OPINION: Walking With A Big Stick

By Roger Madon

After listening to President Obama’s speech last night concerning the war in Afghanistan I could not help but conclude that when it comes to matters of national security all American presidents carry a big stick.

Barack Obama as U. S. senator and as the 2008 Democratic candidate for president criticized President Bush’s war policies.  Obama’s main focus was the doctrine which Bush established that rather than using force only when the U.S. was imminently threatened that it was in America’s long-term best interests to depose unfriendly regimes and promote democracy both militarily and diplomatically.  

In 2008 Obama traveled across the country vilifying Bush and describing him as a president who started unnecessary wars abroad, angering our allies and providing are enemies with new reasons to dislike us. Moreover he accused Bush of causing the deaths of thousands of our soldiers based upon an unproven doctrine.  

However throughout President Obama’s presidency he has adopted the Bush doctrine as his own. He has continued our military presence in Iraq, doubling down in Afghanistan by sending more troops into the conflict and entering the conflict in Lybia.  

Last night in his speech to the American people concerning the ongoing war in Afghanistan President Obama informed the American people that the United States had no intention of making a massive troop withdrawal but rather hold fast to the strategy of counterinsurgency inside Afghanistan and continue to target by drones the Taliban and al-Qaeda in western Pakistan.  

What President Obama didn’t mention last night was that with respect to surveillance, Guantanamo, detention and habeas corpus and his recent ignoring of the war powers act he has become, in effect, Bush II.

Thank you, President Bush, and as much as it hurts me to say this, thank you, too, President Obama.

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