Via Glenn Reynolds, here is Barak Obama:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said.
One wonders when Obama thinks the American military should be used. For example, did he support President Clinton's use of the military in Bosnia and Kosovo? How about military intervention in Somalia under Bush I and Clinton? Given these statements, Obama is either a Pat Buchanan style isolationist or a Kissengerian realist. Or perhaps Obama thinks the "international community" working through organizations such as the United Nations will stop genocide. We all remember how well the UN did preventing the Rwandan genocide. I refer Obama to this piece by David Brooks that originally appeared in the New York Times.
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