privately held firearms as their objective: Let's run that by again: Elliot Jacobson says, This instance is not a case of a father bonding with h

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?