[KIM] LAWTON: Carter has a new book called The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama. He claims the man many voters considered the “peace candidate” has turned into a “war president” with an expanding philosophy about the use of force. Carter says that philosophy was signaled in Obama’s 2009 acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.
President Barack Obama (from 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech): Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.
{STEPHEN] CARTER: What’s striking about the war in Libya, whether one is for it or against it, is that it shows that President Obama was serious, that he actually meant what he said, that he actually believes that’s a justified use of American power.
This is yet one more unintended consequence of the All Volunteer Army. It is easy to spend the lives of volunteers as cheap coin. The sons of the politically-connected do not volunteer after all, and so the decision to go to war has very a isolated impact. Many are they who will never have circumstance to place a gold star in their window.
So then let us test this theory that men are willing to go to war for the altruistic benefit of others. Let us raise a corps of soldiers specifically for this purpose, and let them be selected by lot – with no exemptions. And let us hold the first selection in Berkeley California because it is filled to the brim with brave philosophes and academicians who would micturate in their pants if ever they were handed a rifle. Let’s see how committed they are to the oppressed people of the world by their willingness to kill and die.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to say “Look at that terrible oppression! You should go die to prevent that!” When the “Just War” prophets put on a uniform. then I will take then seriously.
carl
Carl–One other thing about this article–the left is finally figuring out what we’ve known all along. Obama is an idiot.